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unityghost · 1 year

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Applied Knowledge

Some more Post-Asmodeus Sabriel Feels content (part 31) for those who are still inclined to read, even if Supernatural is over. I’ll have to find a way to organize and tag this stuff on here; Archive of Our Own has it all organized chronologically. Thanks if you’ve stuck around up until this point! I don’t plan on stopping any time soon.

Logic told Gabriel that there was no reason to expect a linear recovery, and yet he found himself expecting it to work that way no matter the dictates of rational thinking.

The relationship between his near-humanity and his somewhat-angelness was a constant source of confusion to Gabriel - and everybody around him - but it seemed that Sam had recently come to the conclusion that a working knowledge of human biology might be helpful in the short term.

“When you breathe in,” he explained, “It activates the sympathetic nervous system. Gets your adrenaline going a little. So - ”

“I have no sympathy for my nervous system,” Gabriel interjected.

“ - the important part,” Sam went on, ignoring the comment he’d probably expected, “Is to focus on your exhalation, which initiates something different - other hormones - to calm you down. So it’s best to take that nice and slow. That's your parasympathetic nervous system.”

“Activate parachute, got it. Free-falling becomes smooth coasting through a cloudless summer sky.”

“If that’s what helps you remember it,” said Sam, “Then yes, Gabriel. Pull open the parachute.”

“Listen," Gabriel told him, "I’m pretty sure we’ve talked about deep breathing before, and I suck at it.”

“I thought it might help to get more specific about what happens when you do it, so that you know why it’s helpful. It helped me to learn about that. A lot happens to the human body when it gets like …” He gestured vaguely to what was in front of him: Gabriel, still trembling from the taste of a nightmare at the back of his throat as sweat coursed down his neck and both fists spontaneously clenched and unclenched against the tangled blankets. “This.”

“Well, it’s a good thing I don’t have a human body, then,” Gabriel replied. “Otherwise I might be a mess.”

Sam tried to smile. “Do you - ”

“No. No, I don’t really want to talk about it. I’m sorry for getting you out of bed. It’s just that I thought - ” Gabriel shook his head and looked down at the bedcovers clutched between his fingers. “I was so freakin’ tired when I fell asleep that I was dreaming about being tired, Sam. Kept trying to get up off the floor of that cell and find you, but Asmodeus wouldn’t let me, and I was too exhausted to pull myself to my feet.”

Sam nodded. Perhaps there was more physiology to be expounded upon with regard to the liminal space before waking waking, the crack in between that allowed for bewildered shouts for assistance, but Sam was tactful enough to withhold any further lectures.

“So I thought,” Gabriel continued, determined to complete his explanation, “That Asmodeus was in the room. I really did.”

He looked around. He couldn’t help it. He knew it was foolish, but it seemed even more foolish not to check.

Sam frowned at him.

“I was admiring the architecture,” Gabriel offered. “I’ve grown excruciatingly fond of this glamorized speakeasy you call a home.”

“Okay. I guess that's ... good. You want anything? Water, maybe?”

Gabriel turned his gaze downward again, debating whether to ask Sam to shift his weight so that Gabriel could properly pull the covers over himself. He decided against it: if he asked Sam to move, Sam might either take offense or understand the request to mean “leave and shut the door behind you.”

“Christmas crackers!” Gabriel hissed, pounding a fist against his own knee.

Sam looked horrified. “What are you doing? Gabriel, what's wrong?"

“I - ” Gabriel tried to remember what Sam had said about breathing - parachutes, right - and tried to exhale, then realized he couldn’t exhale without first exciting himself by inhaling, and came to the conclusion that the entire process was a self-defeating hoax. “I understand exactly what’s going on.”

“What? Going on with what?” When Gabriel didn’t answer, Sam pressed: “Has something been hurting, and you just figured it out, or - ”

“Geez, you really are in doctor mode tonight, aren’t you? I meant I know that I’m not in danger.”

Sam furrowed his brow. "Is that not good?"

“What isn’t good is that I’ve known that for months now!”

“I’m still not - ”

“What use is there in trying to convince myself that Asmodeus is gone when I still feel like he’s next to me or waiting for me or on top of me or - I’m starting to wonder if it’s worth the amount of effort I put into it every day!”

“I don’t think it’s that weird that you’d have a hard time finding common ground between what you know and what you feel,” said Sam.

“I didn’t say it was weird. I said it was pointless. Unless maybe I’m not trying hard enough; but man - I’ve been giving this everything I have in me.”

