After years of trying out different meditation techniques I learned the following technique from listening to a Ram Dass lecture series on CD called “Spiritual Awakening.” As soon as I heard it, it appealed to me because I liked its use of breath, but more than that, I liked the introduction of the gatekeeper. It really helped me to zero in on my breath and it goes like this:

1. Start by finding a comfortable place where you can remove yourself from the everyday distractions of your life. You can sit or lie down, depending on what is more comfortable for you.

2. Focus all of your attention at the tip of your nose.

3. Imagine that you are the gatekeeper at the entrance to a big city and that it is your very important job to watch the coming and going of your breath.

4. Breathe in through your nose and feel the cool air as it enters at the tip of your nostrils.

5. Exhale through your nose and feel the warm air as it leaves your nostrils.

6. Breathing in cool, breathing out warm. Breathing in cool, breathing out warm. In cool. Out warm. In cool. Out warm.

7. At some point you will realize that you have lost the feeling of your breath coming and going. That will be because your mind has wandered. When you realize this, simply return your focus to the tip of your nose and resume your position as gatekeeper.

8. Repeat this for at least 5 to 10 minutes, returning time and time again to the breath.

Learning The Gatekeeper Meditation, (or any meditation

114 HEALING from the INSIDE OUT and the OUTSIDE IN

technique that works for you) is a crucial tool for expanding your awareness. Until you learn to “cultivate the witness” which means to view your thoughts from a witness perspective, you will not necessarily be conscious of what you are thinking. Without you even knowing it, at times you will be a slave to thoughts that run you wily-nilly all over the place. From where you’ve got to be, to what you’ve got to do, it is easy to get lost in what author and meditation teacher Stephen Levine calls “The Under-dream,” that constant stream of thoughts that keeps, at least, a portion of your mind engaged at all times. The fact is, the thinking mind likes to think and we are addicted to listening to it. Unfortunately, we become lost in the under-dream and don’t realize that we are diluting our perceptions of the present moment because we are so distracted.