Chanting is a whole body experience – you feel it. First comes the gathering in the belly, and the swell of the chest and the awakening of the throat; then the soft cavity of the mouth shapes and sends the sound forth as the bones of the head resonate and the pulses in the skin tingle. This is embodied devotion. The listening deepens, comes alive. Sounds, tones and mind spread out within the heart-field of benevolent causes and effects, the ‘sacred Cosmos’. Yes, there’s a domain we can evoke and enter – and as it supports us, we support it. From its innumerable and mysterious causes and conditions, benevolent influences have come into my life just as they have guided the lives of others; and so awareness must be extended beyond me and time and incident into the domain of love and integrity and self-surrender that is the source of our lived-in truth. We are fragile, we are resilient; we are separated, we’re connected. In the language of the heart these are not contradictions. The sense is of embracing the entirety of our humanity.

Ajahn Sucitto