Arrive. Settle. Let go.
There are many different types of meditation, but the essence of meditating to familiarize ourselves with our natural condition is to simply arrive, settle, and let go.
Arrive. To arrive is to take your seat, to be here, now. To arrive is to step out of the flow of your day and to find your posture on the ever-present ground of being. This could be your meditation cushion, a park bench, your seat before your presentation starts, or the very ground you stand on.
To arrive is to simply stake your claim to the present moment.
Settle. To settle is to get out all of the habitual movement and energy. To take a sip of water, shift your posture, notice where you are holding tightness, where the mind is preoccupied.
Settling involves movement, contrived activities, a certain amount of going through the motions. This could include prayers and aspirations, it could be reading something, engaging in breathwork or pranayama, whatever it is you need to do or want to do before immersing yourself in the natural state of open presence.
Think of settling as a support for letting go into the natural state. If you fail to settle, or skip settling, you will likely encounter an unsettled body, unsettled breath, and an unsettled mind as you rest in the open presence. That is totally okay, nothing wrong with being unsettled, but over time you will likely find that using skillful techniques to settle the mind allows clarity and open presence to be more fully evident.
Let go. Letting go is to simply rest. Let it be as it is. Rest in wordless, open presence. Notice when you are holding onto something- a thought, a feeling, a memory, and then simply let it go. Return again and again to resting in the naturally settled state, tuning into your true nature as ever-present open presence.
Action Steps:
- Arrive. Take your seat someplace quiet. It might be in your house, or outside somewhere. Acknowledge that you are arriving, recognize the presence and awareness of arriving.
- Settle. Notice where you are tight, is your mind racing? Shake out that tightness, stretch a little bit. Read a favorite verse, connect with the breath for a few minutes. Develop a settling ritual.
- Let go. Rest in your natural condition, ever-present open presence. Open your sense faculties. Listen, witness, breath naturally. Whatever you find yourself holding onto, let it go. Let whatever happens, happen. Let whatever is, be as it is.
