A spiritual explorer's notes on the "settle, sense, dive, let-go" meditation

Find the technique that works best for your inner healing ...

Is one meditation technique better than another? To ask such a question shows you have missed the message ....

Make the cultivation of a peaceful spirit of exploration your prime concern - then technique becomes the servant of healing.

If instead you make the technique your prime concern, then you will become the servant of the technique, and you will be in danger of becoming the slave of the teacher of the technique - whether it's the guru, the new age business man, some religious leader, or whatever.

With patience and with a spirit of independent exploration, you will naturally find the methods that bring a healing calmness to you.


For first timers - a preliminary - It is generally a good idea to start meditation while having a quiet and relaxing weekend or vacation - having given yourself a chance to shrug off some of the irritations of daily life.

• For the first few days  of meditation practice try the following:
  
  
  • Quietly say to yourself that you need to approach meditation gently and slowly. 
  • Tell yourself to let go of expectations, anticipations about where this process will lead. 
  • Remind yourself of the 4 phases. As you begin to settle down, whisper to yourself the process:-
  • "I will Settle, Sense, Dive and Let Go"
  • "I will start by settling down"
  • "Once I have Settled down I will begin to Sense my inner state"
  • "During Sensing, I will give one or more sensing methods a chance to deepen my calmness"
  • "When I feel that I am getting calmer, I will gently Dive towards even deeper calmness"
  • "If distraction, agitation, arousal, anxieties or worries hinder my dive towards calmness, I will gently return to an earlier step -  and I will feel that this is part of the healing"
  • "As calmness deepens even more, I will simply let go my healing method and settle into even deeper calmness"
  • "I will put aside all my concerns, pressures, thoughts of this world, and feelings for now - when I am done, I will be able to manage them with greater wisdom and calmness"
  • For beginners, it may be best to practice this as soon as you wake up, on a day where you do not have any commitments, when you can relax and have no pressures and distractions

• Comments on the first step - settling down - Sit comfortably. Give yourself a minute or two to get comfortable. 
• If you feel intrusions from worries, pressures, frustrations - tell them to go away for a few moments - reassure them that they will be attended to later on - with greater wisdom and calmness. But right now, you need to close your "inner door" to the world of panic and pressure. 
• Here are some hints to help you settle down.
• Close your eyes slowly to a count of 10.  A count of 3 is also OK. A count of 30 is OK. The actual count you use should feel comfortable to you. Just close your eyes while counting. Slowly.
• If at any time you feel irritable or fixated on a sensation, feeling or thought, then remind yourself to be patient and slowly open the eyes, look around, and then close your eyes again while counting. Repeat this until settled. 
• If you cannot settle down, start counting during the breaths. While you inhale, count 1-2-3. While you exhale, count 1-2-3. Gently adjust your breathing so that it slows down as you extend the count over a period of about a minute to 1-2-3-4-5-6 for the in-breath and 1-2-3-4-5-6 for the out-breath. 
• After 1 to 5 minutes, if you haven't settled down, you should probably consider giving this up for today - you need to attend to the sources of your worries. Tell yourself this is OK, gently open your eyes and take care of your worries.

• Once you have settled down, and are gently moving into the sensing phase .... it may help to tell yourself to gently put some time between your thoughts - slow down your thoughts ---
  

• it may help to repeat the following phrase a few times slowly and quietly in your mind --- "I think - I pause - I slow down - I let go".

