Hello and welcome to this meditation practice.
This meditation was taught to me by a monk at the Ekoin Buddhist temple in Koyosan,
Japan.
This is the first level of Ajikan meditation and it's called Susokukan.
This particular technique focuses mainly on the breath.
And it's passed down through the esoteric buddhist tradition which shares roots with the yogic traditions that I usually teach.
This Susokukan practice is preparation for buddhist meditation on the sanskrit letter A which is also the first syllable of the mantra OM used in yogic meditation.
So let's start this buddhist meditation practice.
Traditionally this is practice sat on the floor so come to a comfortable seat on the ground and bend your left leg first then bend your right leg and place your right foot on top of your left thigh.
Basically your knees and your bum need to be grounded to the floor.
Now sit up straight and place your right hand on your left hand and put your thumbs together to make a circle.
Push out the stomach to lift your pelvis.
Relax and let the tension out of your shoulders,
Neck,
Arms and chest.
So your stomach must be tensed but the other parts of the body should be relaxed.
Now lift your head to place the head directly on top of the spine.
Rest your eyes so that they're neither open nor closed.
Be with your eyes half open in order to watch both the external and internal world at the same time.
Now move awareness to your breath and each time when you breathe in and out count the number of rounds of your breath.
First breathe in through your nose and breathe out through your mouth.
Count one,
Breathe in through your nose breathe out through your mouth.
Count two,
Breathe in through your nose and breathe out through your mouth.
Count three.
Now stop using your mouth and breathe in and out through your nose only.
So starting from one again breathe in through your nose and breathe out through your nose and continue to breathe in this way adding to the breath counts.
Counting from one to ten repeatedly.
While you're breathing through your nose it should be neither too slow nor too quick.
Simply breathe at a natural speed.
Keep counting the rounds of breath from one to ten repeatedly.
Please don't count more than ten.
If you count more than ten you'll start to think yesterday I did a hundred counts so today I'll do two hundred counts.
But when you start to do that you become attached to counting numbers and that takes you out of the experience of meditation.
If something comes into your mind during this meditation please don't think I should stop thinking about this or I have to forget about this.
Doing that forces it back into your mind.
So just try to imagine that the thought coming into your mind is just a small pebble in a large garden and then you don't worry about the pebble.
If you were to look at a pebble right in front of your eyes you'd only think about it.
So widen your mind.
Take in the rest of the garden and leave the thought and keep on counting.
Take one more round of breath and release the count.
Swing your body from side to side slowly.
Place your hands together.
Breathe in and lift the hands.
Breathe out and drop off your hands along your body and touch the floor.
Thank you so much for sharing this traditional esoteric Buddhist meditation technique today.
Take good care of yourself.
I'll see you soon.
