Hello my name is Matt Albury.
The following recording was made on the 9th of May 2020 and is a recording of a Zoom meditation session that happened for all the different groups that were unable to meet during the lockdown with the coronavirus.
The following session contains a loving kindness with compassion and then also leading into a time of stillness but also with compassion work ongoing through that time.
So bring your awareness to your feet on the floor and just notice that sense of contact there.
Just noticing that contact with the floor.
And then take your awareness then up to the contact with the chair.
So notice the contact with the thighs and the backside and possibly with your lower back.
Just notice the contact there.
And then when you're there now just bring your awareness then to the sounds around you.
So all the different sounds you can hear where you are.
Maybe you can hear sounds outside of the room and obviously sounds inside.
And then gently close your eyes if your eyes are still open.
And we'll take two breaths.
So we breathe in through the nose and sigh out through the mouth.
So take a lovely breath in.
And we'll do that again.
Lovely deep breath in.
And just allow yourself just to settle for a moment before we start our body scan.
So take your awareness back to the bottom of the feet.
Taking your awareness up onto the toes,
The tops of the feet and the ankles.
And just notice the physical sensations there.
And then take your awareness then up onto the shins and the calf muscles,
The knees,
The thighs,
The hips and the backside.
And just notice the physical sensations there.
And then flow your awareness then up from the hips up onto the belly and the lower back.
Taking your awareness then up onto the upper back and the chest.
Taking your awareness up onto the shoulders,
Shoulder joints,
The upper arms,
The elbows,
The forearms,
The wrists,
The backs of the hands and the palms of the hands.
Just take a moment to notice that little hollow,
That little dish that forms there in your palms.
And then take your awareness out onto your thumbs,
First fingers,
Second fingers,
Third fingers and fourth.
And then just flow from the tips of your fingers all the way up through the arms back up to the shoulder joints.
Just noticing the sensations in your arms as you do that.
And then take your awareness then up onto the throat,
The back of the neck,
The jaw.
Taking your awareness up onto the mouth and the lips,
The teeth and the gums,
The insides of the cheeks,
The roof of the mouth,
The tongue and the space underneath your tongue.
And just take a moment to notice the tastes and the physical sensations there.
And then take your awareness up onto the nose and the nostrils.
Taking the awareness around onto your ears.
And then awareness then up onto the eyelids,
The eyelashes and the eyeballs themselves.
Just noticing the physical sensations.
And then take your awareness to the forehead,
The back of the head and then the crown.
And then when you're at the top of the head and the crown of the head,
Just bring a moment of awareness to what it feels like to be in your body,
In the space that you're in.
Just noticing what it feels like just to be there.
And then as if someone's opened a tap on the bottom of your foot,
Just allow yourself just to be emptied out.
Just as you just flow all the way back through the body as if you've been emptied out.
Just let go of anything you want to let go of as you do this.
So just picture whatever you want to let go of leaving your body as you flow all the way down to the bottom of the feet in your own time.
And then when you're ready just flow all the way back up through the body as if you're being filled afresh.
Just noting as you go,
Just noticing what's present until you reach the crown of the head.
And then when you reach the crown of the head,
Just then drop your awareness then back down to your breath.
Just watching the physical sensations of the breath move in your body.
Just enjoying the subtle movement of the breath moving the ribs,
Chest,
The belly.
And then when you hear the bell,
I'll start to go to our loving kindness practice.
So the first part of the loving kindness practice now is to bring into your mind's eye a picture of yourself as you are today.
And imagine that this image of you is sat opposite you,
A bit like a mirror.
You are looking at yourself as you are at this moment.
And just take a moment just to notice the mental chatter,
Physical sensations in the body as you look at this image of yourself.
And then when you're ready allow your heart centre to open.
So we're picturing our heart centre opening like a flower.
And inside this heart centre is all the things such as goodwill,
Empathy,
Kindness,
Love,
Warmth.
And regardless of how we view ourselves today,
Our intention is to bring kindness to ourselves as we are.
Because we are never quite what we should be.
Because we are only a human and we are fallible.
So we'd like to speak these words of kindness to ourselves.
So repeat these words to yourself quietly.
And picture this loving kindness going out to this image of yourself.
May I be truly happy.
May I be healthy and well.
May I be safe.
May I be peaceful.
And may I be loved.
May I be truly happy.
May I be healthy and well.
May I be safe.
May I be peaceful.
