Everything is Alive

Beautiful guided meditation on how everything is alive and boundaries are only perceived. You are everything and a part of everything. The body is totally permeated by this aliveness. It's very bright and vibrant. It's very awake.

Transcript

So these words that most of us heard for many,

Many years,

Like settle,

Just settle,

And relax.

And let the body drop into the cushion.

Let it,

That sense of boundary of,

You know,

My tailbone and then the cushion are two different things.

Or most of us don't even know the tailbone and the cushion are touching each other.

You know,

We're mostly in our,

Up in our heads.

So,

You know,

You just drop the attention down where the tailbone actually is touching.

Experience the entering of the tailbone into the cushion.

Because that's what's happening.

And there's real no firm boundary anyway.

The vibration of the cushion comes up into the vibration of the tailbone.

That's how it really is.

So it's helpful to kind of relax those perceived boundaries.

And the same way with the back.

Let the back,

If you're,

You know,

Leaning against something,

Let it kind of really enter into the cushion.

And there's a feeling that arises of kind of a gratitude of the cushion then rising up and holding and supporting the body.

It's a relationship.

You know,

Truly everything is alive.

The cushion is alive.

The air around is alive.

The flowers are alive.

The table is alive.

The light is alive.

The whole thing is alive.

In fact,

One of the things that is recognized at a certain point is this beingness wakes up and it's all alive.

And so the back really is being supported and held.

The cushion is offering itself to support the back.

And then just let the hands just relax.

You know,

Sometimes it's the back of the hands on the leg and other times it's the palm.

You know,

It doesn't matter.

It's just to let that sense of being kind of held up and away.

Just let that go and kind of relax where the hands are deeply connected to the flesh of the leg.

Or maybe on the cushion itself.

So just let it relax into the perceived boundary and then let the cushion or the flesh come up into the hand.

And that sense of I'm here and something is out there or over there,

That starts to diminish and settle down because it's not true.

That's one of the great recognitions is that you are literally not a conceptual idea,

A part of everything.

And everything is a part of you.

And just feel the very subtle,

Even though we have the,

You know,

There isn't a breeze that's apparent within this room.

There's these subtle little air currents.

And so really let them be experienced by the receptors,

The energy receptors within the skin.

You know,

It's very subtle.

And then if you can,

It's kind of an interesting little exercise is to sense then that that subtle breeze or that subtle space.

Maybe you can't pick up on the currents of air,

But you can pick up on the palpable sense of space that surrounds the body.

And since that subtle sense of space that is touching the surface of the skin and then it enters into the skin itself.

Because it's the same space.

What is held and contained is there's also a total permeation.

So,

You know,

You can sense like it looks like there's this floor that's solid.

But if you really have seen this,

And this is from my experience,

It's not something I've heard or read,

I've experienced it over and over,

Is that the floor is,

It's empty.

It's full of space.

And the chairs that you're sitting on,

It's actually full of space.

But it's also the chair and the floor,

It's all also suspended in this space.

It's the great body.

It's the great space.

The alive space that permeates literally all form and yet it surrounds all form at the same time.

It suspends it,

Holds it.

And so if you can feel that the body is totally permeated by this aliveness,

It's a vibrancy.

It's a clarity.

When you talk about,

You know,

I've gotten really spacey and I can't like,

You know,

Walk around because I'm so spacey.

That's actually the mind that's,

That can't hold on to its thoughts anymore.

And so you're really reporting on the mind.

But the truth is,

With this alive space,

It's very bright and vital.

It's very awake.

And the mind will,

You know,

Come on board and also be imbued by this brightness and clarity.

But in most instances,

There's a kind of a phase where the mind is just very spacey.

It feels foggy.

And there's a habit of identifying yourself with the space.

I mean with the mind.

But it isn't true.

This space is bright and vital and alive and clear.

You know,

Like the description we read last night,

It's like,

You know,

Everything,

It's like this light's turned on.

And you were shoved into this little tiny box and now you're free like birds that are soaring from a dark nest.

It's a beautiful description.

And yet what supports this vital,

Vast,

Awake space that permeates all form and also suspends and contains all form is this deep sense of stillness.

And the stillness,

It's impossible for the mind to grab onto.

It just is impossible.

So you can just,

You know,

Give it up,

Really.

And this silence,

This stillness permeates the space.

They are indivisible.

They can't be separated out.

You may experience one more than the other in each moment.

This is true.

But the actuality is that they are indivisible.

So what you sense is there's this kind of an open awareness that is awake within the alive space.

So wherever this view moves from a tree or to the mountain or inside of the body or,

You know,

Looking at the flower,

It's pouring forth from this silence,

This stillness.

