Supplemental Practices / Meditation
Supplemental Practice (Invoking a Divine Quality)
We not only want to be present, we want to be positively present; we want one or more of our divine qualities to be present, such as love, joy, aliveness, gratitude, peace, or wonder. We want to be high up on the vibrational scale. When we fully enter the state of meditation, we are going to be aware of all our divine qualities, so why not have them be present from the beginning? This invocation of one or more of our divine qualities will draw those same qualities to us in meditation. The primary qualities we want to invoke are love, joy, gratitude, and/or wonder (which are akin to excitement, enthusiasm, and thrill). Invoke whichever quality is most apparent and feels most accessible. You can invoke these qualities by getting in touch with them from a past experience. Recall a time in your life when you clearly experienced one of these qualities and re-enter that experience. Don’t just recall it, fully enter it, re-live it. Allow the aliveness, joy, or wonder to arise now as it did in the original experience. As you re-live an experience of wonder, for example, let go of the specifics of the experience (or anything that may have “caused” the experience) and hold onto the feeling of wonder itself. Be in a state of wonder. That is the invocation—your state of wonder. Let the subtle vibration of this state color, or add tone, to your presence.
One thing bear in mind about the divine qualities is that they are your qualities. You don’t need to attain these qualities; all of them are already present as aspects of your own being. All these qualities are you. Therefore, all these qualities are conjunct. This does not mean that they are equal or the same, it means that they always come together, they are always present together. You cannot have one without the other. So, when we powerfully invoke one, we attract them all. If we invoke wonder, i.e., if we are in a state of wonder, we are also in a state of aliveness, joy, abundance, and beauty.
Supplemental Practice (Body Awareness)
Another way to center your conscious awareness in relationship to the body (and get a sense of this conscious center as being distinct and separate from the body) is to imagine that you are a being of pure consciousness, and that you are occupying this body for the day. What does it feel like? What are the sensations of this body? In this practice your awareness would be divided: you would be aware of the body (that you are occupying) and also aware of the occupying consciousness.You can do this practice (as part of this phase of meditation) or while walking. If you do this practice while walking, it will allow you to move past body consciousness in meditation with less effort. If you are doing this practice while taking a walk, you would be aware of yourself as the occupying consciousness and also aware of the body (as something distinct from that knowing consciousness), and also aware of the sensations, sights, sound, etc. that the body, and consciousness, are perceiving.
Another method is to imagine that this body belongs to someone else, perhaps some spiritual master. Again, if you are not the body, if you, as conscious awareness, are occupying the body (and aware of the body) then you must be something other than the body. The point is to get clear on this sense, “I am not the body” or “I am other than the body” or “I am this conscious awareness which is operating through this body.” (In the next section, when dealing with the mind, you will get a clear sense that you are not the thoughts. Thus, as an extension of this practice, where you recognize yourself as being distinct from the body, and see the body as belonging to someone else, you can also view the arising thoughts as not your own, and as belonging to someone else. After you get a sense of the body-awareness as being distinct from the pure sense of awareness, gently let the body-awareness go and fully dwell in that conscious presence. Become that pure presence.
Supplemental Practice (Thought Awareness)
In this meditation method we are trying to get a clear sense of our conscious presence apart from any sense of the body or the mind. In Zen, this pure, ever-present consciousness is sometimes referred to as “the face you had before you were born.” It does not refer to an actual face, but to the consciousness of your soul, who you are, before you became this person.
One way to get in touch with this pure presence is to imagine, or be in a state, where you have no memory. Who are you without any memory or concept of yourself as this person? What remains when there are no thoughts to rely upon? What is there prior to thoughts and memory? This, then, would be a state of pure consciousness, unrelated to any specific quality. It would be a state of unknowing. If you hear the sound of a bird, you do not know what it is; you have no reference, or past experience, to know what it is. You just hear the pure sound of it. All you have is pure consciousness, which is unknowing of anything but itself—and that is who you are. We want to get a pure sense of our existence, as consciousness, without anything displacing it, or replacing it. We want to move away from our abidance in, and identification with, ourselves as this person, as this self-image, as this collection of memories and experiences bundled into a mental construct of self. That is the mental-me which we have lived through most of our lives. So, in meditation, we want to dis-identify with that me-bundle, that self-image, all that which relies upon our memory, and abide in, and experience ourselves, as that pure awareness, that consciousness, that presence.