And may I be loved.
And just take a look at this image of yourself again.
And just picture these qualities leaving this heart centre and going into this image of yourself.
And noticing the image of yourself benefiting from your practice.
Maybe a gentle smile coming across the face of the reflection of you.
Maybe their body softens.
And then we'll say these words again.
May I be truly happy.
May I be healthy and well.
May I be safe.
May I be peaceful.
And may I be loved.
And before we move on just take a moment to say anything else that you want to say to yourself.
Anything you need to hear today.
Maybe it's reminding yourself that you are good enough.
You're fine as you are.
So we speak words to ourselves like we would to a good friend.
Just take this moment just to say the things that you need to hear.
And then when you're ready just allow that image of yourself just to dissolve away for a moment and bring into your mind's eye an image of someone you care about.
Someone who's important to you.
And as we look at this image of this person just firstly notice what it is that you love about them.
Why they are so easy to care about.
Just take a moment looking at this image of this person you care about.
And then again picture leaving from your heart centre those qualities going from you to this person.
Kindness,
Goodwill,
Love,
Acceptance.
And then we'll speak these words of kindness over this person.
May you be truly happy.
May you be healthy and well.
May you be safe.
May you be peaceful.
And may you be loved.
May you be truly happy.
May you be healthy and well.
May you be safe.
May you be peaceful.
And may you be loved.
As we get ready to say these words one last time to this person again picture them benefiting from the practice.
Perhaps again a gentle smile coming across their face,
Their body softening.
May you be truly happy.
May you be healthy and well.
May you be safe.
May you be peaceful.
And may you be loved.
So just allow the image of that person just to dissolve away for a moment and then bring to your mind's eye a neutral person.
So when we say neutral person this is someone we don't know very well.
Or it could be at this time again somebody,
A colleague for instance,
Who you haven't seen since the lockdown.
We just picture this person in front of us.
And then we'll say these words of kindness to them again picturing all those lovely qualities leaving our heart centre towards them.
May you be truly happy.
May you be healthy and well.
May you be safe.
May you be peaceful.
And may you be loved.
May you be truly happy.
May you be healthy and well.
May you be safe.
May you be peaceful.
And may you be loved.
Just say this one more time again just picturing this person benefiting from our practice.
May you be truly happy.
May you be healthy and well.
May you be safe.
May you be peaceful.
And may you be loved.
So just allow that person now just to drift away and in your mind's eye just bring a person before you maybe you're finding difficult today.
So this isn't somebody who's really wronged us if it's our first time doing loving kindness but it maybe it's somebody's irritating us a bit and we're frustrated with today.
And just bring that picture of that person in front of you as if they were sat opposite you.
And again our intention is to bring kindness for no other reason than they are a human being and they deserve kindness just like us.
May you be truly happy.
May you be healthy and well.
May you be safe.
May you be peaceful.
And may you be loved.
May you be truly happy.
May you be healthy and well.
May you be safe.
May you be peaceful.
And may you be loved.
May you be truly happy.
May you be healthy and well.
May you be safe.
May you be peaceful.
And may you be loved.
So in your mind's eye now bring back the image of yourself,
The loved one,
The neutral person and place them alongside the challenging person.
And then for a moment allow your mind to generate images of other loved ones,
Other people important to you,
Other neutral people,
Perhaps people you've seen around today or other difficult people.
And just take a moment just to picture this whole throng of people in front of you.
And again picture your heart centre wide open full of his kindness,
His goodwill,
Compassion.
And then we'll speak these words of kindness over everybody.
May you all be truly happy.
May you all be healthy and well.
May you all be safe.
May you all be peaceful.
And may you all be loved.
May you all be truly happy.
May you all be healthy and well.
May you all be safe.
May you all be peaceful.
And may you all be loved.
Happy,
Healthy,
Safe,
Peaceful and loved.
So just allow those images of those people just to dissolve away for now.
Just watching them just drift away.
And as you do this watch the loving kindness come back to you.
Picture that kindness,
Compassion,
Empathy all coming back into your heart centre.
So as those petals of your heart centre are wide open,
Picture that goodness coming back into you to nourish you as you see it.
So you benefit from the practice as well,
The coming into your heart centre.
And then gently just watch the petals of that flower closing again around the heart centre.
Just protecting those qualities deep within you.
And then when you're ready just bring your awareness away from your heart centre back to your breath.
