You do not need six methods. You need one you will actually sit with.
The live archive promised your brain would thank you. I will not. This is a practice menu. Pick one. Leave the others on the shelf.
I write as a public educator. Take one method into the week and leave. If you wanted a coach, a clinic, an enlightenment timeline, or a teacher who takes you as a client from this page, this is the wrong door — on purpose. New here? Start here. Who I am: About. Daily practices: Wellness.
Traditions are named with respect. I do not deliver their syllabi. I do not take 1:1 students. If sitting makes a feeling larger than a rough week, stop. Get help that is allowed to help. The rule sits on Disclaimer.
A map, not a homework list
The live post put Kriya first and sold a speed of awakening. I put the weekday methods first. Kriya stays on the menu as a lineage you meet through its own teachers, not as a blog initiation.
Two minutes is a real practice. Ten is also. A chair you already own is enough. An app can play a bell. It cannot sit for you.
1. Loving-kindness
In Pali this is mettā: a wish of goodwill that does not first check whether the other person has earned it. It is a Buddhist compassion practice. I name the tradition. I do not run a course.
Sit. Feet on the floor. Hands where they land. Eyes open or shut.
Start with yourself, because skipping yourself is a common dodge. One quiet line, on the breath: May I be safe. May I have enough ease for this hour. Use your own words if those feel like a greeting card. The point is the wish, not the diction.
Then one person who is easy to wish well. Then someone neutral — the shop worker, the driver in the other lane. If you want a later round, someone difficult. You are not required to like them. You are practising not spending the next two minutes at war.
When the mind argues (they don’t deserve it; I don’t mean it), see the argument. Return to the next phrase.
I will not tell you it treats anything. A little room in the chest toward a living person can soften a hard afternoon. That is a human effect, not a protocol I deliver.
If wishing yourself well distresses you, skip this method. Use the body scan, or a minute at the kettle.
2. Self-inquiry
Some Advaita and related streams ask a plain question: Who am I? Not as a dinner-party riddle. As a way to notice that thoughts, roles, and moods are objects in awareness — not identities you must wear for the next two minutes.
Sit as before. Ask the question once, quietly. Watch what arrives: a job title, a story, a tightness, a name. See it. Ask again, or simply rest with the seeing.
You are not hunting for a final answer this page can grade. You are watching the stack of identities clock in, and clock out.
I am not selling non-dual awakening. I am not your teacher. If the question makes you unmoored or frightened, stop. Use a method with a physical object — breath, soles, a phrase — and leave the metaphysics for another day, or for Metaphysics.
3. Body scan
Lie down or stay seated. Start at the feet. Wiggle the toes. Feel cloth, floor, or sheet. Move slowly: ankles, calves, knees, thighs, belly, chest, hands, jaw, scalp.
You are visiting, not diagnosing. If a place feels tight, breathe once toward it and move on. Do not hunt for a cure. I will not tell you a scan treats a headache, insomnia, or a mood disorder. A sore body belongs with a clinician when it needs one.
The live post asked you to tense and release, and to visualise healing light. Optional. The scan works as attention alone. If visualisation helps you stay, use it as a picture, not as medicine.
Thirty seconds from the feet up is a real practice. Morning in bed, or the minute before sleep, are kind times. If visiting the body is a lot today, keep it short, or walk and feel the soles. Walking lives on the twelve-drill page: /2021/06/07/12-mindfulness-exercises-to-start-using-daily/.
4. Mantra
A mantra is a phrase you repeat so the mind has one job. Traditions use sacred sounds — Om, a name of God, a line from a liturgy you already have. Beginners sometimes use a plain English line: this breath, or peace, if that word still means something.
Sit. Choose one phrase. Say it aloud or in the head, on the breath. When a thought arrives — it will — hear the next repetition.
Five minutes is plenty. Ten is also. I will not prescribe thirty. I will not send you to a shop for a “personal” mantra, and I will not become the person who assigns you one.
If you already have a faith, use a line from it with respect. If you have none, a neutral syllable is enough. This is not an affirmation programme and not a personality upgrade. It is a rope.
5. Vipassana
In Pali, vipassanā is often glossed as seeing things as they are: present-moment experience, including the unpleasant, without lunging to fix it. Several Buddhist lineages teach it, with their own teachers, retreats, and rules. I name the tradition. I do not deliver a ten-day course from this page.
Sit. Feel the breath at the nose or the belly. When a thought, a sound, or a sensation arrives, note it — thinking, sound, tight — and return. You have not failed by noticing. Noticing is the method.
The live post told you not to move if the legs hurt. I will not. If pain is sharp, or the sitting becomes a punishment, shift. Serenity is not a contest with your knees. Discomfort that is just restlessness can be watched for a minute; injury cannot.
This watching is a cousin of the regret sitting: the event was then; the story is now. That essay is here: /2021/05/27/meditation-for-regret-forget-your-mistakes-forgive-yourself/.
If open awareness floods you, narrow the object. Breath only. Or stand. Trauma and clinical grief belong with people trained for them. This blog is not your method.
6. Kriya — as a named tradition
Kriya Yoga is a lineage of breath, attention, and devotion as taught in streams associated with Lahiri Mahasaya and, in the West, Paramahansa Yogananda and the organisations that carry that work. It is a real tradition with initiation, ethics, and teachers. I name it with respect.
I do not teach it here.
The live archive called it the fastest path, equated one round with a year of growth, and pointed you at lessons and a centre. That is an enlightenment timeline and a teacher-sell. I dropped both. Speed of awakening is not a product I stock. A blog cannot initiate you.
If you already have a teacher in that lineage, keep them. Curiosity belongs with the lineage’s own materials, not with slot one of a listicle. What you may take from this page without joining anything: the body is already breathing; you can meet it for a minute at the kettle. That is not Kriya. It is the doorway many methods share.
Do not learn advanced breath retentions from a paragraph. If a breathing practice makes you dizzy, distressed, or odd in the hands, stop. Sit. Drink water. Breathwork that is a medical or psychiatric concern belongs with a clinician.
How to choose, and how little is enough
You do not need all six. You do not need a streak. If sitting is a fight, scan the body or walk. If words help you stay, use a mantra or a mettā phrase. If you already belong to a lineage, practise theirs; this menu is not a conversion.
Mindfulness is not a religion on this site. You can keep the faith you have, or none, and still notice a breath.
I do not take 1:1 clients. There is no call to book. There is no centre to visit in my name. Leave with one practice.
Next: Wellness, Start here, About, Disclaimer.
Paid guides, if you want them: Guides.
This page is education, not medical advice, not a diagnosis, and not a treatment plan.
I write as Ultimate Wellness, a public educator — not a doctor, not an HPCSA-registered dietitian, and not a therapist.
I don’t take 1:1 coaching clients from this library; take one useful idea and use it.
If you have a condition, take medication, or need care, please see your own clinician — more on Disclaimer.
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