Dear Friends,
In the second recording from the retreat I’m using for inspiration this month, DaRa Williams guides a meditation (Guided Meditation on Anchors, 17 minutes), inviting “appreciation and gratitude for the time and the wisdom to spend, coming to know oneself. Coming to understand this nervous system, body, breath.”
Many of us are inspired to meditate to develop an embodied wisdom of how this being responds to whatever is arising, with the intention to respond in a kinder and more compassionate way.
Yet when we sit down, we find out first how this busy mind gets carried away with thoughts, emotions – proliferating into the past, future, and present.
So having a meditation anchor is useful to keep us more steady. In DaRa’s meditation, she suggests using the body or breath as an anchor, but you could also use sounds or phrases (like the lovingkindness phrases).
We set an intention to be steady with the anchor.
Something else arises – a thought, emotion, body sensation.
When we notice that we’re not with the anchor, we welcome the attention back with friendliness.
Then we start again.
A quote from St Francis de Sales:
If the heart wanders or is distracted, bring it back to the point quite gently… And even if you did nothing during the whole of your hour but bring your heart back…, though it went away every time you brought it back, your hour would be very well employed.
Stahl, Bob, and Elisha Goldstein. A Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Workbook. New Harbinger Publications, 2010, p. 43.
Eventually we will let go of the anchor, but for me, starting with that place of stability helps my busy mind settle.
What meditation anchors do you use? How do you respond when you notice the attention gets distracted?
Wishing you steadiness,
Andrea
Anchors for the thought boats of my mind. Hmmmmm.
Alas, I am not a very diligent post-modern monk when it comes to meditating. My mind is like an overloaded tumble dryer with the breaker about to fizzle on the circuit board.
What are my anchors?
I think visually. Lucid day dreams with my eyes closed. I can, with some endeavour, bring into my ken the profound stillness of perfect , anchoring memory .
I effortlessly remember and return to that mysterious moment up the river across Anglin Lake, on retreat. We stop our canoes and lounge in the late morning sun. What blows my mind is how the Devas in that glassy backwater seem to understand and completely quieten all sounds to silence. Even the knocking of the paddles on the gunnels and the soothing splash of water on the prows of our canoes cease. Every time I have been there i return to an abiding awareness. An immersion in complete stillness.
Sacred. A sacred space. A sacred stillness.
At first, I wish to believe I have discovered a stillness inside myself. Then a stillness in that particular time and space – a place of serenity. But no, the the awareness that shudders the very foundation of self – that luminous stillness is at the core of all being – of the Creation itself. It simply is = wtihin the depths of meditation and within the depths of who I truly am. It is where I belong & where I have always belonged.
That knowing is my anchor. It can never be taken from me ( or us)
Even when I momentarily forget all about it
Thank you Robbie – for me too, those moments at Anglin are sacred connections to that luminous stillness that you describe so beautifully. May that anchor continue to support us!