Welcome to this contemplative meditation practice.
Letting your body gently sway.
Finding comfort in whatever posture feels good for you here,
Without stress.
Is it possible,
Even a little,
To feel the weight of what may have been written into you by your days?
Fall away like petals spent.
Caught out of time.
Bright against your life for a while.
Seen for a moment.
Then drifting to embracing earth.
Whatever remains rooted in you.
Sharp memories of past.
Echoes of encounters gone.
Smiling to self,
Allowing and accepting these whispers that are yet to fade.
I ask,
As a breath is released from you,
Can you feel gravity's tendrils reaching into you,
From earth beneath?
Absorbing what you no longer need into the depth of its wisdom.
Feeling rooted to ground,
Body surrendering to earth.
So you may reach as cherry blossom,
Towards clear blue skies,
Lulled by the warmth of the sun.
When you are ready,
Allowing deeper breaths to evolve within.
Breathing in.
Know that you are breathing in.
Breathing out.
Know that you are breathing out.
As you breathe in,
Perhaps the word here speaks through you as a feeling.
A river of potential flowing through.
As you breathe out,
Perhaps the word now whispers up through you as a sense of the moment.
A current within that holds the promise of letting go.
Breathing in.
Here.
Breathing out.
Now.
Here.
Here.
Resting back now.
Awareness pouring into body,
Like ink dropped into water.
Surrendering.
Breath out now.
May softly carry aloft weighted body.
My name is David.
I wish to ask you in this more contemplative meditation,
What would it be like to rest here now with a paradox?
A paradox that is at the very core of what it means to be.
If you can,
Resisting sparks of thought.
To need to know.
To grasp the paradox in the hand of understanding.
Rather allowing the moment of spoken word.
My voice even.
To be held lightly on breath that holds you too.
From the great voices of Schelling to Heraclitus,
They ask to accept that the one is the many.
And the many are the one.
Seemingly a paradox of diversity and unity.
Where uniqueness is forever a nested entanglement within a whole.
Through separation,
You may see,
We are taught even,
To know our world as either one or many.
Yet in reality,
The one is the many.
And the many are the one.
All things interconnected.
All things are one.
Opening to a deeper truth,
Carried beneath words.
No analysis is required here.
In fact,
Analysis will not,
Cannot answer.
The one cannot be fragmented into the many.
The many cannot be fragmented into the one.
The many is the one,
Seen through a grander perspective of open curiosity.
To what is before thought.
Imagine the potential held within the unfolding cherry blossom bud.
The bud seems like a single thing.
But as it opens,
Unveiling out to flower,
The uniqueness of petals,
Corona and stamens are revealed.
What looked single,
Now has many differentiated parts.
But the parts are nonetheless the fulfilment of the bud.
Each carries the fractal embodiment and memory of the whole,
Not the negation of it.
At all levels,
The many enhance the whole,
The oneness,
Within which they are immersed.
Always,
At every level of existence,
Life displays differentiation,
Contained within the integrity of the whole.
All things are one.
One is all things.
The cosmos is constant differentiation,
From patterned energy that may sit far beyond the horizon of human understanding,
Unveiled to human mind as particles and elementals.
All things come to be within this complex of differentiation.
All things that exist are a manifestation of the one.
And all that is,
Is not ultimately separate from that.
A river,
With its gentle flow,
Appears as one entity.
But it is composed of many smaller streams merging together,
Cascading and swirling,
As they pour towards the vastness of dark,
Deep ocean.
The dance and the dancer,
Inseparable,
Graceful movements that appear a seamless whole.
Yet looking closer,
You see this physical flow emerge from differentiated gesture,
Expressive fluidity of body,
Nuanced step,
And metaphor embodied that merge to motion's liquid poetry.
At the foundation of all matter and life,
Flows of energy form what our human mind sees as atoms,
That make up everything in the universe.
These atoms join together to form molecules,
Which then assemble into complex structures.
These complexities merge together to create cells,
The fundamental building blocks of life.
Cells possess unique structures imbued with purpose,
Working together to form tissues,
Organs,
And flowing process within organisms.
Each cell plays a role,
Written by the will of life,
Contributing to the overall vitality of the organism.
Organisms in turn,
Come together to form bodies,
Remarkable rhythms of interconnected organ,
Tissue,
And muscle.
Organs collaborate,
Allowing the body to fold and form as a unified whole,
Sustaining life and birthing the expression of our individuality.
Held within that expression,
We encounter culture,
An intricate web of human expression,
Beliefs,
Values,
And traditions.
Like organs in a body,
Individuals within a culture contribute their unique perspectives,
Talents,
To create a vibrant and diverse society.
Cultures evolve and intermingle,
Transcend boundaries,
Shaping the collective experiences and shared knowledge of our entire humanity.
Earth too,
Is composed of interconnected ecosystems that humanity is rooted within,
Such as forests,
Oceans,
And deserts.
These ecosystems team with diverse lifeforms,
From plants and animals to microorganisms,
Each playing out unique life within the delicate dance of nature.
Beyond our planet,
Countless galaxies,
Stars,
And celestial bodies fill the cosmic tapestry.
The universe is a grand symphony of swirling matter and quivering energy,
Expanding and evolving over billions of years.
Within this unknowable vastness,
The interconnectedness of atoms woven from energies vibration,
Cells,
Organisms,
Cultures and worlds emerge,
Telling the story of our shared origins and interconnected destinies.
Always,
At every level,
The One holds within itself the many.
The liminal boundary of the many dissolve to the One.
Feeling into this,
Emptiness unfurls in front of your eyes.
No thing exists as a separate entity or identity,
Independent of the world from which it arises.
Sensing into this,
Impermanence unfolds before your eyes.
No thing exists static,
Fixed,
And held solid in form from the world it is within.
The ground of created force,
Everything that ever was and is,
And will be brought into being,
Is profoundly rooted before humbled eyes in the awe of unfurling emptiness and unfolding impermanence.
Everything exists as connectedness,
Yet at the same time everything exists as a uniqueness,
A paradox,
Maybe.
Can you rest now in your practice,
Feeling grounded to earth,
Extending to universe.
Perhaps you may sense a glimmer of insight here,
A stirring of something moving within you that you may have always known but never saw,
An essence beneath words or thought.
Resting now,
Floating free,
If you can,
In a wordless place,
Where both truths can be held together.
The One is the many,
And the many are the One.
I am curious,
How will things change in your encounter with the world you live within?
Carrying with you a memory of embodied truth,
Carrying a simple pure truth of existence,
That swirls within you,
That spins around you,
That even now is always displaying itself before you.
Unity and uniqueness,
The One and the many.
Can you simply allow your body to speak and move you into your day when ready?
Who knows when,
But it will know.
Trust.
Namaste.
