Paperback - 184 pages (July 1996) Windhorse Publications; ISBN: 0904766810 Amazon UK: £8.99 Amazon.com: $12.56 Barnes & Noble: $16.95 Amazon UK Amazon.com Barnes & Noble

Once you have a comfortable position, close your eyes and allow your face to relax. Take a couple of deeper breaths. As you breathe in, feel your chest gently open. No need to puff it out - you're not on parade. Just allow it gently to open up a little. Then as you let out the breath, relax the shoulders, easing them down and back.

See if you can take your awareness down into the parts of your body in contact with the cushion or the chair. Have a sense of contact with the ground. If you are sitting on a chair, check that your feet are planted flat on the floor. Feel the weight of your body bearing down on the ground, feel the solidity of the body.
Now become aware of the soles of your feet, allowing them to soften and relax. Try imagining that you are drawing up awareness from the ground, up into your body. Slowly allow this awareness to move up through your feet into your ankles and lower legs. You might like to imagine this awareness as a kind of light, or a feeling of warmth in your body.

Let the muscles of your lower legs relax, allowing them to soften and become heavy. Notice any sensation in the part of the body where your awareness is, but do not force anything. If you don't feel much that's fine; just notice what is there.
Letting the awareness move up into your knees, imagine a sense of space in your joints, then move the awareness into the large muscles of your upper legs. Allow your muscles to fall away from the bone under the soft force of gravity.
Broaden your awareness to include your buttocks, pelvis, and genitals. Experience this whole area filling with soft, warm awareness. If you notice any slight 'holding' of energy, which is quite common in the buttocks, try to let the awareness soften it.

Now gather your attention at the base of your spine. Do not try too hard: we cannot force awareness without tensing up. Just gently bring your mind back when it drifts off. From here we are going to trace the line of your spine slowly up through the body.

Bear in mind that the spine is well inside your body, rather than on the surface of your back. It is quite hard to get a sensory experience of the spine, so we need to use our imagination a little. But by this I don't mean just inventing some sensation that isn't there. It's more a matter of a kind of openness to very subtle sensation.

Trace the gentle curve of your spine up through your body, through the lower back, the middle back, and between your shoulders up to where your spine meets the base of your skull. This is quite high up, about level with the top of your ears.

Once again, see if you can gather your awareness at this point. Ease the muscles at the base of your skull - imagine them letting go, the muscles relaxing like a fist unclenching. Your head isn't going to topple over if you forget to hold it up - we'll find that it can balance very nicely by itself. Imagine that your head can move perfectly freely and is just poised on top of your spine. You might want to adjust your head slightly to achieve this quality of feeling.

Now, locating a sense of the top of your spine, take your attention back down the spine to its base. Try to hold both these places in mind - the base and top of your spine. Imagine these two areas being infused with light, a warm, soft light, and that these two points of light are very gently - more just a tendency than an actual movement - easing apart. One is drawn towards the earth, the other towards the sky. Try to hold this image for a few minutes; these two points of light very slowly moving apart, like two stars in the night sky imperceptibly drifting away from one another. See if you can soften the two ridges of muscle that run down either side of your spine. Imagine that as these muscles soften, your spine is released, and these two points of light can ease further apart.
Allow your shoulders to relax a little more. Then begin to take your awareness into the top of your arms and slowly down towards your hands, collecting it in your palms and fingers. Use the sensations in your hands to get a sense of the vitality of your body.

Now bring the awareness into your belly - another area where we often find the flow of energy held up. Then slowly up into your chest. Feel the movement in your chest, your rib-cage gently opening to accommodate the breath. Have a sense of the breath opening your chest.
Move the awareness up into your throat, and then into your face. Soften your face a bit more, taking time to feel the sensations there. Become aware of the shape of your skull - allowing the skin of your scalp to become soft - then extend your awareness to the crown of your head. See if you can feel any sensation at this point.

Become aware of the touch of the air against your face. Feel how very sensitive your face is; notice the temperature of the air, and allow your face to soften against the air. Now without any particular effort, notice the process of breathing that is taking place. As you draw down the air into your body imagine that the air is saturated with awareness, like a soft mist of tiny water particles. So as we take the air in, we also draw down awareness.

Follow the breath down into your body, down until you become aware of the movement of your belly as you breathe in and out. Let your breath be calm and gentle. Don't force it down. Notice your belly as it moves to accommodate the breath. Allow the breath to soften your belly from the inside out. Notice the movement in your chest, at the sides of your body, in your back; feel the whole of your rib-cage gently moving with the breath.

Breathe in a sense of spaciousness; the space outside you becoming space inside you. Gently gather your attention around the area of your heart. Just sitting and breathing, be aware of any sensations in the area around your heart. Allow the breath to create space around your heart, space for how you feel, for your emotions.

Just breathing, being aware of your body, your breath, being aware of your feelings, let the feelings come and go in a sense of spaciousness, just as you let the breath come and go. Stay with this as long as you feel comfortable, just being with yourself.

Then feel your connection with the ground once more. Allow yourself to be aware of the room in which you are sitting and any outside noises, and in your own time allow your eyes to open, bringing the practice to an end.