This is Lisa Sheehan.
Welcome to this guided sky equanimity practice which invites us to embody a quality of openness and to allow our minds to expand,
To be spacious like the sky,
To experience our thoughts and emotions as something that happens in the space of our minds with a sense of neutrality.
By consciously choosing to just notice rather than identify with the content of our thoughts we can create space in our minds and hearts for all that life presents to us experiencing it all with a greater sense of equanimity.
So taking a comfortable seat or feeling free to lie down,
Finding a posture where you feel comfortable and your body can soften a bit and yet remain awake and alert.
And perhaps closing the eyes as we begin.
In our sky meditation we allow the mind to be large enough to contain and hold whatever passes through it just like the sky.
Seeing thoughts,
Sensations and feelings like the weather in the sky always changing,
Impermanent,
Always flowing like a cloud.
As you sit or lie here envision the sky in your mind's eye so vast,
Boundaryless,
So expansive.
It's infinitesimal.
There's no visual containment for the sky has the limitless capacity to hold everything.
It holds the light,
The dark,
The planets,
The earth,
The air,
The water,
The birds and planes,
The calm,
Balmy breezes,
The hurricanes,
Tornadoes,
Thunder and lightning,
The quiet snow,
The cold and the heat,
The Sun and the moon and countless stars.
It's an infinite container or open space to hold the positive,
The negative and the neutral.
Picture the sky in different scenarios,
In the light and then in the dark,
In calm blue skies or in a dark stormy sky.
Notice that throughout it all there is a sense of neutrality and non-efforting.
The sky has the ability to be open to let everything flow like the movement of the clouds or a storm.
The sky has a capacity to not get stuck or caught up in or attached to what is occurring.
There is movement and not rigidity,
Spaciousness.
It's imperturbable,
Non-preferential.
It doesn't cling to sunny days or push away the storms.
It all exists within the sky where there's space for it all.
In our practice here,
Can we allow our minds to expand,
To be more like the sky?
Can we connect with the characteristics of the sky so that our mind might be more open and vast?
Can we experience our thoughts and emotions as something that just happens in the space of our minds,
Just like the weather happens in the sky?
In our meditation practice,
Can we learn to just notice rather than identify with the content or the emotional charge of these happenings,
Recognizing them as mental events,
Occurrences,
Or products of the thinking mind?
As we notice,
Can we remain independent of their content and emotional charge?
Can we allow the thoughts to float on by like a cloud in the vast sky?
Rest here in awareness for a moment or two,
Noticing thoughts and noticing the spaces between them.
Our thoughts are not necessarily facts.
They're subjective,
Evolving,
And fleeting.
Can we create space here to allow thoughts to just be a product of our mental environment,
Just like a hurricane or a tornado is simply a product of the weather in the sky?
Take a moment here to just notice the thoughts and the emotions rather than clinging to or identifying with their content or meaning.
As we notice,
Can we release our attachment to a thought,
Letting it go like a helium balloon we've just released into the wide-open sky that floats away until we can no longer see it?
Can we just observe and allow physical sensations in the body,
Sounds,
Images,
Stories,
Stressors,
Joys,
The breath,
Thoughts,
And emotions?
Can we just observe them and then allow them to float away,
Disappearing without any effort on our part?
The pleasant,
The unpleasant,
The neutral,
All of it changing each moment,
All of it impermanent.
Can we internalize this concept of vastness and openness like the sky,
Allowing all things to flow in our lives rather than rigidly resisting or trying to control?
Can we integrate these qualities within us?
Can we rest here in stillness with a sense of expansion and openness as we sit or lie here?
We create space in our minds,
In our hearts,
In our bodies to welcome it all to be present,
To move unrestricted in the space of the mind like clouds moving in our own vast sky of self-awareness.
Resting here in open awareness of our internal,
Internal sky landscape with a sense of boundlessness and spaciousness,
Holding space for all that life presents to us.
And And as we close this formal practice,
Bringing the attention now to the breath in the chest,
In the belly,
Noticing the in-breath and each out-breath.
And the rise and the fall of the chest and the belly,
The sensations of the breath as it comes in and out of the nose.
One invitation here to continue with breath awareness or if not,
Expanding the attention outward and just noticing the sounds and the space around you.
And as you're ready,
Opening your eyes.
Thank you for your presence here today.
Namaste.
