Do the nostrils one at a time, then both, centering the awareness, bringing peace to the area. Go on to do the lower lip and jaw area, next the upper lip and jaw area, then both. Balance the tongue. Feel the tasting of the ambrosia -- imagine you are sipping it! The tongue is the test point of liberation. If the tongue is liberated, you liberate a vast section of your nervous system. Work your way through the senses bringing peace into each area until all the senses are radiant, open and balanced.

Touch/Body-Consciousness

The sense of touch should be done last. The way of approach is to go through the entire body searching for stored war, for areas that are not peaceful. There are two ways to proceed. Normally you would work from the ground up but you can work from the head down. There are many options; any way you get there, to peace, get there.

Method One: When you are working from the ground up imagine you are seated or standing on a space of earth that is peaceful. Feel you are in contact with the ground, an energy field from which you spring. Feel that peace is flowing through you in search of stored wars. This energy will go up through the body, counteracting the warring areas, bringing peaceful energy to those areas and filling the entire body with peace. Take the work very literally. When you contact an area of stored-war energy say one word, 'war'. Then encourage the stored aggression to leave while you order or suggest peace to enter.

This way of meditating on peace has more physical contact than just imagining you are being filled with peace. You are using the power of suggestion but it's very real because you are actually experiencing something in the body. Feel you are removing disease, calming upsets, and restoring light into the body. Peace is something real to believe in, that can be transmitted. There is something you can do.

Method Two: When you are working from the head down you begin by first re-establishing the guru or ideal above the head. This is also good to do at any time during the practice when you lose focus. Once the ideal is re-established slowly make a calm descent down the spine. As you do, test each of the sides of the body in an orderly way. If you begin with the right side, say of the head, work on that area, bringing peace to it, then cross over to the same area on the head on the left side and work in the same way. Continue clearing and opening each area of the body. After doing the shoulders, do the arms. Continue descending the spine, traveling back and forth from side to side all the way down to the tail bone. Then work on each leg -- the right hip, then the left hip, the right thigh, then the left thigh, etc. down to the feet.

Feel any unwholesome vibrations stored in these areas and bring the thought of peace into them and mentally dissolve the dis-ease. Then move to the space between and check if they are peaceful. They must be co-ordinated and harmonious one to the other. Feel the integration.

When both sides of the body are cleared you travel upward again to the crown of the head. As you come up the spine you check to see that both sides of each area of the body are balanced and integrated. While ascending and checking from side-to-side it is important to keep centered on the spine. Begin checking with the pelvis and legs, do one side first, then the corresponding side, then both. See if they are clear and balanced. Then, ascending the spine, check the abdomen. When that area is perceived to be clear and balanced move up to the next area, the solar plexus. Continue checking this way, moving upward through the chest, the arms, the neck, face and head until you are once more at the crown of the head. Feel you are bringing peace and knitting the two sides of the body as energy rises. Experience the 'peace' that passeth all understanding -- God-consciousness. Enter the light at that point. Words are all right -- experience is better.

Another way to ascend the spine and to check the body is by going from cakra to cakra. But use this method only if you know about energy fields and are familiar with them. Using this system begin with the earth center; check to see if the area is clear, balanced and integrated. Then move up to the water center, the fire center, on up to the air center and finally the space center.

The Crown/Mind-Consciousness

Again, as you ascend, continually focus on the central channel or center of the spine. Work your way up the spine to the crown of the head and to the light above. When you are calm, clear and balanced, consciousness expands. Only then do you begin to radiate peace to the world. You may do it in a spontaneous way, but if you want power -- Star of Bethlehem power -- do it this way.

In this practice the text says: "Even as I am may they also be." Having become peace you radiate it to others. So, when you have removed war from your being, you extend peace to the world. You must have the actual state or presence of peace within your being. This practice is real, it is not just a 'nice' theory.

There is a delightful story in the Vinaya Pitaka that illustrates this point. During one of his journeys the Buddha arrived at a small monastery. One the steps of the entrance stood a clever young monk; in the dark interior of the monastery, way at the back, sat an old monk. The Buddha asked a question and the young monk gave the correct answer word for word from the formal teaching of dharma -- what we today would call the text-book answer. However, and much to the young man's surprise, the Buddha walked past him, he was more interested in hearing what the old monk had to say. He knew that though the elder had no formal teaching he had all the living experience. There is a difference between theoretical knowledge and real practice, between intellectual understanding and tangible experience. Today we have come to rely on book knowledge but we should remember that the purpose of books was to help us, not to enslave us. I could play the swaggering Rinpoche and give you a completely accurate scholarly rendering of the text, but this would not necessarily give you the right feeling for the subject. It is more important for you to have the spirit of the teaching. The English translation of the text we are studying may not be absolutely perfect but it does give you an idea of the practice.

You want to cultivate an undisturbed body and an undisturbed mind. Bring an undisturbed stillness into the body. This must precede the mind. As I have said before, if you try to still the mind first you're not going to have much success. If you want to still the mind, still the body, first.

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