Who Is Meditating?

In this guided meditation we begin with a deeply relaxing body scan, before entering into a meditation process that draws us into a space of non-conceptual awareness. Meditation allows us to experience ourselves as we essentially are; boundless and with an infinite presence. By centering on the reflective question "Who is meditating?" we undergo a critical examination of ourselves and the social constructions that define us. Through meditation we have the opportunity to break free from all categories and limitations. This is an ideal meditation for beginners and intermediate meditators who enjoy spoken word guidance and the component of silent meditation and contemplation.

Transcript

Hi,

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

The central element of today's meditation is a deep inquiry into the question,

Who is meditating?

So first,

Let's begin with some suggestions about posture.

Whether you're sitting on a cushion on the ground or in a chair or in a couch,

Make yourself comfortable.

If you're sitting in a chair or on a couch,

Scoot back so that your back is supported by the back of the chair.

And uncross your legs and allow both feet to rest on the floor.

So that there is a parallelism between your feet and your knees and your hips and your shoulders,

These two parallel lines.

And simply allow your hands to rest quietly in your lap.

And I invite you now to close your eyes.

And now,

Let's make one final adjustment to our posture.

Lift the top of your head slightly toward the ceiling,

While at the same time,

Allowing your shoulders to relax and drop down as low as they can go.

Again,

Lifting the crown of your head slightly toward the ceiling,

Lengthening the spine without strain,

While at the same time,

Releasing the shoulders to fall down as low as they can go.

And now we find ourselves in a state of seated,

Restful alertness.

This is a different kind of sitting than the sitting we normally do when we read or eat or watch TV.

And the purpose of this pose is to signal the mind-body that we are about to move into a period of intentional stillness.

That still at core is deeply mindful and deeply alert.

And now,

Let's take three big,

Deep cleansing breaths deep into the belly.

Inhale,

And out.

Again,

In deep,

And out.

And one more deep into the belly,

And release.

Feel your body moving into a deeper,

More restful state.

And now I invite you to move your attention into the muscles around the eyes,

The forehead,

The eyebrows,

The upper half of your face.

What do you feel here?

Do you feel a tightness,

A tiredness,

A stress?

Simply notice with mindful,

Kind awareness what these muscles are telling you.

And now release all the tightness and tiredness in these muscles around your eyes.

Let it all drain away like water disappearing into sand,

Leaving the muscles around your eyes softened and restful and free.

Now I invite you to move your attention into the muscles around your mouth,

Your jaw,

Your lips,

Your tongue.

These powerful muscle groups that do so much work for us all day,

Speaking and singing and kissing and talking and laughing and smiling.

But for now we're going to let them rest.

So as we did with our eyes,

Simply allow a deep softness and stillness to come into these muscles around our mouths.

And allow all the tiredness and strain and stress to drain out of them and disappear the way water disappears into sand.

And now notice how your face feels,

How it's softer,

Freer,

And in a way more open.

And now I invite you to allow your attention to move into the powerful muscles of your neck and shoulders.

These powerful muscle groups hold our head aloft and swivel it to and fro all day long.

And they also hold a lot of our emotions.

We hold on to so much of our grief and our anger and our frustration and even our rage in the muscles of our neck and shoulders.

So for now simply release all of that storage.

Let all of that anger and sorrow and regret and frustration,

Let it leech out of the muscles of your neck and shoulders.

Let it sink away and disappear like water draining into sand,

Leaving your shoulders and neck softened,

Relaxed,

Warm,

And free.

And now move your attention from your shoulders down both of your arms,

Through your forearms,

Across your wrists,

And into your hands.

Bring your mind and your attention into the area of your hands as they rest quietly in your lap.

Without moving them in the least,

Feel how your hands almost subtly vibrate.

Do you feel that subtle aliveness in the tissues of your hands?

And do you notice that this field of energy,

This vibration,

Extends beyond the tissues of your hands,

Into the area around your hands?

Pay attention.

Simply experience this subtle energy field.

Now we have direct experiential knowledge that we are beings of energy,

That consciousness is not merely housed in the brain,

But is the activity of our entire mind-body system,

One hundred trillion cells,

Each in constant interdependence,

Interconnection,

And communication with all of the other one hundred trillion cells.

All of that going on beneath the surface of our conscious awareness.

This aliveness goes by many names in many wisdom traditions.

Shi in China,

Qi in Japan,

Prana or Atman in Sanskrit in India,

And in the West we call it soul or spirit,

Or most simply consciousness.

And as we become mindfully aware of this energy field in and around our hands,

We now know that we are this consciousness,

And this consciousness gives rise to our material being.

And I invite you now to move your attention into the area of the heart.

And with deep gratitude,

Recognize the gift that the heart and the other organs of the body give us as they pump blood and filter and process and create and digest and perform the myriad functions of all of these systems nested within systems that keep us alive,

That are our life.

And we receive this gift with honest gratitude and humility.

And realize how little time we spend in deep appreciation of these gifts.

And now we allow the last vestiges of stress and tension stored in the various places in our body,

Felt as pain or stiffness.

