People learn how to meditate for many reasons. Maybe you are tired of feeling constantly driven, trapped, lost, unclear, confused, afraid, in pain? You might be tired of feeling helpless in the face of so much suffering, of ourselves and others?

Before we take up meditation, we do not notice just how asleep we are most of the time.  Meditation wakes us up to new possibilities for choosing how we experience our life.

As we practise meditation, more and more possibilities open-up and more qualities emerge that we hardly knew were there. Learning how to meditate is a wonderful adventure in discovering that it is possible to appreciate, know, and understand our experience far more than we realised. Our experience is creating our whole world.

Here you can find some basic instructions in mindfulness and meditation practice taken from the Buddhist tradition. You can use these to try some meditation by yourself. Written and recorded instructions such as these can provide a useful introduction, but as all meditators know, there is no substitute for the guidance of a qualified teacher. This is why we recommend a guided course of practice such as Living the Awakened Heart.