Head to Heart to Body to Ground
I’ve been listening to a lot of talks by Ajahn Sucitto and I’ve noticed that recently he’s been describing meditation in a way that really “grabs” me.
He calls it: Head to Heart to Body to Ground. It’s a way of summing up the practice of releasing afflictive mental states (anger, sadness, guilt, anxiety, etc) by transferring these concepts (from the head as thoughts: That person is such an idiot!) into emotional resonances (in the heart as feelings: I’m really angry) into somatic experiences (in the body as sensations: My jaw is tight) and then on through to the ground of awareness and acceptance (a sense that: I can let this flow through me into something bigger, more spacious, which can hold it while it plays itself out.)
It’s a great talk. Listen to it here.