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Free meditations from Mindfulness

All of the meditations on this page are taken from the bestseller Mindfulness: Finding Peace in a Frantic World. The book contains the complete eight week mindfulness course developed at Oxford University and taught at thousands of mindfulness centres around the world. The sound files can take 10-20 seconds before they begin to play.

NEW BOOK: Buy now from Amazon UK

NEW BOOK: Pre-order now from Amazon US (out July 17th)

Download Chapter One for free (the US & UK versions are the same apart from the cover)

The Chocolate Meditation

Connecting with your senses is one of the core benefits of Mindfulness meditation. Many traditions use nuts or fruit as the focus for a meditation on the senses of taste, smell and touch. But you can use any food at all so we developed a meditation based on chocolate. Why not do it now by clicking on the link below? All of the meditations on this page are taken from our book ‘Mindfulness: Finding Peace in a Frantic World’. The book contains the complete 8 week mindfulness course developed at Oxford University.

Mindfulness Meditation of the Body and Breath

Every meditation tradition begins with daily practices that help to focus a scattered mind. A great way of doing this is to focus on a single object that is always with you: the movement of the breath in the body. This eight-minute meditation is a brilliant introduction to Mindfulness. It will begin the process of putting you back in control of your life. All of the meditations on this page are taken from our book ‘Mindfulness: Finding Peace in a Frantic World’. The book contains the complete 8 week mindfulness course developed at Oxford University.

Body Scan Meditation

The Body Scan meditation helps you to explore the difference between thinking about a sensation and experiencing it directly. Many of us spend so much of our time living ‘in our heads’ that we almost forget about the world experienced directly through our senses. The Body Scan meditation helps to train your mind so that you can focus your attention directly on your bodily sensations without judging or analysing what you find. This helps you to see, ever more clearly, when the mind has begun to wander away by itself, so that you gradually learn to ‘taste’ the difference between the ‘thinking mind’ and the ‘sensing mind’. It’s not unusual to fall asleep when you do this meditation, particularly if you do it lying down. If you do so, try not to criticise yourself but instead congratulate yourself for catching up on some much needed rest. This meditation is taken from our book ‘Mindfulness: Finding Peace in a Frantic World’. The book contains the complete 8 week mindfulness course developed at Oxford University.

The Befriending Meditation

When life really begins to get you down…. When you feel angry, lost or alone… When you feel close to despair… When you feel that you are your own worst enemy… The Befriending Meditation is here for you.

Sounds and Thoughts Meditation

Sounds are as compelling as thoughts and just as immaterial and open to interpretation. For this reason, the Sounds and Thoughts Meditation is my personal favourite as it elegantly reveals how the mind conjures up thoughts that can so easily lead us astray. Once you realise this – deep in your heart – then a great many of your troubles will simply evaporate before your eyes. All of the meditations on this page are taken from our book ‘Mindfulness: Finding Peace in a Frantic World’. The book contains the complete 8 week mindfulness course developed at Oxford University.

Three Minute Breathing Space

This is a mini-meditation that can put you back in control of your life when it starts to slip between your fingers. It acts as a bridge between the longer, formal meditations detailed in our book Mindfulness and the demands of everyday life. All of the meditations on this page are taken from our book ‘Mindfulness: Finding Peace in a Frantic World’. The book contains the complete 8 week mindfulness course developed at Oxford University.

NEW BOOK: Deeper Mindfulness: The New Way to Rediscover Calm in a Chaotic World

There are moments in life that decide your fate. They ripple into the future and dictate how you experience the world in the moments that follow; either positive and uplifting, dark and chaotic, or flat and dull.

What if you could recognise these moments before they seized control of your life? What if you could use them to set sail for a better future? What if all moments, big and small, could be harnessed this way?

In Deeper Mindfulness, Oxford Professor Mark Williams and Dr Danny Penman reunite to present a new eight-week guided meditation programme that takes mindfulness to the next level. Deeper Mindfulness reveals how the latest advances in neuroscience, combined with millennia old wisdom, can be used to transform your life. These discoveries open the doors to a deeper layer of mindfulness known as the ‘feeling tone’. This sets the ‘background colour’ that tinges your entire experience of life. It is also the tipping point from which you can reclaim your life in an increasingly stressful and chaotic world.

