Day 31 Morning Meditation - The Cracked Mug

Please note: These are unedited recordings from live sessions held each weekday morning online. Please keep in mind the context when listening.

During this session, there is a 4 to 5-minute teaching followed by a spacious guided meditation. The meditations are spacious intentionally so that you can feel into your own experience rather than me talking through the whole 20 minutes.

Transcript

Hello guys, Good morning, Good afternoon, Good evening. So I'm going to read a little something and then I'm going to have a kind of stillness meditation where we, It's a mountain meditation to begin with which enables us to get into some stillness and to, Because we need stillness if we are to appreciate the preciousness of life of each moment and we can't do that whilst we're fascinated with our thinking or fixated on thinking. So I'm just going to read this. The death of a loved one changes our lives forever. Even the deaths of those we don't know, Such as the thousands who die in natural disasters, Alters the way we think. Death is the fact of life and when understood it teaches us how to care. Many years ago in Thailand my teacher Ajahn Chah raised his ceramic mug. See this he told us, It has a crack in it. I looked closely at the mug but could see no crack. The crack is invisible now, Ajahn Chah continued, But it's there. One day someone will drop this mug and the crack will appear and split my mug apart. That is its destiny. But if my mug were made out of plastic, Explained Ajahn Chah, Then it would have no such destiny and no invisible crack. You could drop it, Knock it or even kick it and it would not break. You could be heedless because it was unbreakable, But because my mug is fragile, For that reason you must care for it. In the same way Ajahn Chah began to emphasise, Your body has a crack in it. The crack is invisible right now, But it's there, It's called your future death. One day there will be an accident, Disease or old age, Then the crack will appear and you will die. That is your destiny. If your life lasted forever, Ajahn Chah concluded, If your life were unbreakable like a plastic mug, Then you could be heedless. So it is precisely because our lives are fragile that we must care for it. And understanding that relationships are also fragile, Like a ceramic mug, Is why we must care for each other. Comprehending that happiness has a crack in it, Teaches us never to take joy for granted. Realising that our lives will one day break apart, Makes us see that each moment is absolutely precious. So I think it's a really interesting way of, Because what we're doing is a tuning into reality, Just tuning into how life actually is. And that's where the joy is, That's where the peace is, That's where the appreciation is of this preciousness. It's not in all the stories and the interpretations of life. Life should be, He should be, She should be, I should be. It's a complete and utter waste of time. You know, And if we pay attention to each little bit, See that each breath has a beginning and an ending, Each sound, And that's how the appreciation, More and more, Permeates our life. You can't just will it into being. You know, It's something we don't want to think about, It's our own demise, But that's what brings that appreciation of the preciousness. We think we're like a plastic mug then, We'll just go around. Okay, So we're going to guide us through a short amount of meditation just to help us be still. It's best to close your eyes for this one normally. So, Just bring to mind a big beautiful mountain, Or have a sense of a mountain, And just sitting like a mountain. A mountain, The most obvious quality is maybe the stillness, The stillness of a mountain. Sense that stillness. A mountain is present, Just here. Can you sense your own presence? Sensing the stillness, Attuning into that, Sensing the presence, Just this nowness, This here-ness of a mountain, It's not lost in future or past, Just sitting like a mountain. A mountain just accepts everything, Storms, Sunshine, Avalanches, Never complains, Just here, In all its glory, Sitting like a mountain, Sensing the stillness, The silence, Don't think about it. And now tuning into each little moment, Using the senses, The hearing, Don't force anything, Relax. How about the breath? There's a beginning, A middle and an end, Just tune into this, Into those qualities, Those appearances, Every breath comes to an end, And then, Now can you shift your attention just to this aliveness, This is what we miss. Each moment, Each moment brings a different flavor of experience, Just making sure that you are relaxed, You're not tense, Never be tense. And when you are, Just take a deep breath and relax. Nature has just been nature, It's not tense. Okay, You can open your eyes if they're still closed, Have a little wiggle, Something, And that's it. See you tomorrow guys.