This will be a meditation based on three really beautiful phrases and this comes from the Buddhist tradition.
Body like a mountain,
Heart like the ocean,
Mind like the sky.
So we're cultivating these three magnificent qualities of groundedness like a mountain,
Spaciousness like an ocean and vastness like the sky.
To begin with let's choose the position for the meditation.
You can do it sitting,
Lying,
Standing.
It's completely up to you.
Looking for a position where you'll be as comfortable as possible and yet alert.
And when you've chosen your position beginning to settle.
Allowing the weight of the body to rest down into the support beneath you.
Whether that's the floor,
The bed,
A chair.
Having a quality of yielding and resting.
If you find it helpful you could take a deeper breath in and then on the out breath release and let go.
Do that a few times if you'd like to.
And with each out breath really giving the weight of the body up to the support beneath you.
Yielding,
Resting,
Arriving,
Settling and softening any quality of gripping.
Holding on that's in the mind or the heart or the body.
Beginning to settle into stillness.
So here we are.
Stable and settled and grounded like a great mountain.
And allowing our awareness to drop deep inside the body.
Very often our awareness is in the head and we can feel a little bit unstable even.
Like our center of gravity is very high in the body.
So let's see if we can invite our center of gravity lower.
Maybe down into the belly into the bottom.
So allowing awareness to drop deep inside and to rest there.
And of course mountains are very very stable,
Grounded and yet even mountains have a quality of impermanence or flow.
There might be the wind blowing on the mountain,
Rivers flowing down the mountain,
Streams and rivulets,
Plants growing.
So let's see if we can bring this quality of flexible living groundedness into the body.
Not stuck and rigid but grounded and alive.
And the rhythm of breathing in the body.
A little bit like a breeze or a wind flowing around the mountain.
And now moving to the next great statement.
Heart like the ocean.
Heart like the ocean.
If you want to you could come to the heart area in the body.
Tuning into your emotional weather.
What are you feeling right now?
Maybe something strong and intense.
Maybe something very subtle.
Maybe you feel confused.
You don't know what you're feeling.
That's fine.
Just being honest with what's happening right now and that is your mindfulness practice.
And now let's imagine placing whatever we've got going on emotionally and our feeling part of our experience.
Imagine placing that in a vast and still and deep ocean.
Tremendous depth.
Tremendous stillness and yet fluidity.
So rather than our emotions feeling like choppy waves on the surface of the ocean we can place them in the depths.
Resting in stillness.
Resting in spaciousness.
So maybe getting a bit more of a sense of perspective coming into whatever's happening emotionally right now.
And moving on to the third great invitation.
The third great statement.
Mind like the sky.
Mind like the sky.
Of course very often our minds can feel very tight and narrow.
Confused.
Full of thoughts.
Loud and jangly.
But instead of getting lost or caught up with the content of our thoughts,
Let's see if we can rest in awareness itself.
The knowing quality that is aware of all experience.
And let's imagine that this awareness,
This knowing quality is vast like the sky.
Like a clear blue sky stretching in all directions.
Infinite and boundless.
So we're shifting from being caught up with the content of the thinking mind to resting in awareness itself.
Resting in knowing.
Resting in being.
Maybe we feel like we've got a tight fist of contraction in the mind.
Lots of struggle.
Perhaps imagining those fist releases into an open hand and that hand rests in the sky.
And now bringing these three great qualities together.
Body like a mountain.
Stable.
Grounded.
Deep.
Heart like the ocean.
Fast and open and fluid.
Like the depths of the ocean.
And mind like the sky.
Boundless.
Limitless.
Radiant.
And allowing all of our experience to take place within these great perspectives.
Stability.
Openness.
Vastness.
And resting here for a few moments in these great qualities.
Every time we notice we've got lost,
In the noticing,
That's our moment of awareness.
That's our moment of mindfulness.
And we can drop back into body like a mountain.
Heart like the ocean.
Mind like the sky.
And you can sit on or meditate on if you want to.
And when you feel it's the time to bring the meditation to a close.
Moving the body with mindfulness.
With care.
And seeing if we can take these qualities into whatever's coming next.
