First get into a good meditation posture with a straight but relaxed back, level shoulders, and head tilted a little forward. Your mouth and eyes are lightly closed or, if you prefer, your eyes can be slightly open. Take a moment to settle into this posture and forget about everything else.
Feel contented to be here doing this — accessing your potential for limitless peace and the ability to help others in this troubled world — and determined to concentrate as best you can.
Spend a couple of minutes doing some simple breathing meditation, focusing on the sensation of your breath as it enters and leaves through your nostrils. Tune into this, disregarding all static distractions.
As a result of your mind settling a little in this way, feel that you drop from your head into your heart – your spiritual heart or heart chakra right in the center of your chest. Feel already some space opening up, some peace. Feel as though your wave-like problems and distractions have dissolved away into the boundless ocean of clarity at your heart; just imagine.
Now, to become even more absorbed, think that everything outside your body disappears, melts into light in all directions. There is nothing out there to think about.
Now this light gathers into you, leaving behind only empty space, like a mist lifting, until all that remains is your body suspended in empty space.
Also everything up until this moment melts into light and disappears. The past evaporates like last night’s dream, for it is no more substantial than that.
And everything after this moment also melts into light and disappears. There is no future other than our thoughts about it, so let these go.
In this way, you are still and quiet, in your heart, in the present moment. There is only here and now. You are fully present, fully alive.
Now feel all the tension and weight fall away from your body. As it falls away, all your muscles relax and your body melts into light. Your body is hollow and translucent, as if you could pass your hand right through it without resistance. You think, “My body is as light as air, as if I am floating or flying.”
Then, “My body is like a rainbow body and my mind is like clear light.” Just imagine.
Now, still in your heart, imagine any problems you’re having — physical, emotional, mental, political, relationship, money problems etc. — appearing as heavy smoke or clouds. All unpleasant feelings and unhappy thoughts take form.
Think, “These are just thoughts and feelings, nothing more, nothing less. I don’t need to think them. I don’t need to identify with them. I can let them go.”
As you exhale through your nostrils, let them go. They disappear completely, never to arise again. You are breathing away your problems — with every breath your mind becoming purer and calmer. Concentrate on this for a couple of minutes and, if a distraction arises, breathe that out as well.
For the last few out-breaths, breathe out the last of the thick smoke.
Then, as you breathe in, imagine that your breath is in the aspect of blissful light. Ride this light into your heart, where it joins the inner light of your Buddha nature. Feel happier and lighter with every breath. Do this for a few minutes.
Now focus on this peaceful clarity at your heart, like a clear sky, infinitely spacious.
You can think, “This peace, however relative or slight, is the natural peace of my own mind. This peace is always in my mind. It indicates my potential for deep lasting happiness. There is plenty more where it came from. It is my Buddha nature. It is who I really am.” And feel happy about all that.
Allow yourself to abide with this peace, to enjoy it, thinking, “This is me. I don’t have a care in the world.”
Then you can think, “How wonderful it would be if everyone felt this peaceful and free, or for that matter completely peaceful and free.”
Finally, with compassion, you can spend some time getting ready for the day ahead. Who are you going to encounter offline and online? How do you want to relate to them?
