Okay,
So relax and getting yourself nice and peaceful.
And that's the first task to do,
Sitting in a chair,
Make sure you're as comfortable as you can possibly make it.
When you think you're comfortable,
Think again.
This time be a bit more precise.
How are your feet now?
How do they feel?
Sitting in a chair,
I usually like to just check my feet,
Sometimes push them further away from the chair,
Sometimes tuck them in,
Sometimes move them apart,
Until I find they're the most comfortable I can make them.
I feel those feet,
And it's amazing,
The longer you stay with your feet,
The more sensitive you become to them.
Now I can just look at any of the toes and relax them,
And they do start to change their feelings.
This allows you to get feedback,
You can see how the feelings in your toes change.
If they're getting more tense,
You're going in the wrong direction,
So relax them.
Often it's by trial and error,
Until you learn how to relax them.
Then you go to the main part of your feet,
The sole of the feet,
The uppers,
The heel.
How do the heels feel?
And eventually,
You can learn to relax what you thought was never able to be relaxed.
You find what works is the mindfulness together with the kindness.
Kindness makes things feel safe,
So they do relax.
And from the feet,
I go past my ankles,
Because I don't play sport.
It's not because I'm too old to play sport,
But too kind to play sport.
I never want to win and disappoint others,
So I have very few injuries there.
I go up my calves and my legs,
Experience their feelings.
Because with my calf muscles right now,
I'm imagining expanding them,
Making them wider and larger and longer,
So I'm not squashing them.
And that makes them feel more relaxed.
And I go to my knees.
When I get to my knees,
I get to know my knees and how they feel,
And I also learn how to relax them.
So nothing is held tight.
It opens up all these beautiful avenues of energy,
Of healing energy.
So if anything is amiss there,
I can send these beautiful energies to my knees and relax a whole lot.
And then I go past the knees to my thighs,
Relaxing them as much as I possibly can,
Relaxing to the max.
And then to my butt.
Your butt is sitting on a chair,
There's pressure squashing some of those muscles.
But I do know when I make my buttocks as comfortable as I possibly can,
Even though there's still a feeling there which will stay,
The feeling doesn't change and it will soon go away all by itself.
I will soon not be aware of that pressure of the bottom muscles against the chair.
I can leave it.
It's as comfortable as I can get it.
And I go to my back,
First of all the waist.
I just like,
It's been my habit for years,
Of always sitting up straight,
Which I'm going to do now.
It kind of feels better,
For me anyway.
So my back is not supported by the backrest of the chair.
It's self-supporting.
But to me it feels better.
And then I go up my body.
I kind of like doing like a scan,
Like a sweeping of the body from the bottom,
Going upwards,
Upwards,
Upwards.
This is where,
Whether it's in my intestines or bowels,
Whether it's in the liver or kidney or stomach,
I can actually feel how it is there.
What do my intestines feel like now?
As I sweep my attention up,
If there's some place which needs extra attention,
I will pause.
I would imagine my mind going right into that,
Not running away,
But going right into it,
Getting to feel and know it first of all,
And then giving it this beautiful kindness.
Even imagining any tightness,
Tension,
It's getting less and less and less.
And sometimes you've done this,
Even though you've had food poisoning,
You can meditate with just all the spasms away.
And then you eventually get through all your organs to your shoulders.
And I like,
There's a reason for this,
Which I'll let you know about in a moment.
I always like scrunching up my shoulders,
Making them as tight as possible,
Really tight,
And then letting go.
My shoulders go to a place which is more relaxed than when I started.
This is an effective way to relax those muscles.
But it's also,
It shows you what letting go is.
Something which was stretched or squashed,
And now you release that pressure,
And it goes back to its natural,
Safe,
Comfortable position.
That's what letting go is like,
Letting go of the pressures.
And then I go down my arms,
Past my elbows and forearms to my hands.
And again,
Strangely,
I meditate so much,
I so often get my hands in the wrong position.
So I ask my hands just now,
How are you?
And they say terrible.
So I now adjust my fingers in my hand.
It feels better.
And I go up to my shoulders and neck.
You may notice that you can have aches in your back or neck,
Simply because the head is not properly balanced on top of the neck.
So at this point,
I usually move my head slowly from side to side,
Forward and back,
Until my head feels as comfortable as it could possibly be.
The best balance on top of the neck.
And lastly,
To relax my body,
I mindfully become aware of the muscles around my eyes,
My mouth and my nose.
I get to know those muscles and how they feel.
And if they are anxious or afraid,
Your face has a different configuration.
And you can feel that in the muscle tightness in your face.
So by now,
I'm pretty alert to the muscles around my face.
So I relax them all.
I love relaxing the muscles around the eyes.
When they get loose,
It's as if I'm really at ease around the mouth and the nose.
So everything is as relaxed as I possibly can make it.
And then when I finish that job of relaxing the muscles in the face,
Then I usually ask to become aware of my whole body sitting here,
All joined together.
And again,
Honestly,
My body feels really relaxed,
Thanks to that deliberate part-by-part relaxation of my body.
Because it feels relaxed,
As soon I can be aware of the delight of relaxation.
It always accompanies relaxation.
But for many years,
I just ignored the feeling of delight,
The happy,
Joyful feeling.
Just now,
I'm aware of it.
I focus on that delight of relaxation,
And the relaxation goes deeper.
That's why I love practicing and teaching this.
It's an easy way to get even more relaxed all over your body and inside your body.
And also,
You're turning even more exclusively to the world of the mind.
Now in particular,
Now is the most important time.
Whatever you are aware of right now,
Whatever this is,
It's the most important object in the whole world.
And your job,
The only thing to do,
Is to care and be kind.
Opening the door of your heart to whatever appears in this moment.
That's as much instruction as I'm going to give.
There's another 20 minutes left for you to meditate quietly by yourself.
How do you feel right now?
Coming close to the end of the meditation.
How peaceful are you?
How relaxed?
How aware?
It's also time to check out what happened,
And why.
This is how we learn about meditation and how to meditate.
In a few moments,
I will ask you to open your eyes.
Do it slowly,
And gently come out from the meditation.
Please open your eyes now.
