Ocean Goes Everywhere (No Music)

Behold the vast ocean stretching beyond sight. As vastness envelopes you, the body vanishes, and thoughts forget to come. At this moment, you are the nature of the great ocean. And ocean goes everywhere. You might find expansion and connection in water, in air, and through sound in this elemental meditation. It includes readings from Sutra 16 and 61 from The Radiance Sutras translated by my teacher Lorin Roche.

Transcript

Welcome. I invite you today to begin your meditation as aware as you can be of your immediate surroundings. You might look about you or you might see your space in your mind's eye. What do you hear? Is the air surrounding you warm or cool? Are you comfortable? Let each exhale that you release ground you. Seat you firmly in your spot on planet Earth. You sit in an ocean of life sustaining nourishing air. It surrounds you, Surrounds the structure in which you sit, Your town, State, Country. The ocean of air goes everywhere, Spanning the globe, Providing for all living things. You might take the biggest inhale you have taken today and then release it slowly. You might let your attention fall onto something with a hold on you that you do not need in this moment. Take another giant inhale and as you release it, Let that thing go along with it. Breathe with the release. Perhaps you feel lighter for having let something go. Perhaps you'd like to be lighter still, Communing with the air, With the ocean of air surrounding you. You might imagine yourself as a bit of dust, A shred of the earth, A bit of discarded skin, Pulverized, Atomized, Made small enough to float. You ride currents of air blown, Lofted here and there and back again. As the breath of the earth grows stronger, You are taken higher, Blown into the sky, Higher and higher like Dorothy in her Kansan house. As you rise higher, Moisture is drawn to your body of dust. You're saturated as more and more moisture comes. You still rise on fast-moving air to find still more moisture. An equilibrium is reached. You are just light enough to be supported by the air but can rise no higher. And then more moisture comes and your fragile equilibrium is breached. You're too heavy to be supported and you begin to fall. Still windblown but falling ever downward, Accelerating as you tumble. Your teardrop shape distends and then returns to form but still you fall. You land, Slap against a wall of glass of pain. You flatten and begin to fall again, Sliding, Skidding, Slithering. You are a single drop of water slowly crawling down a window printing a track. You join with another drop and your track widens. You move faster or heavier and join with other drops. Drops connect to form trickles that flow. Trickles of water join and create rills, Rivulets, Runnels. You join with brooks, Creeks, Creeks into streams, Streams into rivers, Small rivers and then larger ones. Wide and slow and narrow and fast, Rivers end in deltas, Many fingered paths flowing into seas, Into oceans and oceans go everywhere. Behold the vast ocean stretching beyond sight. As vastness envelops you, The body vanishes. Thoughts forget to come. In this moment you are the nature of the great ocean. Meditation is connection. First with ourselves, Then through expansion with all that is not ourselves. Space opens above you, All around you. An ocean of air, An ocean of water. Ocean goes everywhere. You might spread yourself thinly like a wind across vast tracts of atmosphere or gather yourself tightly in a deep trench looking up at the sky through an ocean of water. Breathe the breath of connection. Breathe in the joy of joining. The way of experience begins with a breath. You you you you you you you you you you oceans of water, Oceans of air, Perhaps an ocean of sound. Sound that bathes you, Surrounds you, Nestles you in a cradle of bass and treble, A vibration shared by every object in the universe. Feel yourself vibrating in exact harmony with everything in this universe, Every atom within you vibrating in an ocean of sound linking you with all. Ocean goes everywhere, Stretching beyond sight, Right along, Flow with waves. Let yourself be carried on the breeze. Let the siren song of the ocean guide you. Let the wave, The breeze, The sounds lift and carry you wherever you need to go. As vastness envelops you, The body vanishes. Let's forget to come in this moment. You are the nature of the great ocean. The roar of joy that set the worlds in motion is reverberating in your body and in the space between all bodies. Listen. Find that exuberant vibration rising new in every moment, Humming in your secret places, Resounding through the channels of delight. Know you are flooded by it always. Float with the sound, Melt with it into silence. The sacred power of space will carry you into the dancing radiant emptiness that is the source of all. The ocean of sound is inviting you into its spacious embrace, Calling you home. You you you float melt Let the power of space carry you into the space between breaths, Into the dancing radiant emptiness that is the source of all. Let the power of space carry you into the dancing radiant emptiness that is the source of all. The ocean is inviting you into its spacious embrace, Calling you home. Ocean goes everywhere. Ocean goes everywhere. Ocean goes everywhere. Ocean goes everywhere. However your ocean is expressed, An ocean of air, Of sound, Of water, Might you see a distant shore rising on the horizon? You might move towards it, Following the breeze, The current, The melody of your ocean back towards their world of action. Slowly come to rest on that shore. You could take five breaths, Perhaps more, Before your intention to emerge from your meditation brings you to some small movements, Before your intention brings you back into the space where you began. The way of experience begins with a breath. Welcome back.