“It really hasn’t been that long, you know,” Sam reminded him. “You were in Hell for a lot longer than you’ve been with us.”

“So it’s going to take another truckload of centuries to bridge the gaping maw between what you’ve taught me and what he did to me?”

Sam spoke carefully. “I didn’t mean that. I was just trying to say that if you really want to focus on being rational, you’ve gotta factor in that imbalance. The time you spent in prison versus the time you’d had without Asmodeus manhandling you - that’s not a fair fight, so try not to be so rough on yourself about it.”

“Except,” Gabriel pointed out, feeling his chest tighten against Sam's audacious refusal to acknowledge Gabriel’s failure, “There was no gap when I had him breathing down my neck. I knew I was in danger and I felt that way, too. It wasn’t unreasonable to be cowering on the floor. Things are different now - I know there’s nothing to be afraid of, but my whole alarm system has short-circuited.”

“Yeah,” said Sam. “That’s usually how it works.”

Gabriel clenched his jaw and mangled the sheets in his fists again. “This isn’t funny.”

“What? Of course not. I know that.”

“Then stop talking to me like I’m a cute idiot, Sam. I don’t care how typical any of my behavior is; I want it to stop and you’re hearing something completely different. Just because you’ve got the knowledge and wisdom to smile and nod like I’m learning to walk for the first time - ‘Oh, look at this; it’s okay, we know he’ll stop falling even if he doesn’t know that yet’ - doesn’t make this any less exhausting for me.”

Sam looked bewildered. “I wasn’t laughing at you. I was trying to help. To remind you that - ”

“Shut up, okay? I know. I know. And that’s what makes it so difficult.”

“I just thought it might help you to know you’re not out of the ordinary for feeling the way you do - you know? I figure it’d only make me feel worse if I thought I was the only person to get stuck in the middle of what I knew was true and what I felt was real. I feel that way all the time. I’m not trying to preach to you. Or laugh at you. Why would I do that? I’m hardly in a position to brag about healthy recovery, am I?”

“Now you’re pleading!” Gabriel snapped. “I don’t want to feel like I hurt your feelings in addition to everything else!”

“Look,” Sam pleaded, because he was guilty of exactly that, “You and I are on a level playing field.”

“It sounds like you think you’re better than me.”

“Why would you even - I don’t think that at all, Gabriel.”

Gabriel pounded his knees again, thinking about the nightmare still sitting inside of him, exactly as real as the pain that resulted from hitting himself. “Well, you are, so maybe I shouldn't bitch about it.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Sam reached out and caught Gabriel’s fist before he could repeat the childish self-beating, the goal of which Gabriel felt might become clearer with each blow. “I wasn’t trying to prove anything. Maybe I said it the wrong way, but I really, really, truly, honestly meant that it’s normal to feel stuck like this. To know what’s the matter with you, to know what’s real, and to feel something totally opposite. I feel that way every day, Gabriel. And I definitely wasn’t trying to make light of it. If it came across that way then I’m sorry. I really am.”

“Oh, don’t be.” Gabriel tried to extricate his fist and Sam let him go. He thought about hitting himself again, but it seemed ungracious after Sam had made the choice to trust him with his own hands.

Sam’s voice softened. “Listen, Gabriel: you really need to sleep. I think that’s part of what’s got you so on edge.”

Gabriel almost said, Oh, is the baby getting cranky again? Let’s put him down for his nap but instead replied, “Or maybe it’s the quality of the sleep itself. I mean, if nightmares were the only issue, that’d make sense - I could figure that out. Maybe. But it’s the fact that my whole body is just flooded with the stuff.”

“That ... um ... feeling you get?” Sam asked.

Gabriel understood his hesitance, knew that Sam had never been able to comprehend what this “feeling” was - but perhaps that was simply due to Gabriel’s ineloquence. He had used adjectives like “dark” and “warped” to describe the tang that this feeling cast upon the world, had tried to articulate the deeply visceral flavor of ethereal horror that wrenched him out of the present and cradled him in the greasy jaws of memory.

Words, however, could not give shape to this feeling, even when Gabriel drew upon all his lifetimes of speech and his countless languages to try and force the feeling's essence into description. Yet it could not be coerced into the confines of vocabulary; it could only be felt, and only disgorged in the small horrible ways with which his near-mortal body was familiar: sweating; trembling; desperate, incessant vomiting when the terror would not abate.

