This is a meditation that brings together guided mindfulness meditation instructions and poetry to help rest in and come back to the present moment.
I find that poetry can help us break through our mind's discursive thinking and can help us drop into the here and now,
Which is at the core of the practice and the attitude of mindfulness.
Take this well-loved haiku poem by the Japanese poet Basho.
The old pond,
Frog jumps in,
Plop.
Like that plop,
The lines of a well-crafted poem can bring us home,
Dropping us out of our conceptual mind and into the present.
So to begin the meditation,
Find a relaxed and comfortable posture on a chair,
A cushion,
Or whatever position allows you to be present in a way that's relaxed and alert.
Let your chest be open and your shoulders relaxed.
You might take a few deeper breaths,
A long full in-breath and a long slow out-breath.
And as you do so,
Invite a smile to your face,
To your eyes and to your mouth and bring a kind and receptive attitude to whatever is present for you right now.
Invite a sense of calm and peace as you breathe in and breathe out.
And when you're ready,
Let the breath relax into its own natural rhythm.
This short poem,
Clearing,
By Martha Posselthwaite,
Speaks to the spirit that it's wise for us to bring to the practice of meditation or to contemplative prayer or other spiritual practice.
Do not try to save the whole world or do anything grandiose.
Instead,
Create a clearing in the dense forest of your life and wait there patiently until the song that is yours alone to sing falls into your open cupped hands and you recognize and greet it.
Only then will you know how to give yourself to this world so worthy of rescue.
So you might envision that in the time and space you are creating and setting aside for meditation,
You're creating a clearing amidst the busyness and responsibilities of life in the dense forest of your life.
And in that clearing,
With a spirit of being rather than doing,
Clarity and insight can arise from the stillness and the silence.
As you sit,
Bring an attitude of receptivity and curiosity to whatever you're experiencing.
If there are strong bodily sensations,
Discomfort or slight pain,
Open to those feelings and meet them with kindness.
Any emotion that comes up,
Sadness,
Joy,
Calm,
Anger,
Meet it too with kindness.
And if there's a lot of thinking,
Notice that the mind is active and gently bring your attention back to your body and to this moment.
This poem by the Sufi poet Jalaluddin Rumi called The Guest House captures well a spirit and attitude towards meditation and to our experience.
This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival,
A joy,
A depression,
A meanness.
Some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all.
Even if there are a crowd of sorrows who sweep your house empty of its furniture,
Still treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out for some new delight.
The dark thought,
The shame,
The malice,
Meet them at the door laughing and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.
One of the first things we notice when we begin to meditate is how our mind can have a mind of its own.
Our intention may be to be in the present,
To be aware of our direct experience.
But our mind may move into thinking about what we're going to have for dinner or the difficult conversation we had earlier with a colleague or a family member or scenes from a movie we watched recently or myriad other enticing thoughts.
So it can be helpful to give ourselves a specific focus for our attention.
One of the most commonly used and accessible focuses in meditation is our own breathing,
Which is always available to us as long as we're alive.
So you might bring awareness to the sensations of breathing in and breathing out without controlling or changing your breath,
Meeting it just as it is.
In breath,
Out breath.
In breath,
Out breath.
When you notice your attention has moved into thinking,
Gently and kindly bring attention back to your breath.
It's important to remember that thinking isn't a problem in mindfulness meditation,
Just something to be aware of.
And every time we wake up out of thinking and return our attention to the breath,
We're training our mind to be present,
To live more fully in the present moment.
This poem,
Peace Is This Moment Without Judgment by Dorothy Hunt,
Points to the truth that peace is always to be found in the present moment.
Do you think peace requires an end to war or tigers eating only vegetables?
Does peace require an absence from your boss,
Your spouse,
Yourself?
Do you think peace will come some other place than here,
Some other time than now,
In some other heart than yours?
Peace is this moment without judgment,
That's all.
This moment in the heart space,
Where everything that is,
Is welcome.
Peace is this moment without thinking that it should be some other way,
That you should feel some other thing,
That your life should unfold according to your plans.
Peace is this moment without judgment,
This moment in the heart space,
Where everything that is,
Is welcome.
Peace is this moment without judgment,
This moment in the heart space,
Where everything that is,
Is welcome.
