"Now, since it has been said that you are my twin and true companion, examine yourself, and learn who you are, in what way you exist, and how you will come to be. Since you will be called my brother, it is not fitting that you be ignorant of yourself. And I know that you have understood, because you had already understood that I am the knowledge of the truth. So while you accompany me, although you are uncomprehending, you have (in fact) already come to know, and you will be called 'the one who knows himself'. For he who has not known himself has known nothing, but he who has known himself has at the same time already achieved knowledge about the depth of the all."
Jesus, in The Book of Thomas the Contender in Nag Hammadi Library, sec 138
Lectio: Read this scripture passage aloud, slowly. Release any interpretation or opinion you may have about this passage, as you read it.
Meditatio: Let the passage "sink in" for two minutes. Sit with the passage. Hold it lightly - don't force any attempt to interpret it.
Repeat "lectio" and "meditatio" three more times.
Oratio: Pray aloud: "May I receive from the scripture what my soul needs for today."
Contemplatio:
Pray mindfully 20 minutes a day, focusing especially on emotions that may arise - and on the ways they manifest in your body and breath. We have emotions all the time: this discipline involves watching them. When one arises, observe it with "high-resolution perception", as Chade-Meng Tan (Google's Chief Happiness Officer) describes it in his introduction to mindfulness practice, "Search Inside Yourself". (2012: HarperOne) Observe the emotion, and its effects on the body, with openness and warmth. Let it play out naturally and then let it pass in its own time.
Here's a mnemonic created by Michele McDonald to describe the essentials of mindfulness practice - RAIN: Recognize, Accept, Investigate, Non-identify. Non-identifying means moving from "I am sad" to "I feel sadness". How long does it take for you to move from sensing an emotion to being able to observe it in a conscious way, thus recognizing its distinction from your core identity? For example, you become conscious that you are anxious. In that moment, can you look back and recall when the emotion of anxiety actually began - and how that anxiety manifested in your body? Very often there is a gap between the onset of an emotion and our full consciousness of it. It is in this time gap that suffering and confusion multiply. One of the fruits of mindfulness practice is shortening this time gap, giving us much more control over the way we respond to our emotions. "Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger," said St. Paul (Ephesians 4:26).
