Of meditation
The Schools
Each meditation belongs to a school. Beside each school is its everyday name.
- Abjuration Grounding Wards against scattering. Settling the body and the seat so the mind has somewhere to land.
- Evocation Breath Calling up the breath and staying with it: counting, pacing, following.
- Divination Open awareness Watching what arrives, sounds, sensations, thoughts, without chasing any of it. Often called mindfulness.
- Scrying Focused attention Resting the eyes and the mind on one small thing, such as a candle flame, and coming back to it each time you drift.
- Transmutation Body scan Moving attention slowly through the body and letting what is tight soften on its own.
- Pilgrimage Moving and standing Meditation on your feet: slow walking, or standing still as a tree, for days too restless to sit.
- Enchantment Loving-kindness Kind wishes offered to yourself and others. Also called metta.
- Illusion Visualization Resting the mind on an imagined place, light or image.
- Conjuration Mantra A word or phrase repeated softly until the repeating does the work.