In fact, Gabriel was convinced that this dark, otherworldly sensation probably was suggestive of neurosis unique to him. After all, Sam had never assured him of its normalcy. Maybe it was particular to angels, although he wasn’t sure he wanted to question Castiel about it. More likely, it was a symptom of the grotesque wrongness that had metastasized in Gabriel the moment Asmodeus first laid hands on him.

“Hey.” Sam touched his arm. “You all right?”

“Yes,” Gabriel answered hoarsely. “But that isn’t how I feel.”

“Nightmare still on your mind?”

“No. I … I don’t know.” Gabriel licked his lips. “Maybe I don’t really understand as much as I like to believe I do. Sam - ” He tried to meet Sam’s eyes but Sam was still clutching his arm. He didn’t mind if Sam touched him, or if Sam wanted to make eye contact, but in general Gabriel wasn’t willing to do both at the same time. “You don’t think I’m disgusting, right?”

“What? No. Of course not.”

“Okay, but I do. I think that I’m disgusting, and I also feel like I’m disgusting. Like - in the way that maggots crawling over a decomposing body is disgusting. It’s not the corpse’s fault for rotting and it’s not the bugs’ fault that they feed on it. It’s just disgusting for what it is.”

Sam recoiled, and Gabriel jerked his head up. I was right.

Sam’s features had taken on the flush of anger. “I don’t like that at all.”

“Neither do I! What, you think I was just spouting a poetic monologue? It’s what I see, Sam. It’s what I feel.”

“But that’s just … Jesus. You’re not like that. That’s a horrible thing to say about yourself.”

“Then I’m sorry I said it! Look, you’re proving my point!”

“That’s just such a - look - ” Sam closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

“Pull the parachute, Sam,” said Gabriel, trying to ignore how fast his heart was pounding in response to the irritation in Sam’s face.

Sam opened his eyes. “Gabriel, I know you feel like you’re tainted or - or just bad, or whatever, but I hate to hear you talk about yourself like that.”

“Well, how am I supposed to believe it isn’t true? Based on what happened to me in Hell, I’m probably not that far off.”

“You are, though.”

“I’m not, though.”

Sam stood up.

Gabriel scrambled backward, slamming into the wall and toppling the pillow from the lip of the mattress to the floor. He had a split second’s regret - I could have used that for protection - and then several moments of quiet waiting, moments in which he was not sure what he did, moments in which he heard nothing and saw only darkness.

Then he heard his name, repeated gently over and over; he remembered where he was, and realized - with a spasm of humiliation - that what had felt like minutes probably had not been more than a few seconds. Both arms were thrown over his head as a makeshift shield - a fortress that had never proven effective against his attackers.

With arthritic slowness, Gabriel unfolded himself.

“It’s okay,” Sam whispered. “It’s okay. There we go. It’s okay. It’s all right, Gabriel; it’s all right.”

Gabriel nodded. He did not look at Sam.

Sam held out a hand, uncertain. “I’m sorry. I got a little - ”

“It’s fine.” But Gabriel was suddenly overtaken by such a violent urge to cry that he lay back down, bereft of the pillow, and turned away. “I just - ”

Sam waited.

“I forgot to activate my parachute,” Gabriel finished, and crushed his teeth together against a sob that jerked out of him like a seizure.

“Ah - ” Sam sounded shocked and unsure. “Oh man. I’m sorry.”

Gabriel knew that he was. It would only serve to make Sam feel worse if Gabriel were to vocally lament that he was terrified of giving voice to his deepest despair lest Sam lash out. Even if it was due to helplessness or to fury toward Asmodeus, Gabriel couldn’t handle that level of fire in Sam.

"Here, let's just - let me, um - " Sam tucked the blankets around Gabriel's shoulders, taking caution not to actually touch him. Gabriel had come to suspect that Sam felt most at ease in conveying affection, remorse, and protectiveness through some sort of physical contact. Gabriel often made this challenging for Sam. In fact, he reflected as he felt Sam draw away, why should he feel entitled to refuse Sam the small comfort of touching him when Gabriel was the one at fault for misinterpreting a benign gesture of frustration - especially given that the gesture was in response to Gabriel’s complaining about his poor self-image?

“Listen,” Sam said quietly. “Listen, Gabe - I won’t leave, but I’m gonna give you a couple minutes to calm down. I’m here, but I’m not going to hurt you, Gabriel.”

