So this is the guided meditation on energy,
The second of the five powers.
So check through the body,
Check our position that we're sitting comfortably,
Relaxed,
Steady,
And yet with a posture that seems full of life,
An energetic posture,
Yet relaxed and at ease.
And as we check through our posture,
At the same time feel that we are arriving.
We are connecting.
We are gathering ourselves into the present moment,
Feeling aliveness,
Awareness that we exist here and now.
And connecting to the bodily life.
This can be very specific,
Such as the touch of the fingers,
The hands,
The feet on the ground,
Or it can be general.
There is a body.
Let's check.
How relaxed are we?
Or is there an effort,
A pressure,
Even slight,
Pressure to succeed,
The pressure for outcomes,
Or pressure from expectations.
Explore the boundary,
The intermediate place between relaxation and tension,
Between surrender,
And the motivation or the intention to do something,
To meditate,
To observe,
To be aware.
In this gray area,
We explore energy,
Intention,
Motivation.
Let's move to the breath,
Observing the breath,
Arriving,
Flowing through the body,
Right down to the belly,
The belly rising and falling,
The soft,
Gentle,
Easy,
Natural flow of the breath.
Let's get a bit closer.
Can we experience parts of the breath?
How is it as it enters the body?
Can we experience the gap between in-breath and out-breath?
Can we experience the breath as it moves through other parts of the body,
Such as the back?
Be curious,
Be interested,
Be close,
Be intimate.
And as we get close and explore the breathing,
See what this does to the energy.
Maybe it recruits more energy through curiosity,
As we discover unknown things.
Begin to feel the whole body,
The breath flowing through and the sensations flowing through.
Can we feel the sensations in our legs and arms?
Can we feel the breath in different places in our body as it touches,
Brings oxygen and leaves?
Let's go one step closer,
More subtly,
More delicately,
Looking at the flow of experiences all through the body.
And we may discover this is the experience of energy in the body,
This is the energy body,
The flow,
The life force from our feet to our head.
Meeting the energy body is more subtle.
We can also explore more obvious energy changes in the body,
Such as tiredness,
Speediness,
Agitation,
Cloudiness or dreaminess,
Boredom.
We don't try and change anything,
We're exploring the dimensions of energy.
What's our energy state right now and how is this meditation changing it?
Are we putting a lot of energy and effort into this practice?
Or are we too relaxed and passive?
Is there struggle?
Or is there a sense that there's nothing to be done?
Just explore those dimensions,
Those qualities,
And we can do a small visualization about our daily life,
Remembering perhaps a recent experience when we were agitated,
A recent experience when we were agitated and stressed and restless.
Just going back over that memory,
That experience and feeling how it was.
And now get a sense of this balance,
Where there is no struggle and yet there is the energy of life,
The energy of awareness,
The energy of presence,
Aliveness,
Ease.
And just see how that might have changed the situation.
And just see how that might have changed the situation if we would have experienced a quality of ease,
Of no resistance,
Of letting things be,
And how that might have changed the experience,
Rewritten the script.
So let's come back to ourselves right now,
To our body and to our mind.
Thoughts are passing by.
Is there struggle and pressure?
Or can we let go,
Or can we let go,
Allow and be interested in the stream,
The stream of thought,
Just like the stream of sensations in the body,
Where we relaxed and engaged,
Aware and yet not pressured,
And let's explore towards the end of this meditation,
This middle ground of right energy,
Which is not pressure,
Struggle,
And yet not passivity,
Resignation or helplessness.
Somewhere in between,
There is a quiet intention,
A steadiness of purpose.
We are here,
Present,
Steady,
Continuous,
Aware,
Right there in the middle of our life,
In the middle of our experience,
And that's a quality of energy that is very special and precious,
And that we can take with us into all our daily life activities.
The Buddha said,
I reach the other shore by not struggling and yet not being pressured.
By not struggling and yet not stopping and being passive.
And let's feel that right now.
There is nothing to struggle against,
And yet we're right there in the flow that's filling us with energy and life.