Peace is this moment without judgment,
This moment in the heart space,
If your attention is drawn towards a strong emotion or mind state,
Sorrow or grief about a loss,
Or anger about a recent encounter with a friend,
Or strong judgment about something you've done or failed to do,
You can let your attention move from the breath to the emotion or mind state,
And open to the feelings that are present with kindness and acceptance.
Allow yourself to experience whatever bodily feelings are present,
Heat,
Tightness,
Tension,
Throbbing,
And let those feelings come and go in their own time.
If negative thoughts come,
Bring awareness to them,
Angry thought,
Worried thought,
Judging thought,
And let them go with kindness and without resistance.
If you are interested in your experience,
And notice how all the sensations,
Emotions,
Feelings,
And thoughts,
Come and go in their own time,
When met with kindness and acceptance.
Here is an extract from the poet Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet,
Talking about the freedom that can come from moving towards what is difficult or fearful.
We have no reason to harbor any mistrust against our world,
For it is not against us.
If it has terrors,
They are our terrors.
If it has abysses,
These abysses belong to us.
If there are dangers,
We must try to love them.
And if only we arrange our life in accordance with the principle which tells us that we must always trust in the difficult,
Then what now appears to us as the most alien will become our most intimate and trusted experience.
How could we forget those ancient myths that stand at the beginning of all races,
The myths about dragons that at the last moment are transformed into princesses?
Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act,
Just once,
With beauty and courage.
Perhaps everything that frightens us is,
In its deepest essence,
Something helpless that wants our love.
So sit with a receptive attitude towards your experience,
Bringing kindness and interest to whatever is present.
Letting your breath be your home base to return to when the mind moves into thoughts,
Plans,
Memories,
Daydreams.
Just coming back,
Beginning again and in any moment.
Thank you.
This poem,
The Journey by Mary Oliver,
Speaks to the shift that can take place in our lives when we listen to the voice within,
Rather than continuing to be swept up in the demands and the busyness of the world.
One day you finally knew what you had to do and began,
Though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice,
Though the whole house began to tremble and you felt the old tug at your ankles.
Mend my life,
Each voice cried,
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
Though the wind pried with its stiff fingers at the very foundations,
Though their melancholy was terrible.
It was already late enough and a wild night and the road full of fallen branches and stones.
But little by little,
As you left their voices behind,
The stars began to burn through the sheets of clouds.
And there was a new voice,
Which you slowly recognized as your own,
That kept you company as you strode deeper and deeper into the world,
Determined to do the only thing you could do,
Determined to save the only life you could save.
So sitting with a sense of ease.
And if anything seems to get in the way of being fully here,
Fully at peace in this moment,
You might let your attention turn to it.
It might be some discomfort in the body or a strong emotion.
Allow yourself to feel what you're experiencing,
Open fully to it,
To see how,
Like everything else,
It comes and goes.
Sensations like energy moving through us.
It can be like a weather system coming through,
Maybe very strong for a while,
And when it's passed,
It's done its thing,
It moves on again.
So we can use the breath as a home base,
Just aware of the sensations of breathing in,
Breathing out.
When the mind moves into thinking,
Into planning,
Remembering,
Daydreaming,
Problem solving.
Just notice something will wake you up out of thought.
And then just in a kind and friendly way,
Bring your attention back again to the breath.
In breath,
Out breath.
So we'll sit quietly for a few minutes and I'll finish with a poem by Wendell Berry,
The Piece of Wild Things.
Which reminds us how nature can bring us back to ourselves,
To the present moment.
How we humans have this unique ability to move into the future and into the past and worry and ruminate.
And that we also have the capacity to come back,
Come home to ourselves,
Come back to this moment,
Find peace in this moment amidst whatever the circumstances and the conditions of our life are.
How we humans can bring ourselves back to ourselves,
Come home to this moment and bring ourselves back to this moment.
When despair for the world grows in me,
And I wake in the night at the least sound,
In fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water,
And the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things,
Who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief.
I come into the presence of still water,
And feel above me the day-blind stars waiting with their light.
For a time I rest in the grace of the world,
And am free.
I come into the presence of still water,
And feel above me the day-blind stars waiting with their light.
For a time I rest in the grace of the world,
And am free.
For a time I rest in the grace of the world,
And am free.
For a time I rest in the grace of the world,
And am free.
