Hello,
And welcome to Methods,
An exploration in guided prayer and meditation.
This is a meditation from our third season,
Vision.
This method is one that is personal to me,
As it was my primary form of practice for some time.
I found an incredible amount of stillness through this practice,
And the insight it gave has transformed my ongoing practice to this day.
I wanted to offer this particular method during the season of Vision,
Because although it is primarily in structure based around the centering prayer method,
As popularized by Thomas Keening and Basil Pennington,
It has a visual component in place of the typical sacred word.
In spirit,
It's similar to the receptive quality of prayer outlined in Cynthia Borger's description of centering prayer.
There's not so much a devotional quality of consenting to the action and presence of God within,
But rather a continual release from thoughts,
Feelings,
And emotions to rest in our pure and inmost being.
The idea behind it is not too dissimilar from the structure found in the 14th century spiritual classic The Cloud of Unknowing,
But conceptually reversed.
In The Cloud of Unknowing,
The anonymous author tells the reader to continually place a cloud of forgetting between yourself and the creatures or forms of the world,
And a cloud of unknowing between you and God.
In short,
They're saying,
Let go of all the concepts that tie you to form,
And let go of the concepts that you think characterizes emptiness,
So that all is left is a naked intent toward the real.
In this method,
We use the image of a body of water,
With its restless wind and waves at the surface,
Representing thoughts,
Feelings,
And emotions,
And we continually sink down beneath them.
As a body of water is tumultuous at the surface,
Often it is supremely still at the bottom.
To get an idea of the type of visual image I'm referring to,
Take a look at the episode cover for this meditation,
Which is an original piece of artwork done by a good friend,
Mike Reynolds.
The method goes like this.
Find a quiet place to sit or lie down,
According to your comfort.
Close your eyes and inhale deeply through your nose,
And out through your mouth.
Do this two more times,
Releasing tension in the body with every exhale.
Now visualize yourself floating effortlessly on your back,
In the middle of the ocean.
As far as you can see,
There's no land,
No animals,
No people.
With your head and neck relaxed,
You're looking up at the blue sky,
And it's completely clear.
Stand here for a little while.
Now a chance.
As you settle in,
You may notice your typical stream of thoughts,
Feelings,
Or emotions like waves lapping up against your side as you float on the surface.
They may try to get you to pay attention to them by splashing up over top of you.
This is completely normal.
That's what the surface of the ocean does.
Just like thoughts are simply what your mind does.
It wouldn't make sense to try and stop your thoughts.
Just like it wouldn't make any sense to try and stop the waves of the ocean.
But there is a deeper,
Softer,
More subtle,
Darker,
And still part of the ocean that you can access that lies beneath the surface at all times.
The next time a thought arises,
Consciously allow yourself to stop floating and gently sink down beneath the waves of the thought.
You can hear the splashing of the water and the howl of the wind.
And then when you submerge,
It all gets sort of muffled.
Don't try and hold your breath when you go under.
Just imagine that you can breathe normally beneath the water.
Whenever you feel another thought come into your awareness,
Simply use that interior image of sinking down deeper in the water.
Further down still.
The sound of the wind and the waves getting softer and softer.
More muffled.
The sound of your thoughts getting softer and softer.
The light from the surface getting farther and farther away.
The darkness surrounding it until it's just a small point in your periphery.
More small and dim.
Keep going.
You don't have to force the sinking down,
It's just a gentle drifting to the bottom.
Every part of you is supported by the water,
So there's no need for any tension,
Whether that's in your body or your mind.
If you do sense tension,
Let it go and float down past that as well.
Now you've drifted deep enough to where there's no longer any light,
It's complete darkness.
There's no sound,
Complete silence.
There's no movement,
Complete stillness.
You're enveloped by darkness,
Silence,
And stillness.
You feel your back gently settle on the ocean floor as you come to rest.
This floor is the very ground of your being,
And here you are completely safe.
Rest here in darkness,
In silence,
In stillness.
Rest here in darkness,
In silence,
In stillness.
Rest here in darkness,
In silence,
In stillness.
Rest here in darkness,
In silence,
In stillness.
Rest here in darkness,
In silence,
In stillness.
Rest here in darkness,
In silence,
In stillness.
Rest here in darkness,
In silence,
In stillness.
Rest here in darkness,
In silence,
In stillness.
Rest here in darkness,
In silence,
In stillness.
Rest here in darkness,
In silence,
In stillness.
Rest here in darkness,
In silence,
In stillness.
Rest here in darkness,
In silence,
In stillness.
Rest here in darkness,
In silence,
In stillness.
Rest here in darkness,
In silence,
In stillness.
Rest here in darkness,
In silence,
In stillness.
Rest here in darkness,
In silence,
In stillness.
Take a few deep breaths and start to bring your awareness back into the room.
As you come up and out of the stillness and silence,
Keep those qualities with you throughout your day.
Knowing that in your deepest self,
You are that.