• Comments on Sensing- 
• gently turn your attention towards your inner being - notice your thoughts, emotions, bodily sensations. When your attention is lost, tell yourself to quietly and  gently return your attention to your inner being. Don't feel you have to force yourself to be attentive. Don't feel that it's a failure if you keep loosing attention. Reassure yourself that you are doing OK.
• When you look within, remind yourself to be honest with yourself - to see your inner state as it is - turning your attention inwards - being aware and accepting of any stresses that you encounter - without judgment, rationalization, avoidance, escapism, expectation or pressure. This can be difficult when you feel "pumped up' by the constant pressures of modern living. 
• Here are some attention training methods that will help you learn to sense .... try each one and learn to sense when it makes you feel calmer. 
• To begin with, start with body scanning. 
• If body scanning is uncomfortable to you or does not move you  to a calmer state, try breath watching, and so on. Eventually you will learn which method suits your moment. With time, you will discover your own methods during your spiritual and inner explorations.
• Body scanning - move your attention up and down your body - look for centers of tightness, tensed muscles - just say relax - and let go 
• start with your toes, feet, ankles, lower legs, knees, upper legs, waist, stomach, back muscles, chest, neck, up to your face, back of your head, then back down to your toes
• start with a slow scan, spanning several breaths
• with practice you will be able  to meaningfully scan your body within one or two slow breaths
• Breath watching - without trying to change the speed, rhythm, or depth of your breathing - turn your attention to the breath - direct your thoughts to ask these questions quietly and gently - pause your thoughts and watch your breathing for a few breaths between each question -
• is my breathing stressed?
• is my breathing fast or slow? 
• is my breathing deep or shallow? 
• does my breathing have a rhythm?
• what is the rhythm of my breathing - let me count the in and out breaths
• is my breathing changing?
• Thought, emotion, pressure and habit scanning - 
• without trying to change or judge - start to sense your thoughts, feelings, pressures and inner habits
• mentally ask some of the questions shown below - asking yourself the question without expectation of an answer and with some calmness will awaken your inner senses
• pick the questions that you feel have some value
• silently ask the question and then silently ask yourself to feel the idea of the question
• watch the response of your thoughts and feelings to the question without reaching for an answer
• let go of the question and follow your inner sense
• silently witness the stirrings of your inner being
• can I sense the moment a thought or feeling arises?
• can I sense earlier into the origin of that thought or feeling?
• can I sense the feelings that lead up to a thought?
• can I sense my inner activities?
• can I sense a habitual mood, feeling or thought?
• can I sense any clinging to a particular state of mind?
• do I feel drawn to a particular feeling?
• do I feel pressure to fixate on some inner state?
• how does my sense of inner activity change as I pay more attention to it?
• are my thoughts pressured?
• are my feelings agitated? 
• do my thoughts rush from one to another? 
• is there dullness or clarity of awareness of my inner being? 
• are my thoughts stuck on a particular issue? 
• do I sense an inner pressure?
• what is the intensity of that pressure? 
• how does it affect your mood? 
• how does it make you feel? 
• does this pressure leave me feeling empty or full of expectation?
• Sensing the present - can you sense the wholeness of this moment? can you settle into the sense of what is?
• Looking for a larger presence - be open to a glimpse of something beyond body and mind - quietly and patiently watch for a hint of this presence - as if sitting quietly in a forest, waiting for a creature to appear

• Diving  - dive gently and inwardly towards calmness - gently nudge yourself towards a calmer state -
• slightly intensifying and then gently letting go of any tensions you find in your body - tense the muscles slightly in that area of tension, and then stop - watching the way that the muscles relax - repeat this a few times
• gently deepening and slowing the breath, counting the breath, controlling the rhythms of the breath, making them slower - slowing down the count or making the count longer, or both
• thinking of a sound or word, maybe a gentle form of repetition, watching the impressions left by the thought - as if watching the ripples created when a tiny pebble drops on calm water 
• thinking of an image 
• observing, accepting and letting go of each thought, feeling or sensation as they arise

• Letting go- after gently diving for a while, make a gentle effort to simply let go. 
• Stop paying attention to the diving technique. 
• Let your mind wander. Your mind will often wander of it's own accord - if so, then acknowledge the "wandering" and tell yourself to "wander" anyway. 
• If your mind wanders towards calmness, let it be. Just tell yourself to let it be, to let go, to drift. 
• If your mind becomes very agitated, return to Sensing. 
• Should the agitation remain at high intensity, open and close the eyes as described in the earlier step of Settling. Return to Settling.
• Return to Diving if the agitation is small. 
• Sometimes a thought or feeling will take hold of you for a few minutes. During this time you may loose attentiveness, becoming absorbed in the thought or feeling, carried by the pressures that gave rise to the thought or feeling. When you become aware that these distractions have taken hold of you  - learn to let go of the patterns of thought/emotion that energize those distractions. These distractions make take the form of a thought, emotion, sensation or sleepiness.
• even as calmness settles in, learn to let go of this calmness
• after some time, remind yourself to gently and slowly return to the Sensing process
• if you feel troubled or stuck then:-
• slowly open your eyes
• look around
• then slowly close your eyes before returning to Sensing - or -
• maybe try opening and closing the eyes a few times - or -
• maybe try taking one to three slow gentle deep breaths while your eyes are open
• When a distraction occurs (either within your mind or in your environment) acknowledge the distraction:-
• think about  "getting into the feel of the distraction" or "accepting the distraction" 
• and then let go - 
• simply say to yourself "I accept this ..." and then "I let this ... go", then watch what happens
• then repeat until some settling occurs
• if you catch yourself falling asleep and if you have the time then you should consider taking a nap - if you don't have time for a nap, take a few gentle deep breaths while slowly opening and closing the eyes a few times - and then slowly get up 
• if you find yourself lost in a long stream of thought or feeling - open and close the eyes slowly a few times before returning to Sensing
• if you find it very difficult to settle down, you should consider giving up for now

Timing the 4 phases

You could try two approaches. One is the "minutes timing". The other is the "breaths timing".

