Hi,
Everybody.
Thank you for being here with me today.
I want to ask you to think for yourself for a moment.
Why are you here?
What brought you to meditation today and what do you hope for?
One of those questions that I ask myself all the time is,
What am I learning?
Why am I here?
Why do I keep coming back over and over again?
And what is my intention just for the next five minutes?
And sometimes my intention for the next five minutes is just to be here.
To cultivate a little more ease,
Maybe a little more peace.
Maybe with the intention,
If I'm going into a work meeting,
Or I'm going to be with somebody who I really want to give my attention to,
I might think to myself something like,
May I listen well.
May I be helpful.
To create some sort of intention practice in just a few words.
Maybe it's may I be at ease.
I often say that to myself when I'm coming into something that feels a little bit stressful.
So come into the body.
Let's do this as a meditation.
If you want to close your eyes,
Close your eyes.
If not,
A gentle gaze downward.
Let yourself settle into the body.
Feel the places the body is touching,
Whatever it's connected to.
Breathe and know you're breathing.
Drop the shoulders,
Soften the face.
Know that you're held right here by gravity.
By the earth,
By the furniture.
Maybe think about the day ahead of you.
What you hope to be doing,
What the plans are.
Don't get into the minutiae of it,
But just maybe visualize what you'll be up to.
And you might say to yourself,
May I be at ease.
May I listen well.
Whatever it is that works for you.
May I be helpful.
But you can try these three phrases for today.
May I be at ease.
May I listen well.
May I be helpful?
And when you say to yourself,
May I be at ease,
Can you sense what ease feels like in the body?
Just notice that.
May I listen well.
Does that have some sort of resonance inside of you?
To open.
To soften.
To be receptive.
May I listen well.
May I be helpful?
What does that mean for you?
Does a sense of well-being arise inside of you?
The thought or imagining how you might be helpful.
May I be at ease.
May I listen well.
May I be helpful?
Just notice what that feels like to set an intention.
And it can be any intention at all.
It doesn't need to be those.
Then come back,
Open your eyes.
To remind yourself.
Why you're here.
While you keep coming back to meditation.
And how you can.
Activate and employ the practices of awareness and steadiness.
To how you want to set up your day,
How you want to set up your life.
Even saying,
May I be at ease,
Might be the entire intention.
For the day.
Or beyond.
So what is it for you?
And know that you can bring that into your moment-to-moment awareness.
Thanks for joining me today.
