Welcome to this meditation on finding our inner home.
So often we get caught,
Like flotsam at sea,
Lost in a drift in the ocean,
Just like Dorothy in Oz searching for that calm,
Centered home within where we can truly rest.
Here we turn our gaze from outward appearances,
From the content of thoughts and emotions,
Which we so often confuse with ourselves.
We dive within like an explorer into our own inner heart,
Where we are learning to trust in the magnificent presence of our own awareness.
This is a process of acceptance and finding the inner peace and calm of our ground of being as awareness.
So let's begin.
We'll start by closing your eyes and taking a few long,
Slow breaths.
Make the exhale just a little longer than the inhale,
Which activates the parasympathetic,
Or rest and digest system in the body.
As you breathe in,
Feel the energy and aliveness of the breath moving into you.
And with each exhale,
Release all tension.
Now gently feel into your body.
Tune into your feet,
Feeling the weight of your feet on the floor and releasing any tension in your feet.
Feel the weight of your body in the chair or whatever you're sitting on,
Releasing any tension in your torso,
Your shoulders,
Your arms and hands.
Feel into your head and release any tension in your eyes,
Your jaw,
Your cheeks,
Allowing your eyes to relax in their sockets gently.
Feel the tongue allowing it to relax at the roof of your mouth.
And feel your spine being pulled gently upright,
Tucking your chin slightly.
Now become aware of that space that you are aware from.
Perhaps it's behind your eyes or the center of your head and allow that to drop down so that you're knowing your throat from within your throat.
Then knowing your shoulders or upper chest from within your upper chest.
And knowing your heart from within your heart.
So it feels that the center of your awareness is now located in your heart.
And feel your heart from within.
Just allow yourself to rest there for a few moments.
Then drop down into your lower dantian in your pelvic region and feel that area from within.
Feel the rise and fall of your breath in your belly.
Notice noticing sensations from your belly.
Now bring your awareness back into your heart.
Notice and feel an essential quality of warmth or goodness here in your heart.
Notice that this isn't a thought.
It's not an emotion even.
You're just aware of a subtle aliveness with a quality of goodness.
This goodness is at the center of everyone's heart because you are made of this.
This essential goodness has been with you from the moment you were born and all throughout your life.
This essential quality of being is always here.
Notice how thoughts come and go from this awareness.
Tons come and go but this,
This essential quality of being can never leave you.
Just allow yourself to bask in the glow of your own essential perfection,
Whole and complete.
Not needing anything to be this.
There's nothing to fix here.
There's nothing that you need to do to be.
This is simply your own essential knowing of your own being.
Sense this as the stable ground or home of what you truly are.
The magnificent radiance of you.
Just like an oyster that may have been weathered on the ocean and the outside.
This pearl of your being is always here and always available.
It cannot leave you.
Feel the subtle sense of relief and knowing this essential being of you.
Now allow your awareness to expand out from your heart into the room or space you are in.
Notice and feel the space.
Sense and feel the space from within space.
And even if you don't understand these words,
Just trust that you do.
And then allow your awareness to expand out beyond the room into your community and beyond into the country you're in and beyond.
And see if you can find any edges to this awareness.
And if you think you've found them,
Then pour space into space.
Out into the space and the universe and beyond.
Make this awareness all the way up above your head,
Pouring space into space.
Down below your feet,
Pouring space into space.
To the right and the left,
Front of you and behind you.
There are no edges to awareness.
It's ungraspable.
It is not an object.
It's open,
Clear,
And transparent.
Sense and feel the infinite boundless presence of you.
Notice that this awareness doesn't come and go in time.
Notice that there's nothing you need to do to be.
It's already here without your help.
You are not a thing.
Just allow yourself to relax and surrender into the infinite loving being that is you.
So in unh"!
Notice that awareness has infinite capacity to be with whatever is happening.
Awareness doesn't need to judge or label or fix.
Awareness is okay with whatever is happening.
You are awareness,
So that means you are okay with whatever is happening.
Everything can be just as it is.
And ask yourself,
What's here now when there's no problem to solve?
In this place where you can just let things be.
And rather than being a leaf getting caught up in the winds of life swirling around you,
You become the tree rooted and stable as awareness,
Able to be with whatever is happening with the way things are.
So feel this now,
Be the tree,
Rooted and stable,
Calm,
Peaceful,
Happy.
Happiness isn't something we get or find.
Happiness is what you are.
Rumi said everything you want,
You already are.
Sense and feel how different life could be if you live from this place of rootedness in the ground of your being.
Letting go of needing to control or change everything,
But rather life moves through you.
You act and respond from this deeper inner knowing of being.
From this still,
Calm,
Unmovable place within.
This is your true home.
And it's always been right here.
And when you're ready,
Gently open your eyes,
Viewing the world with soft,
Diffuse gaze.
My sincerest wish is that this meditation helps you remain connected to the essential whole and loving being that you really are.
To know that you are never separate and are fully supported in all that you do.
May the light and clarity of awareness illuminate your way home.
Thank you.
