Talk & Meditation - Life Itself

The beauty of our own being is available to us in every moment if we are present and aware. In this talk and meditation, we will focus on the importance of presence and how it can lead to greater meaning in our everyday experiences. By shifting our focus to the present moment, we can discover the beauty and wonder of life itself, right here and right now. This practice can lift us out of mundane or negative patterns of thinking.

Transcript

We'll get to our usual format a little bit and I wanted to call today life itself and it's funny really How things kind of come round.

My photographer this morning was asking me about meditation Which is really interesting and I was saying That it's not like you think it is and I kind of want to lead into our practice in this way actually Something I've been reflecting on a lot Recently because I'm trying to make myself redundant basically,

That's why I've written this book and things I'm trying to kind of You know get so that you don't you can kind of So that people can kind of do more on their own basically,

You know and have have their own path This attaching to teacher thing I always find a Mix bag.

I love I love teaching and I love sitting with people But I'd like us to be much more self-empowered really and She was saying,

You know,

Oh I try meditating but I never can I just don't really get it at all You know,

I can't keep my focus.

I can't keep my concentration And I was saying well,

It's just not like that at all Really and I've just got her while she was taking photos of me just to feel into the life in her body I said,

You know Just you can feel the aliveness in you.

You don't need to think about that you just feel the aliveness in you or if you struggle with that then just feel your clothes against your skin or listen to the sounds that you can hear and And Notice where that sort of meets and this literally happened as she was kind of snapping away Taking photos.

She just went oh,

Oh I can feel that I'm here.

I'm here And so for a couple of moments she was Absolutely present.

Of course you slide off again because You're not used to being you know,

You're not used to being present Most people live in future or past or in and it both in future and past reactivity and things And that is the reality for most people That's the norm and it's the reason that the world turns the way that it turns If you ever you're thinking why is the world the way that it is?

At root it's The absolute belief in kind of being absolute,

You know in those things and And kind of living through those things.

So we're in reaction to each other We're at war with each other We're reaching for this.

We're running away from that And that's that's most people actually they're either trying to head towards something or they're ahead or they're heading away from something Thinking they're going towards something and a lot of people come to meditation and spiritual activity from that place actually So we come to meditation because we're trying to get away from something from a past from a Way that things have been before we want to get to a place where?

It's not that past Or it's kind of a you know a place that's kind of more peaceful or something like that So we have this imagined sort of set of places which we then try to kind of push ourselves into and yet We are life itself.

We are the same stuff as all of the universe as all life as all things and It's absolutely tangible within each and every one of us and I think one of the ways that I like to to work is Is to try and hold space for you for us So that you just feel that for yourself It's not a magic bullet it doesn't sort out all the problems or anything like that and again We think we're going to reach a place where all the problems just disappear and so on But because we're always in reaction and turning turning turning the wheel we never really deal with our problems We treat or we deal with things in a very superficial sort of way.

You know we look at the environment for example And what's happening with that at the moment?

Not what's happening with that,

But the political kind of non addressing of the environment or the way that we create systems to work within that make us all ill or or lose our lives you know that we don't have houses and don't have food and things like that unless we partake of a Certain way of doing things and those things are not going to change But we can either be in reaction to it or we can be kind of here and then make better choices Because we are here because we're not just spinning on the surface And then maybe that does bring change to those things because we can bring something new into those spaces quite honestly You know presence and awareness brings change,

But it's not a magic bullet So it was just really interesting to kind of you know to have come up with the idea for this session a few days ago and to call it life itself and then here I am with Lucy my photographer this morning and She kind of you know literally jolts When she has an experience of herself because maybe she just hadn't had that before or it only come in rare Moments or in childhood or something and basically she said right,

That's it.

I'm doing this for the rest of my life I'm just gonna practice this That was it she did so We'll see how the photos turn out.

I'll be sharing those soon.

I would imagine We spent a lot of time just laughing really so We will see how that was but let's move in so I just wanted to kind of remind you of that really or if you've not heard this way of thinking about things before or if you are coming from a place of Trying to get away from something trying to get towards something there's nothing wrong with that that's absolutely Understandable.

