Hello everyone and welcome to this guided meditation.
I am Bhante Warapanyo,
An American Buddhist monk and meditation teacher,
Currently running a monastery in the south of Italy.
Our meditation today is going to be concerned with present moment awareness of what's happening right now.
Right now is a pointer towards what you're experiencing at this moment.
So,
For example,
There are common experiences that we as human beings have most of the time,
Such that the body is breathing,
Such that seeing is taking place or hearing is taking place,
And there are usually certain sensations that are going on in the body depending on how you're sitting,
How you're breathing,
The conditions of the environment that you're in.
In this guided meditation we will invite our present moment awareness,
Kind of the natural way of being aware,
In which you don't have to apply effort,
But you're simply naturally aware to the phenomena or the sensations,
The experiences that are currently going on in the body.
We want to make use of the body to help simplify and stabilize our mind enough to consistently be aware of the arising and passing away of phenomena,
Moment-by-moment phenomena or experiences arising and passing away.
This experience of meditation is not so much reliant upon a particular meditation method,
But rather it is more in the vein of a quality of continuous noticing that is already happening,
But we begin to prioritize the continuous noticing to come back to it in some way through the framework of listening,
Listening to my voice,
Listening to this talk.
And through that state of listening,
Tuning into the present moment sensations and experiences in the body moment-by-moment.
Now when we tune into or become aware of the present moment sensations,
The present moment experience in the body,
It is very naturally clear that certain sensations or feelings are coming up and then going away.
And if we hyper-focus on one particular sensation,
Such as like if we're sitting cross-legged,
We may feel pressure on our ankle or we may feel pressure on the buttocks area.
If we focus solely on that area,
It seems to be that that state of experiencing,
That state of sensation is continuous,
That it is staying in one place.
But when we,
For example,
Rub our finger together or we notice the sound of the voice,
We can experience in a very accessible way the subtlety of impermanence.
And impermanence is a fundamental teaching in the Buddhist tradition.
It's something we understand to be a doorway to experiencing reality rather than our confused,
Deluded notions about reality.
So as we sit here or lay here,
Or whatever position you may be in,
And you are in this state of listening,
And also in this state of noticing,
You may try to bring up a question in the context of this guided meditation.
Bring up a question such as,
Who am I truly?
And upon bringing up this question with a degree of sincerity and a degree of heart,
Open the mind back to the present moment sensations,
The present moment experiences in the body.
Notice the peculiarness or the specificness of the direct experience of the sensations in the body right now.
And allow those direct sensations in the body,
And there may be like the listening,
There may be the feeling from your seated position,
You may rub your fingers together or rub your hand on a carpet.
Notice how the direct experience of sensations is a quite authentic way of exploring the question of,
Who am I truly?
Who are you truly?
Asking this to oneself.
And allow that questioning and that experiencing of the kind of dynamic quality of questioning with direct experiencing to inform a state of relaxation in the body,
And through that relaxation in the body,
A openness to relax the mind on this question.
And so in this state of relaxing the mind on this question,
Answer it right now.
Spaciousness and peace and silence and no thought.
Dear friends,
Thank you for participating with me in this guided meditation.
I hope that you will be well,
Happy,
And peaceful in your life.
And if you did get benefit from this guided meditation,
And if you have ideas for other kinds of guided meditation you would like me to give,
Please leave a comment and let me know.
I'm really happy to be here on this platform,
And I hope that my presence here can be a blessing and bring benefit to the community.
Namo Buddhaya.
