Hi,
My name is Karen and this is a Daily Insight Moment.
This moment is created to help to presence the listener to the exquisite beauty of the mind.
In this practice,
We will direct the mind to focus on a singular moment and then release it.
The Buddha taught the value of delighting the mind when beginning or arriving for any meditation or even any experience in life.
And so this is where we will begin.
Find yourself in a comfortable position,
Whether sitting or lying down.
And as you begin to arrive and presence yourself in your body,
Just take some calming,
Soothing breaths,
Breathing in deeply.
And then exhaling,
Letting it go.
Breathing in deeply and letting the body empty out completely.
Now begin to think back,
Back to a time when you were really content.
It doesn't need to be a time when you were overjoyed or giddy with laughter,
Although that's also fine.
Just start to remember a time in your life when you thought to yourself,
Yes,
Yes,
This is happy.
I am happy.
I am content.
It may be as simple as sitting down to enjoy a really good meal or the smell of fresh linens as you're resting in bed,
Falling asleep,
Tucking in tightly.
There are so many little moments of life that are delightful.
And now as you recall this moment,
Allow that memory to truly gladden and delight your mind.
Presence yourself to your thoughts.
Take a lovely deep breath in and exhale slowly out.
Allow yourself a moment to reflect on whatever you feel most grateful for in that memory.
Perhaps it was the experience itself,
Whatever comes to mind,
Or the person that you were with.
Just allow yourself to reflect on it,
To reflect on why you loved that moment so very much.
And as you remember that experience,
Or perhaps the person with whom you shared the experience,
Allow the memory of that moment,
That experience,
To fill you with all the good feelings that were present at the time that it happened.
Let all those good feelings be felt.
Let them be sensed in the body.
Allow yourself to breathe in,
To drink in those feelings.
Really rest in all those feelings right now.
Experience what it's like to have the experience of appreciation,
Of gratitude.
Allow it to fill your body,
Your mind.
Let it fill your whole being.
And now allow that feeling to deepen throughout this entire practice.
Perhaps allow this feeling to marry up with or to become associated with the smile.
What does a smile feel like?
Does it feel like an infinite and vast blue sky?
Filling up into its endless beauty,
Its profound offering of possibilities.
Imagine your smile,
Vast and infinite,
Filling up this beautiful,
Vast and infinite blue sky.
Drinking the spacious openness and imagine your smile filling it and then letting your smile spread throughout your entire mind again.
Let the smile in your mind and the sky open up and broaden the horizons.
Brilliant blue sky in all directions.
Let your mind become a smile.
Allow your smiling mind to spread through your eyes.
Notice the gentle crinkling at the corners of your eyes.
Feel the untangling of your brows.
Sense the softening,
Relaxing of your forehead,
Smoothing out the creases,
Softening the wrinkles.
Let the jaw itself be relaxed and offer a gentle Mona Lisa smile,
A sense of ease.
Relax the tongue,
Your lips,
No pressure or tension in the mouth.
Allow a space to form between the upper and lower jaw.
Notice that as the muscles of your mouth,
Your tongue,
As they relax,
Your throat and neck begin to relax.
Just allow yourself to rest in this space,
This beautiful open space of ease.
Feeling the easy breath being drawn in,
Cool,
And the breath moving out,
Warm.
That's the space that's there,
At ease and receptive,
Aware of the sensation,
The aliveness,
The space in the throat.
Allow the warmth of this smile to spread all the way down into your chest,
Smiling into the heart and warming your heart.
Let it fill the entire chest.
Invite the warm smile to open up any areas that might still feel tight or shut off.
Let the smile coax and soothe,
Let the smile offer kindness there.
Let this sense of spaciousness spread out,
Out to your shoulders,
Inviting your shoulders to soften and relax,
Relaxing your arms,
Softening your hands,
Feeling the smile travel all the way down from your shoulders,
The length of your arms,
Into your hands and into each finger.
Notice the smile that warmed and opened your chest is now easing downward,
Overflowing downward like warm golden yellow honey dripping down and filling your low belly.
And now sense the smile threading itself through the entire torso.
Feeling in and out this beautiful smile moving from the chest all the way down into the mid then lower torso,
Hips,
Pelvic floor.
This beautiful smiling breath gently moving deep,
Deep into the hip girdle.
Really notice the sensations within the space inside the belly.
Bringing your focus back to the pelvic region,
Allowing this buttery golden smile spreading through the pelvic region,
Allow yourself to really open to sensation,
To sense the warmth,
The spaciousness.
Let the beautiful nectar of the smile tumble over and feel its warmth filling up the entire length of your legs.
And as they feel,
Let that smile begin to move out into your feet,
Feeling the awareness inside your feet,
Feeling the movement of sensation there.
Strength spreading into each toe.
Expand your awareness now to open and include the entire body.
Allow yourself to hold in spacious awareness the breadth,
The width,
The depth of the whole body as fluid as an ocean sensations.
Allow it all to happen and expand this beautiful all-encompassing awareness now to include sound.
Sounds within the body,
Near the body,
And sounds further away.
Sounds traveling in waves,
Being absorbed,
Vibrating,
Bouncing,
And dancing in your body.
Listening to and feeling this whole movement.
Aware of sounds,
Sensations,
Feelings,
Expanding and contracting,
Rising and falling.
Now so aware of the space in which it is all happening.
This is the background of the infinite and enigmatic mind within the awake space.
This is wakeful openness.
To perceive in that wakeful openness the constantly changing,
Arising,
Dissolving life.
Starting in this very moment,
In this singular breath,
How awareness perceives sensation.
And now in this breath.
And this breath.
That stillness within awakeness,
Spacious awareness that receives changing experience of tingling and vibrating,
Constant movement of life.
Hearing how this open awareness perceives sound within the vast quiet that's listening,
The silence that listens to thoughts.
Notice that the mind has directed a light on each singular moment and only for the briefest of moments will it hold.
And then releasing that moment,
It receives the next.
Welcoming the next moment of spacious awareness of all that is occurring in the briefest of moments.
Walking to the expanding and contracting,
Rising and falling,
Beginnings and endings,
Waking up to the opportunity of is,
To the exquisite moment that is.
The mind is no longer lost in a storm,
Bolts of lightning,
Bursts of thunder.
The mind has become the sky,
Vast and infinite,
Capable of holding all.
And in that moment that the mind discovers that is not its thoughts,
In that exquisite and singular moment,
It recognizes its own beauty.
In the split second of is,
The mind is the observer of all.
It is the spark,
The light that dances within you.
Allow yourself to sit for a few moments.
Just be within this moment of is.
Breathing in,
Breathing out.
Breathing in,
Breathing out.
Breathing out.
