Be The Sky

Welcome to the audio version of the Full Moon Sangha, held monthly in San Diego, California. This guided meditation features a deeply relaxing body scan, singing bowls, and a simple, down to earth technique suitable for beginners and advanced practitioners alike. Rooted in both Buddhist and Advaita Vedanta perspectives, this hybrid meditation evolved over time through hundreds of hours of satsangs, sanghas, and workshops that I've conducted. As Dogen taught, meditation is not a means to an end, but an end in itself. Whatever benefits arise from the practice of meditation, and they are many, arise on their own when we simply learn how to grow still and allow our mind-body system restore itself to natural equilibrium. Join us for this relaxing, yet energizing guided meditation and move deeper into the realization of your own awakening.

Transcript

Bell Hi.

Welcome to the first installment of the audio version of our Full Moon Sangha.

Just as the Full Moon brings light into the darkness,

So too meditation brings illumination into the suffering and struggling and fogginess of these brief,

Beautiful,

Amazing,

But often difficult lives.

And it's worth remembering that what we call Moonlight is actually the light of the Sun,

Reflected off the surface of the Moon.

Because of where it's positioned,

The Moon reflects the light of the hidden Sun down upon the surface of the nighttime world,

Cast for a while in shadow,

Because it is turned away from the Sun.

So too,

In meditation,

Because of the way we are positioned,

Mind and body,

We become able to reflect an illumination not of our own making,

But of universal spirit into the darkness of this often difficult,

Often beautiful world.

As we begin to feel ourselves awash in this sacred illumination,

We are transformed,

And we transform each other into who we have been longing to become.

This guided meditation isn't specific to a particular outcome,

Nor is it easily classifiable.

It isn't just about mindfulness or well-being or stress reduction or sleep enhancement or healing or self-realization or addiction recovery or mystical experience or moving deeper into the ordinary miraculousness of our everyday lives.

It's about all of these things,

All of them,

And more.

So let's begin.

So,

A word about our process.

First,

I will help you move into a position or posture most conducive to meditation.

Then,

We'll do a thorough and deeply relaxing body scan,

Releasing tension and opening up our readiness to meditate.

And finally,

We'll move into the meditation process itself,

Which will include five minutes of silence.

The entire experience will take about 20,

Maybe 25 minutes.

Let's begin.

I invite you now to sit comfortably,

Either on a cushion on the floor or in a chair or couch,

Whatever is easier for you.

If you're on a chair or couch,

Scoot back so that your back is fully supported.

Sit up straight,

Uncross your legs and place both feet flat on the floor.

Let your hands rest comfortably in your lap and close your eyes.

Closing the eyes signals the mind-body that we are preparing to withdraw from the surface,

From the sensory world,

And go within.

Now,

Let's take three deep cleansing breaths,

Deep into the belly.

Inhale and out.

Again,

In and out.

One more very deep into the belly and out.

Allow your breathing to resume its easy,

Natural rhythm.

Feel yourself now beginning to slow down,

To relax.

And now let's make one last posture adjustment.

Ever so slightly,

Lift the top of your head toward the ceiling gently,

Without straining,

So that the spine lengthens and your vertebrae lifts slightly and separate.

And at the same time,

Allow your shoulders to go limp and fall as low as they can.

Again,

The crown of your head is lifting slightly toward the ceiling,

While your shoulders are dropping and relaxing.

Notice how you feel.

Bring your attention mindfully into this moment.

Notice how the mind-body is now moving into a state of alert restfulness.

This is a very specific,

Very intentional meditation posture.

This is not how we sit when we read or watch TV or work on our computer.

This is different.

And with this intentional posture,

We are signaling to our entire mind-body system that we are now ready to move even deeper into the sacred stillness that we are.

Let's begin our body scan.

Bring your attention to the muscles around your eyes.

Notice how they feel.

Is there tiredness there?

Stress?

Tension?

Breathe into that tension.

And with each exhalation,

Allow the tension and stress to dissipate,

As if you are expelling the tension with each out-breath,

As if the tension is leaving your body with each exhalation,

The way an exhaust system carries waste away from your car's engine.

Feel the muscles around your eyes softening,

Relaxing,

Opening up.

Now,

Allow your attention to move into the powerful muscles of your mouth,

Your jaw,

Your lips,

And your tongue.

Notice how they feel,

These wonderful muscles that do so much amazing work for you all day.

They help you speak and sing and eat and drink and kiss and laugh and breathe.

But for now,

We are going to let them rest.

Feel all of the tiredness and tension draining away from these muscles,

Like water disappearing into sand.

Feel now how your whole face softened,

Relaxed,

Opened up.

