Welcome to meditation number 15 for mindful growth.
This is a meditation on happiness from within.
This meditation will help you to develop a stable and sustainable inner happiness.
It's something that we can eventually learn to maintain even when things are going wrong.
We can begin by setting our intention to be able to maintain this inner happiness,
Both for our own benefit as well as those around us.
We'll start by checking into our meditation posture,
Making sure that we have a straight back,
Our eyes are gently closed,
Hands resting in our laps,
Thumbs touching.
And we can begin with a few deep breaths in and out.
And then resuming our normal cadence of breathing.
And drawing our mind inwards to rest upon the breath.
Becoming aware of all the signs that we are breathing.
Our breath is in our nose,
Our shoulders,
Chest and abdomen.
Allowing our mind to settle into the sensation.
And letting all other distracting thoughts subside.
And then briefly scanning through our body.
Beginning with the awareness of our toes.
And then scanning up through our feet and ankles,
Calves,
Shins and knees.
Allowing our awareness to bring relaxation to each part of our body it touches.
Continuing through our upper legs and hips.
Our digestive system,
Lower back.
Our chest and our shoulders.
Scanning through both arms from our shoulders through the tips of our fingers.
Continuing through the neck,
The jaw.
Relaxing your cheekbones,
Forehead,
Back of the head.
And then finally gathering the energy at the top of the crown.
Before zooming out to the entire sensation of the body.
And then turning our attention to our thoughts,
Our mental state.
Just observing any thoughts that may arise but not holding onto them.
Trying to feel the stillness and space in between thoughts.
Allowing that space between thoughts to become longer and longer.
Allowing that space between thoughts to become longer and longer.
Releasing any distractions as soon as they arise.
And returning to that space.
And then seeing if we can allow a happy and peaceful feeling to arise within that space.
Feeling like a gentle and steady smile on the inside.
To strengthen that feeling.
If we wish we can bring to mind a pleasant experience from our memory.
Let me use this experience to strengthen our feeling of happiness from within.
And then once the happy feeling is strengthened.
We can let go of the mental object of the pleasant experience.
Whatever it is we chose.
But we hold on to the actual feeling of happiness from within.
As we're able to do this we realize that the happy feeling is independent.
Can exist separately from the pleasant experience.
It seemed to be its main cause.
Just trying to get used to holding this feeling of happiness within us.
Without any distraction.
If we lose the happy feeling we can bring the object back to mind.
To help regenerate the feeling.
Once we do we release that mental object once again holding on to the happy feeling.
This pleasant internal sensation.
Just trying to rest within the sensation without straining,
Squeezing.
Realizing that we can feel this way anytime with training.
And then finally seeing if we can hold on to this happiness from within for the final two minutes of our meditation.
And then we can gradually relax our concentration.
And allow ourselves to arise from our meditation without completely forgetting about that feeling.
And that concludes meditation number 15 for mindful growth.
Thank you.
