Sitting for meditation,
We bring the body as a sensate field,
The faculty of attention and interest that characterizes the mind,
And the state of the heart together into one place,
Into the here and now.
Let the mind come toward the body and toward the space that you're in.
If you're so familiar with the space you're sitting in that you've forgotten it,
You might let your eyes open and remember that you're here,
In this place on the planet,
In this room or this place outside,
In this building or near these buildings,
Near these trees,
In this city or town or place,
In this valley or watershed,
With the hills there,
The water there,
And the body knowing itself in place,
And then in place knowing the posture of the body,
The vibration and movement of the body as we settle,
The breathing of the whole body in this place.
The mind knows the body in this place and it knows the body in this moment,
From the here of place to the now,
This moment in time,
Feeling the body,
Exactly this body,
Exactly this old,
In this place where exactly this is happening now.
These people are here,
Nearby,
Doing this.
This is what's been built here,
This is what's been found here,
Created here,
Uncovered here,
Lost here.
And in this place,
In this moment,
In time,
Is the resonance of everything that's happened before this moment.
All the people that have ever lived here,
Loved here,
Worked here,
From the now of our presence here,
Back through the generations of peoples who lived on this land where we are,
The now of this place.
You might feel the vibration of the now of this place,
The way the place hums with everything that's happening in it,
Human and non-human,
How full the moment is here.
And then again,
Just to ourselves,
Our own body,
Bearing the momentum of all of our ancestry and history,
Knowing where you came from,
Where you were born,
If not here,
How your family got here.
And again,
Back through the generations and the movement across the planet,
Where are my people from?
What land were we on before we were here?
What land were we on before we were here?
Coming into the here and now,
Through the body,
Containing all of history,
Time and space.
And then without extra thought about that history,
Letting breath and the knowing of the here and now just fill the body.
As the body relaxes into this moment and this moment,
And place and into the seat,
A full breath rising and falling,
Feeling the breath through the whole body,
Through the belly and chest,
The bowl of the pelvis,
Through the arms and legs,
Hands and feet,
Neck and head,
Root to crown,
Breathing.
And so there's a way we can sit in meditation focused fully on the knife tip of the present moment,
Just these exact sensations flickering through,
Like the pages of a flip book flying by,
Seeing movement but knowing it's just page after page of difference.
And this moment,
The very,
Very tip of that unfolding illusion of movement.
We can hold the concentrated body and the vast sense of all time and space in a strange way at the same time.
As I breathe,
All of time and space present in me,
Through me,
Inseparable from me,
Breathes also.
And there's some way that I'm both specific and infinite at the same time.
If that's too abstract,
Just sitting and breathing is enough.
Bring the mind back when it wanders.
The wandering is just a symptom of the ancient wound called wanting things to be different.
Come back to the body breathing,
Shimmering in the here and now,
As the here and now.
And we let go,
A little bit by little bit.