Proven effective at treating anxiety, stress and depression, the practices in Deeper Mindfulness offer a new and more fruitful direction for both novice and experienced meditators. It also allows the rest of us to approach life with renewed strength, vigour and equanimity.

‘They’ve done it again! Read this book as if your life depended on it’ Ruby Wax.

Download Chapter One for free (the US & UK versions are the same apart from the cover)

Buy now from Amazon UK

Pre-order now from Amazon US (Out July 17th)

What can mindfulness do for you?

What exactly is mindfulness?

Follow us on Twitter @DrDannyPenman

20 Comments Post a comment
  1. bill arthur #

    BP normal after 4 of 8 week program. Anxiety a fraction of my old self. Hope this is lasting situation at end of 8 week program. Thanks for your gift. Bill

    June 29, 2019
  2. Jesse Rowan #

    Danny, I have just done about 3 meditations in the last few days, and already I am feeling better. I have lots of undealt with emotions coming up after 40 years of suppression of various experiences ranging from being caught in a severe bushfire, a work-related stress court case and other worse stuff unmentionable.

    I went for a mindful walk this morning and came upon a lyrebird for the first time, calling its amazing song, scratching in the leaves and presenting its tail. I loved my walk, and did the body scan meditation lying on the ground looking up at the trees overhanging the path.

    When I got home I had a band practice, and having done no practice for several weeks, I played and sang better than I’d ever done before! And that despite feeling sick with emotion that is leaking out of the frozen crust I have created to hold it all down and get on with life, in a numbed state.

    I have bought your book and CD and put the meditations on my phone so I can meditate anywhere. I love the kind voice on the CD.

    May 27, 2016
    • Steve #

      I’m with you. Worked emergency services for 33 years and still haunted. Mindfulness and meditation work for me. Good luck in your journey too.

      December 11, 2018
  3. Mohammad #

    I can’t thank you enough. Mindfulness thought me how to deal with my worries. Most of us, worries about things that happened in the past or concern if they will happen in the future.
    I have read the book twice and I am working in practicing more and more.

    May 18, 2016
  4. Kirsten Boisen #

    Hello my freind

    Thank you so much for helping me when I was most lost in my life. Especially the “being freindly” meditation helped me going on with my life and with my relationship to other people. I have mental proplems and have now desided to use mindfullness meditation every day to becom more healthy. I wish you love and happiness.

    best regards from a thankfull dane

    October 4, 2015
  5. Meditation can be a wonderful way to help with so many things…it’s really helped my tinitis

    November 1, 2013
  6. Jay scott #

    I was taken to A and E with suspected heart problem. My B.P. reading was high.

    After various tests I did my Mindfulness , To the nurses astonishment I had brought my B.P. down to a normal level.

    I spend quite a bit of time in and out of hospitals, so I am used to being taken in which means I wasn’t overstressed at having to go into A and E. which would push anyone’s levels up.

    The staff were most interested in what I had done!

    June 19, 2013
  7. Alan #

    Hi Linda

    Copy the CD from the book into iTunes on PC or laptop and then plug your iPhone into the PC or laptop and synch your iPhone from within iTunes and you will have to the meditations through the music app on your iPhone.

    so handy

    Alan

    July 24, 2012
  8. Louise #

    Hi
    I’m busy reading and practicing your book, which I really like and find much easier to put into practice than Kabat Zin’s or Christophe André’s (if you know him, he is based in St Anne, France).
    I really liked the chocolate and raisin meditation and even my 3 yo practiced it on his chocolate piece and enjoyed it. And the whole mindfulness approach, which I have been trying to implement with various degrees of success in the past years, is really great. I never thought I would enjoy teeth brushing!

    I’m still in week 1 but very motivated. It’s also great to be able to share some of the audio with friends and family.
    Thanks!

