To Swim As The Ocean Itself (Guided Meditation With Music)

As Adyashanti once said meditation is "As if you are way down at the bottom of the ocean, and the ripples and waves are far above you." It's a tangible feeling, often starting in your stomach. That this ocean, this silence, can be fully aware of. It's a symphony of nothingness, the warmest embrace of your true nature, calling you home.
This meditation can help land you in this place within yourself that is here for you, right now.

Transcript

So feeling into your body for a moment,

Let's just go one more degree into comfort.

So you're really listening to what feels,

In Kieran Trace's words,

Delicious or easy for this body.

Any extra support is right here.

Most meditation practices,

Or the history of meditation is a bit of a strain,

A little bit of an effort,

And that that's the value.

But we're kind of going the other way with this one,

To let it be effortless and let this whole enterprise be very effortless.

No strain,

No effort.

In fact,

As I like to say,

You don't need to do anything.

So we really start and end in the same quote unquote place,

Which is being aware of awareness itself.

So as we close our eyes,

Just bring our attention off the busy mind,

It's totally fine for the busy mind to be here.

But just for now,

We're going to not give it our attention.

No strain there.

We're just going to be aware of something else.

We're usually aware of thoughts,

Today we'll just be aware of what else is here,

And there is a lot else here.

So in this moment,

To be aware of awareness.

What is awareness?

It is that which is looking out of your eyes.

It is that which hears my voice.

That is not the mind.

It is that which witnesses the mind.

It is the background that's been there your whole life.

Even before you were born.

There's a Zen koan that says,

Show me the face you had before your parents were born.

That awareness behind your face,

Behind the thoughts.

Let's rest there together as that awareness,

That same awareness.

The same awareness here,

The same awareness there.

This is one big relaxation,

A rest to do nothing,

To simply be.

And we deeply include the body in that.

So the body can rest,

The body can simply be.

Everything is already simply being.

Surrendering,

Allowing this to be the case.

Putting up no fight,

No effort,

No agenda,

No getting anywhere.

Already arrived.

So letting that aware of awareness,

Just aware of.

Let's notice the effortless quality of awareness,

The soft and gentle quality of awareness,

The welcoming and loving quality of awareness itself.

It wants everything to be here.

It rejects nothing.

Like the sky,

Like the air,

Everything is welcome.

So let's welcome the feelings of the body.

Let's welcome first the feeling of the breath.

The breath does itself.

What is it to just savor the breath breathing itself?

Feel the ribcage,

Feel the sternum,

Feel the lungs.

Letting awareness come into the body.

Can you feel your heart?

There might be some pain.

What if that too could be welcomed?

All through the back of the heart.

What about the tissues of the ribs,

The connective tissue?

Can awareness go in there?

Can it dive into the corners of the ribs,

Into the center of the chest,

Center of the heart?

Notice that awareness can go everywhere.

The mind might have some opinions,

It might attempt to distract.

It's fine.

It's possible to stay with sensation,

To return awareness to the feeling on the left side of the chest,

On the right,

All the way to the front,

As if you're filling in a suit,

Letting yourself deeply fit into your own body,

Filling out the front of the chest.

And then let's fill out the back of the chest,

Into the shoulder blades,

Into the spine.

Feel like you're leaning all the way back inside yourself,

Like leaning back into a comfy chair.

As we do that,

As we come into the body,

Feeling into ourselves,

Like fitting ourselves into a glove,

Deeply embodying the back of the chest right now.

As we do that,

There may be a very natural exhale,

A kind of depressurizing or relaxing as the body feels inhabited and therefore safe and held.

When we were children,

We would be held,

A nourishing hold would be from our parents perhaps.

And it was the awareness,

It was their inhabiting of their own body,

Of being present,

Of a presence that was the nourishment.

And many of them didn't know how to do that.

But it is never too late to nourish our own bodies with that same presence.

You are ultimately this awareness.

And this awareness can nourish this body.

By simply being in touch with it.

So feeling yourself,

Feeling up into your shoulder blades and around those shoulder blades.

Feeling those bands of muscle,

That connective tissue that's inside the shoulder joints now,

Wraps around into the collarbone.

See if you can just feel your collarbone,

The underside of it,

Top of it,

Pockets of above the clavicle,

Above the collarbone.

Then we can feel into the tops of the shoulders and then down the tops of the arms.