We allow all of that to let go.

Feel all of the plans and difficulties and tensions and struggles of your life,

Untangling,

Melting and draining away,

Moving down through the legs,

Over the knees,

Through the calves,

Across the ankles,

And out through the soles of our feet,

Into the floor,

And out into the earth beneath the floor,

Which receives them all effortlessly.

And now finally,

I invite you to move your attention into the area of the mind.

Bringing our attention now to the thought stream,

To the steady flow of thoughts and regrets and sensations and memories and plans and opinions that flow continually across the field of our awareness.

It is the mind's nature to think thoughts.

And in meditation,

We make peace with what is natural and with what is.

So we are not going to resist or struggle against the thought stream.

We are going to allow the thought stream to flow unhindered.

And we are simply going to learn how to move our attention away from the thought stream into deeper,

More quiet recesses of stillness.

As we prepare now to move into the silence,

Let us reflect on an inquiry.

Who is meditating?

What is meditating?

The concept of the self,

The ego identity,

My name,

My job title,

My race,

My ethnicity,

My nationality,

My socioeconomic class,

My preferences,

My opinions,

My various political and other tribal affiliations.

All of these are masks that hang on the surface of an infinite depth.

And when we inquire who is meditating,

We begin to release those masks.

Are we the thoughts or are we the infinite spaciousness through which the thoughts move?

Are we the clouds or are we the infinite sky through which the clouds move?

Are we the ego mind with its endless judgments and preferences and opinions?

Or are we the infinite spaciousness in which the ego mind exists?

So as we prepare now to move into a time of silence,

Simply reflect on that essential question,

Who is meditating?

And as we begin to move into the silence,

As your thought stream tries to lure you into its habitual stream,

Its habitual activity,

Simply notice that.

Face it,

Allow it to continue to flow while continually,

Gently moving your awareness into that spacious stillness in which thoughts occur.

Bringing your focus back to your breathing and on our reflection,

Who is meditating as we move now into a time of silence?

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I invite you now to open your eyes.

Come out of this deep state of stillness.

Come back into the room.

Begin to stretch and move about as we prepare to bring this meditation to a close.

Out of the stillness of deep awareness and self-inquiry,

Clarity and wisdom arise.

Meditation is a state of deep emptiness and inactivity.

And the experience that when we allow this spaciousness and this stillness to arise,

Our own mind-body system has finally an opportunity to restore itself to equilibrium and balance.

When we begin to cultivate a meditation practice,

We begin to realize that off of the cushion and out of the chair,

In the other hours of the day,

This meditation experience has a residual lingering quality,

That in the stillness we are restored.

We are held by a peaceful conviction.

We experience the world anew.

We fall a little bit more in love with each other and with these circumstances in which we unfold our lives.

Meditation is simply that opportunity to allow the universal wisdom and spirit that we are able to arise up through the cracks of our suffering,

Like sunlight into the fog,

Bringing clarity and illumination where once there was darkness and confusion.

Meditation isn't thinking.

Meditation isn't problem-solving.

But in the light of meditation,

Our problems dissolve.

We bring a new,

Deep,

And lovingly kind acceptance to them.

This is the gift that we give ourselves when we spend time in meditation.

Join us again next time for another installment of Full Moon Sangha.

Namaste.

Reviews

Thought provoking, I embraced the stillness in this fast ever changing earthly world 🌎 Thank you 🙏

Is it useful to cycle through the identities that arise, for example, mother, wife, friend, student, teacher, artist, sister, and so on? These identities seem infinite but real enough and true. I sense the emptiness that holds all these versions of who I am as they arise, and the identities continue to bubble up from that emptiness. Going directly to the emptiness feels artificial to me. Your thoughts? 🙏

Interesting and restful. This was different as I am used to talking on most guided meditations to drop me into the stillpoint. Hence I found I didn’t go that deep into the silence. Will revisit this and check out your other meditations. Thanks. 🙏

Gentle loving guidance to quiet space within my favorite practices.

The stillness of the self was most enjoyed when all the body had been calmed with deep appreciation. Thanks for this guided meditation.

Excellent! Thank you.

Thank you for this skilful guidance into the spaciousness of peaceful awareness that is our true nature.

My cup of tea: gentle and straight to the point. Bodyscan followed by silence

Great meditation. Will search for more from this author.

A wonderful self inquiry practice. Thank you

Great meditation! It didn’t feel too long even though 30 minutes is long for me.

100 trillion cells...our bodies are miraculous how all these cells work together. Nice gentle voice, thankyou 🙏🏼

A wonderful meditation, as the instructor has a soothing voice and the sequencing—relaxing the body followed by some instruction on the meaning of “I am”, in turn, followed by a quiet time to meditate— facilitated a deeper stillness.

A truly beautiful insight meditation. Thank you. I love this new form and perspective that I see myself in. Bookmarked and will listen again.

Beautiful. I felt such peace after this. Thank you

Felt very relaxed

Very relaxing. Thank you

Brilliant combining of guidance and stillness. Thank you.

Love this - thank you ♥️

An enlightening experience 🙏