Leaving and Returning: the Cave, the Sunbeam and the Nest
Read slowly, aloud, in a warm, unhurried voice, leaving a breath between lines; about twenty minutes. A clinician may read it to a client, or you may record it in your own voice and play it back.
Before you begin. This practice follows Vītahavya's sequence: a seat, a conversation with the restless mind, the stillness of the cave, a gentle distance from the body, thanks, and a guided return. It is safe for most healthy adults. Do not use it if you are having thoughts of ending your life or are in a period of severe depression, or if you have a dissociative disorder, depersonalisation or a psychotic illness; in those cases work only with a clinician who knows your history, who will leave out the section in which the body is sensed from a distance. Never practise while driving, operating anything, standing, or in or near water. Nothing here asks you to hold or stop your breath; breathe as you breathe. Sit rather than lie down.
How to return at any moment. If anything becomes uncomfortable, open your eyes, press your feet into the floor, say your name aloud and the name of the place you are in, and count up from one to five. Nothing in the practice requires you to stay.
Sit down, and make your seat as the sage made his.
Something soft beneath you. The spine upright, the head rising the way a mountain peak rises, without effort. The hands resting.
Let the eyes close, or rest half-open, looking gently down towards the tip of the nose. If the eyelids flutter a little, let them. That is only the body settling.
Breathe as you breathe.
Now notice the mind. It is probably still moving, leaping from one thing to the next, the way a monkey leaps from branch to branch. That is all right. The sage's mind did the same, after he had done everything correctly.
So speak to it. Silently, kindly, as you might speak to someone who has worked too hard for too long.
Mind, I know you are trying to help. You have carried a great deal. You may rest now.
And to the senses, one by one.
Eyes, you may rest. Ears, let the sounds come and go. Hands, you may be still. Thank you for your work.
Some will settle at once. Some will need to be told twice. That is fine.
Breathe as you breathe.
Now you are in a cave. Quiet, dry, spacious; the air neither warm nor cold. Far away outside there is weather: rain, a low roll of thunder, wind in trees. Every sound around you can join that far weather. It is out there. It does not need to come in.
The body grows still. Not heavy with effort; still, the way a figure carved in living rock is still. Each breath out lets it settle a little more.
And time thins. In this cave a long while can pass as half a moment, and a moment can be wide enough to rest in. If images come, places, faces, other lives, let them come and pass like weather at the cave mouth. You need not follow them. They are shapes the mind makes when it is quiet.
Breathe as you breathe.
Now, from a quiet distance, you may become aware of your body resting. You might feel it from inside, or sense it as if from a little above, or simply know that it is there. Any of these is right.
It is safe. It is held by the seat and the floor. It has carried you a long way. Whatever it carries now, aches, tiredness, the marks of years, you can regard it gently from here, without needing to change anything.
I am more than what this body carries. And I am glad of it.
Now, if it feels true for you today, offer some thanks.
To a difficulty that taught you something, only if you are ready; if not, let this pass.
Thank you, for what you showed me.
To the body.
Thank you, for carrying me.
To the breath, which has kept you company every moment of your life.
Thank you, old friend.
To the place where you live, and whatever has supported you, as his staff supported him.
Thank you.
Rest here a while. Awake within, still without. A patient spectator, watching nothing in particular, wanting nothing.
(Silence: two to four minutes.)
Now it is time to come back, and you will not have to do it alone.
A ray of warm golden light reaches into the cave. You do not need to climb it. Let it find you.
And with the light comes a helper, as the sun's attendant came to the sage: something large, gentle and strong, like a great elephant made of cloud. It knows exactly where you are. Carefully it lifts you, the way a stork lifts a lotus stalk out of soft mud, easily, tearing nothing.
And you settle back into your body as a bird settles into its own nest. This is your place. It fits you.
Feel cool, clean water, as if you were washing in a clear lake. Let it run over the hands and the face. See the light on the water.
Let the breath deepen by itself. Feel the weight of the body on the seat. Press the feet into the floor.
I will count from one to five, and on five your eyes will open, clear and rested.
One. The breath is full and easy.
Two. Hands and feet are warm and your own; move them.
Three. The sounds of the room come back, near and ordinary.
Four. A deep breath in, and let the shoulders roll once.
Five. Eyes open. Here. Now. Fully awake.
Look around. Say your name aloud, today's date, and where you are. Name three things you can see and one you can hear. If you feel at all slow or far away, count from one to five again, stand, walk a few steps and drink some water. Do not drive or operate anything for ten minutes.
And as the sage did when he rose from the lake, turn for a moment towards the light, and greet the day.