But it's open to this alive and vital space.

The more you can open your attention,

Really,

And then at a certain point the attention even,

Sort of,

It's not true.

It just kind of dissolves out.

But it's helpful for a while because then,

You know,

You can kind of tune into the individuation because the attention is where awareness pours through in the individual.

So if you bring your attention,

Sort of,

In this horizontal way,

Just as I was,

You know,

Explaining,

You know,

You can feel a sense of this open still presence to the right of you,

Of the body.

And really feel that.

I'm awake right here.

And then to the left,

I'm awake here too as well.

And it isn't like an exiting of the body,

It's an expansion of a habitual contraction,

A point of view.

You know,

The Tibetans call it the view.

And you really get a sense of that when you just relax from the point of view.

And at the same time,

There's a sense of,

Like,

The top of the skull,

You know,

Where the crown chakra,

The top of the skull,

It just kind of disappears.

It's like being in one of those observatories,

You know,

And there's kind of that round dome and then,

You know,

The lid comes off,

The top comes off.

That's what it is experienced like.

It's just like,

Boom,

Open up.

In fact,

There's spiritual depictions and they talk about how the,

An awake crown is the absence of that top,

That dome that's closed off to the divine,

To its own nature.

It's now open to itself.

And so the great channels,

You know,

The descending channel,

The ascending channel,

Now they can be conscious and move freely for what they are.

And what receives,

As a human being,

One receives information from,

You know,

The divine intelligence and from the sun and,

You know,

The seasons come through,

You know,

That channel.

And then there's this ascending channel that comes back up and draws from the earth and all that,

The intelligence of the earth.

So it's just this constant relationship of itself that you can feel within the human body.

So there is no top of the ascending,

It's just forever more above.

And there's this soaring feeling,

It's just soaring.

It's just like it's been held in this little tiny box and someone takes the lid off and it's just wow,

Yeah.

And yet there's this profound stability,

This profound sense of the verticality,

That deep,

Deep,

Deep,

Infinite absolute stillness that can ground this,

Stabilize it,

Nourish it,

Inform it.

And then the space,

You know,

This is the divine mother,

Right?

She's held and stabilized and nourished by the stillness,

The Shakti and the Shiva,

Right?

This is what they're really referring to.

And so the fullness is that that is awake and vital and infinite.

It creates,

It dissolves,

It permeates,

It holds,

It contains.

And it disappears continuously.

And there is no end to it.

I mean it's a beautiful exercise is just to let it drop and open and drop and open and drop and open.

Any perceived limitations.

Beyond,

Beyond,

Beyond,

Beyond,

Beyond to the other shore.

And so the impossibility of any kind of accurate description of that that is so stable,

So still,

And yet there's no position,

No location,

No one to be found.

No separateness exists here.

Even though the body is imbued by this,

It's,

It's,

There's a deep anchoring as this within this individuation called the body.

There's no separation.

It's if,

It's like the the body is held within this space,

This sacred body.

The microcosm and the macrocosm.

All at once.

And what the mind cannot know is that actually this can be lived in what is called fourth in life.

It actually can be lived.

It may not be quite so vast and quite so undisturbed by the outer demands but it can be lived as this.

This unlimited quality,

This stable still quality,

This no location,

No position.

Nobody separate from this.

And then what you see is like that dream of me and then the other.

It can't sustain itself in this.

It's just one sees the truth of it.

And so if one gets up off the meditation cushion and walks out into the sunlight,

The walking,

The body,

Walking,

The sun,

The breeze,

The ground,

The mountains,

The human being,

The animal,

It's all one thing.

And then one just walks through this unfathomable miraculous creation of itself.

An opening as this together where two or more are gathered I am also allows some very subtle and quite unconscious constrictions within the body-mind.

It just allows them just to open up.

It doesn't mean one has to like look at things or go through anything or understand anything.

It just automatically happens and so one of the most purifying things that one can do is in this remembering is just sit in this still open vast space.

And it literally reorchestrates the life according to this truth,

This foundational truth and it also transmutes whatever has been consciously or unconsciously bound.

No doing,

Just being.

So I encourage throughout the day as often as frequently as possible come back to this.

Not as something that's remembered.

It already is awake within yourselves.

It knows this.

So this is just a reminder of what already is.

So you don't have to grasp at something that's remembered.

It's just coming back into this very still,

Being aware of the contact points,

Being aware of the boundaries dissolving,

Being aware of this unfathomable sense of anchored stillness,

The still point and then the openness of the horizontal,

The vastness,

The body,

The sacred body,

The alive space.

