Step 1. Move your attention to the crown of the head, imagine a point of energy there.  Notice what sensations you feel.  Feel these two  points align, connected by a line of light, inside the body near the spine.  Allow energy to move freely between these two points.

   Step 2. Let your attention come to rest at a point of balance along this line, deep within you, at the centre of your being.

   Step 3. From this centre of your being, imagine the line of light extending downward through your legs and feet, relaxing the toes and sinking into the earth.  Breathing out, let all tension and fatigue run down this line into the earth.

   Step 4. Breathing in, imainge drawing up, through the soles of your feet, fresh, transformed earth enregy.  Allow it to fill your whole body from the feet up to the crown of your head, bringing a feeling of being supported and cradled by the solidity of the earth.  Return your attention and your breathing to the centre of your being.  Imagine the line of light rising to the crown of your head and above, out into the clear blue sky, to the heavens.  Breathe in fresh air.  

   Step 5. Allow light and clearness from the heavens to radiate down the line of light to fill the whole body. Breathe into the centre of your being and feel the two energies, from the earth and the sky, mingling.  From this centre let your attention be o your breath moving in and out (using one of the focuses suggested above).

Use image such as this in your mind's eye when you are meditating.  It may be a special place where you have been happy which holds personal significance for you, or it may be somewhere you have always dreamed of visiting which you have a strong mental picture of.  Make the image in your mind as real as you can.

Body

The physical benefits of meditation are easily quantifiable and plenty of research documentation exists.  These include relaxation, improvement of sleeping patterns, lowering high blood pressure, helping recovery from fatigue and a general beneficial effect on most stress-related disease.  Posture can be helped, too. in that better posture leads to better meditation which in turn leads to better posture!  The same can be said for relaxation.  The mind cannot let go until the body relaxes, and vice versa.

Meditation is sometimes seen as a kind of vanishing upwards into rarefied heavenly atmospheres, rejecting all that is grossly physical.  On the contrary, awareness of the body is an essential part of effective meditation.  A kite can only fly if the string is firmly held on the ground.  Many of the emotional stresses and upsets that people experience can be held as tensions in the body and therefore be fairly unconscious.  Through the process of conscious relaxation of body and breathing that meditation entails, these stresses can be unlocked from their hiding places in the muscles and joints and simultaneously released.  There was once a school of yogis in Tibet famous for their one principle or mantra; "Mind in the body, bum on the ground!"  One can go a long way with a very simple awareness of body and breath.

Most traditions, both in the East and the West, agree that the body is bound together by a subtle form of energy (called qi in China, and a variety of names in other parts of the world) which manifests in forms known as the aura, acupuncture meridians or chakras.  The increased sensitivity that develops from paying attention to natural bodily processes often results in a perception of this energy (perhaps as warmth, tingling, pressure, lightness or other such sensations).  At this point the differentiation between mind and body begins to dissolve.

Meditation can improve the ability to concentrate, the ability to listen, both to others and yourself, and is a good way of monitoring the "internal weather".   It is said that rates of depression and suicide are rising steadily in Western society and many commentators point to the break down of communities, people's divorce from the natural world and the poor living conditions of many.  But if people cannot change their external conditions to any great degree, they can take responsibility for changing their attitudes and reactions - the way the mind interacts with the world.  One of the safest and most effective ways to bring about this change is to meditate.  People are able to be more safe-sufficient and begin to let go of the addictions and dependencies they may have, such as drugs, food, television or sex, in which many seek refuge from reality.  Paradoxically, meditation is not an escape from the real world; in fact it leads to a deeper engagement with, and awareness of, one's life in order to transform it.

If meditation is not a rejection of body, neither is it a rejection of mind - specifically of thoughts.  Thinking is what the mind, or more accurately, the brain, is designed to do.  This is its contribution to humankind's survival for the thousands of years we have been on this planet.  In a way, trying to stop thinking would be like trying to stop breathing. What is even more important is to change one's attitude towards these thoughts, perhaps even the nature of them, not by rigid control but by developing what might be called a feeling of inner spaciousness that can include any thought or emotion.  There is then less jostling for position, less anxiety and fewer demands for attention from one's thoughts.

In a sense most people might be described as sleepwalking through life for all the engagement they have with it.  The path of meditation offers a way of becoming more awake and alive to every aspect, inner and outer.  the mind ceases to be a burden and distraction and instead becomes a tool for paying very good attention to the present moment.  The practice known as "mindfulness" is simply carrying this present-centred attention into one's daily life and activities, whether walking, running or doing household chores.  In this way meditation practice begins to become relevant to "real life" and not something separate and isolating.

The worlds "spirit" and "spirituality" can be very loaded for many of us with both negative and positive connotations.  Those who may have suffered at the hands of dogmatic, judgmental or fundamentalist religion may feel understandably wary of this area and reject it altogether.  However, spirituality may not necessarily have anything to do with any organized religion or philosophy.  It need not even include the word "god".  It might be useful to think of the world "spirit" in the context of phrases such as "in good spirits", "in the right spirit" or "a spirited horse".

Your spirituality is simply your relationship to whatever is most important or meaningful in your life - whatever nurtures you and fulfils your deepest needs.  For some people this may be money, possessions or status, but going beyond these things, ask what it is they depend on and why you need them,  You may not come up with any definitive answers, but it is the asking of the questions that is important.  This inquiry may lead you to discover what is truly meaningful for you; perhaps loved ones, family, home, an appreciation of beauty, honesty, a desire to discover the true meaningful of life.　

Your breath also provides an ever present and easily accessible focus for concentration.  One is always breathing!  Many schools of meditation teach focus on the breath in various ways.  This may involve imagining that the breath originates in one particular point in the body.  The points most usually focused on are the hara or tantien - just below and behind the navel, or the heart - in the centre of the chest.  The crown of the head, the base of the spine or the soles of the feet may all be included in the awareness.  Focusing on the breath can also take the form of noticing the physical changes as the breath moves in and out, either at the nostrils or the abdomen.  Meditation can be as simple as this, just breathing while sitting.

There are many ways of concentrating the mind in order to occupy that part of the mind that chatters incessantly, worrying and obsessing.

•  Count the breaths from one to ten, then begin again.
•  Notice the stillness at the changeover points at the end of the inhalation or the exhalation.
•  Let an image arise that evokes a feeling of wholeness, joy and peace; perhaps a beautiful natural scene of mountains, the sea, a tree, the sun, a child or an inspirational figure and breathe this image into your heart.