What's Looking Is What You're Looking For (Meditation)

As St. Francis said, "What's looking is what you're looking for." We think we need to go and find peace, find awareness, find courage, find our true nature. But just check, right now. Did any of that actually go anywhere? Could they go anywhere? Could they die? Could they be born? It's so obvious once you just sit in your being how all that you seek is just right here, in its full abundance, for you to receive. We can guide you to that place within yourself.

Transcript

The first thing I want to say is,

Let's not meditate.

There's nobody here meditating.

It's simply just being,

Which is in our name.

So we use the awareness to meditate.

So what is this awareness?

This awareness is that which is looking out of your eyes.

This background consciousness that's been there since before you were born,

Since before your parents were born.

It's that which is looking.

It's that which sees your mind,

That which senses the body.

It's always been looking.

It's what's looking.

And then we have this mind,

We have this sort of sense of a separate self,

And it goes out looking to do something.

St.

Francis said,

What's looking is what you're looking for.

So instead of searching with the mind for something,

Just be aware of what's looking.

That background awareness,

We're just going to settle there,

Rest there,

Rest as the awareness itself.

So let's really,

Really take our seat there,

Like you're sitting in a recliner,

Just completely relaxed,

Witnessing absolutely nothing to do.

This awareness has built-in qualities to it.

It's endlessly vast.

Let's just all check together.

Is it endlessly vast,

This awareness that's looking?

Is it also quiet,

Just utterly quiet?

Let's notice that this pure awareness is also soft and even loving.

It's very accepting of everything that arises,

Like the sky accepts the clouds,

And the sun,

And the rain.

You might also notice this awareness,

That which is looking,

Especially wants to connect with this body.

It has a preference,

It has a movement inward,

It wants to connect.

And it's a funny thing,

The pain in our body,

Which fear,

The mind,

Tends to avoid,

Is actually this invitation.

It's like,

Please pay attention here,

And awareness wants to go there.

So as we come into the body today,

Notice how it feels to bring awareness into pockets of tension and pain in the body.

Notice that it's actually a very natural healing movement.

It's the body that heals,

And our meditations have a healing quality to them,

Just simply by bringing awareness into the body.

So let's start by feeling the top of the head.

And there's no thought needed,

The mind can't do this.

It can't ever taste being in the body.

Only awareness can.

So just feeling the sensations at the top of the head,

Top of the skull,

And really utilizing the music that reverberates and points out the sensations of the body.

Really feeling in that beautiful feeling of just sound reverberating through the whole skull now,

And into the brain.

It's really such a spa moment here.

You're going to recline and just witness yourself being massaged,

Feeling sound just soothe and pet the top of your head,

Into your forehead,

Behind your eyes,

In the very middle of the brain,

Middle of the skull,

Back of the brain,

Back of the skull.

Feeling that sound just reverberate through,

So soft,

Awareness,

Wants to really inhabit this head,

It just wants to come in and fully feel into the face now.

From the inside of the head,

What is it to fill in your face?

To feel inside the skin of the cheeks,

And under the eyes,

And inside the cheekbones?

What is it to feel inside your sinuses,

To put awareness there?

Just aware of the sensation,

Aware of the sensation at the roof of the mouth.

Can you feel sound reverberating there?

What about the back of the throat?

And now inside the jaw,

Letting sound just feel through the big muscles of the jaw,

All the skin wrapped around the chin now,

And the teeth,

And the lips,

The amazing,

Amazing body,

Bone,

And muscle,

And skin,

Letting the sound vibration just show you all this rich sensation.

See if you can feel the whole head vibrating with sound,

And just delicious to be aware of,

Aware of the whole interior of the skull,

The whole interior of the head,

All to the back,

Feeling into the back of the head,

Back of the skull,

Feeling your ears,

Feeling your eyes,

Letting sound just vibrate through.

And as awareness,

You might notice,

Where does this head begin and end from awareness?

Can you tell that there's a separation between the air and the cheek from awareness,

Not the mind?

There's a continuity there,

There's the beautiful sensation of air on the cheek,

But there's not a separation from awareness.

From awareness,

It's this rich energy of the head that then connects with the energy of the room,

Of the air,

No separation.

We are not separate.

It is one body,

And only awareness can feel that.

Let's right now just feel it from the inside the head to outside the head,

Just noticing,

Oh,

There's a connection there.

There's a continuity there.

What good news that you are not cut off,

That this body is part of the one body,

And all we're doing is just savoring that sensation.

Letting awareness now go into the neck,

Noticing the continuity there from the head to the neck,

Noticing how awareness would like to go inside each vertebrae in the neck,

And the throat,

And the skin of the neck,

The Adam's apple.

See if that sound can open something in the spine and the neck,

Just naturally with zero effort.

If you find yourself efforting,

Just drop it.

No effort here,

No strain,

Climb all the way back,

Just plain old awareness,

Just be that,

And you're simply being massaged,

Massaged by awareness itself with no effort,

Massaged by sound on the right side and the left side of your neck,

The front and the back,

Or just being aware of sensation with no name,

No words.

