Healing Ointment Meditation

A soothing and healing meditation used by Master Hakuin to cure himself of severe Zen sickness. The 25 minute practice, called Nanso No Ho, has it's roots in ancient Chinese Daoist Daoyin and was passed on to Hakuin by a mountain hermit in the 1700s. Highly recommended for days when you're feeling too unwell for regular meditation and want to feel restored.

Transcript

Just take a moment to get yourselves completely comfortable with the position you're in.

We can practice sitting cross-legged or on a chair,

We can lie down.

The main thing is that we want to be aligned,

We want to feel grounded,

We want the mind to feel like it's as alert as possible without too much to worry about.

So perhaps starting just by checking in with our alignment if you'd like to,

You can sway the body left and right.

And if you sway to kind of like your maximum to start with and then reduce the distance each time,

Mindfully reduce the distance each time,

Less and less swaying,

You might notice when you hit that very comfortable balanced midpoint.

And then we can do the same forwards and backwards,

Perhaps starting with a wide rock forwards and backwards and then mindfully reducing that distance each time until we come to that balanced point and when you hit that balanced point just noticing how it feels.

Do you get any sense of how it makes the body and the mind feel when it starts to become aligned?

This is all a process of self-enquiry,

A process of insight.

If you'd like to you can have the eyes closed and just start to allow the senses to come inside the body,

Allowing things to start to settle.

You may find it helpful first of all to get a global sense of what's going on and let's see if we can tune into that sense of groundedness.

Bringing your awareness down to the soles of the feet or the underside of the legs if you're sitting cross-legged,

Noticing the connection with the floor,

Allowing the weight of the legs to be fully taken by the floor,

Noticing the sitting bones and noticing the sensations caused by the sitting bones resting on the chair or the cushion,

Then allowing the weight of the upper half of the body to flow through the sitting bones.

So this sense of grounding,

How does it feel for you to tune in to that?

Do you notice any change as you start to notice that sense of grounding?

We're giving in to gravity but at the same time we're also growing upwards,

A kind of sense of a rebound,

So grounding through the lower half of the body but the upper half of the body is allowed to grow free,

Open,

Long,

Spacious.

You might like to just allow the belly to be soft,

Perhaps allowing the chest to relax.

Letting go of the shoulders,

Allowing the weight of the arms to be taken by the hands resting in the lap,

Spine going free and long all the way out to the crown of the head,

Chin gently tucking in,

Tongue lightly touching the roof of the mouth,

Resting there.

Just take a moment to notice that posture now.

Grounded,

Balanced,

Upright and also perhaps free and open.

Within the spaciousness of the upper half of the body,

Just starting to notice how the breath can freely move in and out.

Nothing to try and control or hold on to or force the body more than able to just breathe by itself.

We're noticing,

Perhaps noticing the breath in the nostrils and how the breath makes that journey down through the chest and back out again.

Do you get a sense of the body moving with the breath?

Perhaps noticing that in the ribcage,

Perhaps noticing as far down as the belly.

Settling the awareness for a moment,

Lowest point you can detect breath movement,

Allowing everything else to arise and pass.

We're going to take the awareness now to the crown of the head,

Resting the awareness on the crown of the head.

We're going to use our intention to place on the crown of the head a ball of ointment,

A ball of ointment perhaps the size of a duck egg or a small ball.

And this ointment that we're going to place using the mind on top of the crown of the head,

It's very special in that it can travel over and also penetrate down through the body.

It's healing and soothing.

It can restore medicinal ointment placed on the crown of the head in a waxy ball,

Rest it there and just allowing the heat from the crown of the head to start to melt that ointment.

Allowing the ointment to melt over the crown of the head,

Over the forehead,

Following its journey,

Allowing it to soothe the forehead.

Ointment melting down over and around the eyes,

Releasing the eye muscles,

Healing,

Soothing ointment over the temples and into the temples,

The sides of the head,

Back of the head,

Following that melting ointment over the face,

Over the jaw.

That ointment releasing and relaxing the jaw,

Melting down over the throat,

Releasing the throat,

Down the sides of the head,

Sides of the neck,

Getting into the muscles at the sides of the neck,

Releasing the muscles,

Releasing there.

Ointment melting down the back of the neck,

Soothing,

Healing,

Restoring ointment,

The heat of the head,

Melting more of that ointment over the top of the head,

Melting down over the forehead,

Down over the face,

Following the journey,

Sides of the head,

Melting down over the back of the head,

Over the neck,

Melting down over and into the shoulders,

Relaxing,

Healing ointment,

Releasing into the shoulders and into the top of the chest,

Allowing more of that ointment to penetrate the top of the back,

Soothing and restoring,

Following its journey over the front of the torso.

