Practice: The Ocean

Run Time 4 min

Imagine a vast ocean. The ocean is filled with hundreds and thousands of waves, feel that you are part of this ocean. Imagine that each wave in the ocean is slowly moving through you. Feel that each wave is a wave of joy.

Imagine wave after wave of joy passing through your whole body. As each wave passes through your body, feel that all worries, tensions, anxieties, and problems are being washed away in the successive waves of joy. For several minutes, meditate on wave after wave of joy passing through you. Feel that each new wave of joy that passes through you increases the amount of joy that you now have, until you feel you have become all joy. Nothing exists for you except limitless, boundless joy.

Now imagine you are going beneath the surface of the ocean. The surface of the ocean is filled with many waves, but below the surface, in the depths, all is calm, silent, and serene. Imagine yourself sinking slowly into the depths of the ocean. Here there is only calmness, emptiness, and tranquility. As you visualize yourself going deeper and deeper into the depths of the ocean, feel that a profound peace is entering into you. Feel that the deeper you go into the inner ocean, the more peaceful and calm you become.

Visualize that there is no end to the depths of this ocean. It goes on endlessly. Imagine yourself sinking deeper and deeper into this endless ocean of light, feeling more peace and tranquility filling your entire being until you have become all peace and all tranquility. Continue practicing this visualization until you have ended your meditation session.

-Excerpted from Snowboarding to Nirvana by Frederick Lenz