This meditation is useful for continuing to develop your mindfulness skills. It is also helpful for continuing to develop your connection with nature, and for developing an awareness of your senses. It can also help ease intense emotions by placing awareness on alternate feelings. It involves the use of your sense as you explore a stone or object.

If you have it available to you, before you begin this meditation, find a stone you would like to use. If you don’t have a stone, you can choose any object outside, such as a small piece of wood, a feather, or even some grass or a flower. If collecting something from outside is not available to you, and you do not have any of those things, then get an object that has been created, such as a drinking glass, a piece of pottery, a scarf, or even a book.

I know that you know this, but I want to remind you that each of the objects I have mentioned here, and actually all of the other objects around you, are created out of natural things. The glass is made of sand, the pottery of clay, the cloth from fibers, the book pages from trees. Even the walls around you are made out of wood and gypsum-we just call it, “drywall”. Although when you are indoors, you may believe that you are not in nature, actually, no matter where you are, natural objects surround you. The helpful thing for this meditation is that you find an object that is big enough for you to explore, but small enough so that you can handle it easily. That is why I suggest that if you can, you use a stone.