Everything can just be,

No meaning,

And if words arise,

It's fine.

Doesn't block the rich sensation.

It's just a cloud moving in the sky,

It's no problem at all.

Great,

And let's just savor this sensation coming down into the shoulders,

Noticing how that sound can just massage your shoulders.

It is massaging them.

The body is vibrating and it'll lap up every little bit of attention we give it.

This body wants attention.

Us humans,

We usually go to other humans.

The best thing is to give it to ourselves.

It's just between us as awareness and this body.

Let awareness,

Which is you,

That which is looking,

Feel into the whole shoulder blades,

The whole tops of the shoulders and the collarbones now,

Savoring the music reverberating through all those tissues and bones.

See if awareness can go inside the shoulder blades and around the shoulder blade,

Inside the shoulder joints,

Inside the spine between the shoulder blades.

The sound is reverberating inside your spine.

Can you feel that?

You don't have to do anything.

You're just savoring the feeling of your being.

All through the sternum and the front of the chest now,

The rib cage,

Those notes,

That sound goes right in the tissues of the ribs.

You get to just savor being this body.

Feel your lungs expand.

They're doing it all on their own.

You don't have to be involved.

The body just be.

You don't have to hold it or control it or manage it.

Let it breathe.

Let it feel.

Feeling the lungs expand,

Feeling the heart now,

Just bringing awareness to the heart.

Maybe there's pain there.

Maybe that pain bounces you out.

Mind has something to say about it,

Something to distract.

It's lying.

It's lying that you don't want to be in touch with this heart.

Right where there's a pain pocket,

Maybe it's in the back of your heart or the back of your spine here.

See if we can bring awareness there instead of away from it.

So right where it's a bit sore or stabby pain maybe,

Or just tense,

What is it to just bring awareness and let that music soften it?

Just letting it be massaged by awareness and sound.

That's all you're doing is just allowing yourself to be massaged.

The less involved,

The better.

All through the spine now in the back of the heart,

The bottom of the rib cage,

Letting sound reverberate there.

Great.

And let's feel into the arms now.

The arms are vibrating,

The hands are vibrating.

Awareness goes into the thought stream.

It is zero problems.

We just come on back.

There's lots of sensation here in the hands and the palms and the fingertips.

Putting awareness down into inside each finger,

The wrists really inhabiting this human form.

The hands like putting on gloves,

Bringing awareness deep inside the hands and the arms.

Great.

And then let's do that coming back up into the back of the heart.

Let's just feel through the back of the solar plexus.

So bottom of the rib cage in the spine there,

And then all through the solar plexus right under your rib cage.

Most of us,

A ton of tension and grip here.

Again,

Nothing to do.

Just be aware of the sensations.

Even just being aware of the grip starts to open something.

This body,

When given attention like this,

Starts to feel safe and held and connected and just like a baby softening in the arms of a caregiver.

This body starts to soften in the arms of you.

Let that solar plexus just naturally soften as you bring your awareness,

Just awareness to pour through there.

Using the music to show you where sensation is,

Maybe deep inside the solar plexus now,

Right in front of the spine,

Coming in from the front,

Coming in from the sides,

Coming in from the back.

This amazing solar plexus,

All this energy there.

It's all just energy.

Nothing to be afraid of at all.

Wonderful.

And then this whole belly area,

What is it to let that just be soft?

Let the sound soften through all the organs of your midsection and all through the back.

See if you can just be inside your full belly.

It's okay if it's grippy.

It's okay if there's pain.

If you had a child you were caring for and they were in pain or they were a bit tense,

You would hold them,

Cradle them and rock them until they softened and soothed.

We're going to do that right now with our whole belly area.

Just hold it in this warm awareness.

No agenda.

Letting sound massage it.

I'm just noticing it just naturally starts to soften and open.

And even if it just softens and opens like 5%,

10%,

Amazing.

Amazing.

And then your sort of guts spill out all around the front,

The back,

The sides,

And then down into the lower vertebrae,

Coming into the pelvis,

Letting that music just soften through the pelvis,

Reverberating through the pubic bone,

Reverberating through the hip sockets,

The sit bones,

The whole pelvis softening like a soft chair.

Just sinking into the back of your hips,

Sinking into the tailbone,

Sinking into the very bottom of the torso,

All through your genitals,

All through the front of the pelvis.

Noticing those sound vibrations.

Do they move through the body?

Is the body made of vibration?

Awareness is aware that there's no separation from the pelvis and the chair and the air in the room.

Just notice from awareness.

If you don't go to the mind,

What is it to feel through the pelvis,

Into the chair,

Into the bed,

Into the room,

Noticing how the vibration of the music moves through.

And it's a good feeling that this being is deeply connected to the air in the room.

There's no separation.

There are natural boundaries,

But you don't have to manage them.

The body manages itself.

Life manages it.

Great job.

And then let's feel into the legs,

Those amazing legs with those strong muscles,

Upper thighs being massaged by the music.

Awareness can go into the bones of the upper legs.

