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Free Your Mind: How To Build a Daily Meditation Practice

On-Demand Course

With Martin Aylward

Available Now!

Learn how to build a daily meditation practice, and gain the skills to transform your life

Do you struggle with stress or anxiety?

Do you want to be more present in your life?

Is your mind often busy with reactions and distractions?

Sometimes it feels as if our minds are against us… We want to meditate; we try to meditate; we start and stop and start again, or struggle to commit; we fight with ourselves to find focus, stay present, and meet the world.

We do this because we know that regular meditation practice can transform our lives. We’ve learned this through both modern neuroscience research and centuries of traditional Buddhist inquiry.

Meditation can help us to feel less stress and more peace; to engage more mindfully in our work and personal relationships; and to live our lives more freely, and more fully.

In this self-paced, interactive course, Sangha Live founding teacher Martin Aylward unpacks deep Buddhist principles into simple, effective, liberating daily practices for transforming your life.

Join Martin for a month of daily meditation in this guided, personal journey through the fundamentals of meditation practice.

How To Build a Daily Meditation Practice with Martin Aylward

Whether you are new to the idea of meditation, interested in developing or deepening your practice, or want to sit with more regularity and consistency, this course will teach you:

  • How to build a daily meditation practice and stay committed
  • Tools for cultivating awareness in your daily life
  • The fundamentals of body posture and conscious breath
  • Simple solutions to common challenges and pitfalls
  • Daily habits for meeting experience without reaction, judgment or defense
  • Practical skills for improving concentration, focus and attention in your daily life
  • Relaxation techniques for relieving anxiety, stress and fear
  • Mindfulness techniques for navigating desires, fantasies and fixations
  • A functional blueprint for the practice and process of letting go
  • Deep understanding of the power of embracing the present moment

Module 1: Take Your Seat

How To Build a Daily Meditation Practice with Martin Aylward

Oftentimes, the biggest obstacle to meditation is simply taking our seat to begin. We often think of meditation as an exercise of the mind, but it’s also a visceral experience in our breathing body.

In our first week together, we focus on grounding our attention, the naturalness of awareness, and using breath and body to arrive in the present moment. We learn to let go of what should be and what could be in order to embrace what is. And we learn that a relaxed body is an awakened body.

Module 2: Free Your Mind

intro-meditation-free-your-mind

In our second week, we explore how our attention inevitably gets hijacked and becomes fixated. Martin leads us through investigating desires, defenses and distractions; the meditative process of recognizing, releasing and returning; and the importance of maintaining attention that is kind and gentle.

We learn the skills we need in order to unhook from anxiety and fantasy and reconnect to presence, again and again. And by cultivating awakened awareness amidst the push and pull of daily life, we are empowered to free our minds from whatever is holding us back.

Module 3: Open to Experience

intro-meditation-open-to-experience

As we deepen our practice in our third week, we attune to the changing nature of experience by opening up our senses and relaxing into presence. We learn to develop the capacity to embrace all experience, welcoming whatever arises and trusting in ourselves to meet the world, just as it is.

Martin helps us to explore how consciousness meets experience, and how we can relate to the world around and within us, without resistance or judgment. We discover how to let go of control, relax into the flow of experience and to be held by the natural intelligence of life.

Module 4: Integrate Your Practice

intro-meditation-integrate-your-practice

As we wrap up our month of daily meditation, Martin helps us to integrate our newfound awareness and ease of presence into our day-to-day lives. We learn to turn the light of awareness inward, to give conscious attention to the Experiencing; the Perceiving; and the Knowing.

Through our practice, we come to understand that meditation is an infinite trajectory in training ourselves to be here, with what’s available in this moment, and in the next. Together we explore how to be fully present at all times and in all situations, applying the skills and techniques learned in this course to every moment of every day.

On-Demand Course Details

10+ Hours of Teachings

At the end of our month together, you will have over 10 hours of material to take with you, including the video lessons, daily meditations and pre-recorded seminars. We encourage you to go at your own pace and see what unfolds during the course, then come back to the material - again and again - as you develop and deepen your practice in the future.

Woman Practicing Meditation

20 Guided Meditations

You will receive a 10-20 minute video lesson and guided meditation for each weekday during the month-long course. These daily teachings will guide you in starting and deepening your practice, with simple exercises and practical tips given at every step. Video lessons and guided meditations are pre-recorded in high-definition, and yours to keep!

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Pre-Recorded Seminars

Videos of recorded interactive sessions from a previous live release of this course are also included. Each recording is 60-90 minutes, includes guided practice and Q&A with Martin, and is oriented around the themes and practices covered in the week's teachings.

Daily Dharma Meditation

Total Flexibility

Complete this course independently, on your own schedule, at your ideal pace. Watch and re-watch the videos as you please.

About Martin Aylward

photo of Martin Aylward smiling

Martin Aylward is the founding teacher of Sangha Live. After spending his early adult years in Asian monasteries and with Himalayan hermits, Martin settled in Southern France with his wife Gail and their 2 children, co-founding the Moulin de Chaves retreat centre where he lives and teaches.

Martin teaches meditation, guides students and leads retreats internationally, emphasising the integration of the deepest wisdom teachings into the midst of the lives we live. He is also a director of the Mindfulness Training Institute. Martin’s book Awake Where You Are: The Art of Embodied Awareness (2021) is now available via Wisdom Publications. Click here to learn more about Martin Aylward.