Unlike the ego,
Which comes and goes,
Inflating or deflating according to its position,
The self never goes anywhere.
It is the part of us that never changes.
Everything else in life changes and shifts.
The body grows and then ages.
We put on weight and then we lose it.
Life's circumstances change,
Sometimes without warning.
Personality is subject to strange shifts and discontinuities.
But through it all,
The thread of self remains constant.
It is present when you are asleep and dreaming,
As the awareness that remembers your dreams.
It is also present during deep sleep,
Though this is something most of us aren't conscious of until we've advanced considerably in meditation.
When you are awake,
Of course,
The self is present as the awareness that allows you to experience your life.
In fact,
This is the great liberating secret about the self.
It provides the context of your entire life experience,
The thread on which the beads of your thoughts,
Experiences and perceptions are strung.
Even though it is easier to experience the purity of consciousness when the mind is quiet,
The self doesn't go away when the mind is full of thoughts.
In fact,
The self is the source of those thoughts.
All your thoughts and emotions arise and subside into the same consciousness stuff.
Whether you are happy or sad,
Agitated or calm,
The self as your inner field of consciousness,
Your inner awareness,
Underlies and contains all these feelings.
This means that at any moment,
Even in the midst of thinking,
You can drop into the self.
This is one of the secrets that every true spiritual tradition reveals.
Though many techniques can help us enter meditation,
The final truth is that the self is so present in our ordinary experience that we can contact it merely by focusing on the gap between one breath and another,
Or between one thought and another.
The fractional pause in the flow of the breath or in the flow of thoughts then opens into a vastness of consciousness,
The inner space where we experience our connection to the whole.
The self permeates our experience in much the same way light permeates the room you are sitting in.
If you were asked to describe that room,
What would you say?
You might mention the furniture,
The colour of the walls,
The objects on the table or desk,
Even the lamps.
But would you mention the light in the room?
Would you even notice it?
Yet only because the light is present can you see the room and its contents.
In the same way,
Just as the ever-present self gives us our sense of being,
It is the self that allows us to experience everything.
The self is the screen on which we experience our inner and outer life.
It is what makes it possible for us to see,
To know and to experience.
In this next brief meditation,
Let's focus on the space between one thought and another.
Let's explore that space together.
As before,
Make sure you are sitting comfortably,
Either straight back in a chair or on a cushion or on a meditation bench.
Make sure you are sitting comfortably and there is no restriction of blood flow happening.
The following practice is easier to do with a mantric thought.
You may have come across mantras before and you may have used them in your own practices before but not really been aware of the power of them or how to use them.
It is certainly true that repeating a mantra will quieten the mind.
But then if we do not know what to do beyond that,
It becomes sometimes mechanical.
So sit in your meditation posture with your eyes closed.
Take a few moments to become aware of the sound in your environment.
Step your awareness closer so that you are becoming aware of the sensations in your body.
It helps at the beginning of meditation practice to do a brief scan from head to toe.
Recognizing and accepting the various sensations that arise in the body.
Feeling the clothes against the skin.
The coolness or warmth of the air.
The pressure of the buttocks against the cushion.
Accept all sensations as they arise.
Bring your awareness to your breath.
The natural,
Easy,
Unaltered breath.
Breathing through the nose.
Notice that as we are directing our attention,
We are capturing the monkey mind.
And gradually by itself,
The monkey mind is trained and is led by our intent.
So now after we have established a sense of calm in our being,
Begin to repeat to yourself the phrase,
I am.
And we will use this as our mantra for this meditation.
Resist the urge to add something to I am,
Such as your name or anything else.
After you have said it to yourself a few times,
Mentally,
Start to focus on the place in the mind where the word am fades away.
Notice the tiny pause there,
The gap.
As the words I am arise again.
See if you can gently stay attentive to that pause.
Begin to feel that the words are arising from and subsiding into that space in the mind.
And let your focus be on the space between the words rather than on the content of the words.
If you are experiencing any other thoughts that arise,
Simply bring it back to the mantra,
I am.
Then you may notice that your mind stops in the gap.
In which case,
Take rest in the pause for as long as it lasts.
I am.
I am.
I am.
I am.
