Approaching meditation practice: 

Attitude is everything.  While there are many meditative strategies, what makes the difference in terms of spiritual awakening is your quality of earnestness, or sincerity.  Rather than adding another “should” to your list, choose to practice because you care about connecting with your innate capacity for love, clarity and inner peace.  Let this sincerity be the atmosphere that nurtures whatever form your practice takes.

A primary aspect of attitude is unconditional friendliness toward the whole meditative process. When we are friendly towards another person, there is a quality of acceptance. Yet we often enter meditation with some idea of the kind of inner experience we should be having and judgment about not “doing it right.”  Truly- there is no “right” meditation and striving to get it right reinforces the sense of an imperfect, striving self.  Rather, give permission for the meditation experience to be whatever it is.  Trust that if you are sincere in your intention toward being awake and openhearted, that in time your practice will carry you home to a sense of wholeness and freedom.

Friendliness also includes an interest in what arises- be it pleasant sensations or fear, peacefulness or confusion. And the heart expression of friendliness is kindness  — regarding the life within and around us with care.

Creating a container for practice:  

It helps to have a regular time and space for cultivating a meditation practice.

Setting a time - Morning is often preferred because the mind may be calmer than it is later in the day.  However, the best time is the time that you can realistically commit to on a regular basis.  Some people choose to do two or more short sits, perhaps one at the beginning and one at the end of the day.
Deciding in advance the duration of your sit will help support your practice. For many, the chosen time is between 15-45 minutes. If you sit each day, you may experience noticeable benefits (e.g., less reactivity, more calm) and be able to increase your sitting time.

Finding a space -  If possible, dedicate a space exclusively to your daily sitting.  Choose a relatively protected and quiet space where you can leave your cushion (or chair) so that it is always there to return to.  You may want to create an altar with a candle, inspiring photos, statues, flowers, stones, shells and/or whatever arouses a sense of beauty, wonder and the sacred.  These are not necessary, but are beneficial if they help create a mood and remind you of what you love.

Set your intention: 

There is a Zen teaching that says “The most important thing is remembering the most important thing.”  It is helpful to recall at the start of each sitting what matters to you, what draws you to meditate.  Take a few moments to connect in a sincere way with your heart’s aspiration.  You might sense this as a prayer that in some way dedicates your practice to your own spiritual freedom, and that of all beings. 

Set your posture: 

Alertness is one of the two essential ingredients in every meditation.  Sit on a chair, cushion, or kneeling bench as upright, tall and balanced as possible.  A sense of openness and receptivity is the second essential ingredient in every meditation, and it is supported by intentionally relaxing obvious and habitual areas of tension. Around an erect posture, let the rest of your skeleton and muscles hang freely.  Let the hands rest comfortably on your knees or lap. Let the eyes close, or if you prefer, leave the eyes open, the gaze soft and receptive.

Please don’t skip the step of relaxing/letting go! You might take several full deep breaths, and with each exhale, consciously let go, relaxing the face, shoulders, hands, and stomach area.  Or, you may want to begin with a body scan: start at the scalp and move your attention slowly downward, methodically relaxing and softening each part of the body. Consciously releasing body tension will help you open to whatever arises during your meditation.

The Basic Practice:

Natural Presence 

Presence has two interdependent qualities of recognizing, or noticing what is happening, and allowing whatever is experienced without any judgment, resistance or grasping. Presence is our deepest nature, and the essence of meditation is to realize and inhabit this whole and lucid awareness.
We practice meditation by receiving all the domains of experience with a mindful, open attention.  These domains include breath and sensations; feelings (pleasant, unpleasant and neutral); sense perceptions, thoughts and emotions; and awareness itself.

In the essential practice of meditation there is no attempt to manipulate or control experience.  Natural Presence simply recognizes what is arising (thoughts, feelings, sounds, emotions) and allows life to unfold, just as it is. As long as there is a sense of a self making an effort and doing a practice, there is identification with a separate and limited self.  The open receptivity of Natural Presence dissolves this sense of a self “doing” the meditation.

Knowing the difference between Natural Presence and “skillful means” or supports for practice:

Because our minds are often so busy and reactive, it is helpful to develop skillful means that quiet the mind and allow us to come home to the fullness of Natural Presence. These supports for practice help us to notice and relax thoughts and physical tension. They involve a wise effort that un-does our efforting!
You might consider yourself as a contemplative artist, with a palette of colors (supportive strategies) with which to work in creating the inner mood that is most conducive for the clarity and openness of presence.  These colors can be applied with a light touch.  Experiment and see what works best for you, and don’t confuse these methods (such as following the breath) with the radical and liberating presence that frees and awakens our spirit. Regardless of what skillful means you employ, create some time during each sitting when you let go of all “doings” and simply rest in Natural Presence.  Discover what happens when there is no controlling or efforting at all, when you simply let life be just as it is.  Discover who you are, when there is no managing of the meditation.

Skillful Means: Our supports for practice

Presence is supported by a calm and collected mind, an embodied presence (senses awake), inquiry and an open heart.  The following strategies cultivate these capacities:

Establish an embodied presence—senses awake!

You might take a few minutes at the beginning of the sitting (or anytime during the sitting or day) to intentionally awaken all the senses.  Scan through the body with your attention, softening and becoming aware of sensations from the inside out.  Listen to sounds and also include the scent and the feel of the space around you in and outside of the room. While the eyes may be closed, still include the experience of light and dark, and imagine and sense the space around you.  Explore listening to and feeling the entire moment–to-moment experience, with your senses totally open.           

Choose a home base—a primary anchor or subject    of meditation. 

