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Settling, clearing breath, intention, and finding a presence anchor. Chapter 2.
A short practice, one to fifteen minutes. The ground for everything else.
- Settle into the posture.
- Take three rounds of clearing breath – inhale deeply into the belly, pause at the top, exhale long and smooth. Then let the breath find its own rhythm.
- Bring an intention to mind. Your own, or this one: to explore what is possible in your own experience, here and now.
- Let your curiosity guide you: what here is stable, grounding, safe? The feeling of sitting, the feet on the floor, the hands, a sound, the breath.
- When attention lands somewhere and there is a small settling, rest there. You are here, in the present. Stay with the anchor to borrow its stability.
- Let everything else be present as well – sounds, sensations, feelings, thoughts. The anchor is one point of stability inside all of it, without having to get rid of anything.
- Allow your presence anchor to stay in the background as you move into the next activity. You can choose to return to this at any point where grounding and stability would help.
From the audio companion to Lenses of Insight: A field guide to insight practice, by Kynan Tan. Recorded at a Day of Practice at the Buddhist Library in Sydney on 26 July 2026, and at an online workshop on 6 September 2026.
The field guide has every practice written out, and the understanding that goes with it. Get it free: Lenses of Insight field guide.