You can use your breathing to cultivate clarity and stability as countless people have done for thousands of years. Shamatha, or calm-abiding, settles the nervous system and inspires a “flow state” of focused absorption on the breath, which can also bring relaxation. You learn to observe the current of thoughts that flows through your mind without getting caught up in it.
Once mind and body calm, you settle into vipassana (or insight) meditation, a state of clarity and distance from thinking. You carry the peace and wisdom from meditation into the rest of your life and learn to observe your thoughts from an objective distance, where your triggers and mental patterns become apparent. These insights have the ability to transform your life while improving the relationship with yourself and the world around you. By bringing our attention back to the one point of experience (traditionally) our breath, with a sense of purpose and a light touch; this foundation of stability allows us to experience what is arising in the present situation, a sense of awareness. This is a process developing in real time in which practice allows us to develop a more clarified, more precise, and more joyful relationships to our life unfolding. We are tuning into the best part of being human. A simple and elegant way to strengthen those qualities within yourself and strengthen our ability to connect with the world in a brave and compassionate way.
My teacher, David Nichtern, taught me and other students of Dharma Moon and Tibet House‘s Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Training the shamatha-vipassana (mindfulness) technique that meditation master Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche taught him in the 1970s. This teacher-to-student transmission extends 2,600 years back in time to the days of the historic Buddha. I’ve been entrusted to teach this practice to others, to help them cultivate resilience, stability, and clarity of mind.