In the aftermath of the imagined assault, Gabriel was shaking. He listened to his own ragged breathing as he would have listened to a familiar much-hated song that played only because he was too unintelligent to find the appropriate dial to turn it off, while somebody else was forced to pretend it didn’t grate on their nerves and politely wait for the closing notes.

After a few moments, the surge of fear began to soften and the bedroom grew more solid to him. He debated the benefits and disadvantages of trying to halt his tears. Ultimately, he decided, it wasn’t a question of positives and negatives: there was simply not much use in pretending that Sam would have judged him after seeing it happen so often. The impulse to stoicism was there, as it always was - a costume with no remaining elasticity.

“I know,” Gabriel muttered into the damp sheet.

“Huh?”

He turned over, looking up at Sam. “I know that you’re not gonna do anything to try and mess with me. I really - I do. I know that.”

“That’s good.”

“If I could show you as much, I would. Instead you’ve got me whining about my self-indulgent hatred of - ” But Gabriel stopped, afraid to annoy Sam with additional descriptions of (as he’d considered saying) “this cosmic garbage that’s only ever been good for playtime in Hell.”

"That's all right," said Sam, although he looked pale and haunted. "Don't worry about it, Gabriel. Really. Just take it easy."

“You can touch me,” Gabriel offered. “If you - I’m sorry.”

Sam shook his head. “You don’t gotta make anything up to me, Gabriel.”

“I don’t want to get in trouble.” Gabriel gave a tight, nervous laugh. “If you want to, you can.”

“No. No, it's okay. Wait - if I say no, are you going to take that to mean I just think you’re gross?”

“I'm not sure."

“All right. Okay. Well, what do you want?” When Gabriel tensed - he loathed the question, abhorred the word - Sam corrected himself: “What do you need right now?”

“I’m not sure," Gabriel repeated. "I just know I’m sorry for freaking out.”

“Come on, you didn’t do anything wrong. Look, you know me pretty well, I think - and - well, hearing stuff like that can be rough because I want to change it. That’s all. It’s not your fault Asmodeus was such a piece of work.”

“I need to be more careful.” Gabriel smiled, fitfully, feeling delusional and uneven. He didn’t know whether he wanted to come across as serious. “One of these days you might actually get real pissed off. And whatever happens, I’ll have to take responsibility for not being able to control myself.”

Sam’s eye twitched. “Don’t say things like that.”

“Fine. I won’t. I’ll think them, but I won’t say them.” Gabriel was beginning to wonder if he was being difficult on purpose. “I don’t want to upset you; I don’t want to make you angry at anyone; I don’t want to make you sad when I’m afraid of you.”

“Stop.” Helplessly, Sam reached out and grabbed his hand. “You can say whatever you like, Gabriel. I just wish I could help.”

“Hey, you are helping. Like I mentioned, I at least know where I am. I know I’m not actually in danger.”

Sam gave a tired smile. “That isn’t what you just said.”

“Well - then I’m not sure what’s wrong with me. There are things I do know, and things I should know. Maybe I’ve actually lost my whole-ass mind. I believe you, I think. I believe you don’t want to hurt me. I just don’t - I guess I figure that might change.”

“But why?”

“Why wouldn’t it?”

“Because it’s me, Gabriel. It's Sam. It's not Asmodeus.”

"Yes! And yet here we are!"

Sam gripped his hand more firmly. “But that’s okay.”

“It really isn’t. I need to be able to connect the dots better. For my sake, maybe, but for yours too. I need to understand things better. I need to be able to apply what I learn. Looks like I’m screwing up both parts of that process.”

“You need more time. Maybe a lot more time.”

“I’ve had time!"

“Some. Like I said, you had a whole lot more time with him than you’ve had with any of us.”

“I just - ah - I - ” Gabriel wiped his eyes. “I’d just really like it to stop. I could do without the nightmares and without being scared of you or anyone else. And without feeling like a diseased animal stinking up the place. I hate it. I want it to end. I’m confused about what to believe and what to feel and how to act. I don’t want to hurt you and I don’t want you to hurt me but I - but I’m this thing, this nauseating, awful thing that he - that - and I can’t keep doing this because it’s too much for me. I can’t handle it. I can’t handle knowing it’ll probably take another eon before I’m not running away from you, and by then you won’t even be here. And I can’t handle thinking about that, either. I just want it to stop. All of it. I can’t do this." He shivered and tried to remember to breathe.

"I know," Sam murmured. "It's okay. I get it. But you're gonna be okay. I'm here."

