Meditation guide and MP3 resources

Student Counselling and Wellbeing provides a range of MP3 downloads to support meditation and yoga practice.

These practices are ordered in a way that guides you through a full meditation and yoga session. Some exercises can also be used in different ways, to prepare for practice, or simply on their own.

We offer a weekly online meditation group, every Thursday from 12–1.30pm. For more information, visit our groups and workshops page

Preparing for meditation

Preparing with movement

Your meditation practice will be far more effective if you make space to do some preparations. It is helpful to do some movement work before you begin, making sure that you have at least moved your hips, shoulders and spine, and maybe done a little stretching.

Traditionally, yoga is preparatory to meditation and is used to pave the way to practice. Even if you can only do a few moments of movement work and stretching, it is very helpful. Explore yoga resources and guidance to support your practice.

Afterwards, try standing in Tadasana (the mountain posture) - this posture simply involves standing upright, with your knees slightly bent (not locked), your feet hip width apart and facing forwards, and your arms hanging by your side. You also need to tuck your chin in a little so you can feel the back of your neck stretch slightly. From this posture, you can then perform energetic and emotional alignment practices.

If you have more space to prepare, performing movement sequences like the sun salutation, the salutation to the moon or the earth sequence will be helpful. Following one of these sequences, you may then like to perform an energy block release sequence.

Energy block release and Makrasana

Energy Block Release practices are key to the Dru yoga and meditation system. These sequences are ideally learnt face-to-face with a teacher.

The Energy Block Release 7 sequence is performed lying down and combines energy block release with deep relaxation and visualisation. This is an ideal practice to perform if you are feeling fearful or insecure in your world or relationships. 

Another static posture you might like to work with is Makrasana. Makrasana is a yoga posture known as 'the crocodile'. It is a superb posture for managing anger or the fearfulness that sometimes underlies anger. If you get angry often, practice this at least once per day or whenever you are angry and see what happens!  It is also a very useful preparation for relaxation and/or for meditation and can be practiced for variable lengths of time, which means you can easily fit it into a busy day.
 

Other preparation practices

Walking mindfully in nature is another way to practice breath-based meditation. As you walk, concentrate on your walking rhythm and your breathing. Walk at a pace that allows your breath to become regular as you begin to focus on the quality of your steps and your contact with the earth.

Allow yourself to get into a relaxed space with a spring in your step so your whole body can become charged with the power of your walk. Allow your gaze to rest on what is around you but do not stare at it. Every now and then, stop and contemplate your surroundings.

You can extend this practice by focusing on your breath as you walk. However, I suggest it is most helpful to have learnt these breaths first in static postures at the meditation group before attempting them while walking. Sama Vritti and Anuloma breath are part of pranayama practice and can be very powerful, so they are to be treated with care and respect. Remember never to strain your breath – if you are straining, you are not ready for this stage yet and should speak with a qualified teacher.

If you are familiar with Sama Vritti breath (breathing in for four, holding for four, breathing out for four and holding for four) begin to allow this breath to develop as you walk, eventually allowing this to turn into Anuloma breath, (4, 4,6, 4). 

You should not retain either the inhalation or the exhalation if you have high or low blood pressure, glaucoma, are pregnant or think you may be pregnant. If any of these apply to you, as you walk, just concentrate on breathing evenly in and out for a count of four. You can also take your pulse and work on breathing in and out to four of your heartbeats.This gives you ‘your metronome’. The numbers work best is they are synched to your rhythms.

These two practices can be used alone or as part of a session you devise for yourself.

The ‘sitting quietly’ meditation is also a great place to start your meditation practice.

Deep relaxation and Yoga Nidra

Deep relaxation

Whether you just want to relax or prepare for a meditation practice, deep relaxation is essential. We cannot meditate before we can concentrate, and we cannot do either unless we can first relax. Like aerobic exercise, deep relaxation is one of the best ways to disperse adrenalin and cortisol (stress-related hormones). It helps us to move away from the hyper-aroused (fight/flight) states that underpin stress and anxiety. We need to be regulated to be available to mindfulness or meditation practices.

Sometimes you will be too tired to meditate but you can always relax, and if you are too tired to relax, you may just go to sleep. Many people with sleep issues often get to sleep by beginning a deep relaxation.

‘Dissolving the body’ can be particularly helpful when we are trying to manage physical pain. It is worth practicing before trying the 'Pendulating' exercise in the Breathwork section, which is a pattern of breath also very helpful for managing physical pain.

