This is a five-minute meditation on the slippery nature of self.
You are not a drop in the ocean.
You are the entire ocean in a drop.
Rumi As we begin this meditation,
Let us allow our mind to do whatever it desires to do.
If the mind wants to think,
Let it think.
If the mind wants to wander,
Let it wander.
If you find that there is agitation,
Distraction,
Even resistance,
See if you can make some space for all of those to happen,
Excluding nothing,
Including everything.
At the end of the day,
There is no right or wrong way of doing this meditation practice,
Simply because there is no right or wrong way of just sitting with whatever arises.
So let us practice like this for a few moments in silence.
This is a five-minute meditation.
Walt Whitman wrote,
Do I contradict myself?
Very well,
Then I contradict myself.
I am large.
I contain multitudes.
Who or what am I?
Who or what am I when there is no thing to do,
Nowhere to go,
And no problem to solve?
Who or what am I?
Pema Chodron wrote,
You are the sky.
Everything else,
It's just the weather.
You are the sun.
In a few moments,
The bell will ring,
Signaling the end of this meditation.
And as we transition from more formal sitting practice to more informal daily life,
Perhaps we can find some inspiration in the words of Karen Mason Miller,
Who writes,
Who turns this into that,
Sound into noise,
Silence into boredom,
Stillness into restlessness?
Who turns pain into suffering?
Who turns delusion into enlightenment?
Who thinks?
Who feels?
Who senses?
Who turns?
Who turns?
