A guided mindfulness meditation on a visual object. Using the faculty of the eye can be a powerful door into mindfulness practice. In this meditation, we place a natural physical object in front of our gaze, and rest the mind calmly and non-conceputally on the object in our visual field. When the mind wanders, we bring it gently back to the object. This exercise begins to strengthen our 'muscle' of mindfulness and attention, laying the basis for a state of focused tranquility.

Month One: Mindfulness on a Visual Object

Lama Willa Miller, teacher with Natural Dharma Fellowship, shares a series of mindfulness meditations, recorded in the summer of 2012.

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This meditation, called "all-over body awareness" takes the entire body as a focus. In this guided meditation, building on the previous meditation practices, we discover that attention can be both diffuse and focused at the same time, encompassing one's entire somatic experience.

Month Eight: All-Over Body Awareness

In this guided meditation, building on Month Six, we learn to focus on the breath through paying attention to the feeling of the rise and fall of the diaphragm. Through changing the meditation focus, we begin to see that the skills of focus and relaxation we have developed over the past months are transferable to focusing on anything that we chose to focus on.

Month Seven: Mindfulness of the feeling of the rise and fall of the diaphragm

In this guided meditation, building on Month Five, Lama Willa guides her students through the practice of meditation on the breath. In this month's version of the practice, Lama Willa adds preliminaries to the practice of (1) reflecting on the benefits of meditation, and (2) generating intention. She points out the possibility of experiencing a state in which the mind and the object of the meditation seem to be inseparable. This exercise allows us to develop one-pointedness in meditation.

Month Six: Mindfulness of the feeling in our nostrils and setting our intention

In this guided meditation, building on Month Four: Mindfulness of the feeling in our nostrils, Lama Willa guides students through the practice of meditating on the breath. In this month's version of the practice, Lama Willa introduces the technique of 'tagging' thoughts in order to let them go and return to the focus of the breath. This exercise allows us to deal with thought in a relaxed and efficient way, laying the basis for a state of focused tranquility.

Month Five: Mindfulness of the feeling in our nostrils and tagging thoughts

In this guided meditation, building on Month Three: Mindfulness of the Breath, Lama Willa guides students through the practice of meditating on the breath, through paying attention to the feeling in our nostrils as we inhale and exhale. In this month's version of the practice, Lama Willa pays special attention to how to skillfully draw the mind back to the object of focus, and how to say present.

Month One: Mindfulness on a Visual Object

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