“I want to calm and quiet my mind.”

Sound familiar? Like many of folks who come to the practice, I just wanted to find a way to stop the thoughts and find some peace of mind. I thought meditation would help – and it did in the beginning. Focusing on my breath during a guided meditation helped quiet my mind. However I soon found out that finding peace of mind would entail more than just focusing on my breath. Sitting in silence brought up memories and emotions: some pleasant, some unpleasant, others just neutral. Each one creating a flurry of activity in me from the way my body reacted to the rollercoaster of thoughts that followed. I realized if I wanted to find peace, I would need to learn how to be with the experiences as they came without getting carried away.

Practicing meditation helps develop mindfulness – both of which help us learn about ourselves and the world around us. By investigating our thoughts, our actions, and our emotions, we can decide what is healthy for us and what isn’t healthy and choose to respond appropriately.

Learning to meditate and be mindful will help us improve not only our relationship to our minds but also the quality of our lives.

Mindfulness is the ability to experience the present moment without judgement or bias and to respond in a skillful way. We can strengthen our mindfulness through different meditations:

Foundations of Mindfulness

Just like building a house starts with laying the foundation, we can increase our awareness of the present moment through the foundations of mindfulness. There are four foundations of mindfulness, each building upon each other:

Heart Practices

Being mindful is just the start – we also need to cultivate healthy and skillful ways to respond to our experiences. The heart practices help us cultivate positive states that can increase our well-being and resiliency. The heart practices primarily consist of:

Working with a teacher can enrich your practice. You can schedule a session with Bryant to discuss these practices and more: