Wisdom Of Forgiveness Meditation | Venerable Upekkhā

Venerable Upekkhā guides us in a gentle and calm way through a meditation focusing on loving-kindness towards ourselves for close to 45 minutes. Allowing ourselves to be completely at ease and accepted. Venerable Upekkhā is a visiting nun from Dhammasara Nuns Monastery in Australia.

Transcript

So today is a day especially for you, A day you can relax and have time for yourself. So it's a precious day, And a day that we can leave the world behind and look into ourselves, Give ourselves space, As Venerable Chandra said, And allow ourselves to process in its own way our little mind, Giving it the space to process all the burdens of being a human being. Because it's not easy being alive. We think we should be normal, And we think that we should behave in a particular way, And other people should behave in this way and that way, But nobody ever told us that it doesn't happen like that. So allowing ourselves the space to be human, We begin by just noticing the space that we're in and allowing ourselves to land, Noticing how your body feels in this space, Being hot probably, Or cold, Or whatever it is, Allowing yourself to just be, And noticing all the things that come and go in your mind. Again, We're not bossing ourselves around today. We are allowing ourselves to hear ourselves, Learning to listen, And so we become aware of our minds, Because we're listening. We're listening to what we tell ourselves, Noticing how your body is, Because your body often reflects what's going on in your mind. It gets tense, It gets relaxed, And that's often just a reflection of what you're thinking or feeling. So noticing how your body is and using it to connect to your own self, Allowing yourself to be you. So today, The topic being forgiveness. We'll start with the most difficult person of all, Ourselves. Well, For me anyway, The most difficult person of all is often ourselves. We never quite do exactly what we wanted to do. We hardly think what we wanted to think, Leave alone say what we wanted to say. So we're never quite right. But often it's our egos that get in the way of accepting ourselves. We kind of won't let go. We want to be in charge of ourselves. We want to be in control of ourselves. But that is the problem. So I find it helpful when I can't do it for myself to bring someone up to mind, Someone you know, Hopefully personally, But maybe someone you have seen, Someone who you know doesn't judge, Who really has no agenda, Who you know doesn't expect you to behave in any particular way, Whose happiness doesn't seem to depend on your happiness. That person could be a spiritual figure, It could be a friend, It could be a dog, It could be a plant. But bringing up to mind this person, Seeing them in your mind's eye, Trying to imagine being in their presence. What does it feel like to see them, To feel them, To imagine that they're here in this room with us? Whatever it is that brings up that emotion of being completely at ease, Unjudged. Can you imagine what it means to be with this person, To be in their presence? How do you feel? What do they look like? Are they saying anything? Allowing yourself to be completely at ease, Allowing yourself to be completely accepted. If your mind wanders away, Bringing it back to the feeling, The feelings in your body and mind, If the feelings fade away or start to wander away, Just bringing up that image again, Whatever it is, The thoughts that allow us to feel at ease. If it is an image coloring in the picture, The way it sounds and the color, Making it alive. As you look into that person, Be with that person, Imagine what it is like to be them. Imagine what it would be like to be someone who doesn't judge, Who has no agenda. What would it be like to look through their eyes? What would the world be like through their eyes? How would they see people? How would they see the world? What would their days be like? What would it be like to be in their bodies, To live a day in their lives, Noticing how they feel, How they may be feeling, What they may be thinking, What they may be saying, Getting into their shoes. For the last few minutes, Perhaps bringing up a person in your life who's a little bit difficult, And imagine that person in the presence of this other great being. What would they say to him or her? How would they judge them? How would they feel? Being through the eyes of a great being, Someone who doesn't judge, Seeing through their eyes that someone a little difficult in your life, Being the one who doesn't judge, Being the one who has no agenda, Being the one who allows people just to be, Letting go of any stories, Just being the one who is at ease in the world, Who has no expectations, No conditions. Seeing that difficult person in front of you, We have no expectations. We allow them to be just as they are. We let go of any control, Any ideas of how they should be, And we are at ease because our happiness does not depend upon them. And your mind wanders away, Bringing it back to be that one who is at ease in the world, Seeing the world through their eyes, Feeling as they feel, Accepting people just as they are, Accepting us just as we are, No agenda, No control. And we come to the end of the meditation.

Reviews

Peaceful 🙏

Beautiful meditation to accept ourselves and others just as we are, to be at ease in the world. Thank you.

I really enjoyed the meditation.. deeply relaxed ..thank you