The Long Sitting and the Drum
About twenty-five minutes. Best guided by a companion who reads slowly, keeps others away, and sounds the signal. If you practise alone, record the script, or set a timer to sound a drum or bell after twenty minutes; the signal must come from outside you.
Before you begin. This practice follows Bali's sequence: satiety named, a signal agreed, a guide called to mind, an old teaching recovered, the minister and the king, the fading Om, a long stillness, the drum, and the return. It invites a deep, still state. Do not use it if you have, or have had, a dissociative disorder, episodes of depersonalisation, a psychotic illness or uncontrolled epilepsy, except with a clinician who knows your history. If you are depressed, use it with a clinician. Never practise while driving, operating anything, or in or near water. Sit upright, as Bali sat at his window; do not lie down. Before you begin, choose your signal (a drum, a bell, your companion's spoken word return) and hear it once, so that you know it.
How to return at any moment. If anything becomes uncomfortable, open your eyes, press your feet into the floor, move your hands, say your name and today's date aloud, and name three things you can see. Nothing in the practice requires you to stay.
Sit as a king sits at a high window: upright, easy, the hands resting.
Before you close your eyes, think of one pleasure that has worn thin. Something you have tasted many times, that now repeats without taste. Name it to yourself. You need not judge it. It is only finished.
Now hear the signal once more in your mind: the drum, or the bell, or the word. When it sounds, you will come back. That is agreed.
Close your eyes.
Think of someone who has taught you well. A parent, a teacher, a friend, living or not. You do not need to see them clearly. Only think of them, and let them know, in whatever way they can know it, that they are remembered. Let them come and sit nearby.
Breathe out.
Somewhere in your memory there is a thing they once told you. Perhaps you did not need it then. Perhaps you did not understand it. Let it come back now, if it will: the place where they said it, the light, the words. If nothing comes, that is well. Something has been heard all the same.
Breathe out.
Now notice the mind at work. It is a minister: clever, busy, loyal, tireless. It plans, it remembers, it manages your whole kingdom. Thank it. It has done its work well.
And notice that behind it, very quiet, there is a king. Full of light, doing nothing, wanting nothing. You may not see him. You may only feel that there is a stillness somewhere behind the busy one.
Now do both at once, a little. Serve the minister a little less. When a thought comes, let it pass without answering. And step a little closer to the king.
A little less. A little closer.
A little less. A little closer.
Breathe in, and on the out-breath let a quiet sound come: Om. Let the O be short, and the m long, humming, fading. Follow the hum to its very end, until it is a thread, until it is the dot, until it is gone.
Again. Om… and follow the m down into silence.
Once more, silently. Imagine the sound and follow only its tail, the last of the hum, into the quiet.
Now there is nothing to do. Let the thoughts lie dormant, like seeds. Let even the sense of meditating go. There is no one meditating and nothing to meditate on. There is only this.
Still, as a lamp where no wind comes.
Still, as a statue carved of stone.
Clear, as an autumn sky.
Your guide is near, keeping the door. No one will disturb you. You can rest for a thousand years, and it will be a short time.
(Silence: ten to fifteen minutes, until the signal.)
(The signal sounds.)
There is the drum. Hear it. Let it reach you.
Notice, before anything else, how long it seemed. A moment? Longer? Only notice.
Notice, too, if there is a wish to go back. That is natural. Bali felt it. You can let the wish be there without obeying it. The stillness was never yours to keep or to lose; it is not a place you leave.
Now let the breath deepen. Feel the air come in fully.
Feel your weight on the seat. Feel the soles of your feet on the floor; press them down a little.
Move your fingers. Move your toes. Let your head rise, if it has dropped, and the shoulders settle.
Let the eyelids flicker, and let the brows lift, as his did when he came to himself.
I will count from one to five, and on five your eyes will open, clear and awake.
One. The breath is full and easy.
Two. The hands and feet are warm and your own.
Three. The sounds of the room return.
Four. One deep breath in, and let the shoulders move.
Five. Eyes open. Here. Now. Fully alert.
Look around the room. If someone is with you, greet them first with your eyes, then with a nod, then with a word, as the king greeted his court. Say aloud your name, the date, the time, and where you are. Name three things you can see. If you feel slow or far away, repeat the count from one to five, stand, walk a few steps and drink some water. Do not drive for at least fifteen minutes.
Then take up the next small duty in front of you.