I'm going to start off by bringing our observation to our breath just coming and going.
That's all we have to do.
Just watch the breath coming in.
Maybe some of the gentle movements of the ribs,
The chest,
The upper back,
The belly as that breath rolls in at its own pace.
We're not trying to speed it up or slow it down.
And then we just watch the little pause before the breath rolls back out.
And then we watch the little pause and then we watch the breath rolling back in.
So we're just allowing to watch that breath rolling in,
Breath rolling out.
And this is where we come back to.
So if you get distracted just come back to here.
Don't beat yourself up,
Don't worry about being distracted,
Just come back to here.
And then we just allow ourselves now just to come into that place of stillness.
Just dropping the awareness then away from the breath.
Just down into that sense of stillness,
That sense of presence.
The awareness is coming to that place of anada,
That place of bliss,
That place of silence and stillness.
It doesn't matter if it's a fleeting experience,
We just come back just to bring back to that place of stillness.
This is again now a time because it's a compassion work tonight,
We can say words that we need to hear.
We speak to ourselves like we were a really good friend.
Or you can use the mantra where you say quietly to yourself as you sit,
I am enough,
I do enough,
I have enough,
I am enough,
I do enough,
I have enough,
I have enough.
So the choice is there,
It's your choice what you'd like to do.
So you can either just sit and speak words that you need to hear at this time.
You know saying the sort of words that you would say to a really good friend.
Or again you just use those words.
I am enough,
I do enough,
I have enough,
I am enough,
I am enough,
I am enough.
So the choice is there,
It's your choice what you need to hear at this time.
Thank you.
So just continue to speak those words.
Just taking this time just to speak those words of kindness over yourself.
What we're doing is actually generating a kinder voice to ourselves.
We're learning to speak those words of kindness over ourselves rather than berating ourselves or knocking ourselves.
I am enough,
I do enough,
I have enough.
Thank you.
Thank you.
And then when you're ready in your own time bring your awareness then back to your breath.
And then I will lead you in a reflection of the day to end our practice.
So when you hear the bell just return your awareness back to your breath and I'll take you through the different stages of our reflection.
So to start our end of day practice just return to the first things you remember of your day from the moment you woke up.
So just think through your day just at a sort of gentle pace just thinking through from the moment you woke up until this moment when you joined the practice tonight for the meditation.
Just thinking through the different things from the moment you got up maybe made a cup of tea or a cup of coffee.
You went to the bathroom,
Cleaned your teeth,
Had a shower that sort of thing.
Just think through all your day up until the moment you sat down now to practice.
And then when you reach that moment just take a moment to think of anything in the day that particularly was positive,
Anything that maybe gave you that sense of being alive,
That sense of light in your day.
Just take a moment to think through the positive things of the day.
And then when you're ready think through anything in the day that was challenging.
Maybe there's certain things that sort of felt like they were sapping life rather than giving life.
Maybe there was emotions and things like that around affecting your day.
But as we think through these things we again don't do it with judgment.
We're not beating ourselves up for those things.
Just acknowledging what happened,
What's happened in the day.
We're not saying it's wrong,
What should have happened.
We're just acknowledging the day.
And then when you're ready bring your awareness then to tomorrow.
Just think of what we hope to do tomorrow.
And think of any intentions you want to bring into your day for tomorrow.
Maybe things have been informed by how today went.
For example it might be you're thinking actually I need to be more kind to myself or more patient with so-and-so.
Again we just set these intentions how we want our day to be.
And then when you've done that just return your awareness then back to your breath.
So we're coming back to where we started.
So as we approach the end of our practice for this evening we just return back to watching our breath coming in and going out.
Some of the lovely movements in the body.
As that breath rolls in and rolls out.
And then when you hear the bell that'll be the end of the practice for this evening.
And we'll end our practice then with our grounding technique before we open our eyes.
So bring your awareness then back to the sound around you.
Noticing what you can hear in the room you're in and maybe the sound outside of your room.
And then take your awareness then down to the chair or the cushion that supported you as you practiced tonight.
Just noticing the places of contact.
And then take your awareness then down to your feet on the floor.
Just maybe riddle your toes around a bit just feel that firm floor underneath your feet.
And then we'll end our practice with two breaths.
So taking a lovely breath in through the nose and out through the mouth.
Take that breath in.
And we'll do that again.
Lovely deep breath in.
And then open your eyes when you're ready.