Equally.

Sitting,

Walking and it's helpful if you can perhaps just have some almost like a formal practice of remembering this abiding as this.

But if not,

Every moment is the actuality of it.

And look at one another from this,

Look at the mountain from this,

Look at the sky from this,

Eat your lunch from this,

Nap from this,

Take walks from this,

As this.

Experience the elements,

The water,

The fire,

The sun,

The wind,

The earth as this.

Not as someone who's like walking through and visiting like a tourist of your own world,

But actually one who's a part of the community,

A part of the whole,

The great and connected,

The great being.

You can read a million books and it will never come in until you experience it.

And you experience it by dropping your habitual sense of identity and letting go and opening to what is and has always been and always will be,

Long past this life and all of its images and ideas and complexities long before and long past this life.

And though we do describe this still point as the place of resting,

The view,

There is this paradox of course that there is constant movement and activity all the way around it and all the way through it.

So it's not a stagnation.

That's a conceptual holding.

And then those pointers that all traditions speak of,

That all of the world wakes up,

All the world is alive,

Everything is alive.

You can see the truth of that as this.

And that it's all offering itself unto itself.

You're no longer the orphan or the victim or isolated from this.

It's impossible.

It's just an idea or a memory.

And then one can say not my will by thy will and there's a great jubilation,

A great relief in the truth of this.

Not some perceived idea of sacrifice.

So I encourage as best as you can when you begin to,

You know,

Walk around and have lunch and whatever it is that you do for your break,

To really get a sense of it's safe here with that deep sense of stillness and yet that vastness,

There's no boundary,

No location,

No position,

No separate person actually to be found.

Just let that be okay.

You don't have to talk to anyone.

You don't have to drive.

You don't have to function really.

You don't have to do anything.

You can let it go,

This perceived boundary of oneself.

You really can let it go.

It's safe.

And the truth is the only safety there is.

The body is not safe.

But this fully embodied is where vitality and wisdom and courage and guidance and it's the compass that one lives by.

And the life is in constant appreciation and praise of this remembrance.

So really without any kind of diminishment of the openness but just a bit to sense that depth,

That still depth,

That vertical channel within the body.

It's very still.

It's unfathomably strong and powerful.

I mean beyond anything that is known by the mind.

The iron mountain.

Really get a sense of that within the body.

And as it pours out the bottom of the feet and it pours into the top of the head that now has opened itself up to this divine descent.

And move around in this as this.

Experience yourself.

It's very helpful,

Quite vital actually to experience sight.

That's a global seeing instead of this one pointed seeing.

Hearing that is a global hearing instead of one sound and then another sound.

What you hear is like it's all happening at once.

All within the same space.

And the feeling it goes around the body but it also goes through the body.

So you can feel the clothing on the body but you can also feel the sun and the wind simultaneously on the body through the body.

And it is like a transparency.

You're moving through it,

It's moving through you.

And then as the feet,

I always think you know the indigenous people they either went barefoot or they had like a very soft kind of leather that allowed them to actually touch the earth and to the arch actually is designed to absorb.

It's one of the major channels of the body.

And it takes in the strength and the wisdom and the guidance of the earth as it walks.

You actually get a sense of that.

You know it's actually nourishing the bones and the cells.

It's the minerals right.

So many of us require supplements of minerals because we haven't learned to access it directly from the earth that we walk upon.

So our bones get weak,

Our vitality goes down.

So get a sense for yourself.

You know you can have a thousand beautiful perfect descriptions of an orange until you eat the orange you will not know it.

And if you find your attention going up into the head just very quietly gently bring it down.

Back of the heart down into the belly into the bottom of the feet.

I like the whole body all at once.

That's a beautiful anchor here.

Everything is experiencing and open all at once.

So you'll find your way.

And then see throughout the day actually there's periods maybe very short maybe longer and longer where you aren't forcing the mind to be quiet but the mind is actually just quiet to see.

Because if you are abiding below the mind in a way you're not activating the mind constantly by your attention being up into the top of the head or the center of the head.

If the attention is below it actually the mind starts to get quiet on its own.

May take a little while but you'll just notice these long kind of just quiet space.

Or it's almost like a non defined it's not coalesced the thoughts or the images.

They're kind of real wispy.

Or you know they're non distinct.

Still maybe rattling on but they aren't forming or congealing into anything.

Actually the more global the more open the senses are the more sensuous and more aware and awake you are in this fullness.

Reviews

Great practice reminders of letting go.
Thanks

Nice talk to listen to after meditating
Thank you.

Very nice and profoundly grounded in truth.