Nonduality Meditation ~ Self-Compassion & Natural Awareness

This meditation invites you to rest in the natural state of awareness that is already here, without striving or effort. Instead of “trying to meditate,” you’ll be guided to open the senses as gateways into presence.

From this ground of nonduality, we bring gentle self-compassion to whatever difficulties arise, allowing them to be held in spacious awareness. The practice closes by inviting infinite compassion to flow through the body, softening resistance and deepening peace.

Image: Marc Serota

Transcript

So welcome.

I want to invite you to just find a pleasant position for you to sit for about half an hour or maybe lay down.

If you're laying down make sure your back is comfortable and your neck is extended.

Don't have any hurt knees,

That's also for when you're sitting.

You don't want to be in any pain.

Discomfort is part of the deal with meditation but agonizing pain certainly doesn't have to be.

It can be pleasant to take a few longer inhalations,

Not forcing air into your lungs but just sort of allowing your lungs to expand a bit more.

If possible do this all through your nose and when you exhale you can release the skin on your face,

Release your shoulders down and really land in your in your posture.

And do that a few times if you want.

Inhaling a bit longer and deeper and then a long gentle full exhalation giving into gravity.

Surrendering into relaxation.

As always any guidance that I'm going to give is for you to give,

To take or leave.

If something else is happening for you that you're with,

Please do that.

Everything is optional.

And as we're settling in here,

The idea can be in our mind that now I'm meditating.

So I want you not to meditate.

I want you to do nothing actually.

Don't even have a specific mindset.

The only thing you're doing is you're laying or you're sitting and paying a bit more awareness to what it is like to be laying or sitting right now.

Very,

Very,

Very simple.

So can you do this kind of non-meditation?

Then the question is of course,

Okay how do you do that?

And then the question is of course,

Okay how do I do non-meditation?

Well one thing we can do is to pay attention to what enters the sense gates,

Right?

So if you have your eyes open you can even look around.

But look around as if you're taking in the sights the way your nose takes in a smell.

So you can taste what is there with a kind of curiosity.

And you can also smell the air or at least breathe in such a way as if you're smelling the air.

So you can sort of increase the intentionality with which you're breathing.

And this paying more attention to what enters the sense gates is a way of slowing down and opening up presence.

And of course there's a sense of touch.

You can feel without moving the body kind of touching itself with body sensations all the time.

And there are also background noises here and maybe there where you are as well.

And this too can be a non-meditation meditation object,

But just being present with what's present.

So let's do that for a few minutes to just first of all allow any of these external sounds or internal sensations.

First of all allow any of these external sounds or internal sensations or sights or smells.

Let's be with that for a few moments here.

And you'll notice already maybe that thoughts are happening as well.

And so simply also allow any thinking to happen.

Just don't actively participate in it.

And if you're noticing that the information from all the sense gates is overwhelming and you would want to be a bit more calm,

You can just let that all go and only have a gentle kind of focus on your breathing,

Meaning the body sensations of the breath moving in and out.

And a gentle focus means don't push everything else away.

You want to have this general mindful openness,

Kind of a spacious awareness.

And in that spacious awareness just notice the breath coming in and out of your body.

Again if you notice that you're sort of entangled in a stream of thought that's no problem,

Just notice it.

Actually you can be happy to notice it because it's a very good training for awareness.

And then simply come back to being open to whatever enters the sense gates or being present with the body sensations of breathing.

Another thing you can do if you're very distracted and you have your eyes closed is to have your eyes open and then for instance have a soft unfocused gaze in front of you or at the floor,

Not at any screen.

So every time that we sit down to meditate,

One of the most important things we want to do is to stop trying to meditate.

That's kind of a.

.

.

The mind tries to do it.

If your mind is anything like mine that's what's happening,

I'm trying to meditate.

But notice that there's nothing really you can do.

It's a very really more of a letting go.