And now I invite you to bring your attention to the powerful muscles of your neck and shoulders,

These muscles that hold up our ten-pound head and swivel it around all day.

And that also seem to be the repository of so much emotional storage.

We tend to hold so much of our anger and grief and frustration and rage here in our neck and shoulders.

But for now,

We're going to release it all.

We're going to let it all go.

Feel all of that heaviness,

All of that tightness draining out of the muscles of your neck and shoulders,

Sinking away and disappearing like water into sand.

Feel your neck and shoulders softening,

Opening up,

Relaxing.

And now I invite you to allow your mind's eye,

Your present moment awareness,

To move from your shoulders down the length of both arms,

Across your elbows,

Through your forearms,

Through your wrists,

And into your hands.

Place your mindful awareness in the muscles,

Tendons,

Bones,

And flesh of your hands as they rest there in your lap.

Notice how they feel.

Grow even quieter.

Without moving a muscle,

Feel your hands.

What do you feel there?

Do you feel a subtle energy,

A very soft vibration within your hands?

And do you notice that this subtle aliveness,

This energy field,

Extends beyond the boundaries of your hands?

That there is in fact an energy field of aliveness in and around your hands like an aura or a halo?

Simply stay present with this energy field.

With this experience,

We now have unimpeachable,

Empirical,

Experiential evidence that what we call consciousness is not merely housed in the brain,

But is present throughout the entire mind-body system.

This subtle energy field,

This aliveness,

Is called by many names throughout the world's wisdom traditions.

Qi in Chinese,

Qi in Japanese,

Prana or Atman in Sanskrit,

Rohan in Arabic,

Roah in Hebrew,

And here in English we call it spirit or soul,

Or perhaps most simply consciousness.

But now we're beyond names and forms and concepts.

We're experiencing it directly.

The brain may be the home of conceptual thought,

Words and ideas,

But consciousness,

This subtle field of aliveness or awareness,

Imbues our entire mind-body system.

It is what we are.

It is not a byproduct of our material nature.

It is the source of our material nature.

It is the self-organizing matrix around which our material being coalesces and adheres.

As Pierre Tiller de Chardin famously said,

We are not human beings having a spiritual experience.

We are spiritual beings having a human experience.

So now let us continue releasing any residual stress and anxiety from the remaining tissues of our bodies.

Gently bring your attention to your chest and feel the tightness there relaxing with each out-breath as you release all of the worries and plans and regrets and sadness and anxieties and anger that you carry around with you.

We don't need any of that right now.

Let it all go.

Feel it draining away like water disappearing into sand.

Feel it draining out of your body,

Through your legs,

Over your knees,

Down your calves,

Across your ankles and out through the bottoms of your feet.

Let it flow into the floor and into the earth beneath the floor.

Let it all drain away.

Notice how you feel now.

Be present with yourself.

Do you feel lighter,

Freer,

Softer,

More relaxed,

More available?

Now,

Finally,

Let us move into our meditation process.

I invite you now to bring your attention to your mind,

To the flow of thoughts that drift across your field of awareness.

One mistake nearly every beginning meditator makes is they try to control or choose or stop their thoughts.

They mistakenly believe that meditation is a state of mind free of thoughts and concepts.

Well,

They're half right.

But it is the mind's nature to generate thoughts,

Just as it is the ocean's nature to generate waves.

Waves are not wrong or bad.

They're natural.

And there is nothing to be gained from trying to control them.

Instead,

In meditation,

We accept what is natural and we work with what is in a deep state of non-resistance.

We allow our thoughts to flow unencumbered.

We simply learn how to place our attention elsewhere.

As we prepare to move into a time of silence,

When my voice falls quiet,

You will notice that the activity of your thought stream will pick up strength.

Without my words to focus on,

Your mind will fill the empty space with its usual barrage of feelings,

Opinions,

Judgments,

Sensations,

Memories,

Regrets,

Plans,

Fears,

You name it.

The best way to navigate this challenge is to simply allow it to happen without resistance or resentment.

As thoughts arise,

Simply don't have an opinion about them.

Neither resist nor resent them,

Nor cling to them.

Simply witness your thoughts arise,

Move across your field of awareness,

And fade away,

Replaced as they always are with the next batch of thoughts.

In the same way that you would watch clouds form on the horizon,

Move across the sky,

And disappear over the other horizon,

Witness your thoughts with deep disinterest.

They simply are none of your business.

They have nothing to do with you.

Let them go.

With practice,

This will get easier and easier.

As you witness your thoughts with disinterest,

You suddenly experience the single most important realization in all meditation practice,

That you are not your thoughts.

