What Truly Matters In Your Life

This meditation can help anyone seeking clarity in their lives. It is based in the Jewish Yom Kippur observance of abstaining from food, drink, baths, perfumes, shoes, and intimate relations. Effectively, Yom Kippur is a "Death Practice" that helps us to understand what really matters in life.

Transcript

This meditation is delivered by Rabbi Alon Ferency of Knoxville,

Tennessee.

I invite you to lie down for this meditation,

Arms at your side,

Feet and legs extended but uncrossed.

Over the period of the next few minutes,

We'll consider the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur,

Translated typically as the Day of Atoning.

Yom Kippur itself is a kind of death practice,

A kind of intubation of a world without us.

And Yom Kippur Jews worldwide are forbidden from eating,

From drinking,

From bathing,

From anointing,

Which in the ancient world of course was done with oil and the comparable thing today would be perfumes,

From wearing leather shoes or comfortable leather attire,

And from intimate relations with one's spouse.

These things,

Eating,

Drinking,

Bathing,

Anointing,

Wearing shoes,

Having marital relations,

Are some of the building blocks of what make us human,

What constitute life.

And so on Yom Kippur,

We're invited to consider ourselves unliving,

Beyond life and without it.

I invite you to take several deep breaths just to adjust yourself to the place you find yourself,

To your surroundings.

Breathing in as deeply as you can,

All the way perhaps into your toes,

And breathing out as slowly as you may.

Breathing in for a long count,

And breathing out gently,

Again and again for a few moments.

As you breathe in and settle down on the floor,

Or perhaps in a chair,

Closing your eyes,

I want you to think about your stomach,

Your organs of digestion.

Breathing all the way down to your intestines,

Stomach,

Spleen.

Think back to recent moments when you felt hunger,

When you were sated,

When you chewed delicious or even plain tasting food,

When you swallowed.

As you breathe,

Consider your system of alimentation and digestion,

The pathways that food goes through in your body,

Even to excretion.

Breathing in slowly,

And if you could,

With the air,

Tracing those pathways through your guts and viscera.

How would you live your life differently if you no longer had need of food?

If you were perhaps struck by lightning,

And the urge to eat,

The hunger ceased.

Breathing in,

Imagine a place where your organs of digestion are not needed.

How would you spend your day without acquiring food?

How would you orient your life if you didn't need to struggle to earn your daily bread?

One time breathing into your chest and stomach as you allow your mind to drift through those questions of what your life could be without the need to eat.

Breathing in slowly,

Breathe out fully.

Your breath carries through your throat and mouth.

Perhaps now it's moist and comfortable,

Where you can sense your saliva or even dryness in your mouth.

As you breathe and observe the breath crossing your palate,

Think how comforting even a simple glass of water,

Perhaps a splash of lemon or even a cola,

Feels on your tongue.

Breathing in across your palate and out from your throat,

And in and out.

What would a world be like without liquids?

What would your life be like if you did not have a thirst to quench?

What would your daily routine be if you didn't need continual intake of fluids?

I invite you for a few moments as you breathe across your palate,

Tongue,

And throat to imagine the choices you might make were you not to need to drink.

Breathing in deeply and breathing out slowly,

In and out.

Breathing in deeply and breathing out slowly.

Another aspect of the practice of Yom Kippur is understanding ourselves without the need for baths or showers,

Perfumes or colognes or oils.

Feel your skin,

Rough or smooth,

Cool against the air or warmed by it,

Dirty and sticky with sweat or cool and clean.

Breathe out the boundary of your skin.

Breathing in slowly and out fully,

All the way to the edge of your body.

Imagine a time when you will no longer need to bathe,

When your body will no longer be clean nor dirty,

But wholly insufficient to describing what you become.

Breathing in,

Stretching all the way to the limits of your skin.

Breathing out as you breathe in and out right to the limits of your being.

Imagine yourself beyond the need for bathing.

Understanding the skin and body that needs showers.

Let's think about anointments.

Smells,

Colognes,

Perfumes.

The many ways that we enhance or just cover over our own odors.

The ways in which we beautify ourselves to make ourselves more appealing for those around us,

Those in our space.

The scent we leave in the air after we depart a room.

Breathe in deeply through your nose.

See if you can smell your own self.

Maybe the soap you use or your detergent.

Hot perfume.

Maybe you smell very little.

Imagine a way in which the world did not need you to smell anyway.

That you were beyond sense.

That you had no one to impress.

No one who might judge how you smell or present yourself.

Take a few moments as you smell yourself in your environment.

And as you breathe in and out gently through your nostrils,

Use that time.

Imagine how you would be,

What you might do if you had no self-consciousness about the way things smelled.

Now,

We'll address our footwear.

What it would be like not to need shoes.

Breathing in all the way down to the soles of your feet.

Breathing in deep,

Deep,

Deep all the way down.

And feeling the energy,

The tiredness of feet.

All the places your feet carry you,

Drag you,

Run with you,

Move you through the world.

The joy of being able to move.

And the ache of all of it in your joints.

Imagine the rest of a time when you wouldn't need shoes.

That your feet might become irrelevant.

Imagine a future without walking,

Striding,

Or striving.

Breathe all the way down into your feet.

How would you structure your time if you had nowhere to go?

Deep,

Deep breaths all the way down to your feet and toes.

Think about a life structured without striving.

Now let's consider the last prohibition of Yom Kippur that forces us to consider a world after us and without us.

Breathe down into the center of your body.

Breathe into the places in your body where you experience passions or lusts.

Breathe deep into the warmth.

Use these breaths to surrender desire.

Let go of acquisitiveness.

Breathe deeply into your generative parts.

And as you breathe out,

Let go of passion and fire.

Breathe out that heat.

Imagine a cool place without need to create or build.

Without time to conceive or generate.

What would you do with yourself then as you breathe down into your core and radiating outwards?

Imagine a structure for your life without passion and sensuality.

How would you use your time?

Take several more deep breaths right down to your core,

Your essence.

As we prepare to close this meditation,

I'll share with you that the goal of Yom Kippur and death practice in general,

I think,

Is to prepare us to live better,

To draw our attention,

Sometimes gently,

Sometimes severely,

To what really matters.

You are not just an animal that consumes food and water.

You are not just a being that bathes and perfumes oneself.

You are not just someone who dresses for beauty and romance.

You are all of those things,

Yes,

But so much more.

And by stripping away all of those distractions,

Whether it's just some number of minutes in meditating or many hours during the day of Yom Kippur,

We can be free to see what really matters and who we truly are.

I invite you to think about that,

To contemplate your soul's essence for a few more moments before you open your eyes and return to the world of striving.

Blessings.

Reviews

Very meaningful, Thank You.

This is an excellent meditation beyond Yom Kippur. I intend to spend other times fasting throughout the year, introspecting and getting down to the core of my being. Thank you for this .

Thank you for helping me remember 🙏🏻

Nice meditation!