Now that you know the preliminary steps to meditation, how do you find your Natural Presence? The basic practice of meditation sounds complicated. But if you are open and receptive to what it is, and the benefits that it will bring to you, you will certainly learn how to do it. In this part, I will impart to you how you can learn meditation and finally reveal your Natural Presence.
1. Understand the components of Natural Presence.
Natural Presence, in fact, consists of two interconnected qualities: one is recognizing what is happening around you, while the other is about taking whatever you are experiencing in without any resistance or judgment. Natural Presence is as much about having that distinct awareness of what’s around you as it is about allowing this awareness to inhabit your whole being.
In the process of recognition, you must allow yourself to receive all domains of human experience, including your feelings, breath and sensations, thoughts and emotions, and sense perceptions—as well as awareness in and of itself.
As you go along, do not try to control or resist these experiences. Rather, recognize them for what they are, and allow them to unfold before your eyes. When you are in touch with your Natural Presence, discover the infinite power of simply letting your mind be. You do not have to manage your emotions; just simply let yourself be in the Natural Presence, and discover what you can do when you let your mind free of inhibitions.
2. Embody the Natural Presence
Whenever you sit or enter a room for the first time, you will notice how it takes a while for you to get used to the new feeling. Why don’t you bring the Natural Presence when you do this? Take your time to intentionally awaken your senses, scan your body and be acutely aware of the different sensations throughout your body. Take in the sounds and the scents of the room. Listen to the environment and feel the space all around you. Even when your eyes are closed, allow yourself to be enveloped by the lightness and darkness of what’s around you.
3. Centralize your meditation around a primary anchor
This primary anchor will serve as your guide when meditating, a sort of homebase that will allow you to gather yourself together and quiet your mind. Some anchors that may prove to be helpful are your breath as it enters and leaves your body, the rise and fall of your chest, the different sensations in your body as you meditate, tor the sound around you.
Use these primary anchors to come back and bring a sense of “remindfulness”. It will allow you to bring yourself back to the moment, just when you think you’ve been drifting away and been lost in thought. Getting distracted is but a natural reaction of your body, but these primary anchors can help you arrive back at a mindful state of presence.
4. Practice metta that resonates with your heart.
Metta practice is a loving form of meditation, where you use specific phrases, messages of love, to send to your loved ones. You can choose from a variety of phrases, or pick three to four from the following:
– May I fill myself with love and kindness.
– May I continue to be safe from harm.
– May I accept myself for who I am.
– May I find inner peace and ease.
– May I find happiness.
Repeating these phrases to yourself will help awaken your heart and guide you into a deeper sense of self.
5. Release emotional suffering
Perhaps one of the greatest successes of meditation is that it allows you to heal emotional suffering. If your problems have become unbearable, you can turn to meditation to alleviation your suffering. It is best encapsulated in the acronym RAIN.
– Recognize. This means that you should acknowledge the presence of suffering, more than anything else.
– Allow. You should let it be, and let the feelings course through you.
– Investigate, Intimacy. Without controlling yourself, inquire as to why you are feeling this way. Where does it come from? What is happening? It can also be about intimacy, or offering compassion in place of suffering, gentleness in place of negativity.
– Non-identification. In the end it’s really about refusing to define yourself with this emotional suffering, and not letting it overtake your entire presence.
