Heart

We drive our energy through to the Earth's heart, piercing its surface – the ground – on the way. We begin this process by visualizing the sinking energy passing down the leg, through the sole of the foot (the heel in particular), and down to a point under the ground somewhere beneath our base. Somehow practising penetrating the Earth eventually enables us to also penetrate our own resistance (laziness, tiredness, bloody-mindedness, and all our conditioning) and reach the heart and essence of our own motivation: we become skilled at penetrating to the heart of things. Two skills are required, both of which can be developed through practice. The first is the ability to melt and seep through hardness: something in you must melt the hard ground so that your energy can seep into and through it. This is achieved by allowing your own heart to melt and open. It is pretty much the same feeling you have when the heart melts at the sight of your beloved, or at the smile of a child. The second skill runs from this – the ability to extend your energy beyond your physical boundaries. This basically means expanding the heart to contain the point or place to which your energy needs to extend. It is possible to just let the energy go and direct it to its destination with the mind, but this method denies the energy the compassionate accompaniment of your heart.