Step into Being, by Ford Peck, Senior iRest Trainer

Ford Peck, iRest Meditation Trainer-Teacher

I'd like to share with you a shortcut I've learned for connecting with the healing, grounding, and profundity of Being.

Being is a term which can be difficult to grasp with the mind, because it points to something essential, something fundamental to our existence. In iRest, we learn how important it is to form a lived-relationship with Being: It is our deepest home, our deepest nature, our deepest Inner Resource. Being is never apart from us, yet it can be challenging to really feel Being as we wade through all the layers of our life experience.  

Before I give you the steps of this shortcut, let me explain that when I say "pure attention", I mean attention that is free from the labeling habit of the mind. Right now, might you take a moment and simply notice this pure attention, this pure receptivity, free of labels and goals. Notice that this pure attention accepts and welcomes everything just as it is.

Now, here are the steps ... see if you can implement them, pausing when necessary.

  1. Connect with pure attention, free of labels
  2. Bring this pure attention to every part of the body, feeling as if the body smiles as it is felt with this welcoming attentiveness
  3. Bring this pure attention to the feeling of the whole body
  4. As pure attention rests in this whole-body feeling, let it open up a felt-sense of Being
  5. Feel, in Being, a natural sense of Well-Being, and allow this to open you to your Inner Resource
  6. Rest in Being and Well-Being, and let them nourish every part of you 

The first three of these steps are really the whole thing: notice pure attention, bring it to all areas of the body (body scan), then let pure attention rest in the whole-body sensation. This is it. Now you are resting in a simple and yet deep sense of Being. Step 4 is merely affirming this. Steps 5 and 6 invite this ground of Being to be felt as a nourishing and healing Inner Resource, with which you can meet all of your inner experience, all of the koshas.

If these steps feel helpful, I invite you to practice them whenever you remember during the day. In doing so, may this support you to recognize that Being is always here, always available, an ever-present Inner Resource of Well-Being.