To feel your whole shoulders like you're nestling inside of them and exhaling as you go.

What is it to nestle inside your arms now?

Feeling the bones of the upper arms,

The flesh,

The skin,

Inside the elbows,

Inside the crook of the elbows,

The outside of the elbows,

Down into the lower arms.

You can feel our wrists,

All the bones of the wrists,

The flesh of the hands,

The palms of the hands,

So alive.

Just being aware of the sensation in the hands.

No name,

No words,

No thought required.

Just for now.

To leave it nameless.

To leave every sensation without a name.

To let the full aliveness of your hands be felt.

Aware of the buzzing quality.

Aware too that the sensation of the hands,

The energy body of the hands,

Goes well beyond the skin.

See if you can feel that.

Feel the vibration of the hands a few inches beyond them.

We're just opening our awareness to be aware of all that's here.

We have quite a big energy body.

Being aware of that.

Great job.

Then let's come and be aware inside the spine,

Between the shoulder blades,

Up inside the spine,

Inside the neck.

What is it to nestle inside your neck,

To feel into the area between the vertebrae?

Front of the spine,

Deep inside the neck,

All to the right and to the left.

Feeling the throat,

The very base of the throat.

Letting the music point out the sensation.

First healing tool as humans might have been sound.

It's a vibration.

It can soak right into the flesh,

Inside the skin,

Deep inside the neck now.

Points out that you are made of vibration and energy too.

You are a symphony of vibration.

There's a symphony just inside your neck.

How does it feel at the top of the neck?

What if the vibration of the sound could vibrate through the whole neck now?

You feel all the way to the back and the sides and the front.

Letting the sound vibrate through and help softly open it up.

You feel your neck expand.

Just letting the music act like a masseuse,

Opening it up.

Great,

And then let's do that with the head.

That spine continues all the way up to the brainstem,

Back of the head,

Back of the skull.

Right there,

It's a juicy spot where the brain and the spine meet.

Most of us are not inhabited here.

Can you feel the sound vibrate right in that spot?

Feeling it,

Receiving sound.

Again,

With no name,

No words,

Just a receiving of the soft touch of sound.

Moving through the whole back of the head now,

So that if you're leaning back inside yourself,

You're filling out,

Feeling into the whole back of the head and the whole back of the neck,

And then feeling yourself come forward.

So you're in the back third of your head.

What is it to be inhabiting the middle third of the head?

So in between the ears,

The very,

Very middle behind the eyes.

Again,

Letting the sound vibrate through there,

Just feeling it.

Nothing but aware of the sensation of the middle of the head.

Then we can easily come right up to the very top of the head,

The middle top.

Aware,

Aware of the sensation,

Aware of how the sound vibrates through there,

Massages it,

Soothes it.

If your mind gets very busy,

No problem,

There's all this awareness still here.

Fast,

Fast,

Fast awareness.

It only means that you're in a juicy spot where the body actually needs more attention,

More nourishment.

It's a spot we've tended to neglect if we go into the thought stream.

So busy mind can just be a sign that you're onto something,

That this spot in the body is a real nourishment to just bring awareness there.

Let sound touch it,

Even a little bit.

So let's really let that sound soak through the top of the head,

Permeate it,

Soothe it,

And let it now come and drip down the front of the head into the forehead and the temples,

Middle of the forehead and inside the eyes,

Massaged by sound,

Massaged by your own awareness,

Just simply being aware of the sensation of the eye sockets,

Of the eyelids,

Inside your eyebrows.

How does it feel right underneath your eyes or a couple inches behind the eyes,

The fibers of the eyes?

Letting sound massage into the cheekbones and the flesh of the cheeks,

The nose,

The roof of the mouth.

Can you feel the music in your teeth and in your tongue and in your lips?

Absolutely nothing to do but receive the massage of sound.

Just through the jaw,

Through the chin,

That soft awareness,

Caressing it,

Sound caressing it.

What is it to let yourself be caressed,

To let the chin and the jaw,

The lips,

The ears,

The flesh surrounding your whole skull,

What is it to let it be open enough to receive the sound,

To receive this attention?

No thought required,

No concentration required,

No effort here.

Lean back and receive.

Great job.

Let's exhale through the mouth,

Feeling the whole head and neck now together.

Notice how that's continuous with the chest and the arms.