With "minutes timing" - give yourself 1-4 minutes per stage (settling, sensing, diving, letting go).

In breathing timing, try starting with short cycles.

• Settle for 3 to 10 breaths
• Sense for 3 to 10 breaths. 
• Dive for 3 to 10 breaths. 
• Let go for a few breaths. 
• Then return to Sensing. 

When the time feels right, ask yourself if you feel  a change towards a calmer state. You judge for yourself.

If there is little or no movement towards calmness, stay with the shorter cycles.

In breath-timing, as you feel more calm, switch over to "minute-timing" - extend the cycle time to a few minutes at a time.

Initially aim for roughly 1 to 4 minutes. Eventually go for several minutes. If time permits, after a few weeks of practice, you might occasionally try up to an hour.

Remember - you need to explore ways of assessing your progress for yourself.

What to do in the calm state - learning to explore beyond the boundaries of ego

Even the deepest level of restful awareness is not the goal. The goal is healing. Healing the scars of chronic self-sustaining stress, the pressures of the hindrances, the powerful push and pull of grasping and aversion.

As you begin to heal you will discover new ways of inner and spiritual exploration. Occasionally you will break through into the spiritual energies that are part of the cosmic interconnectedness, the spiritual unity. This can be a somewhat surprising experience. If you have this experience and become disoriented, keep your cool, remember compassion, gentleness, kindness, and put fear aside.

These breakthroughs will become a significant part of your spiritual explorations.

When you have entered a calm state, you should give yourself a gentle push towards exploring the following:-

• Probing, sensing, exploring the boundaries of the ego
• Learning to see your conditioned nature
• Learning to sense your inner animal, your spacious mind, and your conditioned self
• Exploring the connection between inner senses, consciousness, attentiveness
• Exercise your creative imagination
• Develop your visualization skills
• Explore how your conditioning restrains your imagination and creativity
• By playing with your imagination and creativity, nurture new awareness and inner senses
• Feel deep within your inner being - seeking the almost imperceptible flow of spiritual energies
• Listen for the gentle silent whisperings of wisdom from the spirit
• Deepening the process of letting go
• Contemplate, awaken, nurture and encourage the healing feelings:-
• compassion
• forgiveness
• patience
• generosity
• gentleness
• kindness
• Inspire the higher mind:-
• remind yourself to develop analytical skills
• remind yourself of the incompleteness and inadequacy of knowledge and belief
• nurture curiosity, the desire to explore
• encourage the urge to study and research
• explore how to question beliefs and previously unquestioned assumptions/ideas/knowledge
• Nurture awareness of spiritual presence
• Projecting healing forces towards others, the world, the universe

By engaging in these types of activity while in the calm state you are training your brain. This type of training brings peaceful cooperation between your inner animal and your spacious mind. You begin discovering how to sense the spiritual web that connects all things. You are reprogramming your inner being - bringing an end to the self-sustaining stress that comes from attachment and aversion to ideas, culture, thoughts, beliefs, emotions.

What to do when there is little or no movement towards calming

Sometimes you will simply be unable to settle down.

You should do the following things if you are having trouble settling down. You should occasionally try them even if you are having no problems moving towards calm, because they may offer you some insight into how to enhance the process - especially when you start this practice for the first time. You should also explore other ways of healing yourself.

• Use special sounds - using your MP3 player, iPod, or CD player - an example of these sounds can be found here >>>  
• Use prayer or suggestion 
• Use vocalized sounds - chants -
• Use stretching exercises 
• Physical exercise
• Explore other methods - such as -
• acupressure - stress/pain/discomfort reduction and calming 
• emotional freedom technique - tapping and releasing 
• Biofeedback 
• Sedona method - releasing, letting go 
• Consider changing your diet and doing more aerobic exercise -
• eliminating sugar
• matching carbohydrate intake to your metabolic needs
• get good quality protein and eat vegetables high in fiber
• try calming herbal teas
• explore the plant world 
• eat more green plants
• high quality proteins such as flax, soy or hemp seed protein
• low glycemic foods
• if you want high sugar foods, eat them a tiny bite at a time through the day, to avoid elevating blood sugar levels
• if you haven't exercised for a long time - consider getting a trainer, or consider a plan of measured exercise (for example, keep track of heart rate)

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