Maybe you can feel how the music is vibrating those bones.

You could feel the music vibrating your knees.

What is it to feel into the tendons of the knees and inside the kneecaps?

Aware feeling,

Aware of the shin bones and the calf muscles,

The layers of skin inside the lower legs.

Subtle,

No thought needed.

Gorgeous.

And then we can come down into the ankles.

Where does sound begin and end?

Where does the skin begin and end?

Let it be unknown.

Let it be one.

We don't have to hold ourselves in.

We don't have to hold ourselves inside our skin.

So we're letting ourselves open,

Open into the full energy body,

Open into the oneness of our being,

Which is already the case.

It just feels really good to be aware of it,

Aware of all this rich sensation of the body,

Including even the pain.

Coming into the feet now,

They're vibrating at such a high frequency.

We don't have to know anything about that.

Let's be aware.

How did the bottoms of the feet feel?

The bones of the feet,

The toes,

And then beyond the skin.

Let's be aware of two feet below the bottoms of our feet.

And now let's be aware of two feet above our heads.

How about two feet in front of you?

Aware of the feeling there.

And let's try two feet in the back of you,

Behind your spine.

Beautiful.

And let's see if we can feel what's sometimes called like an egg or a kind of cocoon over the energy body.

That's well beyond the skin,

Vibrating your own unique quality of energy.

See if you can just feel this kind of warm,

Glowing egg of your being all around you and all inside of you.

You might even be able to see it visually.

It's just a lot of light,

But no matter if there's no visuals.

See if you can feel the vibration of your being inside and then outside about two feet,

Three feet.

Great.

And then let's notice how sound waves move through this space.

And let's just for right now,

Be only aware of the space itself,

The space that everything is moving inside of.

Notice how that space makes up the interior of your body and the exterior of your body.

Space in the chair,

In the room,

In the body,

In the walls,

Sound moving through space.

And what is it to rest as that spaciousness,

To sink into it,

To be it.

The spaciousness that is everywhere,

That every sound moves through is also utterly quiet.

As Kieran likes to say,

It's the quietest thing here.

That's all.

Let's let ourselves just be aware of this quiet spaciousness that is absolutely everywhere.

You are swimming in it.

You are made of it.

We can let our whole body dissolve into it.

It is safe.

The waters are warm to let yourself dissolve into this quiet field.

All the sounds falling into that silence.

We are going to just let ourselves dissolve into silence.

There's endless silence here holding you,

Waiting for you to just let it have you.

You are this warm,

Quiet water of awareness,

Vast,

Pure,

And you are witnessing the body dissolving into you.

Just a natural process,

Nothing you need to do.

The body,

Like salt crystals,

Slowly dissolving in the field of you,

This quiet.

This quiet field of awareness is endless.

It's also utterly grounded,

Solid.

It's not going anywhere.

It's always holding you.

It is you.

And so in your own time opening your eyes,

See if you can notice that that quiet endless field of awareness doesn't go anywhere.

It's still utterly supportive,

Still holding you,

Grounding.

Open our eyes.

Let's also be aware of this endless ground of quiet.

Reviews

This was really amazing to not just sit in awareness but inviting the awareness inside and sit “in”
presence. Namaste

Thank you for this beautiful gift. I shall carry this through my day and return to this experience often.

Letting go, I've never felt more held. Much endless, edgeless gratitude for you.

I am a long time meditator, but not tied to a particular lineage, though drawn to advaita vedanta, dzogchen and zen. Awareness, awareness, awareness!!!!! So beautifully presented, so skillfully blending space, light, and especially the energy of sound. The paradox of time, energy and space, all one, but to our experience, so compellingly different. Thank you for this guided teaching. I look forward to exploring more.

Best experience I’ve ever felt on insight timer since 2018

Thank you, this is beautiful. Just what I needed at the start of the day 🙏🏼💓

Thanks ..in this infinite vastness of silence I recline ..j

Beautiful!!! Felt like I was floating in space… in and out of my body. Thank you 🤲🏼🫧✨

That was REALLY good. A unique opportunity to learn more about myself. Thank you.

First time I’ve ever dissolved in meditation… just wow! This was magnificent Thank you!

Now I get it!!! Thank you for your ability to explain this so clearly. After literally YEARS of not knowing space I finally am aware. I realize now I was using my brain to try to understand.

I have always felt this space within. Thankyou for helping me rest there.

Needed this reminder of quiet awareness. Thank you!

It took me a while to get into the zone of being still & quiet but I stayed with it and it was worth it the feeling of quiet & calm descends , it’s s good practice. Thank you .

That was a different meditation from what I have done so far. I enjoyed the experience immensely as it cuts straight to one of the experiences I have come to love (pure awareness). And gave information freely and generosity about awareness which until now was gained only in small portions. I have always had the sense that my awareness was larger than my physical body, and that it fades away well outside my body. I remember being very surprised as a young person talking to friends who said they only felt there solid body, I assumed everyone experienced such things as I did.
I wounder why is this approach not used more commonly??
Thank you for making this available, much appreciated, namaste.