To be happy? To find peace? To rest or energize?
Remember, as you grow in clarity and peace of mind you directly contribute to bringing peace and understanding to others. And as you develop patience toward the people and situations that previously triggered frustration, you will be filling the universe with compassion instead of anger, understanding instead of confusion.
Our intentions reflect back to us an echo of the same energy. How often have you seen actions motivated by fear emphasize the paranoia of a situation? And how often has your love and care touched and opened the heart of another?
Remember, it is not what you do but how and why you do it that really matters. You always have a choice, so use it wisely, compassionately, and creatively.
MONITOR YOUR MEDITATION
Your meditation session is likely to go through several phases. Once you have settled down you should stabilize your attention by practicing a concentration technique for a few moments. Then you can apply your mind to whatever meditation—mindfulness, reflective, creative, or heart-centered—you choose. Throughout the session, use your vigilance or introspective alertness to monitor the quality of the focus of your attention. In this way you can recognize when your attention has wandered off or faded away. If you find it difficult to stay with the meditation because of too much distraction or dullness, you will find it useful to balance your mind again with a few minutes of concentration meditation, especially by watching the breath. Then, once again, return to your main meditation.
DEDICATION AND SHARING
Take a few moments at the end of each session to consciously extend and share the positive energies you have accumulated. From your heart radiate out into space warmth, light, and love, and imagine it touching others as a vibration that calms, energizes, heals, comforts, and nourishes. Be creative! Imagine you are playing a mental video game. Beam all your positive feelings to your friends, family, people you feel neutral toward, even to your enemies. Realize that they all, just like you, want to be happy, want to escape suffering and pain, and desire to make the most of their lives. Imagine radiating all the positive energy you have generated through your meditation out to all beings, and that each receives from you whatever they most need at that moment to carry them from fragmentation toward wholeness. In this way, realize that this inner work on yourself is also an offering to the world. (See Dedication Meditation on page 00 for a more detailed explanation.)
CARRY-OVER PRACTICE
Through your practice of meditation, it is possible to develop many previously latent positive qualities. Having used the brief period of your quiet meditation to touch and develop the peace, clarity, understanding, kindness, and vitality within, you now face the challenge of carrying these qualities into dynamic action as you move through the world. Throughout the day, consciously recall and reenergize these feelings. Particularly when you start to rush and tumble, internally pause, center, and move toward the sense of harmony you experienced earlier in meditation. Periods of quiet, undistracted meditation are precious opportunities to get in touch with qualities that will gradually grow and pervade even your busiest activities.
You will find that any activity can become an opportunity to train your mind, develop concentration, refine your awareness, deepen your insight, practice patience or loving-kindness. Live in a creative and meditative way, as though your life were a dream and you are busy waking up.
REMEMBER THE INNER SMILE
Lest you get too serious, it's important to approach your meditations with a sense of curiosity and playful inquisitiveness. For many people, holding a gentle inner smile during meditation helps to prevent them from trying too hard, getting tense, or being too self-critical. Enjoy your practice! Smile! Be playful!
FIVE STEPS FOR A DAILY MEDITATION PRACTICE
In establishing a daily meditation practice, the following guidelines can help add variety and richness. Your confidence in weaving these pieces together will grow with practice and this simple flow will become quite natural. There are five parts to this sequence:
1 Inspiration and Intention: As you begin, take a short time to clarify your intention and offer a prayer of gratitude or a call for inspiration. Remember that meditation is the practice of deep relationships, and that you never practice “alone.” Call upon the sources of inspiration in your life, that they may inspire your meditation. Remembering all those who share your life and world, practice in order to in some way be a force of healing and wholeness in the world.
2 Concentration: Next, shift to some type of focusing, concentration meditation, such as mindfulness of breathing, the nine-part breath, or the elemental breaths.
3 Meditation: Now shift to a longer period of quiet meditation using whatever technique you are drawn to.
4 Dedication: Finally, end the session with a brief dedication, gathering the potency generated through this time of meditation into your heart and radiating it to share the blessings with all beings.
5 Application: As you conclude your formal meditation practice, make a smooth transition and hold the intention to carry the quality of mindful presence into whatever activities will follow. Throughout the day, pause from time to time for a mini-meditation to renew your connection to these qualities, and then continue to infuse your life with the mindful presence, insight, creativity, and compassion that flow from your meditation practice.
Though these five stages build upon each other, if time or inclination do not permit you will still benefit from doing only steps 1, 2, and 4, steps 1 and 2, or even just step 1. Give yourself credit for any sincere steps that you make in the right direction!
Keep your formal practice short and simple at first so that you can begin to establish this new life-habit and feel some success in maintaining it. Then, as you see the benefits, gradually develop, deepen, or expand your practice.
TAKING REFUGE: RECEIVING AND RADIATING SPIRITUAL STRENGTH
There is one meditation that is universally useful as a preliminary practice for all other meditations. Because it is so fundamentally important, we would like to offer it here, to serve as a bridge to the rest of the meditations that follow. Technically, it would be classified as belonging to the “creative” category of meditation, and although it often serves as a foundation for other meditations to build on, it is also a complete and potent practice on its own.
This training is based on a profound principle found universally in the contemplative traditions, sometimes described as “taking refuge.” One of the most beautiful references for it is found in the Holy Koran, and is expressed in this exquisite translation by Sufi Sheik Lex Hixon:
With each breath may we take refuge in the Living Truth alone, released from coarse arrogance and subtle pride. May every thought and action be intended in the Supremely Holy Name, Allah, as a direct expression of boundless Divine Compassion and Most Tender Love. May the exaltation of endless praise arising spontaneously as the life of endless beings flow consciously toward the Single Source of Being, Source of the intricate evolution of endless worlds. May we be guided through every experience along the Direct Path of Love that leads from the Human Heart into the Most Sublime Source of Love.
A survey of the world's spiritual traditions reveals a common grounding in a trinity of refuges that support meditation practice:
• First, we take refuge in the living examples of great teachers who have kept the tradition alive and guided others in its ways.
• Second, we take refuge in the inspiring body of spiritual teachings that offer practical principles, techniques, and advice on how to live a truly righteous and balanced life.
• Third, we take refuge in fellowship with the spiritual community of kindred souls who walk the path with us, and who are a source of companionship and support along the way.
Each of these factors provides the nourishment and support essential to meditation practice. Bombarded by the intensity and complexity of our life, it is easy to feel overwhelmed: “How can I possibly manage this situation?” We all need help, guidance, and inspiration to find our way and to stay the course at times