Welcome to your meditation practice.
My name is Meg McCracken and I'd like to thank you for taking the time to truly attend to yourself,
For it is from this place of sweet care that we can tend well to the world within and all around us.
So today's meditation session is designed to help us cultivate mental wellness by discovering the quality of ease,
Of peace,
Of calm that is always at rest right here,
Just here,
In the middle of things.
You see,
No matter the level of turbulence and chaos that stirs on the surface,
There is always a deep place of calm abiding,
Simply awaiting our attention.
It is a place of ease that is strong and vast enough to hold all life's routiness,
To hold all of our joys and challenges,
All of our doubts and fears,
All of our loves and all of our losses.
So today we take a deep dive inside to experience what the yogis called purusha,
Which means that which is at rest within the city of your experience.
Through this practice,
May we discover this quality of deep-seated inner peace and return to drink from this wellspring often.
May the waters here help us to hold all that life is asking us to face.
May it seep out through our words,
Our actions,
To become the very atmosphere of our lives and our living.
May it permeate this precious web of interbeing,
Of which we are all apart,
With drops of goodness for which this world is so thirsty.
So please take a moment to find your seat.
Be that upon a cushion on the floor,
Up on the rim of a couch or the edge of the chair with the soles of the feet on the floor.
Sit in such a way where the spine can be effortlessly uplifted,
Where you can be upright and at ease.
And once you find that seat that really works for you,
Allow yourself to land and to nestle in.
Feel your seat upon the support.
Feel the lift upwards of your spine.
Allow your jaw and your shoulders to relax.
And then allow your eyes to softly close so that you can turn your gaze inside.
If closing the eyes doesn't serve you well,
You can simply soften your gaze and cast that gaze downwards towards the floor or down the cheeks.
But just take a moment of ease to soften and to settle.
And as you allow your body to soften into stillness,
Gently place your awareness inside.
Perhaps for a moment,
You can experience the simple beat of your heart in your chest.
By tuning your awareness to the more subtle inner workings,
The more subtle inner landscape,
By simply allowing yourself to experience the beat of your physical heart in your chest.
Now simply allow your awareness to shift slightly and become immersed within the flow of your breath.
Allow yourself to experience the coming and going of breath here in the space of your chest.
You may have to invite your awareness many times out of the river of thoughts and back into the experience of your breath.
And that's not a problem.
It's really normal.
And just know that every time you invite your awareness back to the breath,
Your capacity for presence grows a little stronger.
And as you immerse your awareness within the coming and going of the breath,
Allow your breath to become smooth as silk.
So notice that there are any rough edges or stop gaps in the breath.
And through way of softening and allowing,
Simply allow your breath to become silky smooth.
And as you continue to experience the silky smooth quality of your breath in your chest,
Now allow your breath to become balanced so that the length and strength of the inhales match the length and strength of the exhales.
So perhaps you're breathing in to a soft smooth count of six and you would breathe out to that same soft smooth count of six.
Just tending well to the waves of breath,
Allowing them to become even and smooth.
And continuing to tend to this even smooth breath.
But now at the top of the inhale for just a beat or two,
Allow the breath to stand still and suspend your awareness beyond the breath.
And as you exhale the same at the bottom of the exhale for just a beat or two,
Suspend your awareness in that breathless place beyond the exhale.
Just keep going in this fashion,
Simply allowing a gentle pause to open up both at the top of the inhale and at the bottom of the exhale,
A moment for you to suspend your awareness beyond even the coming and going of breath.
It's almost like you're experiencing the hang time on a swing.
A moment of effortlessness,
Of weightlessness.
The space between.
As you continue to allow your awareness to linger in the space between breaths.
Perhaps you can get the tiniest taste of that which is at rest beneath the flow of each and every breath.
That which is at rest within the flow of each and every experience.
Perhaps you can get a tiny sip of the abiding calm that is always and already right here,
Just here at rest beyond the breath.
And you can linger here in this place of ease for as long as you like.
Remembering that this wellspring of inner peace is always just a breath,
Just a remembrance away.