I studied a three-year Iyengar yoga teacher training where there's this eightfold path from Patanjali and if my memory serves me right the first seven steps of those are things like ethics and how to move your body and how to breathe.

But the last three stages entering into Samadhi,

There are more things that come to you when you fully and completely relax.

So what we can do in a sort of simplified version of that is,

Of course,

You set up your meditation spot,

You sit down,

You turn your phone in,

Do not disturb or whatever,

And then you just kind of wait for something to happen to you,

Right?

And not waiting in a sense of I'm being impatient and when is it going to happen,

But more of an allowing.

So that's where we want to go,

To kind of find the thing that's already meditating.

So what I want you to do now,

If you like that invitation,

Is to completely relax even more than you are already and simply notice,

Not not exactly looking for it,

But notice what is already meditating all day long.

And then relax into that.

And another way of saying that,

What is already still and spacious and accepting.

And if now your mind is doing this seeking thing,

Just let that go,

Just allow it to come.

It will come.

So let's practice that receptivity and utter non-doing now for a few minutes in silence.

Now if this is working for you,

Then very good,

Just keep on practicing or being with that.

Or being with that.

And if you want to add a layer of intensity or challenge,

This is my invitation.

If you are anything like me,

It might be the case that your self-love is not absolute.

And there might be some judgments that you have about yourself.

Maybe a kind of behavioral pattern or something you said or did last week.

And these kinds of things most of us have.

And they can get in the way of our full relaxation and perhaps one day full enlightenment.

So what I want you to do,

If you like the invitation,

Is to think about something you don't like about yourself or a self-judgment that you have.

And simply invite that into the space by way of calling it into memory and then allowing it to be there.

Don't make it your life trauma or something super overwhelming.

Make it something manageable and just be aware of that judgment,

Not as a truth,

But as something that is blocking you from complete self-love.

And I'm not asking you to somehow magically all of a sudden love everything about yourself that you may find difficult,

But just to acknowledge that this is a difficulty that you have.

And for now,

Not to do anything at all about it.

But just have it be there,

Maybe sitting next to you,

Meditating,

This self-judgment,

This difficulty that you know you have.

So we're not doing anything with that,

We're just bringing it into awareness and just for a duration of this meditation we're going to let that be there.

Our difficulty is there anyway,

So let it be there and continue the receptive open presence that you have been doing.

If this is difficult for you,

If you notice that your mind is going into negative self-talk,

That is not what we're doing here.

So you can just sort of allow that to happen,

But more focusing on being present and breathing if that's happening.

So we want to be present with some self-difficulty,

But not to indulge in it.

Okay,

After all judgments,

Including our self-judgments,

Are not reality,

So don't believe the negative self-talk if it is happening.

Very good,

And then I want to give you one last invitation again for you to take or leave,

And it's the following.

If you were a being of complete cosmic love and compassion,

What would you say to yourself right now,

When you would look at your life,

Your day,

Your week?

Just imagine what would unlimited,

Infinite,

Cosmic love and compassion say to you right now.

Just let the words come,

And if some words are coming,

Allow them to really touch you,

Allow them to enter your heart,

Your body.

Let your body breathe in that cosmic,

Infinite,

Love and compassion.

And if you were practicing with a self-difficulty,

Also allow that same infinite love and compassion to be transmitted to that part of yourself you don't like,

Or thing you find difficult.

Include that in this stream of cosmic compassion.

Give it breath of love,

Give it breath of love,

Give it breath of love,

Breath of life.

And then wherever you are in the visualization,

Inner alchemy,

Just come back to simply being present with your breath for a few moments.

Notice how your body feels.

If there are still some difficulty lingering,

Then find some acceptance for that,

As it is already happening.

Maybe some judgment about I didn't do the practice well,

Or anything like that.

Take a deep inhalation,

And a deeper,

Longer,

Full exhalation.

Do that a few times,

To kind of clean your system again from the practice.

And then in your own time,

You can find an end.

Thank you for meditating with me.