Welcome!
This is my first session and it will be my practice to start and end with inspirational quotes.
So here's one from Thich Nhat Hanh,
The great Vietnamese Buddhist teacher.
Please train yourself to make the present moment,
The here and the now,
Into your true home.
That is the only home that we have.
That is the only place where we can touch life.
Everything we are looking for must be found in the here and the now.
To take an in-breath,
To smile,
And to touch the conditions of happiness that are available is something that all of us can do.
So let's just settle ourselves wherever we're sitting or lying,
And adjust our bodies in any way that we may need to in order to feel more comfortable.
There's no right way or wrong way to do this.
I just invite you to be comfortable and close your eyes.
When we close our eyes,
We block out much of the usual distraction from life,
And we are more able to go inside and see if we can find more contentment and peace,
And increase that ability in accordance with the practice we do.
So taking a couple of deep breaths in and out,
In order to relax ourselves.
And then just allowing the breath to do whatever it wants to do.
There's no control involved here.
In fact,
Meditation is the opposite of control.
It's a letting go,
And it's a surrender,
And it's a realization that life is living us.
And when we understand that,
A lot of pressure is removed from us.
And that doesn't mean that we're disowning any kind of responsibility for our actions,
Of course.
But it does mean that we trust in something greater than ourselves,
Of which we are a part.
And we acknowledge that by letting go into the breath,
Letting us be directed by how shallow it might be,
Or how deep it might be,
How comfortable or uncomfortable,
Just noticing your breath now.
Allowing it to do whatever it's doing with your gentle observation.
And as you breathe in,
I'm going to ask you to count two,
Slowly.
And as you breathe out,
Count to four.
So breathing in,
One,
Two.
And breathing out,
One,
Two,
Three,
Four.
So in this sense,
We are beginning to control the breath,
Just to start with.
Breathing in,
To the count of two.
And breathing out,
To the count of four,
Just a few more times.
Like the tide coming in and going out again.
And sometimes this is a helpful visualization,
Watching the waves ebb and flow in accordance with your breath.
Enjoying a sense of tranquility.
Calm.
Serene.
Just a pleasant sense of being.
A time for yourself,
When nobody needs anything from you,
There's nothing to do or attend to that can't be done later.
Just a special,
Sacred time to spend as a human being.
And now letting go of any need to count the breath,
But returning to an observation of the breath.
Noticing all its subtleties.
Allowing it to be as it wants to be.
Maybe you notice a pattern.
Maybe you notice the start of the breath.
A middle point.
The exhalation.
And a pause between the next in-breath.
Maybe try that now.
See if you observe the beginning of your inhalation.
A middle point where it reaches a fullness.
And your body has risen.
Your chest has risen.
Your belly has risen.
And watching the out-breath and the pause at the end of the out-breath before the next in-breath.
And the rising and falling with the in-breath and the out-breath.
Again possibly being compared to waves coming in and going out.
Enjoying both the expansion of the in-breath and the contraction of the out-breath.
And then possibly noticing where exactly the breath enters the body.
Is it through the nostrils?
And where it leaves the body?
Maybe through the nostrils again or through the mouth?
Focusing all our awareness on the subtleties of breath.
You may even notice that as the air enters through the nostrils it's cooler than when it leaves.
Presumably because the body has warmed the air.
And in meditation we focus on the breath in order to allow the mind to take a rest.
The mind which in Buddhism is often called monkey mind because it's so scattered and jumping from branch to branch and thought to thought.
And like monkeys the mind often steals our energy and leaves us tired just from all the unnecessary thinking.
The self-reprimanding thinking I'm not good enough,
I'm not thin enough,
I'm not kind enough,
I'm not happy enough.
It can be incessant.
So we let the mind rest for a while by using the breath as an anchor.
So let's see if we can still our minds for a couple more minutes before the end of the meditation by focusing on the breath.
And if it helps you can use the count to two on the in-breath and four on the out-breath.
Or you can just free flow,
Noticing what the breath wants to do and surrendering to it.
Whichever is best for you.
And all our meditation needs to be approached with a sense of being kind and gentle to oneself.
As a precursor for being kind and gentle to everyone we meet.
And as this meditation comes to a close I'd like to end with a quote from Ram Dass who encourages us in this way of being kind and gentle to others by using the following quote We're all just walking each other home.
Thank you for participating in the practice together today.