"You - " Gabriel shuddered again, feeling sick and exhausted and still plagued by the grotesque haze of nightmares. "You can touch me."

Sam squeezed his hand.

“No,” Gabriel said, “I mean - ”

Sam eased him closer, into a gentle hug that felt undeserved but not frightening.

Gabriel took a deep breath, came close to making a remark about parachutes, and decided he had better not speak.

Since escaping, Gabriel had had instances in which he'd seriously doubted his own intellect. Surely he had simply not been clever enough to break free from Asmodeus; surely only a truly dimwitted being would have gotten so lost in the post-infernal labyrinth between knowledge and experience.

Despite this uncertainty, he didn't believe that he was stupid enough to miss what seemed obvious: the safety he felt in an embrace like this was instinctual. Perhaps it was a rudimentary form of applied knowledge. At least in this moment, there was no need to berate himself into common sense - not when the privilege of a warm embrace, however unmerited, felt quite different from anything else.

#supernatural #fanfiction #sabriel #sam/gabriel #platonic #ptsd #post-traumatic stress disorder #post-asmodeus sabriel feels #pasf #fanfic #spn fanfic #hurt/comfort #angst

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vincewillard-1971 · 2 months

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Seated Mediation

We tend to see body, breath, and mind separately, but in meditation they become one. The first thing to pay attention to is the body position during sitting. How you position your body has a lot to do with what happens with your mind and your breath.

As our School comes from Asian traditions, the basic meditation posture is to sit on a mat and cushion on the floor. For Westerners who are used to sitting in chairs, this can often cause discomfort. For this reason, our School allows for many variations to help students find a stable and comfortable posture for sitting meditation. There is absolutely no esoteric significance to the different positions. What is most important in sitting meditation is what we call mind sitting, rather than body sitting-how do we keep our mind just now? In order to do that, a good posture is useful and supports our practice.

Sitting Meditation

Place one or more cushions on a mat sit cross-legged position.

Using a chair. When sitting on a chair, your feet should not extend past the front edge of the row of mats in the row in which you are seated in a group practice setting. You may fold your mat and place it under your chair. You may use the mat for a footrest. For meditation purposes, it is best that you do not lean against the back of the chair, but sit toward the front of the seat, keeping your back erect. Your thighs should be parallel, flat on the floor. Straddling cushions. Stack several cushions on top of one another, straddling them as if riding a horse. Using a meditation bench. Meditation benches have a slanted seat with two legs. First kneel on your mat, then position the bench over your calves behind you, and sit. Keeping your spine straight and shoulders back and loose, tip your head forward very slightly, looking down at the floor at a 45-degree angle. Your eyes should be half open, looking at the floor in front of you.

Place your hands in your lap in in the maha mudra (see Hands below for full description).

Knees and spine

When sitting cross-legged, both knees should rest on the floor, though sometimes it takes a bit of time to be able to get the legs to drop that far. After a while the muscles will loosen up and the knees will begin to drop. To help that happen, sit on the front third on the cushion and adjust the height, shifting your body forward a little bit. The three points: the base of your spine (rear end) and both knees should touch the mat for stability. By imagining the top of your head pushing upward to the ceiling and by stretching your body that way, get your spine straight-then just let the muscles go soft and relax. With the buttocks up on the cushion and your abdomen naturally pushing out a little, there will be a slight curve in the lower region of the back. In this position, it takes very little effort to keep the body upright.

Face, Mouth, and Nose

Once you've positioned yourself, there are a few other things you can check on. The mouth is kept closed. If possible, breathe through your nose. The tongue is pressed lightly against the upper palate. This reduces the need to salivate and swallow. The eyes are kept lower, with your gaze resting on the ground about 70 to 100 cm in front of you. Your eyes will mostly covered by your eyelids, which eliminates the necessity to blink repeatedly. The chin is slightly tucked in, so that your though the position during sitting meditation looks very disciplined head is tilted down at a 45 degree angle. Although the position during sitting meditation looks very disciplined, the muscles should be soft. There should be no tension in the body. It doesn't take strength to keep the body straight. The nose is centered in line with the navel, the upper torso leaning neither forward or back.

