1. Empty Bowl Meditation
Purpose:
To quiet the mind, dissolve the flow of thought, and become receptive to divine presence.
Practice:
Sit comfortably with your palms open and upturned on your knees, like empty bowls.
Keep your mouth slightly open, and let your tongue touch the roof of the mouth just behind the front teeth.
Bring your awareness to your breath. Let the lungs breathe on their own — you simply watch.
Feel the air as it enters and leaves the nostrils: cool on inhalation, warm on exhalation.
Rest your attention gently in that rhythmic flow — in and out, in and out — without effort.
After five minutes, begin to travel with the breath:
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As you inhale, follow the air down: from nose → throat → trachea → lungs → heart → diaphragm → behind the navel.
There, the breath naturally stops for a moment — the first stop. Rest awareness there.
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As you exhale, follow the air upward and outward: navel → diaphragm → heart → throat → nose → about nine inches beyond the nostrils.
There is another natural pause — the second stop.
Rest quietly in these two stops.
When the breath stops, time stops; when time stops, mind stops.
In that stillness, you exist beyond body, mind, and breath — like an empty bowl, open to the touch of the Divine.
“You do not seek God — God seeks an empty bowl to fill with love.”
Remain in this tranquility for 15 minutes, morning and evening.
Gradually, the time between breaths will deepen naturally, merging the inner and outer into one seamless stillness.
Note: This meditation may also be practiced lying down if preferred.
2. So-Hum Meditation
Purpose:
To harmonize breath, sound, and awareness — dissolving the ego into the cosmic flow of life.
Practice:
Sit quietly as before and watch your natural breath.
As you inhale, silently think the sound So (“He, the Divine”).
As you exhale, silently think Hum (“I, the individual ego”).
Let these sounds merge effortlessly with the breath: So... Hum... So... Hum...
When sound, breath, and awareness unite, they generate inner light — the subtle radiance of consciousness.
With deepening practice, this light may be perceived at the third eye (the space between the eyebrows).
Understand the symbolism:
Each cycle is birth and death — inspiration and expiration — the eternal rhythm of existence.
Through So-Hum meditation, the individual merges with the Universal, thought transcends time and space, and consciousness expands into peace and joy.
3. Double-Arrowed Attention (Witnessing)
Purpose:
To cultivate simultaneous inward and outward awareness — true samyag darshan or “right seeing.”
Understanding:
When we look at a tree, star, or mountain, something goes out from our eyes — attention — carrying awareness with it.
This movement of awareness carried by prana connects us to the object.
In ordinary seeing, the arrow of attention moves only outward.
In witnessing, we create two arrows of attention:
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One arrow goes outward — toward the object.
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The other arrow goes inward — toward the seer, the observer within.
Practice:
Choose any object — a flower, a candle flame, the sky.
Look at it calmly and lovingly.
At the same time, turn part of your attention inward — be aware that you are looking.
Watch the watcher.
When the watcher is watched, the watcher disappears.
There remains only pure witnessing — seeing without a seer, knowing without a knower.
In this silent unity, you develop an intimacy with all existence.
The observer and the observed become one — the whole universe reflects itself within your awareness.
๐บ The Essence
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Empty Bowl Meditation teaches receptivity and silence.
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So-Hum Meditation brings union with the Divine through breath and sound.
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Double-Arrowed Attention awakens pure witnessing awareness.
Practiced together, they lead from stillness to surrender, from surrender to self-transcendence — from breath, to light, to pure being.
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