This is an introduction to awareness.
In this meditation,
We will feel and sense into the illuminous presence or awareness upon which your body and within which everything rests.
Your true ground of being that is always whole,
Complete,
And needing nothing is fundamentally okay.
So let's begin.
Turn your attention inwards into the body.
Feel the weight of your feet on the floor,
Your seat in the chair,
And just allow and feel the ground supporting you.
Feel into your torso,
Allowing your shoulders to relax,
Your arms to relax.
Feel your hands gently resting in your lap.
Feel into your head,
Allow your eyes to relax,
Your cheeks and your jaw to relax,
And allow your tongue to relax.
Now take several calming breaths,
Breathing in love and compassion and breathing out any stress or tension.
It helps if you make the exhale just a little longer than the inhale to activate your rest and digest system in the body.
Put a small smile on your face,
A Buddha smile,
Thanking yourself for taking this time to tune in to find the centered ground of your being.
Now let's begin by imagining that you have stepped through a door,
You're leaving your shoes at the door,
And in this room you're entering.
You're going to empty your mind of the past,
Of the future,
Any worries or concerns.
Just allow it all to fall away until the one thing that you cannot drop remains,
Your awareness,
This knowing sense that knows.
Feel and sense this luminous presence.
Sense it directly.
Notice that you feel and sense this luminous awareness before thought.
You don't need thought to know.
You don't need feeling to know.
This presence is before or beyond sensation.
This is you.
This sense of you is before identity.
Notice this presence has no edges or boundaries.
See if you can find one.
Take your presence awareness out into the room.
Take it up into the sky and see if you can find an edge to your awareness.
And if you think you've found one,
Pour space into space and take it further and further.
Take it down into the earth and see if you can find an edge there,
Pouring space into space.
Notice and feel that this awareness has no edges,
Just like the sky,
It's limitless and boundless.
Notice that nothing has created this awareness.
It's before conditions.
So you don't need to do anything to make this awareness happen.
It's always here and always available.
You don't need to think to be.
Sense and feel whether this awareness has any opinions inherent to it.
If you were looking at an object,
Let's say you were looking at a book,
Would awareness care what book you were looking at?
Notice that awareness has no opinions about the object,
The book.
Notice that this awareness does not come and go.
It's always here.
In fact,
It's the same awareness that's been with you your whole life.
Notice and sense how this awareness has been with you when you were a little child,
Teenager,
And throughout your life,
The same awareness.
Nothing can be added to or taken away from this awareness.
It is stainless,
Opinionless.
Just here,
Just present.
Feel and sense the natural calm that comes when you notice these qualities of your awareness.
This is who you are.
This is calm and able to be with whatever is happening.
This means you are calm and able to be with whatever is happening.
Feel a kind of steadiness or resilience in the ability to be with whatever is happening.
This is your stable and resilient ground of being.
Sense or notice activities as arising within awareness,
Just like clouds arise in the sky,
Events arise in our life,
But they cannot hurt awareness,
Just like clouds or a storm cannot hurt the sky.
Feel a kind of relief in this knowing this essential being of you cannot be harmed by the activities of life.
Allow yourself to relax back into yourself,
Relax into awareness,
Into the stable and steady ground of your being,
Which is always here,
Always available,
Fundamentally whole and complete,
Fundamentally not needing anything to be.
Just being.
And from here,
You can rest,
You can be with whatever is happening,
Staying grounded in the truth of who you really are.
