Come into this time with gentleness and compassion for yourself.
Settle down and settle in.
Feel yourself slowing down.
Notice the weight of your body.
It's gravity where you are standing or sitting,
Perhaps lying down.
If you can,
Let your eyes gently close and start drawing inward.
Be curious with a generous awareness of your bones,
Sinew and muscle.
Let this attention and generous awareness drift almost haphazardly across your body.
Maybe notice the second toe on your right foot.
Extend to your left elbow.
Feel or imagine the pulse in your neck.
Your right temple,
Letting your jaw relax.
The fingernail on your right thumb.
And your breath through it all.
Inhaling deeply.
Exhaling slowly.
Inhaling more deeply.
Exhaling slower still.
Inhaling even more deeply.
And exhaling as slowly as you are comfortable.
From a place of generous awareness,
We're going to spend some time in a paradox.
Between two difficult poles.
Breathing.
Settling with generous awareness.
On the one hand is the concept,
For my sake,
The world was created.
For my sake,
The world was created.
Breathing.
On the other hand,
I am dust and ash.
I am dust and ash.
For the remainder of our time,
We're going to explore these two seemingly contradictory truths.
And with that generous awareness,
We'll live with both of them.
Breathing and settling,
Say gently to yourself,
For my sake,
The world was created.
All that you feel,
Everything that you do,
And every experience,
Is yours alone to treasure,
And is in this world just for you.
For my sake,
The world was created.
Continuing to breathe and absorb that gladness.
And on the other side of the paradox,
We say,
I am dust and ash.
Perhaps a little harder to comfortably conceptualize.
I am dust and ash.
Feel that freedom.
Untethered.
Floating limitless.
I am dust and ash.
With your breath,
Let yourself drift on that thought.
Settling in.
Let that generous awareness oscillate between those two ideas of paradox.
For my sake,
The world was created.
Everything arrives to me at every moment as a personal gift.
For my sake,
The world was created.
Drifting across,
I am dust and ash.
I am free and expansive.
Open to all.
I am dust and ash.
For the remainder of our time in this meditation,
From a stance of generous awareness,
Let yourself drift between those two equally important truths.
And I'll provide gentle cues as we do.
For my sake,
The world was created.
Breathing.
I am dust and ash.
Settling.
For my sake,
The world was created.
I am dust and ash.
For my sake,
The world was created.
Continuing to breathe with generous awareness.
I am dust and ash.
Continue at your own pace to drift between these themes until you hear our closing bell.
