Meditation practice - advanced

Now that you have gained some basic training, it is time to expand the practice. I would recommend trying it after you can calmly sit without interruption by thoughts for at least 5 minutes. That should already give you enough mental silence to move to the next stage.

The importance of the previous training is that you can now recognize that you are in the zone and you’ve learned to gently guide your mind back to the object of meditation once thoughts arise. It is also important to be able to spot the train of thought and not get lost in it.

Also – once you start training the advanced skill, you should still practice your basics. I have probably already mentioned it in other places, but the basic meditation technique is a skill you should never stop honing.

Once you get the hang of being mindful of breathing when you are sitting and trying to be mindful of breathing, you should try to expand the focus areas.

Advanced practice is the core of the “mindfulness” part of meditation.

Start using other objects or sensations as the focus of insight meditation. While the breath is the most common focus, other phenomena can also be effective for developing mindfulness. Some examples of what can be used as the focus of insight meditation include:

A mantra: A mantra is a word or phrase that is repeated silently to oneself as a form of meditation. The repetition of the mantra can help to calm the mind and bring you into a state of relaxation and awareness. Try to create your own or use affirmations (I have listed some below) as your mantra – affirmations are especially powerful as they can be used as spells to great benefit.

A visualization: Visualizations involve creating a mental image of a peaceful scene or object, and focusing on that image as a way to calm the mind and develop concentration. Imagine a scene you want to experience in the future and experience with all the perceptions and feelings as if you were really there. This can transform meditation into magic. Use it as a regular object of meditation for maximal efficiency.

A physical sensation: Some practitioners find that focusing on a physical sensation, such as the sensation of the body touching the ground, the sensation of the heartbeat, or various feelings within the body can be a helpful way to bring the mind into the present moment. This is a basis for all walking, healing, and running meditations we will get into later.

Now you may be realizing that any sentence can be a mantra. Any form of imagination can be a visualization. Any sense perception can be used as a focus for meditation.

This is the key that unlocks the actual advanced practice.

You can start to weave more and more meditation into your everyday life. When you do the dishes, make doing the dishes the object of your meditation. When you lift weights, make lifting weights your meditation. When you type an article, make typing an article the focus of your meditation. This is how this article was done anyway =)

The advanced practice is how you transition from mindfulness as a practice to mindfulness as a state of mind and gain mastery of the practice.

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Some affirmations, you can find more of on the internet and you are encouraged to develop your own, preferably by starting with I AM:

• I am a winner

• I am living on a permanent holiday

• I am handsome and attractive

• I am always successful

• I am a great leader, people naturally want to follow me

• I am making all the people my best friends

• I am a great manager, everything under my control flourishes and prospers

• I am happy

• I am free

• I am financially independent

• I am wealthy and prosperous
  I am secure and safe

• I am infinitely grateful for the life I have

• I am motivated and dedicated

• I am a creator of my own life

• I am achieving everything I want

• I am full of energy that obeys my command

• I am sleeping well, having great dreams, and a lot of deep sleep and I am waking up well-rested

• I am healthy and strong in body and mind

• I am cool, calm & collected

• I am confident and skillful

• I am incredibly lucky

• I am smart and cunning

• I am a wise sage and my instincts are precise

• I am a magician, my mind is over matter

• I am the transcendental object at the end of the time

• I am beyond time

• I am god

• And I am infinitely thankful