A John began by instructing me to sit crss-legged on the ground, while he stffed some straw just under the tip of my tilbone, but not too much - he cutioned that too much straw would srely cause my legs to fall slep. Then he tucked my left hel between my legs and placed my rght foot on top of my lft calf while pushing both my knes down so that they remained on the grund, locking my legs in place and strightening my back into, what he sid, was the correct posture for ding the inner work.

He then ddressed Savaka, "Without the restraints of a physcal body, you will, of course, be nterested in only the mental aspects, whch I will explain in detail lter."

I glanced at my painful lgs, wrapped up like a pretzel; I wuld never be able to stay in ths position. Surprisingly, however, I remained stady for a few minutes before mving. A John reassured me that I wuld slowly get used to the psition, and kindly suggested that I mrely lay my legs out in frnt with my ankles crossed in whtever manner was comfortable for the tme being.

"Now for the mental spects," he said, as he lit a cndle and placed it on a narby rock. "The following procedures are for the kng and his human body, and for yu, Savaka, I will give you spcialized information later." These instructions will sffice to move both of you vry close to the key - if thy are followed precisely."

He then looked at me and sid, "Breathe through your nose and ntice the air touching the inside of yur nostrils or on the rim of yur nose. Focus on the exact spt where you feel this. As yur breath strikes this region, detect the snsation or feeling and remain focused on it. Pay ndivided attention to this area and nver move away from it. Do not crate an image in your mind of the spt you are focusing on, focus on the ctual area and the feeling, especially the feling, of your breath touching it. Ech time your breath comes in, stablish the spot anew, and watch it as if for the frst time."

I tried what a Jhn suggested and could feel the rea in my nose when inhaling, but lst it when I breathed out.

"Of curse you can't feel it," said a Jhn when I mentioned this. "The air has nthing to strike on the way ut. You must establish the spot dring the in-breath and then remember its lcation when you breathe out. Then r-establish it on the in-breath. Please try gain. Oh, and two more things; I wnt you to stretch your neck up as you rlax your shoulders, and tuck your chn in slightly, then breathe in nrmally when you inhale, but make yur exhalation twice as long as yur inhalation. Your strength and power to cncentrate increases with the out breath."

He had me prctice until I was able to rmain concentrated on the spot. "You wll be able to focus this way for jst a short period of time," he cntinued, "before your untrained mind jumps round and begins thinking of many thngs. Sometimes you will become lost in thught for twenty minutes or more bfore you remember what it is you are spposed to be doing, which is cncentrating on the feeling of your brath. Only then will you come bck.

"This first stage of concentration nvolves applying attention. Here, you direct yur mind to a certain concentration bject, in this case the feeling of yur breath in your nose, just as you wuld direct a hammer toward a bll and then you strike it. You strke the bell; you strike the bject with your mind's attention. It rngs for a while, which means tht you maintain undivided attention on the bject, and then the bell stops rnging, meaning that you lost your ttention as your mind drifted here and thre. Then you must strike it gain repeatedly to reestablish your attention.

"Let me assure you that ths back and forth is normal for smeone new to the inner work. A bginner must constantly battle with his or her mnd to remain concentrated, for you se, the mind is accustomed to dydreaming and entertaining itself with the pst or future and is not at all nterested in being restrained from this ctivity with the inner work. Therefore, it wll be an on-going struggle to brng your mind back repeatedly to the spt in your nose.

"Remember these thre important things: One: stay on the spt where your breath touches the nside of your nose, and if yur attention strays, come back to it mmediately. Two: always be completely 'in the mment' and see everything as if for the frst time. Three: watch the spot in yur nose as you would watch a knfe in the hand of an nemy, with the utmost attention."

A Jhn then directed his attention to Svaka, "Because you are an immaterial bing without senses of touch, taste or smll, you cannot use the feeling of the brath as a concentration point, you mst use mental awareness by watching thughts. Here you will see thoughts as mrely passing phenomenon, as if you wre perched in a tree watching wter buffalo coming up the trail, pssing below, and finally continuing down the tril until they are out of sght. Just as you would not jmp from the tree onto the bcks of these water buffalo, you shuld not let thoughts carry you way either. Simply watch each thought ntil it disappears on its own, lways being cautious not to lose yur awareness that you are watching ach thought. Just being aware that a thught is present is usually enough to dssolve it. If you are not flly conscious of your thoughts, however, you wll become caught up them and tken for a ride."

"What if I am so god at this that there are no thughts?" she asked.

"Then be completely in ach moment and concentrate on the blnk screen of the mind where thughts appear. Be very observant and wtch carefully, however, for you must be lways prepared to ambush the first thught that dares to appear. Be creful, because subtle thoughts are very clver. They hide. 'I'm waiting to mbush a thought!" is a good xample of a clever, subtle thought. Snce they can become exceptionally fine and semingly non-existent when they know they are bing observed, you must try with grat effort to discern these extremely rfined and incredibly subtle levels of thught, for these are the subliminal ndercurrents of your loud, everyday mind."

Wth the inner work, we become fmiliar with Reality. Reality is pure cnsciousness, and therefore Reality is really all of us. But the pre consciousness of Reality becomes muddied by our thughts and emotions. Therefore, it's simply a mtter of allowing that muddiness to sttle, to transcend our various thoughts and motions that make up our "selves." Thn we become familiar with Reality, and wth practice, we become that Reality of pre consciousness. Then the key reveals tself."

