Make Friends With Yourself (No Music)

This meditation is a journey on the path of intimacy. This is falling in love with being alive. This is relishing everything that life can give us. We walk this path of intimacy with ourselves and with all life. This is our school. This is where we learn who we are. Included are readings from Sutras 32, 108, and 111 from The Radiance Sutras translated by my teacher Lorin Roche.

Transcript

Welcome. I invite you to settle into our meditation slowly. There is nothing to accomplish here, So there is no need to rush. Let your body slowly relax. Let relaxation come naturally. No need to labor at it. Allow your gaze to wander about the space you're in. Let it rest anywhere it likes for as long as it likes. Let the cares of your day slide off your shoulders, At least for a little while. You can pick them back up later if you must. Spend a few moments in your space with yourself. Maybe you're in your house, Maybe outside it, Maybe in a spot you're borrowing for the few minutes of our meditation. You might sit now just noticing what your space reveals about you. What does it assert about who you are? Maybe your space reflects an accomplishment. Perhaps there is something on your wall. Maybe the existence of a wall that is yours is a marvelous accomplishment. Maybe your space reflects some aspects of yourself. The color of your walls, The kinds of furniture, Plants, Books, Artwork. I offer this meditation and the readings from the Radiant Sutras within simply as a way to get in touch with yourself. As an opportunity to spend some time with yourself, To check in, To make friends. When do you allow the time to spend some time with yourself, Even just to say hello? Sometimes it is easy to drop in on yourself. You're always around. Other times you might feel a distance. In either case you might allow your environment to tell you something about yourself. Why are your walls this color? Maybe you chose it specifically. Maybe you don't think much about it. We can use the decisions we have made about our personal spaces to learn about ourselves, To find a path to our inner door, An intimate path. What do your choices tell you about you? What can you learn? Settle into the space in which you find yourself. Relax. Breathe. The next time the thought arises, I want this or I think that, Grab a hold of this I. Perceive it by itself. Wonder who is this I? I am animal. I am human. I am a loving heart. I am a questing mind. I am a particle in infinity. I am a witness to creation. I am consciousness itself. In meditation, Embrace all these dimensions. Reach into the source, The luminous world of dancing energies and ever-changing relatedness. Some might say that all you think you are, What you want, What you need, How you love, Whom you love, All the things you surmise yourself to be, Are simply sets of attachments to worldly things. Beyond this assemblage of attachments there is no self, No core you, No personality, Just attachments guiding your response to the world. Perhaps you are just an energetic flow passing from a life, Through this life, And on into the next, And nothing else matters. Perhaps. Perhaps not. A bundle of attachments or not, Ourselves feel real to us, And maybe that is the only thing that matters. Are you energy just passing through this life and everything else about you an illusion? Are you flesh and nothing more? Does your consciousness arise from flickers of electricity leaping across potentialities, Wearing paths and creating habits, Desire lines written into the flesh inside your skull? Are you spirit, Soul? Is a part of you immortal, Or one day will you simply cease? Settle into the space in which you find yourself. Settle down with you. Say hello. Relax. Breathe. There are times in life when you leap up and the past you've been standing on falls away behind you, But the future you mean to land on is not yet in place, And for a terrifying, Wonderful moment you're suspended, Knowing nothing and no one. In this space between heartbeats, In this space between breaths, Just you in the hum of the universe. Just you in the hum of the universe in this place of abeyance. Breathe into this medial space. Breathe with the hum of the universe. Perhaps see who you are in this moment, Naked of the past, Not able to see any of the infinite number of futures. In suspension between is everything that we are. This is your school, In this luminous world of dancing energies and ever-changing relatedness. All the meditations you have ever loved are vibrating in this luxurious hum. Continuing even in sleep and dreams, This is your school, Just you and infinity. The texture of the self is untamed freedom. You you you your essence is immortal and unchanging yet it is the foundation for all that moves. Rest in the shimmering emptiness that is the source of this world and remember who you are. This is your school. Remember who you are. You you you Rest in the shimmering emptiness that is the source of this world and remember who you are. This is your school, Just you and infinity. Remember who you are. You you you you you you This meditation is a journey on the path of intimacy. This is falling in love with being alive. This is relishing everything that life can give us. In meditation we open ourselves to whatever comes with acceptance and with love. We walk this path of intimacy with ourselves and with all life. This is our school. I invite you back now to our shared world with hope that you might have fostered a more intimate connection with yourself. With hope that you have remembered a bit about who you are. Perhaps having learned something new. Let your return be as slow and gentle as was our entry into meditation. Let your breath guide you on this path. Welcome back y'all.