A Space For Peace (Short Talk & Meditation - Recorded Live)

For all who seek inner harmony

Journey inward with this deeply introspective meditation, guiding you beyond the noise of our times towards profound peace and authenticity. Embrace the true essence of Self, shedding layers of inauthenticity. As you delve into the depths of your soul, may you find solace, illumination, and a heart-centred connection to the world. Let this be your sanctuary in the here and now, discovering that your emotions are valid and every moment is a step towards true self-realization.

Contains readings from the Tao Te Ching and The Prayer of St. Francis

Recorded in a live meditation class.

Transcript

Whenever you advise a ruler in the way of Tao,

Counsel him not to use force to conquer the universe,

For this would only cause resistance.

Thorn bushes spring up wherever the army has passed.

Lean years follow in the wake of a great war.

Just do what needs to be done.

Never take advantage of power.

Achieve results,

But never glory in them.

Achieve results,

But never boast.

Achieve results,

But never be proud.

Achieve results,

Because this is the natural way.

Achieve results,

But not through violence.

Force is followed by loss of strength.

This is not the way of Tao.

That which goes against the Tao comes to an early end.

There is a really beautiful peace garden that I love to visit,

And I was going to go there this weekend,

But I couldn't find anywhere to stay.

It's quite a long way away.

It's seven hours away driving from where I live.

But I like to visit maybe three or four times a year,

But I couldn't get a B&B.

Everything was full up for some reason,

And something that I notice about this peace garden is that it doesn't ask anything of you.

It's just there.

It's just the space that's there,

And all kinds of people come in.

You get people who consider themselves spiritual.

You get people from different religious groups.

You get people who have got no idea of that at all.

They just hear it's a nice place to come and eat your lunch.

And what I observe when I go there is that whoever comes in,

Regardless who they are,

Because of the clarity of intention with which this garden has been made,

No matter who they are or where they're at on their journeys,

People tend to experience something more of themselves.

A bit of peace.

Sometimes if we can't feel peace inwardly,

Then we need to let it in outwardly by visiting such places.

And they are rare,

And it's something I think about a lot,

The creation of peace gardens,

As something I would like to do as part of if one could have some legacy in the world so that everybody had access to a space of peace,

A third space,

As it were,

That wasn't just there to capitalize upon them in some way.

And when I go and sit there,

I can just sit there for hours and hours.

You don't even particularly need to meditate.

There's running water,

There's a beautiful garden,

And so on.

But really it's the intention of the space which allows it to be what it is.

And it is that return to the self through allowing that peace that then allows you to move peacefully within the world,

I feel.

And we need these spaces more.

It's not about being falsely quiet or anything like that.

So I thought,

I was considering what the purpose of doing a practice here today would be.

It's something I,

Again,

I think about a lot is what is the purpose of this.

Really,

This is just a space for that.

It's a space for peace and a space for self-realization through simple practice of connecting back to your own soul,

Which is the only thing.

It's interesting in that sense of inner truth when we feel it.

And we feel that by,

You know,

The teacher's job,

I feel,

Often is to just simply hold the space in the right way.

And then you will experience that for yourself.

And then the teaching happens from within yourself.

There's no need for the person to try and convey information to you.

Of course,

There's bits of information like,

This is a good way to sit.

You know,

Maybe meditating this way if you're working with that might help.

But beyond that,

It's just an introduction back to your own soul.

That's all that it is.

And what we see in the world unfolding constantly is that lack of self-knowing.

Because if one is in true self-knowing,

Not an idea of it that we try to fit ourselves into,

Which we see within spirituality so much,

That just doesn't work at all.

But a movement towards that inch of integrity,

That inch of authenticity within ourselves or that vibration of that,

The life within the body and the awareness that knows that,

Then that leads us towards doing things in a different way.

Without that,

There will only ever be a shift this way and a shift that way and a shift this way.

And it's always duplicitous and it's always dualistic.

Or it's duality that's not illuminated rather,

Because there's always going to be duality while there is form.

But there is no illumination within those dualities.

And it's the illumination that we need,

The illumination of our own soul.

So let me invite you to take your seat and be comfortable.

And I want to say one last thing to you.

This is actually the meditation.

And I've been saying it a lot in my other spaces,

But something we've been talking about a lot,

Which I find very helpful at the moment,

Is that whatever you're feeling right now,

Just know that it is valid.

Because something I've seen a great deal of within meditation is that we're trying to get away from ourselves or away from our feelings a lot of the time.

So whatever you're feeling right now,

Allow yourself to know that your feeling is valid.

Now notice how that allowance allows you to have a little more inner awareness,

So that you see that the feeling is valid,

But you kind of drop out of the pain body story or the gripping to it.

So just as we enter into this practice,

Just allow yourself that self-knowing and that love to know that whatever you're experiencing in response to what's going on in the world or to things in your own life,

That whatever is being experienced,

Because you're experiencing it,

Is completely valid.

You can't start somewhere else to return to the self.

You have to start from where you are.

I just want to invite you to allow yourself to be in a simple,

Dignified posture and to be comfortable,

And just to bring gentle awareness to the physical body.

So this practice is an entry into embodiment.

Awareness of your body.

And of course,

If you have awareness of your body,

You have awareness of the space of the room around you.

You can feel your self sitting on the cushion,

And you feel that life energy in the body that gives that lift.

And your eyes can be opened or closed,

Whatever's right for you.

Softening the face,

Feeling the feeling of life in your body,

Without thinking about it,

Because you don't need to think about whether you're alive.

Feel your aliveness.

Inviting you to tend to the sense of hearing,

One of the traditional gateways to enter into presence.

Tuning into the sounds that you can hear.

Obviously,

You hear my voice.

You may hear something else in the distance or close by.

