Take in a deep breath and let it out.
Just start by slowing down.
Going a little more quiet.
Becoming a little more still.
Coming into the possibility of doing less.
Almost nothing for a little while.
You're not doing something like clearing your mind.
You're doing nothing like letting it all go.
Being inactive and unproductive.
If you'd like,
You can close your eyes.
Notice the sounds around you.
Smells,
Temperatures,
Your clothes,
The pressure on your seat or bed,
However you are in this meditation.
And letting gravity and stillness do more of the work.
Your muscles and joints can do less.
And thereby your mind can do less.
Just undoing.
Unraveling.
Here you are with all of your troubles and doubts and joys and excitements.
Fantasies and worries.
And as much as possible,
You can put them down.
Spend a few minutes with me,
Not using those feelings.
Not entering those spaces.
Moving from thinking to feeling.
From the cognitive to the sensory.
From doing to being.
That's the action of meditation,
Or inaction of meditation.
Spread a generous awareness around your body.
Notice where it's tight or tense.
Direct loving energy and breath into spaces of tension.
Letting yourself go.
Letting yourself relax.
Deepening your breath.
Slowing your exhale.
And when you get distracted,
Because we will get distracted,
Because our neurons are firing,
Our brain is working,
As the biology of mind,
Just come back.
Listen to my voice or deepen your breath.
Just feel gravity pulling on you again.
And again,
You just keep coming back.
Within.
The interior life.
Spreading that generous awareness around your body as a cue to be present and to relax.
That's all you have to do.
Don't make it too complicated.
Just let yourself be a little bored.
A little uninterested.
A little detached.
We're going to call to mind people who play small roles in our lives.
Maybe we don't consider often enough.
We'll take a moment to consider each.
Start with someone who serves you.
Cashier you see often.
At your grocery store or coffee shop.
Someone who delivers your paper or mail.
Maybe someone who does yard work in your neighborhood.
Maybe you know their name.
Maybe you don't.
We're not judging them.
We're not judging whether you've been considerate or compassionate enough.
That's not the question.
We just want to expand our awareness about that person.
So pick someone in your life whom you don't know well,
But is in a serving role toward you.
Not all their day,
But in all of your experience with them.
Be curious about them.
What's their day like?
What do they do when they're not at work?
When they're not checking you in at the gym?
What's their life?
They have a full 24 hours when you're not there.
You're just a momentary experience to them.
Passing smile if we're lucky.
Be curious.
About this other complete human being who is in your life for brief moments.
When you're distracted,
Just come back to your breath.
You can come back to my voice.
You can attend to your body,
Noticing yourself in gravity.
Some local and sensory cue.
And come back.
Continuing to give expansive awareness to this person in your life.
You really can't know them,
And that's okay.
But you can know that they are a full human being and grant them that dignity.
Breathing.
Taking in three deep breaths,
Slow exhales as we prepare to move on.
Now we'll consider someone in a supportive role in your life.
You might call it a healer,
A nurse,
A physical therapist,
Pharmacist,
Massage therapist,
Your trainer.
You might know them a little better and have a more intimate relationship with you.
Perhaps they touch your body to do adjustments or know your medical history.
A teacher fits this role too.
Someone bringing you support,
Care,
And even healing.
Breathe for them.
Acknowledge them.
And also acknowledge that even if you see them for an hour a week or an hour a year,
You don't really know their life.
They're a fully rounded,
Complete human being.
Completely fleshed out human being,
24 hours a day,
With or without you.
And it's okay and normal and probably right not to fully know them.
But we want to extend curiosity about their lives.
What does my chiropractor do when she's not adjusting my neck?
And what does the nurse do when he's not attending my vital signs?
Just be curious.
Open.
Even these people with whom we have a more intimate relationship,
We can't truly know.
Breathe into and accept that possibility with generosity and curiosity.
Give that to them.
Take three deep breaths before we move on.
And since you will get distracted,
Just keep coming back.
In this final section,
We'll talk about family.
Even for aunts and cousins,
Mothers and children,
We might not fully know another person.
We cannot.
You might see them more often or not often enough or even too much.
That's okay to have any of those feelings.
But as we breathe and sit,
We can recognize that we don't know enough.
We can never know it all.
They have lives that transcend us.
Old people,
24 hours a day,
Every day of the year,
Every day of their lives.
Even an identical twin has a unique identity.
Work with someone in your life and give them curiosity and a generous awareness for all of their complexity and all of their time and all of their expansiveness that you don't know and can't know and won't know.
And take a few long breaths just to close out this understanding.
And just for a last time,
Recognize that you too are someone you won't ever completely know.
And that's as it should be.
We're always growing.
We're always exploring and discovering.
Blessings.