It's absolutely understandable and I heard a quote as well today And I can't remember who it's by That said at some point You're going to have to come to terms With the fact that you can never create a perfect past It was some psychologist And then your healing can begin you will at some point you have to give up the search for a perfect past or for perfecting the past and of course the way To do that is not some egoic effort But actually the realization of yourself in this moment,

Which doesn't necessarily clean up the The wash and the tide from the past that takes time to sort of settle down,

You know And it doesn't change other people but it takes you out of that that endless cycle That we can never seem to kind of get off because the way isn't to continue around the circle but to step into the middle Let's have our little reading from the Tao Te Ching.

So I'm going to start with The Fu Feng version of the Tao Te Ching and then we'll look at the Mitchell.

Most people know the Mitchell So I gravitate towards the Fu Feng just so that we get a different sound Also,

There's bits of this I like much more Ruling the country Ruling the country is like cooking a small fish Approach the universe with Tao and evil will have no power Not that evil is not powerful But its power will not be used to harm others Not only will it not do harm to others,

But the sage himself will also be protected They do not hurt each other and the virtue in each one refreshes both Fabulous that's exactly what we were talking about.

Really.

I think that's absolutely what we're talking about.

So can somebody send this to our politicians today,

Please and And and let's just see because that's one of the interesting things about Lao Tzu That he's kind of he talks about how to actually govern and how countries You know could be run from this place of the Tao And yet if you tried that today somebody would say,

You know,

Who are you to comment about politics or something like that,

You know Wow So then that would be of course being a person with no qualifications comment on politics but But yeah,

You know you meant to stay in your lane or something like that So here's to never staying in your lane people.

Let's never stay in our lanes Mitchell says Governing a large country is like frying a small fish.

You spoil it with too much poking Center your country in the Dow and evil will have no power Not that it's not there But you'll be able to step out of its way Give evil nothing to oppose and it will disappear by itself Mmm,

I'm not sure Stephen Mitchell quite honestly I'm not sure Give evil nothing to oppose and it will disappear by itself I think the opposing force is the presence isn't it is the awareness and even the kind of drawing of boundaries if we have to and the Saying no from presence.

So there we go.

I'm Gravitating to foo fang today on this one so my lovelies,

Let's settle down for practice and I Hope you're all managing the new version of the insight timer app.

Okay,

It boggled my mind When I looked at it a little bit earlier our platform the teaching platform hasn't changed.

It's still behaving very old So Maybe that will come come in good time So I just want to invite you to sit we'll sit for 15 15 20 minutes And let's just do what what what we were talking about with what I was talking about with Lucy the photographer which is Feel the life in yourself Just allow yourself Without thought without thinking about it without thinking I'm gonna meditate I'm gonna do this.

I'm gonna do that I need to get here.

I need to get there Let that be Don't try and fight with anything And just feel the feeling of life in you now As I say for some people because of The conditional way we've been raised and you know Generations and the hundreds and thousands of years that have gone before us And all that conditioning that gets laid down Through family and culture and so on We can spend our time trying to unlearn all that as a kind of heroic act or We Can just allow heart with ourselves so if If the feeling of life in you is a little abstract then just allow your heart Allow the feeling of your clothes against your skin Allow your hearing Allow your sight allow your sense of smell and your sense of taste Allow your pro perception the sense of the room And Instead of Looking as in Considering yourself as a person looking at these things Even looking at life Instead of looking Can you just Open your hands to yourself and witness these things.

Can you just witness your hearing?

Can you witness the feeling of your clothes against your skin?

Can you witness the sense of just being yourself If you're all tangled up in Things again,

There's no failure or blame or shame This is where you are at this moment in time.

So witness the entanglement But witness from your heart more than your head You know today could be your last day It could be my last day You're not guaranteed tomorrow We're not guaranteed in ten minutes time.

You could be hit by a bus,

You know or a meteorite or something and Rather than making that a thing of fear.

