This is the second of three themed meditations from my book Essentials for Living in a Troubled World.
Each begins with some words on the theme,
For contemplation,
And then I give the narration for the sitting,
Which brings together in a synthesis the theme,
Our body,
And our mind.
To let in the world.
One of the ways in which we block ourselves just when we're in need of some relief from our stress,
Or from getting ourselves wound up about something that isn't working,
Or maybe from simply having a down on ourselves because we don't seem to get anything right and we feel a failure.
One of the ways in which we block ourselves is to shut ourselves off from the world.
We usually don't notice we're doing it.
It's not that we're deliberately setting up barriers,
But a barrier is there nonetheless.
What has happened is that we have turned in on ourselves.
Our mind has become completely absorbed with what is going on inside.
We have been taken over,
If you like,
By our own introspection and confined in a tunnel,
Which nothing from the outside world can penetrate,
And which is sometimes so long that we can't even see the light at the end.
Sometimes we might get a glimpse of what is happening,
Like when we are angry and we can hear ourselves saying inside,
I'm really angry about that and I'm going to stay angry.
I'm not going to let it go.
I'm not going to budge.
At other times it might feel like we're simply trapped,
Because the tension we feel from everything that is hemming us in is like a wire mesh too tight for us to break through.
It is probably true that at this point it isn't possible to solve everything that is going wrong.
It is also true that to try to use meditation to find specific solutions is not a good practice.
What these sort of situations call for,
And what all meditation has the potential to provide,
Is a freeing up,
A widening of our field of vision,
An opening up to the world around us,
Those aspects of living which stress and distress close off.
So this meditation is about reversing that process of closing off.
Prepare for it by taking a few moments after you are sitting comfortably,
But before you start your initial breathing,
To bring into your mind your main concern at the moment.
Not the whole of it or a lot of detail about it,
But simply a headline,
Such as you might see in a newspaper if it was someone else's story.
Hold it in your thoughts for a few moments,
Without actually thinking about what's involved with it.
Now bring to mind anything that occurs to you which isn't this,
As if you had turned the page in the newspaper and here was a completely different story.
Look at this for a few moments,
And then let both go,
As if you put the paper down in your mind.
Ensure that you are sitting comfortably.
Check and physically loosen the muscles which you find are most apt to tense up for you.
Take three long breaths,
As slowly and steadily as is comfortable,
Ensuring that the in-breaths and the out-breaths are the same length and at the same rate.
Let your breathing subside to a rate which is comfortable for you,
And when you reach this,
Notice that your breath is like an invisible movement on which your attention is resting.
Hold your attention more and more on the movement itself and the sensation it creates in your body.
Notice how your body draws in and gives back out,
And be aware of the turning points as the one becomes the other.
You are drawing in from around you the air that gives you life,
And giving back out the breath of your being.
The turning point as in becomes out,
Is like a door swinging one way and the other,
Marking the passage,
Nowhere being fixed,
Never still.
Let your attention settle on the flow of drawing in and giving back,
Bringing the creation around you into your being and giving yourself back out into the world.
Drawing in and giving back,
Drawing in and giving back,
Drawing in and giving back.
So allow yourself a sense of feeling part of everything created.
When you are ready to end your sitting,
Gradually lengthen your breathing until you finally take three long breaths to bring yourself back into the world around you.
