four elements meditation

Enter presence through sensing each of the four elements in your body.

Earth: The poet John O'Donoghue reminds us that the landscape was here long before we were - that we are, in fact, part of it. Feel the clay you are made of, he says. Sense your weight on the surface below you and throughout your body, but especially at the bottom, where it touches the ground. Your body is subject to the same laws of gravity and inertia as the rest of the physical world. That is the earth in you.

Water: Now attend to the water in you: in your bladder, your intestines, your stomach, your heart, your mouth. Water runs through you like streams on a mountain, trickling, rushing, pooling. You can feel it everywhere, running through your arteries, veins and capillaries, but it is most present in the midsection of your body. All of life on earth shares the same water; the water in you connects you to all of biology.

Air: Shift your attention to your breath. Feel your chest rise and fall as your diaphragm pushes air out and your lungs pull it in. Breath slowly and deeply. Now consider the subtler understanding of air we call mind. Fill your lungs with oxygen and imagine it traveling to your brain; imagine your thoughts floating around you and through you. The soft, relaxed rhythm of your breath reflects the expansion and contraction of the entire cosmos, the psychological plane of our existence.

Fire: Fire is the spiritual aspect of your body. It is the same sun in the sky that is the light in your eyes. Feel its vitality in your heart and mind. Feel its power. It is awareness, light, understanding. It is consciousness.