Frequently Asked Questions

Question 1. Does it matter if I drift off to sleep during the seven minutes coming to rest, which I sometimes find I do? What can and should I do about it?

Drifting off a time or two is essentially a step in the right direction -  a perspective on which is provided by the fact that sixty percent of extended meditation even by experienced practitioners is spent in inadvertent pre-sleep or sleep but is not recognized as such. So mostly do nothing but sit more upright looking ahead.

If drowsiness persists slowly stand and very deliberately stretch – taking a measured step or two also if you like - putting your body through a range of movements - as you stay in touch with how this precisely feels. Then return to sitting, repeating a couple of times or at intervals for the whole seven minutes if that is what it takes to keep you alertly in touch with emerging bodily-felt restfulness.

But if time is no problem, the best course would be to doze until you are refreshed and awake again and then restart the seven minutes.

Recurring drowsiness when you mean to enjoy coming to rest will indicate you are either suffering from the rare condition of hypersomnia or far more probably are in the habit of shorting yourself on sleep.  Taking brief, five or ten minute naps, at opportune times would help that and often you will become able to do with an established calm aware practice.
In the meanwhile if your nighttime sleeping is unpredictable think of optimizing it in the two well-established ways that really make a major difference, which are:

1. Routinely lying down to sleep only when actually drowsy.
   
   
2. Getting up at a fixed time each day, no matter how badly you have slept. Allow yourself to
   lie in no more than half an hour on non-working days.

Question 2.  Can I combine my daily prayers with calm awareness resting practice? 

Most definitely of course you can!  If you have convictions to support it a devotional time can be melded with a calm resting practice.  Being motivated to meet your spiritual obligations would then assist continuing your calm aware practice which in turn would help you best calmly discharge the requirement.

Once the form of your devotional practice is established and its duration reliably takes the needed seven minutes you could relinquish cueing the conclusion. Otherwise, be sure to retain this very crucial feature, for resting calm awareness needs to be received as timeless, as you continually hear me emphasize.  In the way you have learned, you would be able to affirm resting markers, which would bridge to your moving on to sensing your actual actions being empowered.

Most faiths by advocating spiritual communion predispose to the calm awareness of restfulness and there is nothing to stop you taking advice on how yours might support a deliberately intended resting aware practice.

Question 3.  Will a calm aware resting practice advance my spiritual development?  Would doubling or trebling the seven minutes to match the duration often recommended for meditation be something I should consider?

Spirituality has many dimensions and does not have to imply a formal religious view or even theistic beliefs, but includes a deep recognition of universal aspects of the human condition and living in hope of their acceptance or even transcendence. To this end even if you lack a fixed viewpoint it makes sense, as you complete aware resting affirmation, to avow your convictions and the values that underpin them. That might only take a moment or two.

To be in the habit of reminding yourself of your guiding aims and principles will add additional reason and increased continuity of purpose to your daily resting calm renewal. You will be more able to effectively deal with the day to day less consequential while keeping the larger perspective in full sight.

Whether your view of existence is formulated or largely implicit or evolving, it will need to figure in achieving coherence, creating meaning and adding purpose, while enjoying the journey.  To this end a measure of contemplative thought is basic for survival, let alone a tolerable existence, and its availability is kept honed as an extension of your capacity for full awareness you are daily renewing.

The best balance of thought and action in your life evolves and so has no formula. There is often opportunity for such needed deliberate reflection before and particularly after your daily affirmation of calm restfulness. As I point out in your stepped entry into its actual practice this is always an option if you have additional time and you choose.

In the early days of establishing a contemplative commitment a backlog of considerations are likely to meld with coming to rest but need not prevent your confirming restfulness as the clarity of mind you find becomes indistinguishable from fully alertly resting.

Question 4. My hands, which chill very easily anyway, often do not seem to clearly warm even after a full seven minutes despite other indications I have come to rest.  Am I doing something I need to correct? 

Quite often, especially early on in a resting practice, peripheral circulation enhancement occurs but may be slow to produce warming.  Minor health upsets easily could be responsible or the reason may remain obscure but is usually transient. As you yourself observed other resting sensation markers will still allow you to fully confirm you are successfully resting and these very often will include sensed vibrancy and pulse awareness nonetheless.

You may be one of a small percent of people for whom actual warming can be particularly delayed that is best understood as a variation on our hand’s natural hyper-sensitivity. A common example would be sitting in as an air conditioned room after being outside in the heat when persisting coolness in the hands is to be expected and focused awareness of which would still enjoyably compose a resting marker sensation set.

Hand-warming is easily checked by finding a covered skin surface, such as the back of the neck, not cooled on touching, and is predisposed to obviously by being well clothed when you sit down to come to rest.  If you to continue to find hand warming uncertain you should think of helping the process by placing them between your chest wall and upper arms with them crossed.  They lock comfortably in place and you will be able to sit at ease and reposition, if you want, once they have warmed.
                                           
For unusually protracted coolness, which might amount to Reynaud’s Syndrome, be quite unstinting with the warming assistance by donning the fleeciest pair of down mitts you can find and keep them by for the purpose.  A meditative practice is well known to much improve this condition.

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