Meditation Preliminaries
1.) Clean and tidy up and tidy the room. This becomes the cause to help create a paradise later. Also helps to wake up and get the day going and to slow down the mind.
2.) Offerings - Set up the altar. Water bowl offerings to the five senses - Fill and empty bowls from the left. Empty bowls at night to signify ready to die now. Wipe bowls before filling. If you are inclined, do three prostrations before sitting.
3.) Take a proper seat.
4.) Go for refuge and generate bodhicitta.
5.) Visualize merit field (the lamas of the spiritual or personal lineage). Start simply, by visualizing the silhouette of the root lama, and then begin to add features, color, and details later. See as young and vibrant without physical defects.
6.) Purify obstacles. Gather goodness by opening yourself. Purify broken vows or anything that
you’ve done in the last 24 hours that is not in keeping with who you know you really are.
7.) Rejoice. Be glad about the good things which you and others have done. It is more powerful to rejoice about your own goodness than that of others. It multiplies your virtue and potential exponentially to be very happy about your own good deeds.
8.) Turn the Wheel of Dharma by requesting the holy beings to teach.
9.) Ask the holy beings to stay and not to break your relationship or to die.
10.) Dedication
11.) Request the potential to gain high spiritual goals - to enable your ability in every path from simplest beginning to the highest one. After requesting, absorb the being through your crown into your heart.
More info at acidharma.org Formal Studies Course 3
