If you wish,
There could be a kind of question of the day of what is important,
What is precious in this life.
And feeling what is important,
Not necessarily what we think is important or what feels kind of heavy important,
But also what brings a lift to your heart and ease of being.
And meanwhile,
Getting comfortable if possible.
I recommend lying down if you like.
There's also the possibility if you have a lot of restlessness in your body of finding some kind of gentle movement to start with.
And then gradually coming towards stillness.
Or if staying in movement is more connecting for you,
That isn't another valid way of meditating.
You could simply walk or find another movement that works for you.
Or if possible,
To find a sense of ease and not needing to use your muscles to hold yourself up.
A way of being on the ground that might bring a smile or a sense of support.
Ground and here-ness.
And if you'd like to just hear the most simple instructions and just stick with that,
It would be to find a place in your body or a word or image that would be joyful or supportive to connect with and to keep connecting with.
So it could be just a place in your body such as the lower belly,
The chest,
The lower back.
And even though there might be mountains and rivers of thought and story and emotion,
There's also that living body that can feel itself.
Or if it's difficult for you to feel your body,
Then it's possible to replace that with the question,
What is important?
And starting to sense what do you know is important that you don't know you know is important.
That some other kind of knowing,
Not what you've been told,
But what you can discover within yourself.
What you love to love.
And just continuing to find a word or image that helps you connect and continuing to come back to that connection with what's important with the help of a word or image.
We could all begin with just a few moments of remembering something that we value.
There's a scientific study that found that in high school testing when there was a grade gap between different social groups because of historic prejudice,
If before taking the test the students spent a few minutes just remembering what they value,
A few things that they valued,
Then that performance gap disappeared.
Everyone was free to do their best,
To feel in their power and in their flow.
And perhaps that ease and openness and alignment.
So we could also begin the meditation.
Just having a few moments to get a sense of,
Hmm,
What do we value?
In times of turbulence we may be even more easily aware of valuing friendship or silence,
Safety,
Honesty,
Justice,
Beauty,
The fresh air in the early morning or evening in the early evening or early morning.
A chance to lie or sit on the ground and do nothing for a while as if we had all the time in the world.
Whatever it is that you value and maybe then the feeling of being allowed to spend time in touch with what you value,
How does that feel in your body?
To remember that you value a particular relationship or activity or a state of mind or place.
And when you remember that you value that,
What's the texture in the body?
Almost as if we have a long straw down the middle of the body that we could just sip the goodness of loving what we love,
Valuing what we value,
And how that feels in the body.
The silkiness or the warmth,
The breeziness or the ground,
Whatever it may feel like to you.
And when you're ready just so simply coming into the body,
Perhaps to start with I would suggest the skin of the lower back if you like.
Perhaps very gently and gradually coming a little further into the lower back.
So the skin that's in touch with clothing,
Air,
Ground,
And a little further in inside your body,
Deeper layers of skin if you wish.
And then perhaps just feeling more and more of the lower body,
Almost like a cup or a nest.
The pelvic bowl,
Lower back,
Hips.
How does that feel for you?
Perhaps extending a little bit up to the middle of your back if you like as well.
Spreading into the upper back like a lovely massage or flow of warm water.
Spreading through the back and feeling allowed to be as you are.
Body,
Mind,
Heart,
Life situations all allowed to be as it is.
And here is your back and your lower body with its flow of warmth and sensations.
Perhaps movements of breath way down deep in the spine,
In the backbone,
In the back of the abdomen.
Noticing your approach to the meditation if there's a tension somewhere in your body,
Trying to hold on to the moment.
Just noticing that it's like magic.
You can notice the ways that we might be trying too hard out of habit.
Trying to get it right.
So just feeling the habits that come in,
That come on,
Feeling them if possible in physical sensations.
And then again kind of melting back or finding somewhere in your body that you'd like to gather and allow awareness to just be like a window of now receiving this stream of life.
So whether in that back lower body nest or somewhere else in your body receiving the stream of life.
Relaxed if possible.
Noticing what's not relaxed.
No problem.
If there are sounds near and far in your area,
There could be a chance to include sounds as they come and go.
To help appreciate that wide mind that we have that immediately has heard a sound.
Let it be itself and let it go all in one instant.
So playing with as relaxed as we can be,
How relaxed can we be today and still allow that fineness of the wide mind to feel just now,
To hear just now in that single instantaneous gesture of receiving as it is so alive and so gone.
We don't need to know much.
We don't need to do much for this exquisite moment,
This ordinary moment to be met,
To be felt,
To be released,
To be free.
Sometimes it may naturally happen that the movements of breath catch your attention and we can allow that if you like.
Perhaps staying with the nest of the back body and pelvic bowl or your gathering place,
Your home place in your body,
Wherever it may be,
And allowing the movements of breathing to be felt,
To be received as well if you like.
Noticing how easily the mind will start to create a version of the breath,
A mental version of the breath,
With words,
Images,
And even imagined sensations.
What we expect to feel with this in-breath and simply noticing that.
That's one stream,
That's the mental version stream of our mind going on by itself,
Just like someone has left a radio on somewhere.
No problem.
It's not your fault.
The mind has been trained to be this way for now.
And also there's that live stream of sensations and presence.
Warm,
Cool,
Soft,
Firm,
Etc.
Noticing when there's a tendency to follow the mental version of breathing and then that we can still come back and release ourselves into the kind of freedom and directness,
The looseness and wildness of just actually what's happening.
Happening and gone,
Happening and gone.
So full and ungraspable.
It doesn't matter so much the quality of the breath,
The quality of the posture,
The quality of the thinking or feeling.
What does matter more?
No matter what thoughts or feelings,
Sensations,
Or rhythm of breathing is going on,
What does matter more than what's happening or how we think we're doing?
Perhaps a wholehearted meeting in the instant,
In the immediacy with the courage to let go of the beliefs,
The assumptions,
The negativity about what's happening or the hurry or the hope or the fear about it.
To let it all be there met,
Received and set free.
And whether in movement or stillness,
Connecting with the place in the body or the sense of the back body and pelvic bowl as a nest and if you wish also to include the movements of breathing that are going on by themselves,
Felt by our wide mind in the immediacy of what our lives are made of.
Resting into your place in the body and also the breath if you're including the breath as if into a soft pillow or wave that carries you.
From start of the out breath to finish and in the transition to the in breath from start of the in breath to finish,
Being carried.
Noticing where it's easier to get distracted sometimes might be at the end of the out breath when there's nothing left.
Kind of like a river has washed into the sea or sometimes when there's a sound the mind picks up a story and we can notice that it's a power that we have to notice.
Just kind of floating on the now or on the wide mind,
The already here awareness and allowing the waves of breath or the river of the sensations to just gently rock you or carry you or meet you to be here and to be released in an instant.
And perhaps with your next out breath if you wish feeling what you would wish for yourself today.
Feeling how that is to wish something to yourself of goodness or safety or freedom and maybe wishing it to someone near you and to someone far from you and notice how that feels even if just in your mind you imagine wishing well to someone near wishing well to someone far or even allowing a sense of that quality of being willing to wish this life well letting that quality radiate and spread.
May our practice and lives be one of welcome to what's real to what's important to what matters towards awakening for all including ourselves in this lifetime.
I would just like to ask you to consider expressing a well-wishing to someone in words or in a gesture not only in your mind.
Thank you for being here.