I'm not trying to fear ourselves into a way of being if It really was your last day How would you want to be Would you want to be pushing at things or would you want to be of heart with things Would you want love Intimacy with life presence to be here So even if it is the last day The last ten minutes Do you want to be here Or do you want to be in things Do you want to be fighting Going round circumnavigating Young used to call it going round and round instead of coming to the axis mundi a Center of the earth the center of the world.

So we don't need to follow the breath we don't need to quieten the mind don't need to control our emotions We Just Feel that we are life itself not from a place of looking from outside of life But from life in us knowing life You you And allowing that gravity That sense of A deeper self Just to Excavate its way through the layers.

We're not trying to get rid of the conditioning I'm not trying to break through anything You're just going to simply allow yourself to be here being the life that you are And perhaps You start to notice From somewhere in yourself Even with the fear and the whirling and the things and the stuck parts You start to notice that this life that you are is what feels like you Even though you have grown older There's something in you that feels like it has never aged This is how you can be old and yet you just feel like you're a teenager still Something in you that always feels new that's what we're talking about But it doesn't come from being chased or pinned down but it comes from Allowing the heart From intimacy with life You you Allow this feeling of life to shine through your body I know we're not just the body but it's the only home we have while we're here So allow this feeling of life to resonate in all the parts of your body especially the closed places.

Notice where your closed.

Could be in the lower organs of the body could be in the back Could be where there's an illness or an injury Could be in a gripping in the mind or a gripping of fear in the emotional sphere Don't try and change those things but allow the love of life to touch those places to clean through those places.

Feel that vibration in your cells and then allow yourself if you can to feel the life of each other here in this circle Not trying to bond or Attach in any way but just simply life feeling the life of others being together Vibration of life in your body sense of life itself Noticing where that caughtness in future and past is now Don't worry if you keep coming and going how else would it be?

That will reduce in time I find myself considering even if you know the name one has even means anything in this place The name,

The country,

The stations that we make so important of life One time I was sitting just so and I felt that was being spoken to and it said No king or queen is above you and no beggar is beneath you and I've never forgotten that Not again from an egoic perspective but just so Illusions do not stand above us So we could do this all day really because we're not doing anything As I say if it slips it doesn't slip what happens is that we reattach to conditioning to being in things and that's because of fear and ego and conditioning and we can't beat that we just keep coming back to the heart we just keep coming back to the true heart feeling the life in us but not trying to act life but considering that this is the last day every day is the last day and choosing love over the other thing because that's what's missing right now in the world that's where we're going wrong we were coming from this love there's nothing weak here we just change things we just would stop fighting with each other over nothings and we just get on with being a planet but somebody else won't but then there's you and there's me just rock and roll baby pure rock and roll Let's end the formal session of meditation not by coming out of this or changing anything because why would you but we'll just declare the meditation session at its end bless you

Reviews

Amazing! I could listen to John all day. My eyes teared up when it was over.

Amazing!

Lovely, thank you kindly, for your practices and poetry ❤️ 🦋🌠
Namaste 🙏🏼 ❣️🌸

Hello John, thinking about alive-ness now rather than running to the past or future is a timely reminder at the end of December! Thank you
And by serendipity I have been reading about that in Signposts earlier today. How wonderful to hear your voice too :)
Bless you x

Excellent and interesting and going straight back in to listen again. I’m meditating at a wakeful period and thankfully nodded off to a great dream . Crazy living. 🙏🏼❤️ thank you I loved this

Thank you, John🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻I keep on forgetting that: this could be my last day. Any day could be my last day...Love, love love🙏🏻💗🙏🏻

Wonderful. Thank you 💛

Pure rock n roll ❤️🙏🏻👌 - keep coming back to the heart

A very special moment with you all, thank you! 🙏☀️

As always a clear heartfelt talk to listen to again and again thank you

So wonderful to actively share space and time with you John.Thank you. Be well.

Lovely! Thank you 🙏🏼

This was excellent John. Truly needed. Thank you for your offering. 🙏🏼