Feeling into your chest and arms,

Neck and head all at once,

Letting them relax even more,

Soften even more.

Notice even how they merge with the air in the room,

The chair.

From awareness,

There's no cut off.

You are not cut off from life,

You are one with life.

That can be directly realized through this flesh and bone,

Through awareness.

All that rich sensation,

That aliveness of your being in the chest now coming down into the solar plexus,

The midsection.

So simple,

Just being aware of the sensation in the midsection,

Letting the belly soften,

Letting the sound touch the very core of the midsection.

We can sometimes be inhabited in that outer part of our body,

A little less so in the very inmost areas.

See if you can find the most inward area of the belly midsection.

Just for fun,

Just because it's enjoyable,

It feels so good inside the body to be touched.

What a story about whatever sensation you find,

There's a relaxation the body feels attended to finally.

Feeling into the front of the belly in the midsection,

The sides,

And all the way to the back,

Inside the spine.

Can you feel the sound tickle your spine?

Everything just wants to,

Fear says it's not safe to let in this attention.

It is lying.

It's so much safer to inhabit our body than to disinhabit.

All through the belly now,

Letting the belly soften,

Soften,

Feeling into your belly,

Filling it out.

Again,

Like you're coming,

You're fitting into a suit and you're going to fill it out.

It fits you like a glove.

Pelvis now.

So feeling into the spine that continues from the midsection down into the lower back,

Letting that sound tickle your lower vertebrae and down into your tailbone.

Everything is vibrating,

Everything is in a sense made of this energy,

This sound.

Includes the bones,

The very bones of your pelvis,

Those sit bones.

Can you feel the vibration of the sound in your sit bones,

Your pubic bone,

In the hip joints,

Whole pelvis now?

What is it to feel the pelvic bones vibrating with the juice of this music?

You're just savoring yourself.

There's nothing but vast spacious awareness here.

Feel this energy,

This sensation.

Mind is telling you illusions,

Which is fine,

But there's a lot to witness here.

There's a lot to savor here.

Let's feel how the pelvis continues from inside the pelvis,

Feeling the vibration there,

To inside the skin of the pelvis and continuing into the chair,

Into the air in the room.

You'll notice how there is a continuity there,

Letting yourself dissolve because nothing actually dissolves.

Body will hold itself together.

You don't have to hold it together.

There doesn't need to be a manager in here because frankly,

There isn't one.

It's all imagined.

So we're letting ourselves be held in this awareness,

Held in this vibration,

Holding ourselves together.

So let your whole pelvis dissolve just for now.

What is it to not hold yourself together?

That continues down into the legs now.

Can you feel the sound inside the bones of your upper legs?

It's subtle and it's nothing you can concentrate on.

It's something you can just notice.

It's already happening.

You're already being massaged by this sound.

It's just nice to feel it.

Feeling into the flesh of the upper legs,

Those big muscles,

The tendons that now wrap around those knees,

The underside of the knees,

The kneecaps themselves.

How do they feel?

Without words.

What's the energy there?

Can you feel how alive they are?

What about the aliveness,

The sensation in the lower legs,

In the shins,

In the calves?

Your mind can never ever go here.

It can't know anything about it,

But awareness can.

Awareness can feel into every corner of the lower legs,

Filling them again like putting on form-fitting pants.

You're going to nestle into every corner of the legs and now into the ankles.

What is it to get comfy inside your own skin,

Letting everything soften?

Little avatar relaxes and softens when she,

When he,

When they feel held,

Touch with life,

With awareness.

They feel safe,

Grounded,

Touch of awareness itself inside the feet now.

Every little corner of the feet feeling inside the tips of the toes,

The nail beds,

In between the toes,

The arch of the feet,

The heels,

The pads.

So much aliveness inside your feet.

Feeling the music vibrate those feet and again beyond the feet.

Feel a foot beyond the bottoms of the feet.

Now let's feel the whole body and its gorgeous vibration.

It's singing with this sound.

The legs,

The feet,

Belly,

The hips,

The chest,

The arms,

The neck,

The head,

Vibrating with no effort on your part.

Nothing to do.

Letting everything soften another degree,

Open another degree.

Maybe on the top of the head,

Maybe the front of the body or the back of the body.

Notice from awareness where there might be a little bit of density and then notice how delicious,

How sweet it is where there's a little pain or a little grip or a little numbness.

