Subtle Sensing

Notes

  • Daily – If you have some time to spare and are in a quiet setting
  • The whole meditation need not last longer than fifteen minutes.
  • In all the periods specified in this exercise, do not go by the clock but by your feeling.
  • Take care to adopt such a position of the body that the body itself cannot (because of fatigue, for instance) be a cause of distraction.

Posture

  • Sit on a simple straight-backed chair in poised posture.
  • Your feet,
    • parallel
    • pointing directly ahead
    • hip- or shoulder-width apart
  • Your hands,
    • on your thighs
    • the right hand is laid over the left
    • ‘cup’ them limply in your lap
    • with thumbs touching
    • with your wrists at the tops of your thighs.
  • Keep your neck and head straight.
  • Pull the chin back slightly and downwards.
  • Keep the spine straight, keep the back relaxed.

Breathing

  • Breath softly through your belly.
  • Breath in through the nose- calm and strong.
  • Breath out through the nose- calm and strong.
  • There is no pause between the in-breathing and the out-breathing.
  • There is no pause between the out-breathing and the in-breathing.

Steps

  1. Place your awareness
    • on the head and the middle of the spine.
    • on the point lying between and a little behind the eyebrows, at the root of the nose, inside the forepart of the brain.
    • on a point inside the larynx.
    • on your two arms and hands.
    • on the whole surface of your body.
      That is, picture your bodily self with the utmost possible clarity.

  2. Notice an inner tranquillity in the body.
  3. Let this feeling stream from the heart
    • into the body
    • through your arms towards the hands
    • through your legs towards the feet
    • and, finally, the head.