Mindfulness Apps
The free Plum Village App has been lovingly created with many volunteered hours of work to allow us all to take Plum Village with us wherever we go.
There are also a range of other meditation apps which can support our mindfulness practice and we list them here.
Often when we are on our computers or smartphones, we become completely lost in our work and completely disconnected from our body in the here and now. You may like to program a bell of mindfulness on your computer or smartphone and every quarter of an hour (or as often as you like), the bell sounds so you have a chance to stop, breathe and relax.
There are also virtual Sanghas, guided meditation apps, and other mindfulness apps and tools available online. You may like to check out Plumline if you’d like to find a virtual sangha in the Plum Village Tradition (and don’t forget you can find a local group that meets up near you by checking out our international sangha directory).
Here are some mobile and desktop apps we hope you’ll find helpful in supporting your energy of mindfulness throughout the day.
The Plum Village App (free)
Operating System: Android | iOS
Plum Village is a new meditation app that can support us to cultivate mindfulness, compassion and joy through guided meditations, deep relaxations, practice poems, bells of mindfulness and many other features.
Mindfulness is the energy of being aware and awake to the present moment. It is the continuous practice of touching life deeply in every moment of daily life. To be mindful is to be truly alive, present and at one with those around you and with what you are doing. We bring our body and mind into harmony while we wash the dishes, drive the car or take our morning shower.
In the last decade, countless scientific studies confirmed that a sustained mindfulness practice promotes relaxation, reduced stress levels, better sleep, reduced anxiety, and increased concentration. In general the benefits of meditation have been proven to improve mental health and the overall well-being of practitioners.
The Plum Village app is one of the few mindfulness apps that offer completely free content, including high quality, rare guided meditations offered by Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh, as well as many other monastic teachers in this Buddhist tradition. It’s a great way to support your daily meditations.
The app features resources treasured by thousands of Plum Village practitioners, like guidance on practicing with the inner child, the famous pebble meditation, the four mantras, the five contemplations before eating, guided deep relaxations (body scan), music tracks with practice songs and chants offered by nuns, monks, and lay practitioners, and even nature sounds recorded in the Plum Village Monastery in France, and other practice centers around the world.
This app can be used by experienced practitioners and is at the same time a great fit for new meditators, offering detailed guidance on how to get started, answers offered by Thich Nhat Hanh to frequently asked questions, and podcasts with more than 300 Dharma Talks..
The Plum Village app works on all iPhone and Android devices.
Download from iTunes (Apple)
Download from Google Play
Visit the website
Support the app with a donation
Other Mindfulness Apps
Insight Timer (in-app purchases | Android | iOS)
Originally a meditation timer, Insight Timer is now a connected way to support your meditation practice and a marketplace for courses and guided sessions. It includes free meditations from Thich Nhat Hanh and other teachers.
Download for Android
Download for Apple
Headspace (in-app purchases | Android | iOS)
Headspace is one of the most popular mindfulness apps for beginners, offering guided meditations on topics from stress to sleep. The free version has 10 sessions; full access requires a subscription.
Download Headspace for Android
Download Headspace for Apple
Meditation Apps for Desktop
Bell of Mindfulness (free browser extension)
This simple Chrome extension rings periodically, reminding you to breathe and return to the present moment. As Thich Nhat Hanh has taught, returning to our breathing reconnects us with our body and mind in the here and now. We have a chance to take care of any tension we find there – we can stretch, smile, relax for a short moment. Apart from using various mindfulness apps, installing a bell on our computer is one of the surest ways to stay mindful of whatever we are doing.
Time Out (Mac)
Time Out offers gentle reminders to take mindful breaks during the day. The screen fades to signal it’s time to rest or stretch.
Mindfulness Bell Menu Bar (Mac)
Mindfulness Bell Menu Bar is a menubar application to aid you in your mindfulness practice. Simply choose an interval and a small or large bell will sound at the prescribed time to invite you to take a moment to observe the breath.
Stay Focused (browser extension)
Thich Nhat Hanh has said that we need an intentional strategy to manage our media consumption in a mindful, awakened way. StayFocusd is a free app which empowers you to stick to your intention by limiting the amount of time that you can spend on time-wasting websites. For example, you could set a “healthy” time limit on news sites, of, say 5 or 10 minutes per day. There is also a new, paid version for phones and tablets.
Install for Chrome | Install for Firefox
uBlock Origin (browser extension)
Thich Nhat Hanh teaches us that “appropriate attention” is essential to being mindful. We need to be aware of the right things, not the wrong things.
If we want to cultivate a high quality of presence and concentration, we don’t want our attention being taken from us by unwanted advertisements. Ads are usually trying to sell us things we neither want nor need to be happy – or that are even toxic for body and mind. We can limit ourselves to visiting sites that don’t display distracting or unwholesome advertisement and by supporting good content creators by paying for subscriptions that allow us to view their content without advertisement. For advertisements that we can’t get around uBlock Origin is a free app can block out any kind of content including advertisements. It can be turned off on a per website basis so please consider turning it off on websites of independent web content providers for whom advertisement might be their only, and often minimal, source of income
Even more meditation apps: 10% Happier, Calm, Buddhify, Aura, My Life, Waking Up, Simple Habit, Smiling Mind.
Regardless of the app we’re using, it’s most likely to be successful in our practice if we join or build a community, even just with a few friends, so we could share our journey, our difficulties and successes with them, get inspired, and learn from others.
There are also virtual Sanghas, guided meditation apps, and other mindfulness apps and tools available online. You may like to check out Plumline if you’d like to find a virtual sangha in the Plum Village Tradition.
