This meditation is a guided visualization that will assist you in taking your mind off your day and off your to-do list for tomorrow so that you may be more present and rest with more ease and peace.
I invite you to make yourself as comfortable as you can,
Preparing yourself for sleep.
So laying down on the floor or on your bed,
Making sure that your pillows and blankets and sheets feel just right.
Feel free to make any adjustments that you need to your body's position throughout this practice to ensure that you are as comfortable as can be.
Now allow your eyes to close and your body to just melt into the floor or the bed,
Allowing your attention to gently come into the body and to the flowing of the breath.
Experience the sense of the body as a whole,
Simply lying there,
Extended and breathing.
When you feel ready,
I invite you to bring to your mind's eye the image of a lake,
Perhaps a lake that you know well or one that you've seen in a picture or an imaginary lake.
Just seeing if you can bring that image into vivid focus in your mind's eye.
Noticing how it's an extended body of water held by the earth's surface and perhaps fed by a spring or a stream.
If you watch and observe the lake carefully,
You'll notice that it's always changing and yet it's also always itself.
It changes as the sun moves across the sky and the light is reflected off the water in different ways.
It also changes depending on the weather.
Sometimes on very calm days,
The surface might be like glass and reflect virtually everything with great precision that comes by.
Clouds,
Birds,
The trees that might surround the lake,
The sun as it makes its journey across the sky and for that matter,
The moon and all the stars at night.
So there are times when the lake is extremely reflective and contains in a certain way everything that comes by or over it.
In different periods of time,
The surface might be choppy and sometimes quite pronounced in ways in which times the light might sparkle off the waves in different ways like jewels.
Of course the lake changes through the seasons.
In the winter,
Depending on its location,
It might actually be frozen over or at least on the surface.
Through day and night and through the seasons and the years,
The lake is constantly changing but always its own essential nature.
Now let's see if we can't invite the lake to become co-existent with our own body lying here so that our body becomes the lake itself.
We also feel held and embraced as we lay here,
Aware of the many ways in which our own mind is much like the surface of the lake,
Sometimes highly reflective,
Sometimes choppy.
Getting in touch now with the sense of the entirety of the lake,
The fullness of the body of water,
Not only on the surface but also down below.
And as we lie here,
Just experiencing the fullness of our own being so that even at times when our mind is choppy and upset or reactive or dealing with difficult things,
We can drop down beneath the surface of our own mind's waves and find a stillness that's always here and always available to us with each moment,
With each breath.
And certainly when we come to lie down in this way,
Lying here under the canopy of our vast awareness,
Experiencing the moment to moment changes in the body and sensations,
Thoughts,
Feelings,
Impulses,
Sounds,
And all the while,
Just like the lake,
Just simply laying here watching the play of the weather of the mind and the body.
Allowing the awareness to hold it all moment by moment,
Breath by breath.
As this meditation comes to an end,
I'll leave you with some gentle sounds that you may like to drift off into sleep to.
I wish you a restful evening.
Take care.
