So as we begin this meditation,
I invite you to feel your feet.
You might feel them making contact with the ground.
You might just,
If you're sitting in a cross-legged position,
You might just feel the sensation in your feet.
We're beginning by bringing attention to a connection point with the earth.
For most of us,
We're upright much of our day and we're connecting physically to the earth through our feet.
If you're ill or bedridden,
You don't have to use feet as a grounding point.
You could begin by simply feeling how you're being held by whatever you're laying on and then visualize the breath above the crown of the head for a moment.
And as you inhale,
Draw the breath in through the crown of the head.
Bring it into the center of your body and then when you exhale,
Exhale the breath out and down into the earth.
So we're just going to repeat this pattern for a moment.
Moving the breath in this direction,
In through the top of the head,
Through the body,
Exhale out and down into the earth.
When we're stressed and get caught in flight,
Fight,
Or freeze,
If we move into action,
Specifically if we're in fight or flight,
We're often acting on behalf of whatever survival strategy has worked for us.
So our actions are stemming from arising out of the conditioned mind,
The habituated mind,
The mind that's been shaped by culture,
Family,
Experience,
Society.
Take a moment now briefly to visualize one time in your life that you've acted on behalf of this conditioning.
This would be a moment of reaction.
Perhaps you were frantic or ungrounded or you want to blank any version of not present in your action.
See the action and then let yourself trace it back to this conditioning,
To the habituated mind.
Not just the mind that's had particular experiences,
But the mind that's made experiences mean particular things.
This experience,
Fill in the blank,
Means I'm alone,
For example.
Or that people don't like me,
Or that things will never work.
Again,
Fill in the blank.
So we're drawing this image in simply to feel what that is so that the next time it arises and we're not on the meditation cushion,
We're quick to recognize it.
Yes,
This is activity arising on behalf of my own conditioning.
So in this moment with nothing going on,
Let this image go now.
How do we do that?
Through allowing it to be exactly as it is and through returning to presence.
Repeat this breath pattern now,
Drawing the inhalation through the crown of the head,
Bringing it into the center of your being and exhaling out and down through the earth.
And feel yourself in this moment grounding into presence,
Which actually has no ground.
What's ever present is groundless,
But that doesn't mean you're going to float away somewhere.
You'll be lost in some kind of cloud.
This open awareness,
This presence is actually the most reliable,
Grounded,
If you will,
Thing we have.
And for some reason in this moment it feels difficult to find presence.
You might,
In the way that we pictured,
Acting on behalf of the conditioned mind as something mental,
You could attribute that to the head.
You might drop the attention now into the heart just to give this more physical placement.
So feeling the heart of awareness in the heart of the body,
Sinking down from the mind.
And then rather than straining to figure out what to do next and turning to your conditioned mind for the answer,
Settle now in the stillness of the heart,
The heart of presence.
And now visualize a moment in your life where maybe the habit would be to go to fight,
Flight,
Or freeze,
But visualize yourself instead seated,
Grounded in the heart of presence.
If it's helpful to have a physical cue attached to this,
You might place a hand on the heart.
Such that later as you're trying to access this,
Your own body can serve as a gateway or a portal and your own physical touch can serve as a reminder.
And see yourself now,
Rather than acting on behalf of the conditioned mind,
See yourself metaphorically opening the palms to the sky and listening,
Pausing,
Breathing.
Now listen for what is called for.
It may be a gentle tending of the nervous system.
It may be a specific action.
It may be a form of self-expression or a direct expression of care for others.
One hallmark of acting from presence is that there's no right or wrong way to do it.
Presence is infused with infinite possibility,
Whereas the conditioned mind has dualistic ruts that are offered for you to follow.
A right path,
A wrong path,
Ruts that narrow infinite possibility.
So return now to the infinite.
You might gently ask,
How might I serve presence?
Again,
There's no right or wrong way to serve from the heart of awareness.
There's only this way.
There's only now.
And then this contemplation by visualizing the breath below the soles of the feet,
And as you inhale,
Drawing the breath in through the soles of the feet,
Coming into the center of your body.
Exhaling the breath up and out the top of the head.
So repeating this inhaling,
Drawing the breath in,
Through the soles of the feet,
Coming into the center,
Exhaling the breath up and out the top.
Inhaling earth.
Exhaling sky.
Inhaling grounded presence.
Exhaling infinite openness.
Thank you.