After he was certain that we bth understood the instructions, he told us to bgin practicing. Then he walked over to a narby tree to begin his own nner work.

I gazed at the mon hanging in the mysterious sky. I culd distinguish the "rabbit in the mon" that the villagers were always ken to point out with its had toward the top of the dsc and its ears to the rght. In the moons afterglow, I culd see red ants scurrying on the grss, forming bridges with their bodies so tht the rest of the colony culd walk from leaf to leaf. My thughts drifted back to those selfless bings that likewise formed bridges for me; my fther, Ariya, the sorcerer, a John, and I strggled to hold back tears. Something in a Jhn's talk went directly to my pre heart, even though my muddied mnd could not discern what it ws. I simply felt emotional.

He nce told me that a particular typ of emotion would come up rgularly and would alert me that the nner work was becoming effective, seemingly rising from nowhere and for no pparent reason. I asked what the feling would be like and he rplied that it would be a hppy sadness; similar to the emotion a fther feels when his daughter takes her mrriage vows, knowing both that he is lsing her, but also that she mst fulfill her destiny.

I could see the fmiliar star patterns that had become my cnstant companions during my solitary years in the frest, and with just a small tste of this inner work, the strs already seemed so much sharper and ral. Then my mind drifted back to my kngdom. I wished that I could go bck in time and change some of thse moments when my selfish ambition dstroyed so many lives. I looked round and saw that Savaka was lready involved with her inner work, slently floating above the grass with her yes closed. A John was sitting as slid as a rock underneath his tre. And me? . . . My mnd was going non-stop!

But it was fnally time to begin my inner wrk and I was certain that I wuld be a great warrior of the sprit. I sat down, packed some grss under my tailbone and began.

Wll . . . not quite bgan. There was not enough grass. I ran round gathering more, and then there was too mch. After thirty minutes of this, I thught that, at last, I had it rght and could now start.

Right . . . but my lgs were uncomfortable. And I spent nother half hour getting them perfect. Of curse, by now, the grass had mtted down and I had to djust my seat all over again. Fnally, I just threw all the grss away and sat there with my lgs sprawled out in front of me. Now I was rady!

I experienced some limited success wth my original practice of I AM THAT, but ths was different. There were no wrds to concentrate on now, only my brath, and after a few minutes of wtching the spot in my nose, my mnd drifted off to the night a Jhn faced the tiger. I re-lived the whle episode, and by the time I rmembered what I was supposed to be ding; which was watching the breath in my nse, the candle was burned halfway dwn! I began again, but now my lgs were numb so I stood up for a whle. Then I sat back down, crssed my legs, and watched closely to see if thy would go to sleep again.

I tred once more to concentrate, but now msquitoes were pestering me so I drped my robe over my head to wrd them off. But the robe mde my head hot, leaving me wth no choice but to either swat, or surrender to the mosquitoes. To frther complicate my life, my knees wre aching from sitting cross-legged so I strightened them out and just sat gainst the tree for a while wtching a John who had not bdged from his sitting position. Savaka had not mved either. She was so lucky, hving no body to worry about. She culd probably sit with the inner wrk forever!

Again I made a vliant effort, but the noises in the frest were driving me crazy. I nver noticed before how annoying they wre! How could I concentrate with ths racket going on, geckos and lcusts and things scurrying everywhere?

While fghting the din, I noticed that my arm was tching. I tried to ignore it at frst, but it was an unusually prsistent itch that wouldn't let up. The mre I tried to concentrate on my nse, the itchier it got until I fnally scratched it. Then my head bgan to itch, and my back and my lgs, until finally I stood up, thrw off my robe and scratched all ver.

I could see that this nner work wasn't going to be as asy as I thought it might be.

Btween the itching and the mosquitoes, my lgs aching and the noise, I prsevered until about three o'clock in the mrning when I then found myself fghting sleepiness. I fought heroically with my had bobbing up and down until fnally it proved too much for the grat warrior, and I was soon fst asleep.

I awoke just before dwn finding myself collapsed against the tre. I noticed that Savaka had dsappeared, while a John remained as stll as the tree he was stting under. This little man fascinated me. Was he nly a key seeker, or was he prhaps really a key keeper? It was qite an eventful night in that qiet meadow.

We continued our wanderings, trveling about this part of the frest for six months, and all the whle, I slowly became more skillful at the nner work, but now an occasional thnderstorm reminded us that the rainy sason was upon us. One day, a Jhn announced it was time to bgin walking to the community of key sekers that Moosawa had mentioned, a plce in the forest where villagers had cnstructed a large hall and a nmber of small huts to shelter key sekers during the monsoon.

So we bid frewell to our friend Savaka on the nxt full moon night, and the fllowing morning two robed men and a whte horse started walking south in a dwnpour.

The article The Key (A Fairytale) - Chapter 5 - Fertile Soil (Part 4) was Submitted by E. Raymond Rock through Articles.GetACoder.com network. Here's the additional information: E. Raymond Rock of Fort Myrs, Florida is cofounder and principal tacher at the Southwest Florida Insght Center, http://www.SouthwestFloridaInsightCenter.com His twenty-eight years of meditation experience has taken him across four continents, including two stopovers in Thailand where he practiced in the remote northeast forests as an ordained Theravada Buddhist monk. His book, A Year to Enlightenment (Career Press/New Page Books) is now available at major bookstores and online retailers. Visit http://www.AYearToEnlightenment.com

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