Ten minutes, five segments. The long silences are the practice — the words only exist to start and end them.
Choosing a mantra
2 min[practical and warm — the choice is the only decision they have to make]
Hello, and welcome. This is a mantra meditation — ten minutes of holding one sound, quietly, in the mind.
A mantra works because it's slightly more interesting than nothing and considerably less interesting than your thoughts. It gives attention somewhere to rest that isn't the day you've had.
You'll need to pick one. Three options, and any of them is fine. The first is 'so hum' — traditional, and it sits naturally on the breath. The second is simply 'om'. The third is a plain English word with no charge to it: 'here', or 'still', or 'one'.
Choose now, and stay with it for the whole ten minutes. Swapping halfway is the one thing that reliably doesn't work. [pause for 10 seconds]
Sit upright, somewhere you can stay comfortably. Let your hands rest. Let your eyes close. [pause for 10 seconds]
Settling it onto the breath
2 min[demonstrate slowly — your pace becomes their pace for the rest of the session]
First, find your breathing. Not changing it — just noticing it's there. [pause for 20 seconds]
Now let the mantra ride on it. If you chose 'so hum' — 'so' on the way in, 'hum' on the way out. If you chose a single word, let it fall on the out-breath and leave the in-breath empty.
I'll say it once, at the speed to think it. [pause 2 seconds] So — hum. [pause 4 seconds] So — hum.
Slower than feels natural. Not spoken aloud — thought, in the same place you'd think any other word. [pause for 30 seconds]
Repetition
3 min 30[almost nothing from you now — three short lines across three and a half minutes]
Carry on with it now, on your own. [long pause — 90 seconds of silence]
If the mantra has changed speed, or gone quieter, or half-dissolved into something wordless — leave it. That's the direction it's meant to go. [long pause — 2 minutes]
When you lose it
1 min 30[plainly — no correction whatsoever in the voice]
By now you will have lost the mantra at least once. Probably several times. You'll have surfaced somewhere else entirely and realised it had gone.
That isn't a lapse in the practice. It is the practice. The mantra is not the point — the returning is. Every time you notice it's gone and pick it up again, that's one repetition of the only thing being trained here.
So. Wherever your attention is right now, pick the mantra back up. No commentary about having lost it. [long pause — 60 seconds]
Letting it go
1 min[normal speaking voice by the final two lines]
Let the mantra stop. Don't finish it off deliberately — just stop supplying it, and let the space it leaves stay empty for a moment. [pause for 30 seconds]
Come back to the plain feeling of sitting where you're sitting. The weight of your hands. The sounds in the room. [pause for 15 seconds, then lift the voice]
Move your fingers. Roll your shoulders once. And when you're ready, let your eyes open.
Keep the same mantra tomorrow if you come back to this. It gets easier to find each time. Thank you for sitting with me.