Yoga Nidra

Yoga Nidra, also known as ‘yogic sleep’, is a form of guided deep relaxation and is a method of Pratyahara (withdrawal of senses).  Some say Yoga Nidra is ‘far superior to ordinary sleep’ as you acquire the profundity of the relaxation without losing consciousness.

In Hindu philosophy, by being guided through the ‘layers of the self’ (Koshas), a sense of one’s depth becomes more clearly available, which is a different experience to the single points of focus that characterize the early stages of meditation. The practice enables your entire body, mind and nervous system to obtain complete rest through deep relaxation and allows you to scan the body and tap into a state of relaxed consciousness as the mind settles in a place between wakefulness and sleep.

Breathwork

Pranayama

It’s important that during breath work, you don’t strain your breath while practicing breath work. If you are in any doubt about what you are doing, stop and email James Taylor at j.r.e.taylor@leeds.ac.uk for support.

In Sanskrit, ‘Prana’ means ‘life force’ and it is principally through breath work that we access and develop Prana. The foundations of any sound meditation practice are in good posture and breathing. Mindfulness helps us to observe the breath (amongst many other things) but it is through Pranayama that we can implement change by first deciding on how we breathe.

If you are breathing badly or inefficiently, you will often end up amplifying many of the problems you tried meditating to prevent. This can be solved by the practice of three level or deep yogic breath. 

To achieve a deep yogic breath, we first need to learn how to practice abdominal breath. Try working through the abdominal and deep yogic breath practices. The ‘abdominal breath’ and ‘deep yogic breath lying’ exercises are practised lying down. In the ‘deep yogic breath sitting’, you are seated upright. Make sure you have spent time with the abdominal breath and have mastered it before you rush onto the subsequent exercises.

Ensure that you are not straining when doing these practices. If you strain your system, you are undermining the purpose of the exercise and it won’t work. If you feel uncertain about your breath work, email James Taylor at j.r.e.taylor@leeds.ac.uk for advice.

Alternative nostril breathing is great for calming and balancing your system. You only need to practice this for 5-10 minutes to really feel a difference. When you have developed the abdominal and deep yogic breath, try this practice either within your preparations for meditation or alone if you need to pause in your day to rebalance and calm yourself.

Pendulating is a breath work practice that is very helpful in the management of physical pain and is also a practice helpful in developing your concentration. It is helpfully enhanced by first doing the ‘dissolving the body’ practice.

A good breath to practise to increase your energy and sense of wellbeing, perhaps following the energy-gathering relaxation practice in the deep relaxation section, is the ‘vitalising breath’. 

Pranayama MP3 guides

Concentration and contemplation

Concentration

'Trataka', or candle gazing practice, is a traditional yogic practice which will help you develop your capacity for concentration. It may seem very difficult to begin with but becomes easier with regular practice. It can also be very helpful to cultivate light in the darker months. Some people use a lightbox for this, others enjoy regular Trataka practice.

Another way of improving your concentration is to gaze (not stare) at the second hand of a clock and notice how long it takes before a thought comes into your mind to distract you from your concentration.

Wait until the second hand comes to 12 o'clock and then note how long you were able to maintain your attention on the second hand until you were distracted. Practice this exercise daily: your aim is to triple your attention span in 2 weeks. From there it will become easy for you to move to holding your attention for several minutes.

If you prefer, take an object like a pin or a flower and observe it with your complete attention for a few minutes without letting anything else enter your mind. Notice everything you can about it. Then close your eyes and allow the image of the pin or the flower to come to mind. See it in as much detail as you can.

Just like the clock exercise above, if you do this daily for a couple of weeks (5-10 minutes per day would be fine) you should be able to greatly increase your capacity to hold the object in mind and you will have improved your concentration.

If music more easily retains your attention, listen to a piece of music and then mentally reproduce it for yourself as accurately as possible, noticing how long you can keep going before you become distracted.

Another practice which combines relaxation and concentration is the ‘body asleep, mind awake’ practice. This is a body awareness practice which enables relaxation by maintaining your attention.

Contemplation

A way of turning something abstract like 'positive thinking' into a useable practice is to focus on something which has positive associations for you. You might therefore like to try the ‘contemplation of joy’ practice.

Even if you have an intention, always be prepared to accept what comes up in your practice. When your capacity for acceptance increases so does your capacity for joy.

Meditation and mindfulness

Sitting quietly

The ‘sitting quietly’ meditation is on the borders of concentration practice and meditation. It is brief and a great place to start your meditation practice.

