The Riverbank Meditation.
First of all,
Let's visualise ourselves sitting at the top of a riverbank on a warm summer's day.
You can feel the sun shining down and caressing your skin with its warmth and light.
You can smell the grass around you,
The scent of flowers.
You can hear the sound of children playing in the distance,
Birds singing,
The wind rustling through the trees.
And below you,
You can see the river flowing by with the sun shining down on its waters,
Breaking it into fragments of light.
You can see the foaming of the currents.
You can see the bubbles of water.
You watch the stream flowing by in a state of calm alertness,
Feeling very still and very rooted to the ground as you watch the river flow by.
And every so often a boat flows by on the river,
A rowing boat with two or three people in it every couple of minutes or so,
And you just watch the boat pass by on the surface of the river in your state of calm alertness.
And let's make an association here between the stream of thoughts that flows through your mind and the river that you're watching.
Let's remain in that state of calm alertness,
Rooted to our true selves,
And just watch the stream of thought pass by,
Knowing that we are not our thoughts,
That our thoughts are just a process that doesn't necessarily have anything to do with us.
And as long as we remain in alertness,
Rooted to our true selves,
Then we don't have to be affected by this process.
We can just watch the thoughts pass by,
Acknowledge them,
And watch them fade away,
Knowing that we are not our thoughts.
And also with emotions.
Emotions are like boats on the river.
They're heavier and more solid.
But we can also just remain in a state of calm alertness and watch emotions arise,
Watch them manifest themselves and allow them to fade away without being immersed in them,
Without being affected by them.
So now let's just remain in stillness,
And if any thoughts pass by,
If any feelings arise in your body,
If any emotions begin to form,
Just watch them arise and watch them pass by,
As if you're sitting on the riverbank watching the river flow by.
And when we begin to observe our thoughts,
Knowing that we are not our thoughts,
Knowing that thoughts are just an automatic process,
Then we can feel a space within us,
The space between us and our thoughts.
We can feel the harmony and stillness which pervades that space.
So now just for a few moments,
Let's rest within that harmonious spaciousness between us and our thoughts.
And now,
We're returning our attention to the sounds inside this room.
Be aware of your body sitting on this chair,
Your feet on the ground.
And as we return to our normal consciousness and our normal lives,
Let's remember that whenever our minds become turbulent,
Whenever we become caught up in our thoughts and emotions,
Remember that we can always return to that place on the riverbank,
That place of alert stillness,
Where we're rooted in our true nature.
We can always return to that place and just watch the thoughts pass by without being affected by them,
Without being immersed in them.
