Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - 493: A Very Simple Meditation | Bonus Meditation with Sharon Salzberg

Episode Date: September 2, 2022

Being aware of the breath is a foundation of mindfulness. The goal is to gently return, with growing kindness, again and again.About Sharon Salzberg:A towering figure in the meditation world, Sharon Salzberg is a prominent teacher & New York Times best-selling author. She has played a crucial role bringing mindfulness and lovingkindness practices to the West.Sharon co-founded the Insight Meditation Society (IMS) alongside Joseph Goldstein and Jack Kornfield and is the author of nine books, including Lovingkindness, Real Happiness, and the most recent Real Love. Sharon lives in New York City and teaches around the world.To find this meditation in the Ten Percent Happier app, you can search for “Basic Breath Meditation,” or click here: https://10percenthappier.app.link/content?meditation=3ff23976-95f1-48fc-8973-fec1210b12dc.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

What does it even mean to live a good life? Is it about happiness, purpose, love, health, or wealth? What really matters in the pursuit of a life well lived? These are the questions award-winning author, founder, and interviewer Jonathan Fields asks his guests on the Top Ranked Good Life Project podcast. Every week, Jonathan sits down with world renowned thinkers and doers, people like Glenn and Doyle, Adam Grant,

Young Pueblo, Jonathan Height, and hundreds more. Start listening right now. Look for the Good Life project on your favorite podcast app. This is the 10% happier podcast. I'm Dan Harris. Hey gang, happy Friday, bonus meditation time. Today's meditation is a simple yet delicious one. It's like when you make pasta with just olive oil and garlic, uncomplicated, but awesome.

Today, we're going to focus on the breath. We decided to go with this guided meditation because a few days ago, as you may remember, we had James Nestor on the show author of an incredible book about how many of us, it turns out, are breathing incorrectly, and the many ways to fix that. The good news here is that you do not have to breathe in any special way for this meditation, nothing to do, nothing to control here. I don't want to get ahead of myself, though. Let's bring in our teacher, Do-Jour, to give you all of the instructions. Said teacher is Sharon Salzburg, who just, by the way, celebrated her 70th birthday. Happy birthday to Sharon. As many of you know, Sharon is an

eminence meditation teacher and also the co-founder of the Insight Meditation Society alongside Joseph Goldstein and Jack Cornfield. Sharon is also a New York Times bestselling author and has written 11 books. Her newest is called Real Change. And she's very busy. She also hosts the Meta Hour podcast. All right, here we go now with Sharon Salzburg.

Hi, this is Sharon. The classic foundational exercise in meditation is focusing on the feeling of the in and out breath. They say the breath is chosen for many reasons. For one, you don't have to believe anything in order to feel your breath. You don't have to call yourself Buddhist or Hindu or believe in anything in order to feel your breath. You don't have to call yourself Buddhist or Hindu, or believe in anything in particular. It's also said that the breath is very portable. Anywhere we are breathing, we can be meditating. To begin, you can sit comfortably and relax.

To begin, you can sit comfortably and relax. It helps if your back can be straight without being strained or over-arached. You can close your eyes or not, however you feel comfortable. In this system, the breath that we focus on is the natural flow of the in and out breath. We don't try to make the breath different or deeper. Instead, we just notice how everything is appearing and how everything is changing. So first, notice where the feeling of the breath is most predominant for you. This might be at the nostrils, at the chest, or at the abdomen. your attention lightly in that area. See if you can feel just one breath from the beginning through the breath come to you.

You're breathing anyway. All you need to do is feel it. If something arises, sensations, emotions, that's strong enough to take your attention away from the feeling of the breath. Where if you fall in asleep? Notice how you speak to yourself at that moment when you realize that you were just distracted and prepare to let go and begin again. If it's a harsh, judgmental voice, see if you can soften it. It's actually through kindness towards ourselves, rather than condemning ourselves that we make

the most progress. We say that the moment you realize you've been distracted is the magic moment, because that's the moment we have the chance to be really different. And not judge ourselves, not condemn ourselves, but simply let go and begin again thousands of times, it's fine. That's the practice. It's just one breath. And when you feel ready, you can open your eyes or lift your gaze and we'll end the meditation session. Thank you for your practice. Thank you to Sharon. We'll see you right back here on Monday for a brand new episode with two

friends of Sharon, Mudita Nisker and Dan Clurman. These are two people who, and this is not an exaggeration, have genuinely changed my life. They are Buddhist-inflected communications coaches who have helped me do a lot better at my various relationships professionally and personally. Fantastic episode coming up on Monday. We'll see you then. Hey, hey, prime members. You can listen to 10% happier early and add free on Amazon music. Download the Amazon Music app today. Or you can listen early and add free with Wondery Plus

in Apple Podcasts. Before you go, do us a solid and tell us all about yourself by completing a short survey at Wondery.com slash survey. you