Life is a series of stresses: the earning of a living, family responsibilities, noise, anxiety, traffic, illness and infirmity. Opportunities for peacefulness are harder to come by. Unlike stress, peacefulness does not come looking for you. You must go looking for peacefulness.
Just as skin accumulates dirt, necessitating showers periodically to renew its surfaces, so too does the soul accumulate layers of world weariness and benefits from routine cleansing. Here is a simple exercise to rejuvenate the soul, to get rid of the burdensome baggage the soul inevitably acquires.
To perform the three-minute soul shower, three skills must be practiced. The first skill is learning to relax the muscles of the body. The second skill is learning to be aware of your breath as you breathe. The third skill is learning to re-center the mind when it has wandered off course. It is important to set a timer – on your watch, on your phone, in your kitchen – to exactly three minutes. Otherwise, you will be tempted to shorten the shower.
Assume a seated position in a chair or on the floor. Sit up straight but comfortably, relaxed but aware, with your hands clasped together easily on your lap. Close your eyes. Take a deep breath in. When you let it out, let it out slowly. As your breath leaves your body, notice the tension in your shoulders. Allow the tension in your shoulders to exit with the breath. Let your shoulders fall to the floor. Let your legs support your hands and your arms. The arms and shoulders may become tense again. If they do, with the next exhalation simply re-release the tension. Let the muscles in your face fall to the floor. Take a deep breath in. When you let it out, let it out slowly.
Feel your seat on the ground or the floor beneath you. Allow your legs to become relaxed as well. A full breath in, then slowly an exhalation. With each breath exits tension. Your body will eventually arrive at a state of relaxed equilibrium. Although you continue to monitor the body for recurrences of tension, your body, as you breathe in and breathe out, is in continual relaxation.
Now that the body is relaxed, the mind turns its eye inward and begins to monitor itself. With your mind's eye, find the center of your mind. That blank black space right in front of you – that is the center of your mind. Keep your mind's eye there.
The mind will inevitably wander. When it does, steer it back to the center. When it wants to revisit the memory of an event that occurred earlier in the week, steer it back to the center. When it wants to worry about a meeting that will happen later today, steer it back to the center, to the present. These veerings of the mind pull you away from your center. These veerings are precisely the things you are trying to shower away. When your three minute shower is over, you will pick up your responsibilities again. Like dirt to the skin of a freshly showered body, the weights that wear on the mind will surely re-attach. Right now, let the weights fall away. Rid yourself of these anxieties, if only for three minutes. Your only job at the moment is to surrender to the present.
With each breath in say to yourself: “The mind is centered.” Then steer your mind back to the center. The more you practice this steering maneuver, the more skillfully you will be able to perform it. Repetition strengthens this skill like a workout builds the biceps. The more you practice steering, the better you will steer. It is a little like learning to steer a horse that has a mind of its own. Sitting on the back of a horse, you learn to guide it with the reins. At first the horse jolts and you correct its course with a violent tug of the reins. Over time, and with practice, the horse is more compliant. Using subtle steering maneuvers you are able to guide the horse. With your next exhalation, surrender to the present.
If you have ever walked on the rail of a railroad you will recall how difficult it was to keep your balance for very long at first. You quickly fell off of the rail and onto the ties and the gravel. The more you got back on, the longer you walked without falling. Soon you were walking for minutes at a time. No matter how good you became, however, the rail always required your full attention. If you took your eyes off of your feet, or forgot about your arms and your trunk for even one second, you were easily knocked off balance. Walking on the rail of a railroad is a lot like centering the mind.
With each breath in, say to yourself: “The mind is centered.” And make your mind centered. With each breath out, say to yourself: “The body is at ease.” And make the body at ease. Shower in this manner for three minutes every day.