First of all we'll sit and become comfortable,
And we can do this by,
In a moment we'll take a couple of deep breaths,
But just before that wiggle your body and invite it to become comfortable in the seat that it's sat on,
Or maybe you're on a cushion.
It really doesn't matter as long as we stay upright and alert,
But also relaxed and open to whatever's going to be coming up in this meditation.
So first of all we'll take a couple of deep breaths.
This helps us to connect the mind to the body and the body to the mind,
So we're sitting as a whole body experience.
So one,
Two,
Three,
Take a deep breath in,
And hold it,
Hold it,
Then just allow the deep breath to relax as you breathe out,
Controlling the flow of the air,
And just imagine your body relaxing at the same time,
And then breathe easy.
Now if we take another deep breath in,
One,
Two,
Three,
And then hold it,
And then just breathe out again,
Relaxing any muscles that may be still tensed up,
Or maybe just a little more stubborn than the rest.
Now that we're in a semi-relaxed state and we're ready to start the meditation,
We'll move on to the first phase of the meditation,
And that is to be quiet,
And this is fairly simple,
It's just we stop the talking,
And we stop the narrator in the head,
And we stop the story going on in the mind,
And we do that by just sitting and breathing,
And just by being aware of your breath,
That isn't thinking,
We often think that we need to do no thinking,
In fact no thinking is just being aware,
Awareness itself,
So the first part,
Just being quiet,
Is just being aware,
So sitting awareness of your breath,
And breathing in,
And breathing out,
Breathing in calmness,
Breathing out relax,
Calm and relax.
If you notice your mind wandering into the story,
Or thinking about too much,
Just a smile,
And thank it for the thought,
Thank it for the story,
And just remind it that we're sitting here breathing,
And we're just being quiet for the moment.
It's not a battle to keep the mind quiet,
It's not some kind of fight going on within,
It's just a gentle invite to just be sitting here aware of our breath.
And now that we're feeling like the whole world's got a little quieter,
The universe within has just gone down a few notches on the loudness scale,
We move on to the next step,
And the next step is to be still.
So we've gone quiet and now we're going to be still,
And what that means is we're just going to allow the muscles to relax,
Allow the body to relax into this moment,
And we do that by starting with the face muscles and the eyes,
Just allowing them to relax as they go.
And relaxing the muscles is an invite,
It's not something you actually do.
Just like the out breath,
You don't actually breathe out,
You just allow the air to leave your body and you relax the muscles around your chest,
And it naturally just happens.
And the same we do with the muscles,
We just naturally let them relax.
They know how to do it,
You don't have to do it for them.
So just invite your face muscles and your eyes,
Invite your cheeks and your mouth,
Just invite them to relax on the out breath.
And each out breath they can relax slightly more.
And then move down through your body from your shoulders down to your elbows and your hands,
Out through your fingers.
Allow your chest and your torso down to your bum and your legs,
Allowing them to relax in this moment.
Remember relaxing is just to do nothing.
You're giving your muscles permission to not be on alert for the moment,
They're just to be there and do nothing.
As each out breath relaxes a little more and we become quiet and we become even more still.
And the stillness is when the outside world and the inside world are completely even pressure.
One's not fighting the other,
There's nothing going on inside that's causing any kind of tension.
Just all completely relaxed in this moment.
And remember if your mind wanders just smile and come back to the stage that we're at.
And now if we move to the next stage.
The next stage is to be open.
And on this meditation we'll choose sound to be open with.
And you can use the sound of my voice,
You can use any sound around you,
Perhaps you can hear a fan going or an air conditioner,
Maybe the wind outside or the rain,
Maybe you've got music in the background to this meditation.
It really doesn't matter and it's to open and include everything.
Imagine your ears are just like a mic,
Where a mic hears everything but doesn't have any judgement.
It just takes the sound and passes it along to the mind.
Just bring your awareness to any sound.
My words are coming and going.
What about the sound between my words?
What about the sound far away outside of where you're sat?
What about sounds coming from within your body?
Just being aware of all the sounds and when you hear a new one move on to that one.
There's nothing you need to do with the sounds.
There's nothing you need to do with my voice or any other sounds you can hear.
You're just being completely open,
No judging,
No giving a label to it.
And now if we move on to the final stage and that's to be curious.
So we've got the sounds coming in and we've got all the different things that's happening within our bodies and around us.
To be curious is to,
What it's like to see it for the very first time.
You know,
Just like a four or five year old looks at something for the first time and they look back at you and go,
Wow did you see that?
It's like we're for the sound of meditation now it's like,
Can you hear that?
Whoa,
Never heard that before.
So imagine every sound and every word I say and any sounds that are coming in,
It's the very first time you've heard it.
Where is it coming from?
How is that happening?
What do I do with the sound?
Do my ears know what they're hearing?
Is it a new sound if I say the same word three times?
If you can hear anything that is like a wind or some kind of fan or something,
Is it a new sound every moment or is it the same sound?
You hear the sound in your ears,
Is it in your head or is it in your whole body?
Can you hear more than one sound at a time?
When we play with the openness of just being,
Just hearing,
We end up being completely mindful of this moment,
Mindful of all the sounds.
We're honoring the truth of this moment and what is actually happening and we're no longer pushed around by different sounds,
We're no longer pushed around by what is arising and we have this pleasant control over our response to whatever is happening externally and internally.
And from this deeper wisdom,
Insight grows and a wisdom of being able to really take control of your life as it expands from sound to emotions to thoughts to sensations.
We can use all of our senses to really open ourselves up and really become that wise person that is able to be present with whatever is here and be able to respond in a skillful wise way and that's where the true insights and inner peace occur.
So in a moment we're going to come back from five and we'll come back to the present room.
So five,
Four,
Open your eyes gently,
Look around,
Three,
Shake out your arms,
Two,
Wiggle your body a little bit and take a deep breath and a little more energy.
And over the coming weeks I'm going to record more meditations that instead of focusing on sound they'll focus on emotions,
They'll focus on thoughts and they'll also focus on different aspects of the openness and really it builds a wonderful picture of how we can really be wise and skillful and loving and compassionate to the world without this anxiety and frustration of trying to change it.
We end up suffering less.
So thank you and wishing you an amazing day.
Namaste.
