Settle onto a cushion, a mat, or the edge of a chair, and a calm voice asks you to do something most of us skip: notice the ground. That small instruction is where a 23-minute guided Mindfulness of Breathing meditation, led by Sraddhagita and recorded at the London Buddhist Centre, begins. From there the practice moves in three deliberate stages. It sweeps slowly through the body, gathers attention onto the breath and counts it in rounds of ten, then loosens its grip on the counting and the effort altogether. Nothing dramatic happens. The craft lies in the small adjustments: how softly you hold the count, how gently you return when you lose it, and how quietly you let the session end. This article walks through each stage so that you can understand what the teacher is asking for and practise it on your own.
Most people who sit down to meditate on the breath go straight for the nostrils or the rise of the chest. Sraddhagita does not. The recording opens by framing the whole session: body awareness first, then focus on the breath, then a stage of letting go. The first job is to find a seat and, in her words, "finding our connection with the surfaces underneath us that are supporting us so our cushions our mat or chair." (0:28)
The body sweep that follows is slow and specific. Attention begins at the feet, "just noticing the connection with the ground any sensations any aliveness in the feet," and then travels upward through the ankles, shins, calves, knees and thighs, into the hips and pelvis, up the back, through the arms and hands, across the belly and chest, and finally into the face. The instruction is not to find something impressive. It is to notice what is actually there. The teacher names the possibilities plainly: "some tingling energy, some very subtle sensations, or there might feel like there's not anything much happening at all."
That last possibility is the one people tend to resist. When a leg feels numb or a shoulder feels like nothing, the mind often decides the exercise has failed. The recording offers a different stance. "Just cultivating an attitude of curiosity and patience and trying to just inhabit that area even if it feels a little bit numb or like nothing's there," Sraddhagita says, "just being patient, waiting, breathing there and just noticing if that area does start to wake up." (2:46) Numbness, in other words, is treated as information rather than a verdict. Attention stays put, and the area is given time to respond.
The sweep also carries a quieter purpose. It turns the body from a background object into an active field of attention. By the time the breath is introduced, the listener has already spent several minutes inside the physical self, which makes the next step feel less like a switch being flipped and more like a natural narrowing of focus.
The transition is gentle. The instruction is simply to let the awareness "gather around your breath." Sraddhagita points out that you have been breathing the whole time: "all you're doing is you're just gathering the awareness onto that breath just letting it stay natural just be as it is but just bringing some interest and curiosity to the breath." (9:48) There is no attempt to slow or deepen the breath. The practice is to observe it.
She then suggests noticing the breath's qualities: "the patterning of the breath," its texture, its rhythm, the sensations it produces. This is observation as craft. A rhythm can be felt as a long wave or a series of small pulses. Texture can be smooth or catching. Each of these is a detail to be noticed, and noticing sharpens the attention that will be needed for the counting.
Whatisthecountingdevicefor,andwhycounttoten?
Breath awareness, on its own, is notoriously slippery. Attention wanders within seconds, often without the meditator realising it has gone. The recording addresses this with a simple device: "we're going to breathe in and then breathe out and silently count one and then breathe in and breathe out silently count two and we're going to do that up to 10 and then come back to one again."
The count does a specific job. It marks each breath as something that has just happened, giving the mind a fixed reference point. The instruction is to keep it "light and soft." Counting is not a test. It is a handrail. Used too tightly, it becomes another source of strain; used loosely, it holds attention in the present cycle of in and out.
Whatshouldyoudowhenyoulosecount?
Losing the count is the most common experience in breath-counting meditation, and the recording treats it as the practice itself rather than a failure of it. "If you find that you lose track of the counting, you drift off, or you suddenly find yourself on number 42, well, that's okay," Sraddhagita says. "You're just noticing what's happened, noticing that your connection with the breath has momentarily been lost." (11:57)
The response is to steer the awareness back into the body and onto the breath, which, as she puts it, "will be waiting for you," and to begin the cycle again at one. She describes each such return as "a moment of awareness." The meditator might need to do this many times, and each return is counted as a success in its own right. There is a useful reframe here. Drifting is what minds do. Noticing the drift is the thing being trained.
"Each time you notice you've drifted away, that's a moment of awareness and then you're back in the practice." (Sraddhagita, guided recording, approx. 12:50)
She also frames the returning as a kind of gathering: "as we keep gathering the awareness on the breath it's like we're recollecting ourselves, we're integrating, deepening." (14:00) The language is less about winning a battle with the mind and more about bringing scattered attention back into one place.
