So wherever you are,
Maybe have your eyes closed,
That can be very pleasant.
If you have your eyes open I would invite you to have a very gentle soft gaze,
Not focusing on anything in particular.
Just allow yourself to do absolutely nothing at all.
Not even meditating,
Just sort of slowing down.
So slowing down is doing less and doing less allows for more presence,
Awareness to open up.
And so what you can do right now is just see whatever you notice,
That do you notice sights or sounds or smells or sensations in your body,
Thoughts running through your mind.
And just let everything be.
And in particular for this meditation I want to have some attention for welcoming feelings and sensations in the body.
I don't know how it is for you but for me I noticed a few days ago that I sometimes have kind of an enemy image about feelings and sensations that I notice in my body.
So if there's something weird that I feel I can be a little bit scared,
Like what does that mean,
What does that do?
And I can even get angry sometimes.
And I think we all have some reactivity to what we feel and sense in our body.
Maybe we can be afraid of being sick or what is that feeling all of a sudden.
And I really want to invite us to be more welcoming.
And if you are already really welcoming to your sensations normally then just be with that already,
To just have a moment in this meditation to have a really open welcoming intention towards whatever you notice that's happening in your sensory field and specifically the bodily sensations.
And as we're dropping into a bit more of a meditative state see if you can allow more relaxation to happen.
So it's not a doing but just an allowing to relax,
To let go,
To accept,
To surrender to gravity.
And I'm gonna read you a quote from Ken MacLeod from the book The Magic of Vajrayana which I really like.
There is no enemy,
Nor is there any absolute or ultimate truth,
State of perfection,
Ideal or final achievement.
Reality is beyond words.
On the other hand,
To be free of suffering,
To be free of struggle,
Involves nothing more than to stop opposing what arises in experience.
To practice in everything the simple dictum,
There is no enemy.
And so the sensations and the feelings and even the emotions in our body are not enemies,
Even though they can be scary.
But then that fear is another layer of emotion and sensation which is also not an enemy.
And not only are sensations not enemies but I would suggest they are more like emanations from the love that is reality in your body right now.
And if we do not resist this reality in our bodies then these things,
These sensations,
Become more like friends.
And in the perspective of non-violent communication,
Our feelings point us to our needs,
Our feelings,
Our sensations are kind of messengers to tell us something,
Drawing us into presence and awareness.
So with that suggestion,
Let's take a few more moments in silence to just notice whatever comes up in experience,
In your sensory field,
In your body.
And can you be like the friendly presence in which all that sensing is happening?
And if you can't,
Can you be the empathic presence for that resistance?
So for the rest of this meditation,
I invite you to practice with this for a few more minutes in silence.
