Hello and welcome to The Daily Insight.
My name is Vijayamala Birch and in today's meditation we're going to explore a beautiful saying from the Zen tradition.
Body like a mountain,
Heart like the ocean,
Mind like the sky.
Imagine what it would be like to live your life with these qualities at the foreground of your awareness.
Having a body that is stable,
Grounded like a great mountain range.
A heart that is vast,
Open like a still ocean.
And a mind that is vast and clear like a blue radiant sky.
So let's drop into these qualities in this meditation.
First of all choosing a posture where you're going to be comfortable sitting or lying or even standing.
And let's drop our awareness very deep in the body.
Feel in the contact with the floor or the surface that we're sitting upon or lying upon.
And let's see if we can allow the body to really rest in this position.
Resting in gravity just like a mountain resting in its place on the earth.
And being aware of breathing in the whole body.
Seeing if we can allow our awareness to rest inside breathing as it moves the body in the belly,
In the back of the body,
The sides of the body.
Allowing the volume of the body to expand in all directions on the in-breath and subside in all directions on the out-breath.
So resting our awareness inside this rhythm inside the body and feeling into the stability of the whole body.
How many different movements and sensations can you feel as you breathe?
Being curious.
Really feeling inside the belly,
Inside the chest,
Inside the whole back of the body with each in and out breath.
So we're not thinking about breathing but we're resting our awareness inside breathing inside the whole body.
Now let's move on to the next poetic expression.
Heart like the ocean.
Perhaps resting your awareness inside the whole chest area,
The front chest,
The back chest.
And seeing if we can evoke the image of an ocean.
Very vast,
Still,
An ocean on a still day.
It's very deep,
It's broad.
And getting a sense of our emotional life taking place within this context.
Very often our emotional life can feel very tight,
Very bound,
Turbulent.
But let's place it in a vast,
Deep,
Still ocean.
So our emotions are still happening,
They are rising and passing.
But we're giving them a very,
Very big context.
So we're not suppressing anything,
We're not blocking.
But neither are we getting carried away.
We notice what we're feeling and we place it,
If you like,
Imaginatively in this great,
Vast ocean.
Perhaps imagining this ocean is within us.
And of course oceans are very fluid.
There's nothing static in an ocean.
There's a flow,
The fluidity of water.
Let's see if we can evoke that.
Let's see if we can bring this kind of experience to the fluidity of our emotions.
Very often our emotions get more complicated.
Or we get into a tussle because we tighten against them,
We contract against them.
So let's see if we can allow our emotions to be more fluid and open like the ocean.
Always flowing.
The ocean,
Always flowing.
Now moving on to the third poetic expression,
Mind like the sky.
I find this very beautiful.
It's as if behind or beneath or inside the crowd of thoughts there's a quality of awareness which is very spacious,
Even bright.
And the metaphor for this is that the thoughts that crowd the mind,
They're like clouds crowding in front of a clear blue sky.
Sometimes they're wispy,
Sometimes they're stormy,
Sometimes they're very dense.
But all the time there's the radiance of the blue sky there behind the clouds.
So seeing if we can get in touch with the quality of awareness which is bright,
Vast,
Boundless,
Like a clear blue sky.
And that all our thoughts that we're inevitably going to be thinking this is what minds do,
They think.
All our thoughts are like clouds flowing through and across the sky of the mind.
Let them come,
Let them go,
Let them come,
Let them go.
But always staying in touch with the radiant nature of mind that rests deep within us.
Blue sky mind.
And to conclude,
Bringing these three poetic phrases together,
Having a sense of the body being like a mountain.
Very grounded,
Stable,
Heart like the ocean,
Vast,
Fluid,
Deep.
And the mind like the sky.
This radiant quality of awareness that rests behind or over the crowd of the thoughts.
And forming an intention perhaps,
If this works for you,
To take these qualities into your daily life.
Body like a mountain,
Heart like the ocean,
Mind like the sky.
