Let's begin with a bell.
Dear ones,
Coming in.
Finding your place.
Finding your seat.
Lying down,
If that's appropriate.
Closing your eyes,
If it's safe.
Breathing,
And breathing,
And breathing.
And just relaxing.
Nothing to do.
Put all your worries aside.
Save them for later.
Let loose your fantasies.
They'll be there when you get back.
And you're giving yourself this period to meditate,
Which means to do very little.
And to just be with yourself as a gift.
Not to force,
Not to empty the brain.
That's not possible.
And when you get distracted,
As we all do,
Just returning.
Coming back to my voice.
Maybe you notice your breath.
Maybe you return to your systems of body.
That could be digestion,
Or just the weight.
Your muscles and bones.
Volume of body out to the skin.
Noticing yourself.
How great you are.
Slowing down.
Inhaling deeply.
Exhaling slowly.
In conversation with yourself.
In your breath.
Honoring yourself with your attention and a generous awareness and gratitude.
Thank you for being here.
Right here,
Right now.
Let gravity take over.
Remove any impediments to meditation.
Let those distractions float away.
Fantasies,
Anxieties,
Regrets.
Those are normal.
And in some ways valuable,
But they don't need to be used or experienced right now.
So when you get lost in a train of extraneous thoughts,
Just come back.
You could use my voice.
You could cue yourself to return with your breath,
Deepening your breath,
Slowing your breath.
Feel the weight of things,
If that helps you to return.
Use your senses,
Like your hearing,
To attune to what's around you.
And remember that this is your time.
Thoughts about other people and their demands,
Thoughts about your to-do list,
Would take away from the time you're giving yourself this gift.
So take your time back.
We're going to meditate around the phrase,
Perhaps the mantra,
Of Ulay Yish.
From the Hebrew Bible,
Book of Genesis.
Perhaps there are.
Would that there were.
Maybe it could be.
Opening ourselves to alternate explanations and different possibilities.
Even the ones we can't see or even envision.
There are people with whom we have disagreements.
Maybe someone injured you,
Hurt you,
Even harmed you.
Wounded with words,
Rudeness.
Can't forgive,
Maybe just not ready to forgive.
But it's worth thinking,
Ulay Yish,
Perhaps there is.
Perhaps there's an alternate experience and explanation for their behavior.
Perhaps there was something that happened before they saw you.
Or something going on in their health or material or family life.
You don't have to know.
Just open to the possibility.
Perhaps there is.
That each of us contain multitudes and everyone you know is struggling.
And probably a little lonely.
Perhaps there is.
Perhaps in another person's life they have more than they can handle and more than you can see.
Of course they have more than you can see.
Even our spouses and children have lives beyond us.
They can't explain.
Sometimes the other person doesn't even know.
Perhaps there is.
Open to the possibility of the unknown in this relationship.
That each of you contain more than you're letting on.
Breathing.
You're going to get distracted.
You're going to move out of this meditation and keep moving back in.
Trace my voice back in.
Notice your breath.
Feel your body.
Listen to the world around you and inside you.
All those can be good clues and cues to return.
Out of distraction and into presence.
So many people with whom we disagree religiously,
Philosophically,
Politically.
It's good.
The world needs a multiplicity of opinions.
And sometimes those on the other side seem deluded or cruel.
Foolish.
Or insensitive.
But.
.
.
Perhaps there is.
Perhaps there's a worldview that you don't see yet.
A methodology that you're not familiar with.
A scripture you haven't read.
An influence they had and you haven't.
Perhaps there is.
You don't have to agree.
Just like you don't have to forgive.
You just have to open the possibility of moral imagination.
That you don't have all the answers.
And perhaps there is.
It could be right.
It could be wrong.
It happens.
Perhaps.
Do they know something you don't know?
Do they come from a different family,
Education and experience set?
Do they share some of the same values with you,
But just order,
Prioritize or rank them differently when making decisions and voting?
Perhaps there is.
Open to those possibilities.
Extending them the moral imagination you might wish extended to you.
Perhaps there is.
Might be.
Or were.
And you breathe.
You move in and out of this experience,
This exercise.
You get distracted,
You come back.
Follow the train of thought right home to self,
This time,
To this presence.
Deepening and breathing.
Slowing down.
You like your way of living.
Your way of cleaning house or driving.
Spending money.
Ordering your time.
But perhaps there are alternatives.
Perhaps there is.
Ulayish.
Maybe at another corner of the world people spend their time differently or get up at a different time or engage in different pastimes,
Eat different things,
Work differently.
Almost certainly.
You don't have to know it.
Just be open to the possibility the world is not all according to our experience.
People experience disease differently,
Life and death at different rates,
Different education,
Different family structures,
Different sense of the natural world.
Perhaps.
Perhaps there is.
What do you do with that possibility?
Does it give you comfort or extend compassion or just lift your curiosity?
Maybe you hanker for travel.
Just breathing into all these strange and different and surprising possibilities in the world.
Alternative explanations or choices or lifestyles.
We contain myriads even within ourselves and certainly around the globe.
Perhaps there is.
Just breathing into that possibility.
