disheartened. Incorporating the practice of taking refuge into the beginning of a meditation session offers a sense of deep connection and groundedness that supercharges your practice with inspiration and strength greater than your small limited self. Here is one way to awaken the mind of refuge in your meditations.
As you sit here now, envision yourself sitting at the center of your universe, surrounded by all living beings. Holding this image in mind, pause for a moment to remember, invite, or sense the presence of those who have most deeply inspired you in your life. Reach out now from your heart, and with your hands, to these beings whose presence in your life is truly a blessing, a source of renewal, deep information, and inspiration. Imagine that all of them are right here with you now, surrounding you and shining like a constellation of brilliant suns. Or, if you like, envision that these many sources of light merge into a single brighter sun that shines a radiance of blessings and inspiration into your life.
Imagine that with each breath you reach out to them and hold their hands, and that through your connection with them you can draw strength and inspiration. In fact, the stronger and more sincere your own aspiration, the deeper and stronger the flow of inspiration becomes. Imagine that each of these inspiring people in turn reaches out to hold the hands of those to whom they look for guidance, strength, and inspiration, and that they in turn reach out to those who have inspired them. Sense your teachers reaching out to their teachers, who reach out to their teachers…. Envision yourself balanced within and receiving from this endless cascade of wisdom and love as it flows to you and through you from countless inspired ancestors of the far and distant past.
Envision this inspiration as knowledge and energy soaking into you now. It energizes the parts where your life-force is weak. It balances what needs to be balanced. It floods, cleanses, and opens the spaces and places within you that are clogged or congested, and nourishes the seeds of your deepest potential to blossom beautifully. Like sunlight filtering into a deep clear pool, sense these waves of inspiring grace flooding your mind-body-energy-spirit. Every dimension of your being is illuminated, blessed, and renewed. With each breath you are filled, saying silently “receiving.” With each breath you release what you no longer need to hold on to, saying inwardly “Releasing.” Receiving…releasing…receiving…releasing…. Plugging into this renewal circuit, you are revitalized, calmed, and energized, and move towards balance between your inner and outer worlds.
Having cleared your circuits, charged your batteries, and filled your tanks, begin now to radiate and expand this sense of peace and well-being within you. With each inhalation, shift to receive, and then with each exhalation, radiate. Breathing in, imagine the inspiration and blessings converging and spiraling into you, filling your heart. With each out-breath sense, imagine, or feel your heart silently radiating like a bright, shining star. Effortlessly offer the natural radiance of your innermost being to the world. Allow it to shine through the darkness within or around you. Allow it to light up your inner and outer world effortlessly, immediately. Let this be the light of your love, the light of your peace, the light of your presence, the light of your good-will and positive regard.
Now, having enhanced and expanded your radiance, begin to direct your attention and energy to the world around you. Reach out to those who look to you as a source of inspiration, guidance, and support. Reach out to your children, your students, your patients, your clients and customers, and to all those who look to you as they seek balance and belonging in their lives. Receiving inspiration, wisdom, and strength from those you draw guidance from, reach out with your hands and from your heart and let each exhalation become an inspiring gift that you offer to those who, in turn, look to you.
Envision each person you reach out to taking your gift to heart, and feel that it truly inspires and awakens greater wisdom, balance, and strength in their lives. As you reach out to your children, envision them receiving and taking this gift to heart and then passing it on to their children, who pass it on to their children, who pass it on to their children, and to all whose lives they touch. Envision your students reaching out to their students who reach out to their students. Imagine that all those to whom you reach out take these gifts to heart and pass them on to those who will pass them on, in an endless cascade of inspiration and blessings that reaches out into the world to help awaken all beings to their True Nature, nurturing harmony and wholeness for countless generations to come.
In this way, receiving and radiating, sense yourself balanced here, reaching out from this fleeting moment where all the experiences of the infinite past and all the potential for the boundless future converge. Viewed in this light, realize that your real life-work is to reach out and realize your connectedness and wholeness, to deepen in balance, to increase your capacity to gather inspiration and wisdom, to take it to heart and pass it on as far and wide as you possibly can. From the depths of your being, generate a deep and heartfelt aspiration to awaken fully to your True Nature and potential and to help all beings do the same, so that they in turn can inspire others to awaken fully.
Imagine the silent light of your innermost being blazing with exquisite clarity and radiating out to fill your body. Imagine it radiating out into the world around you now, and sense yourself as a lighthouse of love, a radiant source of inspiration for all beings. Holding your loved ones and friends in mind, radiate this love to them. Bring to heart and mind the leaders of the world, the children of the world, the beleaguered nations and species of the world, and radiate your heartfelt care and prayers to them.
In this way, receiving…radiating, each breath affirms your deep relationship with the whole of creation, and with all beings in the past, present, and future. In this way, each blessed breath becomes a gesture of balance, a gesture of receiving from and offering to all.
Sense, imagine, and affirm that those you offer to are actually helped and inspired by the love and energy you radiate to them. Envision their tensions, worry, or fear melting away. They are inspired, renewed, and moved toward harmony and balance through your influence. Out of gratitude they radiate back to you waves of thanksgiving and blessings. These add to the waves of your inspiration. You radiate and offer your heartfelt thanks to those who inspire you, and they in turn, pleased and inspired by your gratitude and generosity, then radiate even more energy, inspiration, and blessings to you. This reciprocal and responsive flow radiates in both directions like a figure eight of receiving and radiating. As this flow circulates it seems that everyone in the loop receives exactly what they need to find harmony and balance and to awaken to their own True Nature and potential in their lives in this moment.
Rest in this flow for as long as you like. Then either shift into another meditation, using the sense of refuge and deep connectedness as a springboard and foundation, or make a gentle transition into whatever activity comes next. As you refocus your attention into other matters, simply allow this sense of deep relatedness to remain active as it slips more into the background of your awareness. Throughout the day remember that this deep connectedness and flow is only a thought or a breath away. Now and then, as you are involved with other things, with a natural mindful breath reach out and take refuge in this deep connectedness as you continue to receive and radiate. When in doubt, remember these four things: “reach out,” “plug in,” “receive,” and “radiate.”
Practiced in this way, taking refuge and receiving and radiating is a complete meditation practice in itself. It is also a wonderful preliminary meditation that can be done for a few minutes prior to any other practice to infuse it with many blessings. Take some time to let this expanded sense of yourself and your relatedness integrate. Notice how finding yourself in this circle of wholeness changes, expands, and impacts your sense of yourself, your sense of connectedness, your sense of balance, and your sense of being.
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CONCENTRATION MEDITATION
Concentration is like a diamond, a brilliant focusing of our energy, intelligence, and sensitivity.
FOCUSING THE MIND
We have all, at different times in our lives, had a taste of concentration: each of us has fully given our attention to a loved one, a beautiful sunset, a resounding symphony, or a project that completely absorbed us. And it is possible to train our minds to increase and develop this special