Our Meditation Practice is the antidote to life on automatic pilot. Meditation is an attitude of conscious awareness of our experience in which we take responsibility for our own child within. The starting point for developing meditation is to consciously become aware of the sensations of the body; the aspect of our experience that it’s easiest to become aware of. Of course what happens is that the mind starts to wander. At this point we’ve lost our meditation, and are back on automatic pilot. Becoming distracted is inevitable and nothing to be concerned about. What we do when we realize that we’ve been distracted is to step back into our present moment experience by becoming aware of the body once again. When we notice that the mind is indulging in regret, frustration, or anger about having been distracted, we simply note that these things are happening and return to the body. Over time we start to notice that the mind is calming down, that the body is relaxing, and that we’re feeling more content.
This practice is our coming home and creates a foundation for every other meditation practice that follows. I’d suggest coming back to this one over and over.
Keep bringing our awareness to the body as we go about everyday activities. We may find it useful to keep our awareness focused in the middle, which is a point two finger-widths below the navel and the same distance into the body. The is the physical centre of the body, and keeping our awareness focused on that point helps to centre and ground the mind.
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