Traditionally, after taking a meditative posture, Jains will recite a Samayika-path or multiple Samayika-patha (pl.) before engaging in formal Samayika practice. An example given by Padamanabh Jaini in The Jaina Path of Purification is as follows:
“As long as I am seated in this meditation,
I shall patiently suffer all calamities that may befall me,
be they caused by an animal, a human being, or a god.
I renounce, for the duration of this meditation,
my body, all food, and all passions.
Attachment, aversion, fear, sorrow, joy, anxiety, self-pity…
all these I abandon with body, mind, and speech.
I further renounce all delight, whether gain or loss,
Whether defeat or victory, whether meeting or separation,
Whether friend or enemy, whether pleasure or pain,
I have equanimity towards all.
In the attainment of knowledge, insight, and proper conduct,
the cause is invariably nothing but my own soul;
Similarly, my soul is the primary cause for both the influx
of karmas and the stopping of that influx.
One and eternal is my soul,
Characterized by intuition and knowledge;
All other states that I undergo are external to me,
for they are formed by associations.
Because of these associations, my soul has suffered
the chains of misery;
Therefore I renounce with body, mind, and speech,
all relationships based on such associations.
Thus have I attained to equanimity
and to my own self-nature.
May this state of equanimity be with me
Until I attain to salvation.”
I have sometimes sung (or sung in my head) a hymn from my childhood church as a way to start my meditation period:
“Spirit of the living God, fall afresh on me. Spirit of the living God, fall afresh on me.
Melt me, mold me, fill me, use me…
Spirit of the living God, fall afresh on me.”
Using a Samayika-path, or recitation, is one potential way to frame a person’s meditative practice.