And then relaxing into the shamatha posture.
The gaze is downward,
Mouth slightly open,
Jaw relaxed.
And breathing into your belly.
Resting your attention on your breath.
And if for any reason that one's difficult for you,
You can do a body scan,
Just a brief one.
And remember that puppet hanging from a string metaphor for your spine.
And celebrating the many moments of,
Oh yeah,
I was meditating.
Those moments of mindfulness that normally we don't have.
And settling back into shamatha.
Celebrating that moment too.
Those many moments of fresh shamatha each time we arrive again.
Now a ritual.
And as we do Shamatha,
We might catch glimpses of that common root.
Feeling from our own root,
All the way down to that common root of all.
So there used to be forest covering the whole top of North America.
And in old growth forests,
The roots all overlap.
There's as much and as deep and as wide a root system for each tree as the crown.
And the mycelium all along those roots help the trees all to communicate with each other and trade nutrients.
And if one tree is ailing,
Other trees around it give it nutrients and strength.
Each tree unique,
One forest.
Okay.
Now we'll practice Dong Lin,
Sending and receiving.
And so please begin,
If you can,
With yourself.
Whatever suffering you might be feeling these days,
Something that's up for you.
It might be the same thing you've picked before in this retreat.
And if it's too difficult for you to begin with yourself,
You can spend a bit of time breathing for somebody you easily care for.
And then think of someone you easily care a lot for.
And at some time,
They've suffered something similar.
You want to take away that suffering.
And so you breathe in their suffering right into your heart.
And breathe out the spacious,
Bright clouds surrounding them and soaking into them.
These are your wishes for their happiness,
To be relieved from that suffering and to be joyful always.
And as those bright clouds of your good wishes soak into them,
Their face changes from a pained expression to pure joy.
Now you might pick the person you were just talking with.
And perhaps they told you of some suffering.
And so you breathe for them,
Your compassionate heart being a doorway through which the dense,
Dark clouds of their suffering comes in and can be soaked up by the whole web of the roots of the forest and all of the joy that's all around us.
You pull in through your compassionate intent and breathe out into that person.
And,
Again,
Bring other people to mind,
Either in this room or in your life,
Who you are who you easily feel compassion for.
And since linear time is an illusion,
They have experienced a similar suffering.
And you breathe for them.
And now you breathe for everyone in this room.
And now you breathe for everyone in this room.
Now please bring to mind that difficult person.
And at some time,
They've experienced a similar suffering to the one you first started with in this session.
And even though they've caused trouble for you,
They're a fellow sentient being who doesn't want to suffer,
Wants to be happy,
Has pursued it in mistaken ways sometimes.
But then,
Haven't we?
And so we simply breathe in the experience of suffering itself.
That's all.
We breathe that in.
Because we actually don't want them to suffer.
That's not the point.
So we take that away.
And we replace it with the bright,
Spacious clouds of happiness.
Why not?
And see it soaking into them.
Their expression softens.
And they smile.
We might even feel a little bit of compassion that they're trying to pursue happiness.
They may not be doing it in the most skillful way.
Again,
We all have our moments of ill-conceived ways of pursuing happiness.
So maybe we feel some real genuine compassion that they're not achieving their goal of happiness,
The goal that we all share.
And again,
We breathe for them.
And now we think of all beings stumbling around,
Wanting to pursue happiness,
Often rather blindly,
Almost like we're all writhing around in a mud pit blindly.
And our foot ends up in somebody's arm or their elbow ends up in our ribs as we writhe around,
All of us together,
Doing our best rather blindly.
And so we feel moved by compassion for everybody and breathe for all.
The dark,
Dense clouds coming in from all directions into our hearts and then the bright,
Glowing,
Spacious clouds going out strongly,
Powerfully in all directions,
Touching all and everyone.
And we'll go again to shamatha,
Focusing on sound,
Whatever sounds pass through.
We just register them and let them pass through.
Again our eyes are slightly open,
Gazing down,
Mouth slightly open as we breathe through again.
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