I want to invite you to allow yourself to hear the furthest away sound,

But allow yourself to simply hear the sound.

We don't need to name it,

Or hook into it,

Or try to change it.

So notice if there's any reactivity in you towards my voice,

Towards the sounds that you're hearing,

Even if there's somebody with a jackhammer nearby,

And the sounds furthest away.

This allows us to be in our bodies and have a wide field of awareness at the same time,

Lifting us out of our shrinking,

Of our closeness.

And I want to invite you to notice the spaces in the sound that you're hearing.

Spaces in my voice,

Not just the space between the words,

But the space in my voice that comes before it,

That allows it to simply exist.

The same with the sounds that you're hearing,

The near sound and the far sound.

Inviting you to notice the space within yourself,

That there is something in you that is aware of the sounds,

That is aware of the feeling of life in the body.

So who is aware of the life in the body?

And this is not a question to be answered,

It's a movement.

And once you taste,

Allow yourself the ease to recognize from that place,

Notice your experiencing through your layers from that place.

One of the things that you may be experiencing,

Which seems quite counter to the world at this time,

Is you may be experiencing a sense of your own innocence and dignity,

Or you may be aware of the vibratory nature of the life in your body,

And how this moment is unfolding from that place.

You may be aware that the space that you were listening into,

And the space within you,

Are no different to each other,

Except that the space within you has the flavor of you in some way about it.

It's that part of you that never feels any older.

I don't mean that immature bit that kind of still wants to be a rock guitarist or something,

Although that's a good thing to aspire to,

No matter what age you are.

But there's something in you that never feels any older,

And we're not clinging to it,

We're not creating it,

We're not believing in it,

We're just being of ourself,

Of this.

In yoga,

They tend to call this place basic goodness.

In Sanskrit,

The word is atma,

Or the self.

In Zen,

They call it your true face before you were born.

Recognizing yourself in this place.

Notice it's not a loss of your ego,

Or yourself,

Or you're not throwing anything off.

Ego is not a problem.

I'm getting very tired of these people who make the ego a problem.

You have an ego because you need it to protect yourself.

Well,

That's what you've learned to protect yourself.

As you learn the single way,

As we might call it,

Single way of knowing of your own soul,

Of knowing what is,

Then the structures that you have built,

Such as the ego and so on,

Will necessarily change through their own.

There's no force needs applying.

Those structures just begin to melt and change,

Become more subtle,

Easier,

And so on,

Because you've come home.

Because we stop living in the false life.

It asks us to be who we are through your human spirit.

As we become established in atma,

In self,

The self,

The I am,

We can actually meet the world in quite a different way.

But this needs to be practiced with great care.

The world right now,

And always has,

Wants you to be here or there,

With us or against us.

But very often,

This and this does not lead to anything improving.

But true knowing means that we are a light within the world,

The chance of peace within the world,

The chance to be responsive rather than reactive even.

It doesn't mean sitting on the sidelines,

But it is a very different voice,

Because it's not coming from a place of belief,

Of conditioning,

Or a force in the usual way.

It's a stronger force.

So we could just sit like this for a long time,

Inviting you not to try to cling to this in any way.

If you are new to this way of practice,

Or you've not sat with yours truly before,

You may have momentary touches into the feeling of life,

Or little shifts into the deeper awareness.

Don't try and make them more than they are.

Just gently attending to your practice each day,

And your authenticity,

Your integrity of practice will begin to lead you home,

And to be a light of peace within this world.

And if you wish to,

Allow the difficulties of the world,

Or of people in your life,

Or situation that there is to be held within this space.

Perhaps just a sense of,

I'm not a visualizer,

But just a sense of holding this situation in your inner hands within this space.

We're not creating an idea of meta,

Or something.

We are allowing what is unfolding to be held within that light.

Lord,

Make me an instrument of your peace.

Where there is hatred,

Let me sow love.

Where there is injury,

Pardon.

Where there is doubt,

Faith.

Where there is despair,

Hope.

Where there is darkness,

Light.

Where there is sadness,

Joy.

O Divine Master,

Grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console,

To be understood as to understand,

To be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive,

It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,

And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

And of course,

There is the way of hearing that,

Those final lines as kind of dying,

In the kind of the Christian sense of the word,

And eternal life.

But there is also the sense of dying to the false self,

The inauthentic self.

Not killing it,

But as we talked about,

Going beyond the ego by moving into the illumination within our lives,

By transcending the falseness in ourselves for what is authentic.

And as you can see,

It's vulnerable,

And it makes you cry,

And it moves your heart,

And you have to feel,

And yet there is this innocence within you.

There is that true face within you,

And if there are tears,

There are tears.

If you are moved,

You are moved,

And we may need that right now.

Let's begin to gently draw this practice to a close.

Not that you can close such a practice,

Because really we're just in the inner life,

But not withdrawn from the world,

But there may be a sense of sitting back.

Thank you for sitting with me.

Thank you so much.

I hope this was a space of peace for you in some way,

A space of healing,

Or at least a space of integrity,

A space of self-knowing,

So that you may be the light that you are in this world.

Bless you.

Reviews

Thanks for this helpful meditation.

Was here for the live, but so lovely to experience it again. One can feel such presence and truth when gathered together in light. I do feel it is in service to others that our wholeness can be found. Just imagine if we all lived from that place.
Bless you dear John.
🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽✨️

Excellent talk and guided meditation, would highly recommend, thank you 🙏

Thank you for your words on the ego and it’s importance.

Yes a helpful offering to feel more accepting of oneself.

John, I wish I could hug you right now. What a beautiful offering. The exquisite attention you include here is why you are my most treasured teacher on insight timer. Thank you so kindly. 🙏

A reminder that peace is there and we can visit it whenever we need it 🙏🕊️✨