Take one deep breath.
Then breathe slowly and deeply.
Relaxing more and more.
With every breath we take.
And we will begin our meditative journey by paying attention to the most obvious reality,
The most obvious fact of our existence,
Which is the very sense that I exist.
The very sense of self-existence,
Self-presence.
The sense that I am.
To shift to this basic presence,
It is as if we are moving back to the beginning of so many sentences and so many thoughts and so many feelings that we experience every day.
I am happy.
I am sad.
I want this.
I want that.
I am hungry.
I am satisfied.
I have a body.
I am a man.
I am a woman.
I am a human.
So at the root of all these sentences,
There is just one sense of self-existence.
And that is at the very beginning of each of these sentences we say I am.
Now let us locate this sense of self-existence.
And for that we perhaps can look within our body.
Is this sense of I am,
This sense of self-presence,
More present in a certain area in the body than in others?
Perhaps it is right now mainly in the head,
In the top of the head,
In the forehead,
In the chest,
In the belly,
In our hands.
This doesn't matter.
Perhaps it is above the head.
Wherever we feel it,
Even if it is right now,
Like a very tiny seed of self-presence,
Just get in touch with this feeling,
This very basic feeling,
This very knowing that I am.
And then just allow through your attention and breathing,
Allow this sense of self-existence to grow and grow,
As if your attention is the water,
Warmth and light that make the seed of I am grow and expand.
So,
It gradually moves,
And there are possibilities everywhere in the body,
Not just in that particular area.
So that the sense of I am now feels the entire body from head to toe.
But as you continue to breathe into the sense of I am,
Feel how,
Just like a cup that is filled with water,
But if you don't stop,
The water begins to overflow.
In the very same way,
This sense of I am overflows beyond the boundaries of the body,
Until it encompasses not only the physical body,
But also the space that surrounds it.
Now the sense of I am is bigger than the body.
So now as you keep breathing into the sense of I am,
Feel how it continues to spread.
Let us close our eyes.
In which you are right now.
From wall to wall.
Permeating the objects in the room.
But as you continue to breathe into it and to allow it to expand,
It naturally and effortlessly continues to flow through the ceiling,
Through the floor,
Through the walls.
What started as a mere seed is now being realized as a presence that doesn't have boundaries.
The more you look for its boundaries,
The more you realize that you don't know where it ends.
Feel how it continues to flow,
To reach all the way to the core of the Earth.
At the same time,
It spreads throughout the universe,
All the way to the far edges of the universe,
If there are such edges.
Until there is not even one molecule in the space that you can imagine that is devoid of this presence.
Now feel how everywhere in the universe this sense of I am,
That has started so small and now is literally everywhere.
How this I am is in everything,
In every single point,
In every sentient being,
In every plant,
Tree,
Planet,
Sun.
The entire universe is in fact the body of this I am.
All phenomena are legs and arms and eyes and mouth of this I am.
So this I am that was hiding all along inside your very sense of self presence,
Is now revealed as the one universal I am that resides in the heart of every sentient being,
Every organism.
Feel yourself as this I am and the world as your body.
Clear the universe from something monk.
Some of these presence back into the body.
So you can experience both this universality and the individual body and mind that you have at the moment.
And then slowly and gently