    April 14, 2012
  9. Tim #

    Dear Mark and Danny,

    Thank you so much for this web page. I keep it bookmarked on my phone. And your book was just excellent. I recently recommended to a group of educators at a mindfulness conference in Pennsylvania. It was written in a clear and economical style which made it a joy to read! Many thanks!
    Tim

    April 4, 2012
  10. Linda Swanson-Davies #

    The meditations are perfect. I’m very much enjoy the book. I’m prepping myself to follow the program. I sure do wish there were an iphone ap for accessing these meditations. When I found myself with a few minutes alone, instead of doing a million other things, I’d like to be able to use a meditation to drop into a little deep peace. I really do you thank you all for the tremendously useful and unintimidating book and for the free meditations. Wonderful, wonderful.

    April 3, 2012
  11. Suzi #

    Thank you so much for your complimentary lifeline to help sustain me during a very difficult period of my life. The generosity shall be passed forward.

    March 25, 2012
  12. Pursed lip exercises saved my husband’s life, literally! His COPD (CHRONIC OBSTRUCTIVE PULMINARY DISORDER) was so bad and finally his doctor told him to perform diaphragmatic breathing at least 5 times a day. After 10 days, his breathing noticeably improved, and 8 weeks later he is breathing good enough to enjoy his gardening and get outdoors again.

    March 22, 2012
  13. Brenda L #

    I am close to finishing “The Full Catastrophe” and have just ordered yours and Jon’s book. I am a Psychologist who in Oct 11 “hit the wall” and experienced burn out. I have never been a huge proponent of medication so when they were offered, I resisted and am so thankful that I did. No sleeping tablets, no anti-depressants, some homeopathics and your cd. I am using the mindfulness daily and my eight year old who has anxious tendencies is using it to go to sleep. I too used the body scan to go to sleep when my sleeping was non-existent and I am now getting 7-8hrs a night. Instead of racing all the time doing, I now catch myself falling into old ways, automatically center with the breathing and respond instead of reacting. I also use prayer whilst practising the mindfulness exercises. It is now Feb 12 and I have been back at work two days a week. The migraine I was getting every month prior to burnout has also been absent the last five months. Mark and team, thankyou.

    February 15, 2012
  14. Zelda #

    Thank you for that and the 3 min breathing space. I have your book and am currently following a MBSR course (for the second time!) but it was lovely to find this online whilst I’m sitting at work at my computer!

    February 13, 2012
  15. The Sounds and Thoughts meditation was so wonderful I continued in it after the speaking stopped. Loved it. Thank you.

    January 5, 2012
  16. Earwig #

    I have finished the book and the CD. I felt I was sleeping better after only the first week. Having been ‘born anxious’ and stuck on tricyclics for 40 years this is the BEST therapy I’ve ever come across. I shall keep on going for as long as it takes and hope that this will encourage others to try. I bought a copy of the book for my daugher in law who suffers from work stress and her comment after just reading the first few chapters was, “I don’t feel a freak any more”. Thank you SO much.

    September 22, 2011
  17. CompassionGuy #

    I’ve enjoyed the quick Three Minute Breathing Space from time to time after lunch at work. Just the thing to refocus my frenetic energy!

    Thanks for your thoughtfulness in sharing these meditations with us at no cost.

    Wishing you joy

    September 10, 2011
  18. Carol #

    Have you any direction for a small group of friends who plan a bookclub just for your new Mindfulness (eight weeks,etc.)? ? ?

    Or we will just follow our way together through the book. Just may be helpful and focused to have some companions on this journey?

    September 1, 2011
    • What an interesting idea. I think working your way through the book, week by week, is the best approach. I think it would encourage everyone to continue with the program. Companionship on the journey will help enormously. You’ll find that every now and again, a member of the group will discover a ‘block’. When they encounter it, then it will help enormously if other people can offer help and support (to remind them that you can never ‘fail’ at meditation). Simply offering this reassurance will help enormously. Also, if everyone discusses their own experiences then this will help deepen everyone else’s experiences too. Mindfulness is a journey and it’s great to have a few companions along with you to share the experience.

      Please let me know how you go on. We’d genuinely love to know.

      Danny

      February 20, 2012

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