Guided Meditation: The Joy Of Being

Welcome to this awakening practice guided by Ava. Empty out your thoughts in exchange for the recognition of ‘now’ and connect to the background of being. An opportunity to experience the formless, existence essence.

Transcript

So find your comfortable meditation seat,

And when you're ready,

Close down the eyes.

Just adjusting our posture for a few moments,

So just giving a little bit of movement through the spine,

Ribs,

Neck,

Becoming aware of the back of your body with a really big breath,

And then starting to find straightness,

Just breath after breath,

Weaving from tailbone all the way up the back of the neck,

All the way up the crown of the head,

Grounding your seat down heavier,

Reaching the crown of the head up to the sky,

And you've probably arrived here by now.

You can really feel if you're comfortable.

Now's the time to adjust because we don't want to have our awakening techniques cut short because the body's uncomfortable,

So make sure you are comfortable.

Even if you need to get up and get something different,

Now's the time to do that.

Don't wait till later if already something doesn't feel right.

Softening the skin,

Turning your gaze in,

And also down,

A sense of coming in and down into the middle of the chest,

Maybe placing a palm on the heart.

Now's also the chance to give the body a little wriggle or stretch,

Maybe arms overhead.

The body is really allowed to adjust organically as we undergo an inner transformation.

We expect that to relate into the body,

So allow it to adjust as you take some full body clearing breaths.

The belly is softening.

Just take a few of your fuller breaths,

Swirling in and around the tissues of the front and the back of your belly,

Sense of the lower back melting,

And also become aware of this present moment,

The nowness of your breath and your belly,

Your own presence,

Existence is now.

There's not any layers to this nowness.

It's just recognizing the now quality of this moment.

If you really feel that now quality in the body,

It should be like you're emptying out your thought in exchange for this recognition of now,

Like a background of being,

Just breathing with that background,

Presence,

A kind of emptiness,

The space in which your body arises,

Your breath arises out of and then dissolves back into this empty,

Formless space,

Existence.

At the same time,

Just your drop-in meditation techniques of breath and softening,

Melting in and down.

Soften your shoulders,

Your scalp,

Your jaw,

And face.

Notice all the thoughts swirling and running and moving around the head area and the front of you,

And how they're all a movement on the space of now,

The space of your own awareness,

Existence.

Maybe it feels nice to sense the air of your breath rubbing past the heart space in the middle of the chest.

The breath a little bit slower,

Maybe in and out is the count of four.

Keeping it simple,

You don't need to figure out or achieve anything.

Just see if there's a bit more heartfulness as you breathe in and out of the heart space.

Body awareness still here as the spine keeps straightening out,

The belly expands,

Your thighs melt down,

Face melts,

Especially the eyeballs and that mental effort in your eyes.

And just exploring breath in and out of the heart space,

Giving yourself time to really feel that heart opening while you allow everything to be as it is.

You allow the thoughts to just unwind.

You allow the breath when it does,

Inviting attention below the shoulders,

Into the body,

Into the heart space.

Sensing the depth of awareness that you've cultivated by now,

A sense of being below the surface in the inner space.

And see if you can locate that point just behind the sternum in the middle of your chest.

You might even visualize a little ball of white light or energy,

Little energy ball in the middle of the chest.

And as you breathe,

You're feeding that energy point in the very middle of the middle of your chest.

Might notice the qualities of this very center point.

So going even deeper than any visualization and just feeling without any labels,

The sense of your middle.

If you could be aware of the core of your being,

Notice the quality of your core is a kind of formless existence essence.

Notice that thoughts are on the surface of your being,

In the forehead or in front of you,

Above you.

And what's at the center of your being,

You might breathe into that point and trace this sense of intimacy and centeredness,

Deeper and deeper into your middle.

This is what we sometimes call our being,

The part of us that doesn't change,

Has no preferences,

A stillness at the center.

Again,

Just trusting that mental energy isn't going to pause,

Just let it unravel on the surface.

As you return your focus back to the heart space,

Breath,

The center,

As you breathe through the very,

Very center of the heart,

Maybe you sense also the joy of being,

Like a tiny seed of your essence in the very middle,

Kind of love,

Presence,

Joy,

Smiling energy at your center,

Shoulders rolling up,

Back and down,

Just checking the body is not frozen or stiff.

The breath can move freely through the joints.

The body can adjust if it likes,

As we take the next minute or two just to enjoy the breath,

The movement down and into the heart space.

And finally,

Just introduce that short pause at the top and at the bottom of each breath.

After inhale,

Pause for half a second or one second,

Just creating that little gap,

Pause between the thoughts.

Create that little gap of stillness between inhale and exhale.

Notice the kind of silence and stillness in that little gap.

It's like a window a doorway to background of stillness.

You might sense that background of stillness as a charge in your whole body.

It's charged with this stillness,

The stillness of your own natural being that's always here.

Last minute or two here,

Maybe the body needs a twist or a stretch or to round forward or back.

Just make sure you're still meeting and addressing the body.

One more minute,

Full breath through the heart space,

Stillness in the middle.

Notice your awareness,

Your thinking,

Your breath are all arising out of your essential stillness nature.

Just coming back to your eyeballs,

Your body,

Taking some fuller breaths.

While you keep your eyes closed,

Just preparing to stretch out a little bit.

And then eventually coming back.