So we're just beginning our formal sitting meditation and just settling into a posture that feels both relaxed and alert at the same time.
But you know,
Posture that you can comfortably hold without a lot of movement in the body for a period of about 30 minutes or so.
Just settling in and I always like to begin by just kind of checking in with what's present in the body in this moment.
So not trying to change anything whatsoever,
Simply noticing.
So what's present in the body?
Could even do kind of a scan and start at your feet and kind of go,
Okay,
What's happening in that region of the body,
The feet?
Perhaps you just notice the touch of the soles of the feet on the floor,
Or if you're on a cushion,
On the cushion,
Perhaps the air on your feet or socks.
It's just kind of tuning into whatever's present,
Be it warmth or coolness,
Whatever it might be.
We're just going to work our way up the body,
Going to the legs.
What's present there is bringing that open hearted,
Kind attention to the legs,
That nonjudgmental attention.
So we're not judging and reacting to what we find.
You can shift up to the pelvic area,
The buttocks,
Focusing your attention there,
Seeing what's there.
Going up into the belly,
Perhaps noticing the belly expand and contract the in-breath and the out-breath.
Likewise with the chest area,
Feeling into the breath there,
Feeling into whatever's present there.
And coming around to the backside,
Seeing what's going on in the lower back,
In the middle back,
In the upper back.
And sensing into the shoulders.
For some of us in an area where we hold stress,
Tension,
Just noticing if that's the case in this moment or not.
And coming around to the hands,
Perhaps noticing the hands touching the thighs of the lap,
Wherever they're resting,
Feeling that sense of touch,
Sensing into the arms,
And then heading back up to the neck and the throat,
Feeling into that area,
The back of the head,
The ears,
Tuning into what's present in the face,
The cheeks and the eyes,
The mouth,
Simply being with whatever's present.
And then finally the forehead and the top of the head,
And sensing into the total body,
Whatever's present in terms of sensations in the entire body.
And coming into the body in this way is a helpful way to become embodied,
To embody the present moment.
Draw your attention away from the head and the mind,
Perhaps the continuous thoughts that the mind might produce.
Coming into a more concrete expression of your humanness,
Allowing your attention to enter the heart space.
We're just kind of reorienting our attention to the area around the heart,
In the chest area.
Simply letting attention settle there,
Perhaps you're feeling the breath in the chest area,
Or just perhaps just dwelling in the space in that area of the body,
Sensing into what that feels like.
There's no right or wrong answer here,
We're just sensing into what's present in the chest area.
If attention jumps back into the abstract level of the head area,
Just kind of gently redirect attention in a non-judgmental way back to the chest area,
The heart.
And it's really important that we don't judge ourselves in this process,
Realizing that the self-judging mind is simply a way for the egoic self to remain center stage.
Simply redirecting your attention to the heart space with that gentle,
Loving kindness and self-compassion.
Just continuing to rest attention in the heart space,
The quiet stillness of the true heart,
Perhaps feeling that quiet presence that's within you.
So we're feeling into something that's bigger and truer than the emotional heart,
Or the human heart,
Sensing into that quiet presence.
So the emotional heart can be open or closed,
Can even be experiencing some pain or even turmoil,
But the true heart,
The bigger heart,
The essential heart is always open,
It never closes.
We're just discovering perhaps,
Or uncovering what might be veiled for many of us,
This aspect of our being,
I'm calling true heart.
Just resting there some more,
Feeling into the spaciousness and sense of aliveness as you rest in the presence of the true heart,
The heart of awareness itself,
To allowing the fearful human heart to simply be held in the vastness of the all-loving true heart.
It's as if there's 10,
000 arms holding you,
The entire love of the cosmos.
Perhaps sensing into the emotional heart and dissolving into the true heart,
The heart of boundless love and compassion.
As you sense into the true heart in this way,
You'll begin to see through the eyes of the infinite,
Experience the world in the eyes of the universal boundless love,
Simply resting.
Resting is the silence and openness,
The true heart,
And just feeling that you are life,
Becoming conscious of itself.
Life sees itself through your eyes,
Hears itself through your ears,
And feels itself through your senses,
And through the very awareness that you are,
Life becomes conscious of itself.
