morning bell

Recently I have enjoyed waking up to the morning bell!

It is a free resource provided by Ian Adams on his site pace bene! You can sign up to receive a text or e-mail each weekday morning containing a nugget of wisdom from the christian tradition.  I have been taking a phrase or word from this into my morning silence and finding it profitable.  There is something powerful about being alone and silent, but also aware that others are doing the same thing in their own time and place.

Suggested Task: give it a try

If you’d like to try the morning bell, log onto the pace bene! site and sign up.  Each morning find a quiet place, make yourself comfortable and spend (say) twenty minutes in silence, repeating to yourself a word or phrase.  Other thoughts will come and go, but keep returning to your words until the time is up!

Your comments.

I too have been rising early to meditate and have been following a method suggested by Bruce Stanley (http://www.embody.co.uk/blog/post/habit_three_stillness) which involves counting in and out breaths from 1 to 10 and then back down to 1 again and so on.  His explanation is a lot clearer than mine.

The difficulty for me is ‘observing’ the random thoughts that float in and out of my mind without judgement.  I’m hoping that this skill comes with practice.