Please take a seat on a chair or cushion.
Make whatever adjustments you need to feel comfortable.
Many people like to place a shawl or a blanket around their shoulders to help them feel warm and secure.
Place your hands in your lap or on your legs.
Gently close your eyes.
Or if closing your eyes makes you uncomfortable,
You can leave your eyes open and gently focused on a spot three feet in front of you.
We will begin by manipulating the breath.
Take a deep breath in and let it out.
Let's do four more.
Now,
I would ask you to generate some gratitude no matter how you're feeling at the moment.
Try to feel grateful that you have a safe,
Relatively comfortable place to practice meditation.
Let's put the word comfortable into perspective.
Remember we've got the vast empty sky above us and the earth below us.
We're sitting between the cold of space and the hot core of the earth.
There is spaciousness above you and firm ground below.
It's a comfortable place to be in our world.
By putting ourselves in this larger perspective,
We can let go of the hypervigilance that was necessary for our ancestors to survive thousands of years ago.
There are no external threats at this moment.
You're safe in this spacious moment.
Breathe easily.
There is no need to manipulate the breath for the duration of the meditation.
Just feel your breath as it comes in and out.
Just experience breathing.
When thoughts arise,
Just notice them and let them go.
Noticing thoughts and coming back to the breath is a foundational practice on the road to meditative stability.
The more you notice your thoughts and the quicker you come back to the breath,
The more concentration you develop.
Be relaxed about it.
Whatever you're doing is fine.
The purpose of meditation is to not give you a reason to beat yourself up,
But to train your mind to accept things as they are.
Let's continue to just breathe.
You have nowhere to go and nothing to do for the next 10 minutes or so.
In this meditation,
We're going to visualize healing ourselves from craving.
As you participate in this powerful practice,
Remember that trying to hate away your suffering is like trying to drive away darkness with more darkness.
Just as light removes darkness,
Acceptance,
Forgiveness,
And love eliminate the unnecessary suffering created by craving.
Now in your mind's eye,
See a sphere of light in front of you.
The color is blue and slightly darker than the sky.
Start with the sphere the size of a basketball.
You can make the sphere bigger or smaller.
Now populate the light with some of the beings in your life who helped to heal you.
These can be real persons such as doctors,
Nurses,
Counselors,
Teachers,
Friends,
Family members,
Pets.
Add anyone who comes to mind.
Don't strain and try to create a perfect list.
Whoever comes to mind is all you need.
If people from your life don't seem to appear,
Choose a historical figure such as the psychiatrist Carl Jung or Buddha.
Or the figures could be religious such as medicine Buddha sitting the bowl of healing herbs in his left hand and his right hand touching the earth.
See all of your chosen healers sending blue light from this sphere to you.
Your healers are smiling as they offer you complete acceptance,
Forgiveness,
And love.
Fuel the light on your skin.
Now inhale some of this healing light.
When you exhale,
Imagine that all the impurities of your mental and physical body are expelled as tiny black dots.
The blue light absorbs the black dots and the dots dissolve.
Watch the dots fade away from solid black to gray to nothingness.
Keep breathing normally,
Filling your lungs with healing energy and breathing out impurities.
Now we're going to turn to the idea of craving.
The Recovery Dharma book says it is possible to end our suffering when we come to realize that all our experiences are temporary by nature.
We can begin a more skillful way to live with the dissatisfaction that is part of being human.
The third noble truth is that the end of craving is possible.
Each of us has the capacity for recovery.
In Recovery Dharma,
We use the Eightfold Path to end suffering.
Let's use the wisdom and concentration aspects of the Eightfold Path with the blue energy in front of us.
You don't have to remember the details of the aspects.
I'll list the specific practices as we proceed.
We will work with craving three times.
First,
Bring to mind a feeling of craving.
It can be anything,
Food,
Substances,
People.
On your next inhale,
See the blue lights surround the craving with love,
Caring and healing.
As you breathe in and out,
Use wise intention to see the craving dissolve into little black dots and disappear into the blue ball.
Let's pause here to work on this craving with wise effort,
Wise mindfulness,
And wise concentration.
Now,
Bring to mind another feeling of craving.
If you cannot find the root craving that leads to your suffering,
Bring to mind an action that is unskillful.
On your next inhale,
See the blue lights surrounding the craving with love,
Caring and healing.
See the craving dissolve into little black dots and disappear into the blue ball.
Let's pause here to work on this craving.
Lastly,
Bring to mind another feeling of craving.
It can be anything,
Or you can continue to work on the first two.
On your next inhale,
See the blue lights surround the craving with love,
Caring and healing.
As you breathe in and out,
Use wise intention to see the craving dissolve into little black dots and disappear into the blue ball.
Let's pause here to work on this craving.
We'll take a little longer this time.
Let's pause here to work on this craving.
With wise understanding,
Know the blue light cannot be exhausted.
You have an endless supply,
And you're storing it up right now.
You are filled with healing energy.
You even have enough to share.
Now let's come back to our feeling of gratitude.
Take a moment and thank the figures who've appeared in your ball.
They smile and acknowledge you with bows and waves as they fade away.
They will come anytime you wish them to help you heal your craving.
Now see the blue light slowly dissolve.
All the black dots of craving have been removed.
Now take a deep breath and return to the room.
Now I'll ring the bell.
You can open your eyes.
