Hello,
My name is Shelley.
I'm so glad you're here for this evening meditation,
Which may help you simply to relax or fall asleep.
It's to help you get comfortable with the rhythm of the universe that's behind the chaos of the day.
This meditation will help you visualize that peace behind it all.
So I invite you to lie down and get comfortable.
Perhaps put a pillow behind your knee.
And just allow your eyes to close,
Your body to melt into the bed or the floor.
Allow your attention to gently come into the body and to the flow of your breath.
Experience your body as a whole,
Simply lying here,
Extended and breathing.
There's nowhere to go.
There's nothing to do.
And when you feel ready,
Picture in your mind's eye,
The image of a lake.
It could be a lake that you're familiar with.
It could be a picture that you've seen.
Whatever it may be,
It's all good.
Just see if you can bring that image into vivid focus in your mind's eye.
Notice how it's an extended body of water held in a depression on the Earth's surface.
Perhaps it's fed by a nearby stream or a spring of water.
If you watch and observe the lake carefully,
You'll notice that it's always changing.
And yet it's also always itself.
It changes as the sun moves across the sky.
The light is reflected off the water in different ways,
Ever changing depending on the weather and the time of day.
On calm days,
The surface might be like glass and reflect virtually everything with great precision that comes by.
Clouds,
Birds.
There may be trees that surround the lake reflected in the glass.
The sun as it makes its journey across the sky.
And of course the moon and stars at night also reflected in that body of glass-like water.
In different periods of time,
The surface might be choppy and quite pronounced in the waves.
And the light may sparkle off those waves in different ways like a myriad of jewels.
Of course,
The lake changes throughout the seasons in the winter.
It might freeze over,
At least on the surface.
Through day and night and through the seasons and through the years,
The lake is constantly changing but always as its own essential nature.
Let's see if we can invite the lake to become co-existive with our own body lying here so that our body becomes the lake itself.
We also feel held and embraced as we lie here,
Aware of the many ways in which our own mind is like the surface of the lake,
Sometimes highly reflective,
Sometimes choppy.
Getting in touch with the sense of the entirety of the lake,
The full body of water not only on the surface but down below.
Just breathe.
As we lie here,
Just experiencing the fullness of our own being so that even at times when our mind is choppy and upset or reactive or dealing with difficult things,
We can drop down beneath the surface of our own mind's waves and find a stillness and a calmness that's always here and always available to us with each moment,
With each breath.
Just breathe.
Lying here under the canopy of our vast awareness,
Experiencing the moment to moment changes in the body and sensations,
Thoughts,
Feelings,
Impulses,
Sounds and all the while lake-like,
Simply lying here watching the play of the weather of the mind and body.
Allow the awareness to hold it all,
Moment by moment,
Breath by breath,
In our own fullness,
In our own completeness,
Moment by moment,
Breath by breath.
May you rest peacefully.
Pray.
You you you