Maybe the back of the heart,

Maybe the top of the head,

Maybe the feet or the pelvis.

Let's take that part that's a bit dull,

Hasn't been touched in a long time and let's just bring extra awareness there,

Feeling into that area a little bit more with buying into no story about it.

No story is true.

See for yourself as awareness.

What is it to touch it?

What is it to let it be?

Massaged by the sound,

Opened by the vibration.

Take a bath in your own awareness in this soft vibration of sound.

Just like you would soak in a bath,

Letting everything soften and open.

Let that happen now.

Nothing to hold,

Nothing to do.

If you need to meditate.

And as the body dissolves,

Boundaries between your skin and the air in the room,

You start to feel that deep connection that there isn't a separation.

So feeling the space inside the energetic pulse.

All this energy is inside of pure spaciousness.

Notice how the body is made of that spaciousness,

Permeability,

Music,

Sound moves through the body.

It's totally safe.

It's totally safe.

All this sound empties into space,

Spaciousness.

The spaciousness is also pure quiet.

Let's put our awareness on this quiet that everything empties into.

Every sound right into silence.

It's right here.

You are made of it.

My voice empties right into a vast pool,

Oceans and oceans of quiet.

You are already completely soaked in it,

Made of it.

Let yourself be completely soaked by the quiet at the end of my voice.

You don't need to go looking for it.

You're already soaked in it.

It is a vast ocean of silence that you are made of.

And there are waves of thought and sensation on the surface of this ocean.

But what is it to be aware of the depths of this ocean?

The endless depth and the endless height and the endless width of this quiet.

Put your attention there.

It is already there.

It is already made of it.

Waves of thought do not disturb the depths at all.

You just haven't noticed the depths of this vast quiet.

You are literally made of everywhere you look.

Vast quiet.

All through the body,

All through the room,

All through the ground and the cosmos.

Bodies tension dissolve like salt crystals in this vast,

Empty,

Velvet silence.

Let's notice together.

You aren't floating in this ocean of silence.

You are this ocean of silence.

There isn't a separation.

This vast,

Vast quiet is alive,

Is always here,

And it's completely inclusive.

It includes all of the sensation of the body.

And we can be aware of both.

So as our eyes are still closed,

Let's be aware of the endless vast of this quiet and of all that alive energy of the body that's moving inside of it,

Like waves in the ocean.

The waves do not disturb the ocean.

So a wave of thought or sensation,

No problem.

We are just being aware of the rest of the ocean.

So as you open your eyes in your own time,

Taking as much time as you want,

You'll see light and dark and objects in the room or outside.

But this does not disturb the ocean of silence that's still permeating you,

That you're still made of.

You are this ocean of silence no matter what.

It's simply just nice.

Feels so good to be aware of that,

To relax as that,

To swim as the ocean.

Reviews

So Beautiful and amazingly Guided as Usual✨💕
Thank you Meghan

Love this. So soothing, thank you 🙏

Very relaxing ideal when it is problematic to go back to sleep in the middle of the night. Merci beaucoup

Amazing.!!! Thank you for sharing this beautiful practice ✨️🙌✨️

Raw, beautiful expression of oneness. Thank you 🙏

Every time I listen, I discover. This meditation is so accessible and profound all at once. My absolute favorite ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

As ever, this combination of a guided meditation and music/ sound is like no other you can find here on insight timer or anywhere else and has a natural way of bringing you into a state of being, being aware of being and with a kind sense of curiosity of what we can sense in the state of embodiment - no force - but what’s it like to be in connection with our own body? No stories about how it got to be this way but simply letting our internal converging histories arrive in this moment and in this body. The guidance is spontaneous, drawn from experience no doubt, both from the perspective of sound and the spoken words. My deepest respect and gratitude goes out to Simple Being. Thank you for the heartfelt guidance home that I experience when listening to any one of your publications here on insight timer.

Outstanding meditation. Thoughtful and calming. Thank you.

Extremely soothing and beautiful meditation. Thank you 🙏

Thank you 🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻To start my day as the vast ocean of silence: how can it get any better?!…🙏🏻🌟💫🌟✨🌟🙏🏻

I enjoyed this meditation experience. Thank you so much! 🙏🙏🙏

Great meditation, although I did fall asleep somewhere in the middle as I was very tired.
I will definitely be having another go soon to get the full experience. Thank you.