Whydoesthepracticeletgoofthecounting?
Once the breath has been steadied by counting, the recording releases the count. "You can let go of the counting and just see if you can feel the breath in the body, feel the breath massaging the body." (14:08) This is the stage where the practice becomes less about procedure and more about sensation. The breath is felt as something moving through the whole body rather than as a number.
A second body scan follows, this time quicker and focused on tension. Sraddhagita names the places where holding tends to collect: the forehead and eyes ("sometimes we screw up our eyes or frown"), the jaw and mouth, the shoulders ("tensions can easily creep in there again"), the belly ("if we're slightly sucking in the belly"), and the thighs. In each case the instruction is to let the area soften while the breath moves through it. The practice is not forceful. It is closer to smoothing.
The teacher adds a qualification that is easy to overlook: the attitude toward whatever arises. The aim is to encourage "a sense of welcoming whatever comes into your awareness in the body, not reacting, not trying to push it away, we'll change it or improve." (17:39) Equanimity, rather than improvement, is the working principle.
Whatdoeslettinggomeaninthismeditation?
The final stretch of the recording is the most open. "Let go, let go, and let yourself be, without needing to do anything, be anywhere or anyone, and just sitting in awareness, letting go into the beauty around you." (17:59) The language is spare on purpose. There is no new technique at this point, only a release of the techniques already used. The counting, the scanning and the effort all loosen, and what remains is simply awareness of the body's life, described as "tinglings, shimmerings." (20:08)
Sraddhagita then asks listeners to close the session deliberately. She suggests a moment of appreciation for "the effort that you made in the practice," and an optional note to yourself about anything you noticed. Eyes open slowly, with "a soft gaze," as if "you're looking from way back," taking in the light, the shadows and the colours of the room. (20:26) The recording ends with an invitation not to rush: sit with the effects of the practice, then stretch, and get up when ready.
Howcanyoupractisethisonyourown?
The meditation works as a complete arc, but its parts can also stand alone. A short session might use only the body sweep, with attention moving from feet to face and pausing wherever something wakes up. A longer one might run the full sequence: settle, sweep, count to ten and return whenever you drift, release the count, scan for tension, and finish with a soft gaze and a stretch. Keep the instructions in mind as you go. Be curious rather than striving. Expect to lose count, often. Treat each return as the point of the exercise. Let the final stage be unhurried.
Clarity and calm, the aims named in the video's description, tend to arrive quietly. They are less a dramatic state than a gradual steadiness, reached by doing very ordinary things with unusual attention. Sraddhagita's recording is a clear guide to that process, and it rewards repeated listening, because each pass reveals a different detail in the sweep or the count.
Wheretogofromhere
Listen to the full recording with your eyes closed and a timer set for the length of the session, and let the teacher's cues do the work. After a sitting, make the brief note the recording suggests, even if it is only a single word. Over several weeks, compare what you notice in the feet, the shoulders and the breath, and watch how the counting changes from a rigid task into a light, familiar rhythm. If you want to hear more from the London Buddhist Centre, its online programme is the natural next step, and the video's own description points listeners toward further material on the practice.
A Buddhist centre in Bethnal Green, East London, that teaches meditation and Buddhism in ways relevant to contemporary life, rooted in a living spiritual community.
Mindfulness of Breathing is a meditation in which attention rests on the natural breath, observed without trying to change it. In this guided version by Sraddhagita, the practice moves from a body sweep to breath counting to ten, then releases the counting and ends with a stage of letting go. The stated aim in the video's description is developing clarity and calm.
Sraddhagita says losing count is normal and should be treated as a moment of awareness, not a failure. Notice that the connection with the breath has been lost, steer attention back into the body and breath, and begin the count again at one. Many repetitions are expected.
The recording runs about 23 minutes, based on its published duration. It includes a full body sweep from feet to face, a breath-counting section, a second scan for tension, and a closing stage of letting go and gentle return to the room.
The body sweep turns the body into an active field of attention before the breath is introduced, so focus narrows more naturally. Sraddhagita encourages noticing sensations like tingling, warmth, or nothing much at all, and treats numbness as something to be patient with rather than a sign of failure.
No. The recording counts the breath to help stabilise attention, then explicitly says to let go of the counting and feel the breath moving through the body. The count is a support that is set down once the breath feels steady.
Sraddhagita suggests appreciating the effort you made, optionally noting what you noticed, opening the eyes slowly with a soft gaze, and taking time to sit with the effects of the practice. Gentle stretching comes before getting up.
