Zen for Everyday Life with Matt Valentine: Mindfulness | Guided Meditation - Buddhaimonia

This is fresh start week on the ZfEL podcast. Today I cover how to let go of what holds us back and start fresh with mindfulness practice. Mindfulness gives us the ability to start each new moment off fresh, free from the chains of the past and the weight of our conditioning. Whether you're looking to start the new year, this month, week, or just today off fresh this episode will help show you how to do it with mindfulness practice. To go along with episode #10, episode #11 and this week's guided meditation is called "Mindful Refresh" and it's a simple guided meditation for letting go of what holds us down and experiencing the freshness of this moment each new morning. Thank you for listening & let me know what you think. Thank you for listening. Go to Buddhaimonia.com to read my weekly blog as well as guides, books, and other resources, Buddhaimonia.com/newsletter to sign up to the weekly newsletter and get my free eBook The Little Book of Mindfulness, and go to ThisMomentBook.com to get my new book, This Moment: How to Live Fully and Freely in the Present Moment, if you'd like to support the blog and podcast.

This is meditation week on the ZfEL podcast. I've really enjoyed recording both this week's full episode and guided meditation episode and I hope you get a lot out of them. Today I'm covering zazen, the Zen practice of sitting meditation. This is the basic meditation form I typically write about on the blog being that I essentially "grew up" in Zen. At its heart, it's just a simple mindfulness of breath meditation. If you're new to meditation, know that zazen is a great beginner practice for this very reason. It's what I practice each and every day. Also, don't forget to check out this week's episode #8: How to Create a Home Meditation Practice which this guided meditation serves as an accompaniment to. Thank you for listening & let me know what you think. Thank you for listening. Go to Buddhaimonia.com to read my weekly blog as well as guides, books, and other resources, Buddhaimonia.com/newsletter to sign up to the weekly newsletter and get my free eBook The Little Book of Mindfulness, and go to ThisMomentBook.com to get my new book, This Moment: How to Live Fully and Freely in the Present Moment, if you'd like to support the blog and podcast.

This is meditation week on the ZfEL podcast. Today I cover everything you need to know to create your home meditation practice including the 5 steps to making meditation a daily habit and the 5 major resources you should utilize to do so. Meditation is the foundation of a strong daily mindfulness practice and it's the first of the 7 keys I covered in last week's episode How to Make Mindfulness a Way of Life for that very reason, so I'm excited to cover it this week on the podcast. To go along with episode #8, episode #9 and this week's guided meditation (if you haven't heard about the second weekly ZfEL segment yet, read here) is zazen, or the Zen practice of sitting meditation (mindfulness meditation). My hope is that this week serves you and others as a complete audio resource for beginning your home meditation practice. Thank you for listening & let me know what you think. Thank you for listening. Go to Buddhaimonia.com to read my weekly blog as well as guides, books, and other resources, Buddhaimonia.com/newsletter to sign up to the weekly newsletter and get my free eBook The Little Book of Mindfulness, and go to ThisMomentBook.com to get my new book, This Moment: How to Live Fully and Freely in the Present Moment, if you'd like to support the blog and podcast.

Today is the start of a brand new weekly segment to the podcast where I'll be covering one new guided meditation each week. Today's guided meditation is the mindful breathing practice of Going Home creating by Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh. Going Home is a simple mindful breathing practice that's one of the simplest and at the same time most powerful of all mindfulness practices. I use it daily. I start the episode off by explaining a little bit about this second format and cap off the episode with an explanation on how you can best make use of this simple but powerful mindfulness practice. Thank you for listening and let me know what you think. Thank you for listening. Go to Buddhaimonia.com to read my weekly blog as well as guides, books, and other resources, Buddhaimonia.com/newsletter to sign up to the weekly newsletter and get my free eBook The Little Book of Mindfulness, and go to ThisMomentBook.com to get my new book, This Moment: How to Live Fully and Freely in the Present Moment, if you'd like to support the blog and podcast.