Releasing all the muscles as it goes,

Sides of the torso,

More of this ointment pouring down over the top part of the back,

Getting into the joints and the muscles,

Releasing down through the mid part of the back,

And into the lower part of the back,

Allowing it to move and restore,

More of this ointment melting over the crown of the head,

Following the journey over the heads,

Front,

Sides,

Back and the head,

Melting down over the head,

Over the neck,

Melting down over the shoulders,

And starting to melt down into the upper half of the arms,

Releasing the muscles in the top parts of the arms,

Allowing that journey down through the elbows,

Into the forearms,

Restoring healing ointment,

Moving through the forearms,

Allowing it to move into the hands,

Releasing the muscles and the bones in the hands,

Down through the thumbs and all the fingers,

More of this ointment melting over the crown of the head,

Perhaps having a sense of this ointment now being able to penetrate through the skull,

Allowing this healing ointment to seep through the skull,

Seeping down through the brain,

Relaxing,

Restoring healing through the brain,

Down through the throat,

Allowing this ointment to penetrate down through the core of the torso,

See if you can follow that journey through all the organs of the torso,

Through the lungs,

The heart,

And down into the lower parts of the organs,

The liver,

The kidneys,

The spleen,

Down into the belly and the stomach,

Intestines,

Healing ointment moving through the core of the body,

Following that journey,

More of this ointment pouring down over the head,

Over and through the head,

Over and through the neck,

Shoulders,

Healing and restoring,

Over and through the torso,

Through the pelvis,

Allowing that healing soothing ointment to penetrate through the pelvis,

Through the hips,

The core of the pelvis,

The surface of the pelvis,

Down through the hip joints,

And through the upper half of the legs,

Through the thighs,

Over and through the thighs,

Healing,

Restoring ointment,

Moving through the knees,

Over and through the knees,

Over and through the lower parts of the legs,

Following its journey,

Healing,

Releasing,

Restoring,

Down over and through the feet,

The ankles,

The feet,

And the toes.

We're now going to imagine that the lower half of the body is like an empty vessel,

And more of this ointment is going to pour down over the top of the head,

Through the head,

Through the neck,

The throat,

Allowing it to travel through the torso,

Through the pelvis,

Down through the legs,

Allowing it to start to fill from the toes upwards,

Filling into the toes,

This healing soothing ointment filling,

Filling the toes,

Up through the feet,

The ankles,

Perhaps getting a sense of how this ointment can feel warming as it fills into the lower parts of the legs,

Following it as it fills up through the knees,

Filling into the thighs,

Filling up through the pelvis,

Filling into the belly,

Filling all the way up to the level of the navel,

And noticing that sense of warm ointment filling the lower half of the body,

Feet,

Legs,

Pelvis,

Up to the belly,

Soothing,

Healing,

Restoring ointment filling the lower half of the body,

And perhaps getting a sense of how the upper half of the body can feel open and free,

Soothed and restored,

And the lower half of the body can feel grounded,

Connected,

Filled with this ointment,

And just taking a moment to perhaps tune into and perhaps even enjoy those two different sets of sensations,

Grounded lower half,

Open free,

Perhaps empty upper half,

Just spending some time enjoying those experiences,

And as we do that just allowing everything else to arise and pass,

And really getting familiar and comfortable with that sense of a grounded lower half,

Open upper half,

Starting to notice once again how the breath can move easily in and out of the body,

Noticing the sensations of breath deep in the body,

And starting to allow the awareness to rise towards the surface of the body,

Allowing the senses to start to open back out again,

When we come to the surface of the body,

Noticing perhaps sensations of warmth or coolness in the room,

Perhaps light and shadow,

Bring the awareness to the toes,

To the fingers,

And starting to bring a bit of movement into those areas,

Starting slowly,

Small movements,

And then when you start to exaggerate those movements,

When you start to wake up the body in a more exaggerated way,

See if you can do that mindfully,

What does it feel like to mindfully wake the body up,

Be aware of the movements that you're making,

Take your time over them,

Seeing if we can bring that sense of our meditation practice out from our inner and connect it with the outer,

Whenever you're ready to do so,

If you've got your eyes closed,

You can open them now,

Your meditation practice is complete,

Reviews

Just coming out of a bad flu and sinus infection. Feeling the healing ointment going through my sinuses and ears. After a few days of short meditations because I felt so bad, this was just right. Thank you!