It is helpful to select a home base (or several anchors) that allow you to quiet and collect the mind, and to deepen embodied presence. Useful anchors are:

• The breath as it enters and leaves the nostrils.
• Other physical changes during breathing, e.g., the‑rise and fall of the chest.
• Other physical sensations as they arise, e.g. the  sensations in the hands, or through the whole body.
• Sounds as they are experienced within or around you.
• Listening to and feeling one’s entire experience, ­­­­­(i.e., receiving sounds and sensations in awareness).

Remindfulness—arriving Here again and again

Mindfulness is the awareness that emerges through paying attention on purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgmentally to the unfolding of experience moment to moment. We train in mindfulness by establishing an embodied presence and learning to see clearly and feel fully the changing flow of sensations, feelings (pleasantness and unpleasantness), emotions and sounds.

An important quality of mindfulness is remembering: Recalling our attention back to this sensory based presence when we have drifted and become lost in thought.  Through this "remindfulness" we awaken from the trance of thinking and reconnect with what is actually here. This important capacity is developed through the following steps:

• Set your intention to awaken from thoughts—mental commentary, memories, plans, evaluations, stories—and rest in non-conceptual presence.
• Gently bring attention to your primary anchor, letting it be in the foreground while still including in the background the whole domain of sensory experience.  For instance you might be resting in the inflow and outflow of the breath as your home base, and also be mindful of the sounds in the room, a feeling of sleepiness, an itch, heat.
• When you notice you have been lost in thought, pause and gently re-arrive in your anchor, mindful of the changing moment-to-moment experience of your senses.

It can be helpful to remember that getting distracted is totally natural- just as the body secretes enzymes, the mind generates thoughts!  No need to make thoughts the enemy; just realize that you have a capacity to awaken from the trance of thinking. When you recognize that you have been lost in thought, take your time as you open out of the thought and relax back into the actual experience of being Here.  You might listen to sounds, re-relax your shoulder, hands and belly, relax your heart. This will allow you to arrive again in mindful presence, senses wide open, letting your home base be in the foreground.  Notice the difference between any thought and the vividness of this Here-ness!

Practice metta to soften and open the heart.

Metta practice, also called lovingkindness meditation, cultivates both a loving heart and a collected, settled mind.  The practice uses specific phrases to send loving and kind wishes to yourself, loved ones, neutral persons, difficult people and to all beings everywhere, without exception. You might choose three or four of the below, or create whatever phrases resonate for you:

May I be filled with lovingkindness.
May I feel safe from harm.
May I accept myself just as I am.
May I be peaceful and at ease.
May I be happy.

Spend a few minutes or more offering the phrases to yourself, taking the time to imagine and directly feel the experience the phrases invoke.  Then do the same as you offer it to the others mentioned above. You can bring in the metta practice at the beginning, end or during any part of the meditation.  For some people, it can be beneficial to emphasize metta as a primary practice—especially when there has been trauma or great self-aversion.  This skillful means is a beautiful way to awaken the heart.

Developing concentration 

Bringing attention to a primary subject or anchor can lead to a concentrated focus that naturally calms and collects the mind. This concentration can be deepened by intentionally aiming and sustaining a focused attention with your chosen anchor.  When cultivating concentration, the anchor should be one that has a pleasant or at least neutral feeling tone.

Concentration supports mindfulness and requires a relaxed attention.  There is often a subtle (or overt) sense of making an effort to sustain concentration, of striving to control the mind and make something happen.  It is important to not become caught in a striving effort.  It is easy to be seduced into trying to achieve something, such as staying with the breath for much of the sitting, and then evaluating what is happening as a “good’ or “not good” meditation.   Mistaking a focus on the breath for meditation is like fixating on the quality of your hiking boots, and not really being awake of the natural world you are inhabiting!

Concentration helps quiet the mind and without some quieting, mindfulness is difficult to sustain.  It also can lead to states of rapture and deep peace. Yet without a mindful presence, concentration bears no fruit.  The key to concentration is remembering your intention towards presence, and then focusing on your chosen subject for meditation with a soft, clear and relaxed attention.

RAIN—healing emotional suffering

The mindful presence that helps release emotional suffering is summarized by the acronym RAIN. 

• R-Recognize - notice what is arising (fear, hurt, etc.)
• A-Allow -  agree to “be with it,” to “let it be.”
• I-Investigate - in a non-analytic way, get to know how the body, heart and mind experiences these energies.  You might inquire by asking yourself one or more of the following questions: “What is happening?”  “Where am I feeling this in my body?” “What wants attention?” “What wants acceptance?” The “I” is also Intimacy: experiencing difficult sensations and emotions with a direct, gentle, kind attention; and offering compassion to the place of vulnerability. 
• N -Non-identification, or not having your sense of Being defined by, possessed by or linked to any emotion. In other words, not taking it personally! The “N” is also Natural Presence, a homecoming to the loving awareness that is our essence.

Practice Self-Inquiry

Inquiry (questions like “What is happening?”) can bring attention in a direct way to the changing flow of experience and reveal the truth of impermanence and the empty (self-less) nature of sights, sounds, thoughts, emotions and feelings. Self- inquiry extends this process by turning awareness back on itself.  Classical questions include: “Who am I?” “What am I?” “Who or what is aware?” “Who or what is listening to sound” “Who or what is looking out through these eyes?” 

Self-Inquiry is best done when the mind is relatively quiet and senses awake. Ask a question and look back towards awareness, towards that which is aware. After asking, relax with an embodied presence, open, not in any way pursuing an answer with your intellect.  By enrolling the natural interest, energy and receptive attention of inquiry, the very nature of awareness is revealed.