So welcome to this meditation on cultivating awareness as a way to live more soulfully,
With more delight in our days,
With more life in our lives.
It will begin with a spoken section and then we will go into a period of seated practice.
So let us begin.
I have a dear elder teacher in the United Kingdom who has taught me a great deal about soulfulness.
She's a wise one,
She grew up in Hungary.
She'd often talk to me in our fireside chats about the concept of soul-making,
That we can build our sweet and soulful self,
That we can tend to our wise and wild hearts.
She speaks on soul being made,
Of a soulful life being a thing that we can choose,
Of this notion that living soulfully is something that we can step towards and that we can grow.
I don't think she was talking about soul in any religious sense,
But was speaking deeply about our sense of living a soulful life,
Of living a life worth living,
Where we're in touch with the deeper currents of all things,
With a big beauty behind it all.
So today we'll explore the notion that soulful living is a thing that we can cultivate,
That we can step into,
That living soulfully is something that we can tend to,
That we can choose to live lives with more wonder in them.
I think that soulful living is made by the practice of praise,
And by praise I mean the noticing of the wonder of the world around us,
By delighting in the details,
Like witnessing the bird on the fence,
Or maybe the way that the sky reflects in the puddle on some city street.
When we stop to notice the details,
We're both giving to the world around us,
And to ourselves too.
This world is full of millions of miracles.
Photosynthesis and the way that flowers grow from the light of the Sun.
The way that the moon,
Shining far off in space,
Creates tides.
All of our furry friends and their soft eyes and scurrying ways.
The changing sky scapes of sunrise and sunset.
The way that water feels on your skin.
The extraordinaryness that we can plant a tiny seed,
And it will grow into a crunchy carrot across the course of a summer of rain and sunshine.
In many ways these are all normal day-to-day things,
And yet in many ways life on this earth is extraordinary beyond measure.
And yet so often we miss it.
We miss the amazing gift of it all.
We get lost in the land of worry,
And miss the pathway through wonder.
So today we will pause for presents.
We will take time for soulfulness.
We will take some time for soul sustenance.
So we will begin.
Take a seat.
Settle.
Soften.
Breathe a little deeper.
Come in close to your body.
Feel yourself sitting here.
Come into this physical place.
This moment that we are practicing in.
We're practicing being present as a pathway to soulfulness.
Feel the way that your belly moves when you breathe.
Notice that.
That the body gets breathed.
Sure we can deepen it,
But the breathing happens by itself.
Notice the physical sensations.
Become sweet and soft and intimate with your inner experience.
Notice that you can hear your breath too.
That you have ears that can hear the sounds of this world.
And as you settle,
Feel some space open up within you.
Stay with that sense of space.
We're pausing for presents.
I know,
Your mind wants to whiz and whir and worry.
That's what minds do.
Yet stay with the stillness.
Keep your mind in this moment.
Let the thoughts drop.
And as you sit and still,
Look for what lights you up.
Look for levity in your experience.
Perhaps there is pleasure here.
Perhaps there are things in this place you enjoy that you can literally bathe in the beauty of.
Maybe it's a tree outside the window.
Or your kids playing in the next room.
Or the relief there being no one here.
And some sweet stillness that you can soak in for a bit.
Look for what lifts you up.
What lights you up.
What brings joy in your aliveness.
What feels like it sustains you.
What feeds your soul.
Notice.
Pay attention to that.
Notice what nurtures you.
Allow this moment to be beautiful.
Even amidst all in the world that isn't.
See if you can bear to be with what is good.
Pay attention and be attentive.
The wonderful Mary Oliver writes,
10,
000 times a day something happens to me like this.
Some strengthening throb of amazement.
Some good sweet empathetic ping and swell.
This is the first and wildest thing I know.
That the soul exists and is built entirely out of attentiveness.
That the soul exists and is built entirely out of attentiveness.
So we will sit and pay attention.
Seeking a sense of soulfulness.
Soul doesn't have to be shiny.
Sometimes it is the experience of sorrow that brings us closest to soulful living.
The times when we have had our heart cracked open.
When the grief that we are carrying is great.
There is big beauty in heartbreak.
There is poignancy in the proverbial flower that has to grow through concrete.
And yet at these tough times the world around us may meet us in our tender heartedness.
Soulful living can be so sustaining.
When we live soulfully we are in relationship with the wider world around us.
We sense that we are part of some greater story.
That we belong here.
However broken it all seems sometimes.
So we notice what is.
What is good.
What is bright.
What is beautiful.
Amidst all that isn't.
Amidst all that is tough.
The world is still here.
Come in close to this thing they call life.
Come in contact to your sense of self.
As we meet the world more we meet ourselves more.
As we meet ourselves more deeply we are available to meet the world more deeply.
Make a choice to belong here to fully be here.
So as we close today's session what will you choose to cultivate today?
Is it some sense of wow look at the clouds or noticing of the potted plant or of the wrinkles on an elders hands.
Choose what you cultivate what you pay attention to.
We practice meditation both on the cushion when we sit and in all the ways that we move through the world.
This dear elder in my life says that soul making takes time takes space.
That it can be done by resting and reflecting as much as diligently doing.
So go gently as you go back to your day.
Give yourself some space if you can.
Give yourself the gift of time.
Let yourself wander and wonder.
For this too will pass.
So may we seize the day.
May we see some soulfulness amidst it all.
May we let life in a little more.
May our practice support us in living deeply.
In being fully present.
In showing up for ourself and for the world around us.
Thank you for taking the time to sit and to practice with me today.
For your attentiveness.
For the gift of your presence to the world.
And I wish you a sweet and soulful day.
