600th Post--My Meditation Method

Dear Friends,


For my 600th post--imagine!--I will attempt to explain my meditation technique, one arrived at by long experience. Here it is:

1. Blankness (merging soundlessly with your immediate environment)

2. Recognition (opening your eyes to your environment and seeing it anew)

3. Acceptance (the accepting of all things, inhaling the known universe)

4. Thanksgiving (thanks should erupt for a world greater than our imaginings)

5. Intercession (thanksgiving gives rise to concerns for others, and sometimes concerns for ourselves. Here I concentrate in prayer towards action--action being the fulfillment of prayer)

6. Praise ("We praise thee for thy great glory." An overflow of praise for the Creator.)

The acronym is BRA-TIP. Or "nipple" for short.

"We milk the cow of the world and as we do
We whisper in her ear, 'You are not true.'" --Richard Wilbur

It is extremely important in the first three phases to try to avoid any verbal formulations at all, to simply merge, recognize and accept. This puts one in the proper frame of mind for the rest.

You can practice this anytime--if you're tired, embrace blankness and shut your eyes for a few--after adequate rest (if you don't fall asleep, which is OK) your mind opens to the world again and then appropriates it in acceptance--that one doesn't expect the world to be any other way than the way it is.

The first three steps, again, are crucial to the process. Unless we first get out of our heads we cannot concentrate properly on thanksgiving, intercession and praise.

If any of you try out this method, please get back to me. I don't know if it only works for me or has wider applications. In any case it might help make you more aware and at peace.


Thine at 2 Kilobunnies,

Craig Erick