In this week's episode, I talk about how to make mindfulness a daily habit. How do we really bring mindfulness into our daily life to experience the full transformative effects of the practice? I talk about the 7 keys I've discovered from my own practice and experimentation and show how each can work seamlessly together to create an effective strategy for living mindfully in a busy and distraction-filled world. I also cover a few optional (but highly effective) points that can further help your efforts to live a more mindful life. Thank you for listening & let me know what you think. Thank you for listening. Go to Buddhaimonia.com to read my weekly blog as well as guides, books, and other resources, Buddhaimonia.com/newsletter to sign up to the weekly newsletter and get my free eBook The Little Book of Mindfulness, and go to ThisMomentBook.com to get my new book, This Moment: How to Live Fully and Freely in the Present Moment, if you'd like to support the blog and podcast.

In this week's episode I talk about the wisdom of mindfulness in our everyday lives. How mindfulness aids us in working through issues of lack (such as financial issues), relationship problems, and a lack of self-worth. I also take you through a quick guided meditation I call "mindful wisdom" to help you move through everyday challenges with more skillfulness and ease.

This week's episode is all about nightly rituals and establishing a nourishing and restful nightly routine. Your time for rest is a special time and space which should be treated with respect- and I show you how to do that. In this week's episode I cover what I believe to be a complete and highly effective 5-step nightly routine that: Helps you in becoming, and staying, an early riser Improves the quality of your sleep, and... Supports and enhances your mindfulness practice I also cover a few key tips for improving the quality of your sleep and guide you through an entire mindfulness of body meditation exercise.

This week's episode is all about cleansing the mind and nourishing wholesome seeds in our day-to-day life. It's the process of demoting, or turning away from, unwholesome seeds and watering or promoting wholesome ones in an effort to provide ourselves with the proper nourishment for our heart and mind. I talk about the 6 "channels" with which we absorb nutriment, the Buddha's 4 Nutriments, what is mindful consumption, and how to water wholesome seeds and manage unwholesome seeds in our everyday life. This episode is filled with practical and easy-to-apply advice for deepening your daily practice and finding greater peace and joy in your day-to-day life.

his week’s episode is all about realizing the beauty of this life and cultivating a deep sense of gratitude and appreciation. I lead off with a very interesting story about a modern-day yogi, a Tibetan Buddhist teacher by the name of Mingyur Rinpoche, and we talk about a simple daily practice suggested by the Buddha which can help us deepen our appreciation for life by bringing us face-to-face with the truth of impermanence.

For many of us, they are the hardest things we will ever do: to face the fear of what others think of us, to work through the inner dialogue that keeps us questioning our self-worth and perpetuating the feeling of voidness (something is missing) and to push further to the deepest reaches of spiritual practice to reunite with, and fully express, our true nature. In this very first episode of the Zen for Everyday Life podcast I shed light on each of these challenges, talk about the common thread that ties them all together, and cover the key practices to begin working through them. If you enjoyed this episode or found value in it, you can support the podcast by leaving a review or rating on iTunes. These reviews help the podcast be exposed to more people on the iTunes directory, so every bit helps. Thank you! It's here! My very first podcast episode. I'm pretty excited (maybe a little too excited on the recording, but what can I expect?) and really look forward to this being a whole new and valuable source of insight and inspiration for people. Here it is: Show notes: The Top 5 Regrets of the Dying blog post by Bronnie Ware Regrets of the Dying book on Amazon New regret series link (will update when it goes up) The acceptance stage of working through challenges with mindfulness practice: Why Compassionate Acceptance Is Key to a Healthy Mindfulness Practice (and How to Do It) The Shoes of Freedom Let me know what you thought of this episode and the overall setup of the podcast itself. I'd love to hear what you think! Thanks for listening! Thank you so much for joining me this week. Have some feedback or a comment you'd like to share? Leave a note in the comment section below! If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see at the bottom of this post. If you liked this podcast episode, make sure to subscribe to the podcast to get future episode notifications straight from iTunes. Any honest reviews and ratings would be deeply appreciated! They do matter in the rankings and exposure of the podcast, and I'll be reading each and every one of them. If you have questions, feel free to contact me here and let me know. From time to time I'll be answering reader questions on the podcast, so I'd love to hear from you. Thank you again!

Thank you for listening. Go to Buddhaimonia.com to read my weekly blog as well as guides, books, and other resources, Buddhaimonia.com/newsletter to sign up to the weekly newsletter and get my free eBook The Little Book of Mindfulness, and Buddhaimonia.com/support if you'd like to become a supporting member of the podcast and blog.