I'm going to take a couple of deep breaths.
Just connecting with breath with belly rising and falling.
We'll just start the beginning with the meditation chimes.
We'll just be coming into that first anchor of the meditation,
Paying attention to the breath,
Just noticing the breath coming in and out of the body,
Noticing the sensation of your hands,
Perhaps resting on your legs,
Noticing the temperature of the hands,
Do they feel warm or cool?
You might notice the texture of your clothing beneath your palm,
You might feel air flowing over the back of the hand,
You might notice the anchor of the feet,
Whether you're practicing this seated with feet touching the floor,
If you're sitting lying on a bed,
You might just notice the contact point of the heels touching the surface below you,
Letting the energy of your awareness ground through the feet,
Sometimes connecting with the earth below us,
Even if we're on an upper story,
Knowing that beneath this building is the earth of this land that we are on,
And you might notice the sounds as our final anchor or resting place for the mind,
There's the sound of my voice,
There's the sound of music in the background,
There might be the sound of your own breath,
With this type of meditation we're practicing open awareness,
Moving through the different realms of sensation,
Eyes may be closed,
We have sound,
We have smell,
We have the sensation of the body,
You might notice the weight of your head,
Perhaps your head is resting against the surface of the chair,
Letting the neck relax,
You might let the small muscles of the scalp and head soften,
And we're practicing this Metta,
This loving kindness to the self and to the body,
So we're meeting spaces where we notice tension or even pain in the body with kind non-judgmental awareness,
This too is part of our moment to moment experience,
We don't need to dive down deeply into any sensation,
But just acknowledge it,
And then we move our awareness to another place,
We notice the muscles of the face,
We might bring a small smile to the face,
This actually takes less muscles for the small smile than it does for us to have a neutral expression or a frown,
So we're inviting relaxation into the body,
If you let the corners of your mouth turn up,
You might feel an accompanying lightness or not,
Both are normal,
We meet the sensation of the back and shoulders,
Letting the shoulders drop a little further away from the ears,
Letting the breath move easily in and out of the body,
Letting the diaphragm rise and softly fall,
Inviting the muscles of the abdomen,
The lower back to release,
To soften,
You might feel kindness and gratitude to the body for all that it does carrying us through this life,
Moving into the hips,
Feeling gravities pull on your body,
The weight of yourself on your buttocks,
The large muscles of the legs,
Softening of the knees,
Feeling the sense of relaxation,
Of heaviness throughout the body,
Calves,
Knees,
Ankles,
Soles of the feet,
Inside of the shoe,
Where perhaps if your sock,
Toes,
Fingers,
Just taking a few breaths to settle into the body,
We meet ourselves in the space of the meditation with metta,
This practice of loving kindness that is supportive,
That is gentle,
That is non judgmental.
You might,
I invite you to visualize a being of some kind that can join you on this journey of recovery and healing.
For some people,
This being may not even be human,
It might be a beloved pet.
It might be a supportive relative who's always met you with kindness and love.
And if there was no one in your life like that,
It might be what you imagine that person to be.
A wise and caring father,
A loving and kind mother.
Also might be,
As I said before,
Someone from your own personal belief system.
It may be a religious figure who represents kindness to you.
Christianity that might be Jesus or it might be Mary.
Practice practitioners of Buddhism,
The Buddha himself offers this kindness and light.
There are figures in Hindu Pantheon offer this support and kindness.
Figures like Ganesh,
The elephant God,
Who offers with his trunk to lift the burdens of life out of your way.
All of these figures meet the challenges of life with kindness and support coming from a heart space.
I invite you to envision that figure before you and yourself beside them or with them.
For some people it's easier with this rather than thinking of themselves in their present day way of being.
You might remember yourself as a child at a point where the universe was filled with magic and mystery and that innocent self coming into this world.
Or it may be the older,
Wiser self that you hope to become.
But just feel that presence.
For some of us this loving kindness is easy to feel and think about.
For others,
We have to reach a little harder.
We have to recall how it feels to be hugged by someone we love.
We might recall the support of having a favorite dog leaning against our leg.
We might imagine being in a safe and beautiful place.
We might imagine this feeling of loving kindness as a color that surrounds us,
Maybe a golden glow.
Whatever color works for you.
And we'll just rest for a few moments with this vision.
This is a practice that we repeat so that it becomes more natural,
So that it becomes easier.
And it's something we can return to as a resource.
When we're overwhelmed.
When we're frustrated.
We remember that on this journey with us.
We're not alone.
There is this wiser,
Stronger,
Higher being that is walking beside us every step of this journey.
And with their support,
We can find our way to peace,
To equanimity,
And contentment.
I'm just going to close with the note of the basso bol and we'll just let that sound fade away.