You are their witness.

You are the spaciousness in which thoughts occur.

You have shifted your identification from the thought stream to what Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita calls the inner witness.

The inner witness is that deep abiding boundless stillness that at root is identical with the sacred source of all being.

It is not our ego identity or a private possession,

But rather the sacred nexus of all consciousness.

We do not own it any more than the wave owns the sea.

But we are it.

We are its activity,

Just as a wave is something that the sea is doing.

So too we are something that being is doing.

Simply watch your thoughts come and go with the same disinterest as you witness clouds forming and dissolving.

Allow yourself to move deeper and deeper into the spaciousness in which thoughts arise and fade.

Are you the clouds or are you the sky?

Are you your thoughts or are you the boundless spaciousness in which thoughts arise and fade?

As we now move into a time of silence,

Simply allow yourself to be the sky,

Not the clouds.

Your thoughts will try to pull you back into their flow.

And as you notice yourself getting caught by the pull of the thought stream,

Simply laugh silently to yourself.

Return your attention gently to your breath and let go.

Again and again let go.

As we move now into the silence.

Are you the clouds or are you the sky?

Are you your thoughts or are you the sky?

Are you your thoughts or are you your thoughts?

Are you your thoughts or are you your thoughts?

Are you your thoughts or are you your thoughts?

Are you your thoughts or are you your thoughts?

Are you your thoughts or are you your thoughts?

Are you your thoughts or are you your thoughts?

Are you your thoughts or are you your thoughts?

Are you your thoughts or are you your thoughts?

Are you your thoughts or are you your thoughts?

Are you your thoughts or are you your thoughts?

Are you your thoughts or are you your thoughts?

Are you your thoughts or are you your thoughts?

Are you your thoughts or are you your thoughts?

Are you your thoughts or are you your thoughts?

Are you your thoughts or are you your thoughts?

Are you your thoughts or are you your thoughts?

Are you your thoughts or are you your thoughts?

Are you your thoughts or are you your thoughts?

Are you your thoughts or are you your thoughts?

As we open our eyes now and stretch and move back into our surface consciousness,

Our worldly awareness,

As we prepare to rise from the cushion or the chair and bring this meditation to a close,

We hold these truths gently and with an open grasp that we are like the full moon.

Let your face be a reflection of the one light that illuminates us all.

Bring your mindful presence and your loving kindness and your deep listening and your gentle witnessing and your healing light into every room you enter,

Every encounter,

Every conversation,

Every challenge,

Every place of woundedness and grief.

Be the one through whom the light moves.

Stay strong in your convictions and even stronger in your mercy and forgiveness.

This is not something to be achieved,

But merely allowed.

Allow it.

Get out of your own way.

Feel the illumination we have allowed here together today.

Feel it illuminating the path before you,

Drawing you gently toward your own best life.

Feel it opening your heart,

Strengthening your resolve,

Softening your self obsession,

Grounding you in the warm and abundant wisdom of this present moment.

The only place we ever are or ever will be here and now.

Let us support each other and let us meet again my friends soon in the full moon Sangha.

Namaste.

Reviews

Thank you for this thorough practice through the body and to the opening of the mind as sky. So much opening - thank you ❤️💫🙏

Wonderful. Thank you 🙏
Loved the sublime ocean of divine consciousness and we ( and our thoughts) are the waves -- intrinsically connected to mother ocean and all beings
Namaste

Blissful. Thank you.

Relaxing and insightful.

One of my all time favorites! Thank you for the gift of peace and stillness this meditation brings me. ❤️

Thank for such beautiful meditation

Wonderful! Beautiful metaffore. Thanks a lot.

Another great meditation by this author. Recommended to more experienced meditators, as well as beginners.

It’s a bit difficult to find content suited for more experienced meditators, but this author covers the whole spectrum, in my opinion.

Thank you.

Excellent, thank you!

Thank you for sharing your wisdom.

I loved it, it was very powerful. Thanks a lot.

Very, very good.

Thanks for the clear and comprehensive guidance. I am typically lost in my mind's stories - was able to look at them a bit, even thought it started telling me stories about my observations. Hope I am able to increase the separation as I continue my practice. 🙏

Easy to follow. A full and balanced guided practice. Thank you

Amazingly deep. I love the idea that our thoughts are none of our business! Thanks for that insight alone and for so much more.

Meditated at gift shop job with you Peter Boland. Very nice. I am present for my travelers.

Need to relisten

Wonderful I’ll be back

I am grateful for this new meditation. Thank you for providing it. Namaste. 🌸🌺

Lovely . Thank you so m7ch. Beautiful gift for the day.