Try working regularly with this meditation until you can consistently stay focused for 15 minutes at a time. When you can manage this, it's time to move on but don’t expect this to be easy. Think of how much work it’s already taken to get to this point. The same applies to your wellbeing so you will need to make a commitment to this to see results. 

Dissolving stress

The ‘dissolving stress’ meditation takes you through some thoughts about breath and posture and then elaborates on the ‘8 minutes to calm’ meditation. If you have a little more time, this is the next practice to work with. It is helpful to our practice to be clear in our intentions; when the best of our intentions are consistent with our actions something remarkable has been achieved.

Getting grounded

The ‘getting grounded’ meditation is an integration of two Dru meditation practices known as Prittvi Dharanam and The Shanti Prana Dru meditation.

In Sanskrit, the Dru star is the North star: the star around which the rest of the universe turns. The Dru process aims to  enable you to arrive at the still place within yourself and to develop the capacity to remain there regardless of what is going on around you.

This is a great practice for calming down and contacting our capacity to experience harmony, safety and security. These capacities are always within us if we know where to find them and remember to turn to them.

The method of this meditation is one of turning towards our experience, while cultivating the quality of acceptance for our thoughts, feelings, sensations and environment.

As we become the mindful watchers of these shifting phenomena, our capacity for appreciation and gratitude grows. We become the witnesses of our experience rather than getting caught up in identifying with small aspects of it. 

The mindfulness of breathing

‘The mindfulness of breathing’ helps produce focus and calm. It can be used both as a concentration and as a meditation practice.

It reminds us how hard it can be to do a simple thing like focusing on our breath but gives us a method to observe our thoughts, emotions and sensations.

The close observation of these passing phenomena helps us to reconsider the power we  give them; it helps us realize that we are more than our thoughts and that we have to work to calm what Buddhists refer to as our 'monkey mind': the part of us that is as restless and busy as a troop of monkeys.

Practice this with an attitude of patient inquiry and don't be surprised if you don't get to far to begin with. It takes time and practice to cultivate awareness. 

Peaceful presence meditation

The ‘peaceful presence’ meditation contains the elements of the ‘getting grounded’ and ‘mindfulness of breathing’ practices but extends them further into this present space. It explicitly focuses on releasing the energy we attach to past and future illusions enabling a fuller, deeper experience of the present. This practice is very peaceful and stilling when you get into it, enjoy!

Blue mist meditation

The 'blue mist' meditation is a beautiful Dru practice designed to assist in bracketing off the thoughts, feelings, sensations and personal history that frustrate our journeys.

It has the compassionate determination as symbolized in the Hindu faith by Ganesh, the elephant god whose quality is to remove all obstacles. Hindus associate him with the base chakra (energy centre of the spine), which when in balance provides a sense of core stability in the world.

The blue mist meditation begins with a ‘dynamic energy release’ which is a technique designed to mobilize energy for this practice.

This meditation is useful to help you set aside the feelings, thoughts, patterns and sensations that can sometimes get in your way when you are trying to seek calm.

Loving kindness

The ‘meditation on loving kindness’ is otherwise known at the 'Metta Bhavna', ‘Bhavna’ meaning 'the practice of' and ‘Metta’ meaning ‘loving kindness’. This practice is introduced with an Anuloma breath practice which is very calming and works as a good preparation. 

Forgiveness

The 'meditation on forgiveness' is useful if you are struggling to let something go or finding it hard to be with your life as it is in this moment.

We suffer from our inability and unwillingness to leave the past behind – as if we could renegotiate or change something that has already happened. Fully inhabiting the present moment with an attitude of compassionate forgiveness can bring great peace to us.

Pore breath meditation

The ‘pore breath meditation’ is a beautiful practice for making a real connection with your heart centre. It is a deceptively simple meditation which can be powerful.

As with all meditations, it will be enhanced by practicing some activations and an ‘energy block release sequence’ before you sit. This helps balance and concentrate your system. The practice helps to develop a strong connection first between the breath and the heart which is then amplified by drawing light into the heart which is then experienced as joy as the light accumulates and intensifies.

Other resources

  • LUU Buddhist Meditation Society – a student faith society who come together to practice meditation and learn about Buddhism
  • Dru Yoga – free and paid for training courses and resources for Dru yoga, including postures, flow sequences, breath work and more
  • Wildmind meditation – free online meditation courses and guides
  • Headspace – a mindfulness app that offers a yearly plan to students for £7.99, an 85% discount
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