MEDITATION & YOGA TO THE PEOPLE
Listen to several guided meditations on the right-side of the page.
Meditative practices offered pro bono (for the common good) in order to promote contemplative reflection, mental quiescence, self-control, empathy, well-being, and a host of related dispositions and benefits in the community. Introducing my fellow citizens to their own inner sanctuary, boundless resource, and enlightening wellspring of meditation, on the experiential level, is the source of my greatest joy.
Meditation practices are numerous, from many different traditions, the most well-known of which include Buddhism, Hinduism, and Taoism in Asia, and Stoicism and the Judeo-Christian traditions in the West, although there are varieties in many of the world's indigenous populations. Properly understood, traditional yoga practice is a form of embodied, somatic meditation, as are Tai Chi, Chi Gung, and a number of related mind-body disciplines as well. It is difficult to offer a definition, therefore, that fits them all. One definition of a particular form of meditation, called "mindfulness", from the Buddhist tradition, is "extraordinary attention to ordinary experience" (Damma Dana, aka Ruth Dennison, meditation retreat at Insight Meditation Society, Barre, MA). Although some element of this might apply to every form of meditation in some sense, many forms of meditation nonetheless have different emphases, particular sequences, and so on. Most of them, however, may be characterized as attention-training exercises, practices one engages in that enable one to spontaneously enter into a state of meditation, which is something that typically happens when one has become comfortable in what may be described as a state of non-doing, mere being, or presence, as opposed to the sort of intentional doing that characterizes most of the practices themselves.
I am motivated by the idea of teaching everyone how to meditate, which is something best learned by doing, by practicing meditation. Of course, understanding the principles, techniques, and overall philosophies of various meditation methodologies helps frame expectations, guide and assess practice, and maintain stability in the discipline. But the experience is what is life-changing, not the theoretical framework for understanding it. I have taught thousands of beginners meditation and yoga over the course of multiple decades. Most of them didn't think they could do it beforehand, including many who previously tried and failed. I think all it takes is the right guidance, and almost anyone can experience the meditative state. Once that happens, under my guidance, I believe I have done something akin to what Socrates did when he described himself as doing the work of the god of wisdom, Apollo, and as a midwife of ideas, when he would get his fellow Athenians to realize they did not know something they thought they knew, which he took to be the birth of wisdom: knowing the difference between what you know and what you do not know, realizing that you don't know anything, or becoming aware of your own ignorance.
I believe meditation is one of the premiere philosophical methods for bringing one into a philosophical, contemplative, reflective state of mind. Studies I have conducted on hundreds of my philosophy students, comparing otherwise equal classes in which some classes practiced meditation and other classes did not, indicated a statistically significant positive correlation between increased number of times practicing meditation and increased changes in attitudes towards various philosophical statements.* Informally, my observations confirmed this as well: the more times a class practiced meditation, the more intrinsically interested and thus philosophically engaged the students became.
For a more complete description of meditation, see Meditation and Yoga.

audio meditations
video meditations
Meditation of April 2: Selective and Non-Selective Attention: No Bird Footprints in the Sky
Meditation of April 6: Mindfulness of Breathing & Mindfulness without an Object
Meditation of April 9: Anchoring in the Breath, Engaging Mind in Breath, and Letting Go
Meditation of April 20: Awareness without Doing: Slipping into Meditative Being
Meditation of April 27: The Empty Bowl: Awareness as Container & Emptying It
Meditation of April 30: Checking In: Attending to What’s Present & Playing Frogger
Meditation May 4, Beginner’s Mind
Meditation May 7, Old Restful Turtle
Meditation May 11, Mindful Careful Loving Kindness
Meditation May 14, Inner Sanctuary and Watering Hole
Meditation May 18, Set Intention or Perspective: Conscious Nap
Meditation May 21, Orienting Awareness: Where, When, How, What?
Meditation May 25 Before & After Enlightenment Chop Wood Carry Water
Meditation May 28, Philosophers on Introspection, Spatial Metaphors, and Elements of Nirvana
Meditation June 1, Releasing in Neutral Gear, with Breathing Mantra
Meditation June 8, Meta-awareness and the Phenomenological Subject or Perspectival Locus
Meditation June 15, Being Here Now in Space and Time
Meditation August 20, 2020 Awareness without Words or Metaphors
Meditation September 3, 2020 Volitional Meta-Awareness and Volitional Breathing
Meditation September 10, 2020 Upright, Relaxed, and Still: Detaching and Anchoring in the Breath
Meditation September 21, 2020 Checking In and Letting go. Breath Mantra
Meditation September 28, 2020 Breath and Awareness. 10 minutes
Meditation October 5, 2020 Awareness and Meta-Awareness
Meditation October 12, 2020 Orienteering and Breath Work
Meditation October 19, 2020 Zen Stoicism and Lectio Divina
Meditation October 26, 2020 Breath Foreground, Periphery, and Both
Meditation November 2, 2020 Meditation from the Hip: Zooming In and Zooming Out
Yoga videos
Yoga, Deep Relaxation, and Meditation: Two Hours and 25 Minutes (11.8.2020)