Begin in whatever space you've come to meditate.
Giving yourself the invitation to slow down,
Become a bit sluggish.
Your thoughts may be chittering away.
Notice that and invite your mind to also slow down.
You can't spend time or waste time.
You can only use it.
Thank yourself for using this time to meditate and care for yourself.
Slowing down into your body,
Your breath,
Your pulse,
Your digestion and metabolism,
And all the other many wondrous systems of your body and self.
Coming into a state of rest that is not complete stillness.
Coming into a place of quiet that is not silence.
Casting a generous awareness within yourself and without yourself.
Noting with gentle attention the volume of space you take up,
And the mass that gravity pulls upon.
Noticing your breath,
See if you can let it slow down just a little.
Each time you inhale a little bit deeper,
And each time you exhale a little bit longer.
Inhaling a little deeper,
Exhaling a little longer.
Inhaling deeper,
Exhaling slower.
Settling in.
If at any point in our practice together you become distracted,
Which is normal,
Which is fine,
Which is an inherent capacity of the human brain,
You turn to your breath,
Transition your focus to your sensory experience,
And come back.
Exhaling your present.
The things in your body are billions of cells,
Blood cells,
Skin cells,
Neurons.
At every moment thousands of them are coming into and going out of existence.
Imagine one reproducing,
Giving life to another.
That new cell grows,
Becomes strong,
Autonomous.
And somewhere else,
Imagine a cell dying,
Ending,
Coming out of its unique existence.
And its material becomes part of the whole again.
Always within you there is something being born,
And something dying.
They feed each other in a cycle.
We can grieve that which dies,
And we can be grateful for that which is born.
And take joy in the life of the thing.
Returning to your breath,
Especially anytime you get stymied or distracted,
Just come back.
Notice your body.
Outside,
There are more plants than we can imagine.
At every moment,
Sprouts and buds are growing from seeds and bulbs.
Always new life.
And somewhere,
Perhaps in the same ecosystem,
Leaves are falling.
Grass is being cut.
Trees may be finishing their cycle.
Everything is always coming into life and leaving the living in your breathing.
And the life and death of the natural world feeds itself in a virtuous cycle.
Come back to your breath.
Breathing in deeply,
And exhaling slowly.
Somewhere at this very moment,
A baby is born.
With its mother's love,
And a world ahead of it,
New and novel experiences awaiting.
We can greet it with joy.
And somewhere else,
Perhaps even nearby,
Another person is dying.
A life full of trauma and celebration.
A life of brokenness and healing.
A thousand joys and a thousand sorrows.
Just as they do,
We can say goodbye.
And be grateful for the fullness of life.
Its sacred and majestic gift.
Life gives birth to life.
It comes and it goes.
Breathing deeply in,
Slowly out.
Even a distant star is being born.
Gathering together and accreting fuel and matter.
And beginning the processes and reactions of heat and light.
Amazing and barely comprehensible.
And somewhere else in our universe,
A star is finishing its cycle.
Consuming the last of its fuel to contract and fade.
Neither event is good nor bad.
And we can be grateful for both ends and all the experiences between.
Breathing into your breathing.
Your breathing,
Like the seasons,
Is very much part of the circle and cycle of living.
I want you to breathe.
