Ten Tips for Great Meditations

Whether cooking your evening meal, taking a shower, making the bed, climbing a hill, changing a light bulb, watching the ocean surf, gardening, waiting in line, listening to city sirens advance and retreat or bird calls or the wind in the trees just apply our ten tips and you’ve turned a task or distraction into an opportunity to tune in, tune up, meditate and relax.

  1. Close your eyes or keep them open and just let them soften as you begin deliberately to relax your body
  2. Take a deep breath and sigh as you breathe out
  3. Focus now on just one thing - a visual object in front of you or your breath for example
  4. When your mind wanders off following thoughts, as it will, detach from the thoughts as soon as you realize your mind has wandered off, and bring your full attention back to the point of focus, whatever that might be
  5. Let the body relax into sensation as much as you can
  6. Move from thinking to sensing as much as you can
  7. Breathe out completely with each breath out
  8. Stay in the present, leaving past or future to take care of themselves as you leave those thoughts till later
  9. Just watch whatever comes up for you with detachment realizing you don’t have to react to anything and just patiently detaching from thoughts when they arise
  10. Absolute silence is not necessary. In fact why not notice sounds around you? And then just leave them without reacting to them in the background of your consciousness. It's what's in the FOREGROUND of your consciousness — what you’re focusing on — that is the secret essence of all meditations.

Meditation is like any human experience. Each time it’s different. Don’t expect too much or judge too critically if a session high is followed by a session low where your attention is scattered throughout and you might feel you’ve wasted your time. You haven’t. Each time helps reduce stress, helps the immune system tune up and retrains neural pathways. And each time is a positive step you have taken in the journey to peace of mind, creating over time that meditator’s mind where you float with equanimity through all of life’s ups and downs like the proverbial leaf on life’s stream.

Course participants and their comments from recent Sydney courses:

'Kevin reveals a lot of warmth in his courses and is suggestive rather than dogmatic in his approach giving us the power to determine what's best for ourselves. Very practical, gentle and delicious assortment of avenues waiting to be tapped.'
Tanya Yelman, doctor, Melbourne
'Very relaxing and stress relieving. I would highly recommend Kevin Hume's meditation course'
Jeff Portelli, self-employed builder, Chatswood