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Supplemental Practice (Invoking a Divine Quality)
We not only want to be present, we want to be positively present; we want one or more of our divine qualities to be present, such as love, joy, aliveness, gratitude, peace, or wonder. We want to be high up on the vibrational scale. When we fully enter the state of meditation, we are going to be aware of all our divine qualities, so why not have them be present from the beginning? This invocation of one or more of our divine qualities will draw those same qualities to us in meditation. The primary qualities we want to invoke are love, joy, gratitude, and/or wonder (which are akin to excitement, enthusiasm, and thrill). Invoke whichever quality is most apparent and feels most accessible. You can invoke these qualities by getting in touch with them from a past experience. Recall a time in your life when you clearly experienced one of these qualities and re-enter that experience. Don’t just recall it, fully enter it, re-live it. Allow the aliveness, joy, or wonder to arise now as it did in the original experience. As you re-live an experience of wonder, for example, let go of the specifics of the experience (or anything that may have “caused” the experience) and hold onto the feeling of wonder itself. Be in a state of wonder. That is the invocation—your state of wonder. Let the subtle vibration of this state color, or add tone, to your presence.
One thing bear in mind about the divine qualities is that they are your qualities. You don’t need to attain these qualities; all of them are already present as aspects of your own being. All these qualities are you. Therefore, all these qualities are conjunct. This does not mean that they are equal or the same, it means that they always come together, they are always present together. You cannot have one without the other. So, when we powerfully invoke one, we attract them all. If we invoke wonder, i.e., if we are in a state of wonder, we are also in a state of aliveness, joy, abundance, and beauty.
Supplemental Practice (Body Awareness)
Another way to center your conscious awareness in relationship to the body (and get a sense of this conscious center as being distinct and separate from the body) is to imagine that you are a being of pure consciousness, and that you are occupying this body for the day. What does it feel like? What are the sensations of this body? In this practice your awareness would be divided: you would be aware of the body (that you are occupying) and also aware of the occupying consciousness.You can do this practice (as part of this phase of meditation) or while walking. If you do this practice while walking, it will allow you to move past body consciousness in meditation with less effort. If you are doing this practice while taking a walk, you would be aware of yourself as the occupying consciousness and also aware of the body (as something distinct from that knowing consciousness), and also aware of the sensations, sights, sound, etc. that the body, and consciousness, are perceiving.
Another method is to imagine that this body belongs to someone else, perhaps some spiritual master. Again, if you are not the body, if you, as conscious awareness, are occupying the body (and aware of the body) then you must be something other than the body. The point is to get clear on this sense, “I am not the body” or “I am other than the body” or “I am this conscious awareness which is operating through this body.” (In the next section, when dealing with the mind, you will get a clear sense that you are not the thoughts. Thus, as an extension of this practice, where you recognize yourself as being distinct from the body, and see the body as belonging to someone else, you can also view the arising thoughts as not your own, and as belonging to someone else. After you get a sense of the body-awareness as being distinct from the pure sense of awareness, gently let the body-awareness go and fully dwell in that conscious presence. Become that pure presence.
Supplemental Practice (Thought Awareness)
In this meditation method we are trying to get a clear sense of our conscious presence apart from any sense of the body or the mind. In Zen, this pure, ever-present consciousness is sometimes referred to as “the face you had before you were born.” It does not refer to an actual face, but to the consciousness of your soul, who you are, before you became this person.
One way to get in touch with this pure presence is to imagine, or be in a state, where you have no memory. Who are you without any memory or concept of yourself as this person? What remains when there are no thoughts to rely upon? What is there prior to thoughts and memory? This, then, would be a state of pure consciousness, unrelated to any specific quality. It would be a state of unknowing. If you hear the sound of a bird, you do not know what it is; you have no reference, or past experience, to know what it is. You just hear the pure sound of it. All you have is pure consciousness, which is unknowing of anything but itself—and that is who you are. We want to get a pure sense of our existence, as consciousness, without anything displacing it, or replacing it. We want to move away from our abidance in, and identification with, ourselves as this person, as this self-image, as this collection of memories and experiences bundled into a mental construct of self. That is the mental-me which we have lived through most of our lives. So, in meditation, we want to dis-identify with that me-bundle, that self-image, all that which relies upon our memory, and abide in, and experience ourselves, as that pure awareness, that consciousness, that presence.
<< Back to Meditation Instructions