Hands

The hands are folded in the maha . The dominant hand is held palm up holding the other hand, also the palms up, so that the knuckles of both hands overlap. The thumbs are lightly touching, thus the hands form an ova, which can rest on the upturned soles of your feet if you're sitting full lotus. If you're sitting Burmese, the maha can rest on your thighs. The center of the cosmos maha should be exactly in the place of your energetic center-danjeon (Kor.), hara (Jap) or tantien (Chi). The position of the hands helps turn your attention inward

Breathing

Pay attention to your breath is the basic foundation for meditation. Our breath is always with us, anytime, anywhere. The word "spirit" means breath. By breathing correctly, you can access "gong-ki"(Kor.)-air energy. How you breath breathe affects your you body and mind: when your mind is agitated, your breath is agitated, when your is agitated; when you're nervous, you breath quickly and shallowly; when your mind is at rest, the breath is deep, easy, and effortless.

During mediation, we encourage you to inhale and exhale through the nose and generally exhale twice as long as inhale,e.g. 3 seconds in, 6 seconds out, 5 seconds in, 10 seconds out. Breathing should be done naturally, not forced or with concentration. During sitting, it is also important to breath quietly, without making noise as it can distract others. Most important is to let breath become relaxed and naturally at ease.

Center

It is important to bring your attention to your center-danjeon (Kor.) tantien (Chi.) hara (Jap.). Your center is located two inches below the naval at the central axis of your body, and is the exact middle point if measured from the top of your head to the bottom of your feet. It's the physical and spiritual energy center of the body. Put your attention there during your practice. As you practice sitting meditation more, you'll become more aware of your center as it becomes stronger. In Zen we say, "This is your don't know center ", the center of our just do it or willpower center.

Discomfort and changing positions

Once in a particular sitting position,you should stay that way until you feel the need to change positions. During a sitting period, if physical pain or drowsiness becomes a distraction, you may stand up for relief. First, do a sitting bow, then quietly stand up, remaining in standing meditation until the discomfort passes. When you are ready, do a standing bow and quietly sit down. Additionally, you may use the standing meditation posture as a transition between different sitting positions. For example, if you experience a lot of pain sitting cross-legged and need to change positions, do a sitting bow, stand up quietly, bow, and then sit down in a kneeling position.

Mind

What you do with your mind is the most important part of meditation. Zen means understanding your true self-what

am I? In order to do that, meditation techniques help us to become clear in the present moment. Below are some simple basic techniques that can start you off with a meditation practice at home. For detailed instructions, please visit one of our Zen centers for an orientation.

Technique 1: Clear mind, clear mind, don't know

This exercise is usually suggested for beginners. When you inhale, repeat quietly inside your mind, "clear mind, clear mind, and as you exhale, say, "I don't know ". Your exhalation with "don't know" should be drawn out about twice as long as your inhalation. It may be unfamiliar at first but if you gently pay attention to each breath and be aware of the words repeated , the exhalation will slowly become longer and more relaxed. If thinking or emotions appear, that's not a problem, just return to your breath and the simple exercise. This technique brings together body, breath and mind in one place, in the present moment. When the words are clear, and you are aware of your breath and can feel your body, then your mind is clear. You can try this method of 10 minutes each time during the sitting and if comfortable, extend to 20 or 30 minutes.

Technique 2: Counting the breath

This practice, often recommended for beginners, brings attention to each breath and helps to still and focus the mind. The count may be done on either the inhalation or exhalation. The count is done either up to three or up to ten and then repeated for the duration of the sitting period. If the count is lost, then the practitioner returns to one and starts again.

Technique 3: Mantra practice

Using a mantra to calm the mind and strengthen the center is another technique used by Zen practitioners. A mantra is a tool to keep our mind clear, while sitting or doing our everyday moment to moment activities. A common mantra to use is repeating "Kwanseum Bosal" (Kor for Bodhisattva of Compassion), the Buddhist name for the emantra of our own compassionate heart. This used technique is to recite the mantra quietly to oneself, repeating it constantly, paying attention to it and allowing all other thinking thinking to drop away. This takes some practice since it is very easy to let one part of the brain "chant" the mantra while the other part is thinking about dinner or going to the movies. When this happens, gently bring the mind back to the mantra without any judgment. When doing mantra practice, it is important to make your direction clear. When the mantra is not clear or there is a lot of thinking, simply ask, "who is repeating this mantra?" This will help bring you back to the present moment and become clear. During sitting, when your mantra is clear, your breath is even and natural, you are aware of your body and you see the floor clearly in front of you, then your mind is clear. For doing mantra practice, we recommend you consult your guiding teacher.

#post-traumatic stress disorder

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