Meditation practices, on paper.
Twenty core meditation worksheets — MBSR body scan, loving-kindness (Metta), RAIN, noting practice, walking, mindful eating, compassion, equanimity, Tonglen, the three-minute breathing space, and structured plans for the 8-week MBSR curriculum and silent retreat prep. Free, print-ready, secular-friendly.
Anchoring the Breath
The foundational concentration practice — coming back IS the practice
Instructions for choosing an anchor (belly, chest, or nostrils), staying with the whole breath cycle, and gently returning when the mind wanders. Reframes wandering as the rep, not the failure.
Body Scan Meditation
The MBSR body scan — 30-45 minutes, no fixing
Full-sequence body scan (toes to scalp), instructions for meeting each area with curiosity not correction, and a reflection on numb vs held areas. Trains interoception and disidentification.
Loving-Kindness (Metta) Meditation
Wishing wellness in expanding circles — self, benefactor, friend, neutral, difficult, all
Traditional Metta practice with the four phrases and six circles. Guidance for when self is hardest (start with benefactor and circle back).
RAIN Meditation
Tara Brach's 3-15 minute practice for meeting a difficult emotion
Recognize, Allow, Investigate, Nurture — a portable practice for the middle of a hard moment. Written so it's not a bypass.
Noting Practice
Vipassana labeling — 'thinking', 'planning', 'hearing' — the gap-maker
Instructions for soft mental labeling with common notes to keep handy. Creates a small gap between the meditator and the experience.
Open Awareness Meditation
No object — attention rests open like the sky
Choiceless awareness practice: start with concentration, then drop the anchor and let sounds, sensations, thoughts appear and pass. Usually taught after concentration is stable.
Walking Meditation
Slower than normal, attention on the feet, back and forth
Formal walking practice on a 10-20 step path. Bridges sitting into daily life and offers a door for nervous systems that can't drop into stillness on a cushion.
Mindful Eating Meditation
The raisin exercise — one bite, five senses
One-bite five-sense sequence (see, touch, smell, sound, taste). Not a diet — a door into every meal.
Sound Meditation
Sound as anchor — no 'wrong' sound
Field-of-sound practice for meditators whose breath focus triggers anxiety, and for practicing in noisy environments. Every sound is welcome — the lawn mower is the practice.
Compassion (Karuna) Practice
Attending to suffering with the wish it be relieved
Distinct from metta and self-compassion. Steps for holding another's (or your own) suffering with tenderness and the phrase 'may you be free from suffering, may you find peace.'
Equanimity Practice
The steady-ground quality — care deeply without being tossed
The fourth Brahmavihara. Practice with the phrases 'I care about this. And I cannot control it. May I have the strength to be with things as they are.' Distinguishes equanimity from indifference.
Tonglen — Sending and Receiving
Breathe in suffering, breathe out relief — reverse the reflex
Pema Chödrön's Tibetan practice in four stages. Retrains the self-protective instinct to shrink from pain and softens the boundary between self and other.
STOP Practice — 30-Second Mindfulness
Stop, Take a breath, Observe, Proceed
Elisha Goldstein's micro-practice for the middle of a hard moment. 30 seconds, before hitting send, between meetings, at the light.
Three-Minute Breathing Space (MBCT)
Widen, narrow, widen — the core between-sits practice
MBCT's structured between-sits practice: one minute of awareness (what's here), one minute of gathering (breath), one minute of expanding (whole body, then room).
Mindfulness of Emotions
Turn toward the emotion the way you'd turn toward the breath
Locates the emotion in the body (location, size, shape, temperature), watches it over time, and lets the 90-second half-life do its work. Different from thinking about the emotion.
Mindful Journaling Prompts
Six prompts answered from the body, not the head
Prompts designed to be answered from mindfulness: 'what am I pretending not to know', 'what does my body know that my mind hasn't caught up to', 'what is one true sentence about right now.'
Micro-Meditations Menu
Sub-60-second practices to stitch into the day
Menu of eight micro-practices under a minute — one breath at every stoplight, feet on the floor before a call, temperature of the water while washing. Habits, not marathons.
Five Hindrances Troubleshooter
Naming which obstacle is running today's sit is 80% of the antidote
Classical Buddhist map of the five obstacles (desire, aversion, sloth, restlessness, doubt) with the classical antidotes for each.
MBSR 8-Week Home Practice Plan
The Jon Kabat-Zinn curriculum, one page
The eight-week MBSR home-practice schedule (body scan, sit + breath, alternating with yoga, difficult emotions, metta, choiceless awareness, integration) with a daily-tracking grid.
Silent Retreat Prep + Integration
Before, during, and after — because the retreat isn't the point
Pre-retreat logistics + teacher disclosure, during-retreat reminders, and a post-retreat integration plan (daily practice, sangha connection, no major decisions for 2 weeks, insights to remember before they fade).
Avoidance Patterns in Practice
The mind's escape routes
Name the specific escape routes your mind takes when difficulty arises on the cushion.
Concentration Depth Log
Scattered → gathering → unified → access
Track the arc from scattered to access-concentration and the conditions that build it.
Daily Sit Log
Consistency over duration
Ten-row daily log — length, quality, one line about what arose.
Difficult Emotion in Practice (RAIN)
Kindly attention, not fix
RAIN plus body-based inquiry for turning toward a difficult emotion on the cushion.
What meditation worksheets do
Meditation instructions are usually spoken, then forgotten. A worksheet turns the practice into an artifact — something the client can hold, mark up, and return to. Each page here gives the practice steps, the common obstacles, and a place to note what actually happened on the cushion. That reflection is where most of the learning lives.
The library covers the four traditional families: concentration (anchor breath, sound), insight (noting, open awareness, five hindrances), compassion (metta, karuna, equanimity, Tonglen), and applied mindfulness for daily life (STOP, three-minute breathing space, micro-meditations).
For clinicians integrating mindfulness
Every practice is written to be secular by default — usable in MBSR, MBCT, DBT, ACT, or standard integrative therapy — with acknowledgement of Buddhist origins where relevant. The RAIN, three-minute breathing space, and body scan pages match the standard MBCT / MBSR protocols.
Trauma-informed notes: sound meditation is included as an option for breath-averse clients, walking meditation for those who dissociate in stillness, and the retreat prep page includes teacher disclosure and integration guidance for intensive practice.
Free to print and send
Every worksheet is free to download and free to send to clients via secure link from a TherapistAssist account. No watermarks, no per-sheet limits.