So you can begin by just getting comfortable,
Closing your eyes,
Taking a couple of full complete breaths,
Just filling up your lungs and fully exhaling,
Just letting go of anything you've been carrying today,
Anything you carry with you into this meditation.
Just releasing it and letting your whole being settle into a sense of relaxation.
Nothing to fix right now.
And we'll begin by making three simple commitments to ourselves for these few minutes.
The first is simply to be still,
To let your body really settle into stillness so that the body does not need to move every time the mind feels restless.
The mind can do its own thing,
But letting the body find some stillness.
And the second commitment is to bring attention to the breath,
Not trying to control it,
Just following the easy,
Relaxed movement of the breath all the way down into the lower belly,
Just riding that wave and letting your attention gather there in your breath,
Down in your lower belly.
And the third commitment is when the mind wanders off,
Just compassionately,
Non-judgmentally,
Bringing it back to the breath.
Thank you.
And now you can release your attention from your breath and simply focus on the words.
Relax and listen to the words the way you might listen to the breeze moving through your trees with great simplicity.
And seeing what the words stir in you.
So within all of our experience there's something we can call the known self or the surface self or the ego.
It's the self that we imagine that's created in the mind through the mind's inner dialogue.
Part of the mind that talks to itself about itself.
It may have a narrative like I'm good or I'm bad.
I'm right or I'm wrong.
I'm worthy or I'm unworthy.
The inner dialogue that creates this sense of self.
So in this meditation we're going to just gently slip underneath that monologue.
We're not fighting it or resisting it.
We're just gently descending beneath it.
To that quiet still place within.
So letting yourself become very still.
Very present.
And letting your awareness gently dip underneath that narrative,
Underneath the known self.
And noticing how that known self,
That idea of who you are is just a collection of thoughts.
And memories and ideas.
So we're resting now in the field of quiet beneath that.
Field of awareness in which that sense of self abides.
Understanding the awareness that is watching this moment.
The awareness that notices the self you imagine yourself to be.
Getting out of inner narratives into the field of awareness that underlies all of your experience.
Understanding that awareness in your body and all around you as a quiet presence.
This field of awareness casts no image,
Has no idea of itself.
But it's more intimately you than the known self is,
Than ideas of the self.
It's more intimately you than anything you can ever think about yourself.
Any self image that the mind projects.
It's the awareness of spaciousness itself.
And it has the quality of witnessing,
Watching.
Since it has no form,
You can't see it or picture it,
But you can be it.
You can rest in it.
This deep ground of your being is pure potentiality.
It's the substance that becomes everything in your experience.
You can get a taste of it by noticing the divine darkness deep within you,
That beautiful pregnant void that the thinking mind can't touch or imagine.
And wisdom traditions call this space the unborn.
Pure potentiality not yet manifested into form.
Science calls it the quantum field.
Wave not yet manifested as particle.
And you can be present to it.
Everything within you,
Every feeling and perception and experience has its energetic root in this divine ground.
This vast infinity of darkness.
All your experience rooted into this deep,
Mysterious ground within you.
It is beyond description yet vividly present,
Vividly here,
Vividly aware of itself.
It has no resistance,
No grasping,
No preference.
Now gently bringing your attention back to the breath.
Bring breath and body into this awareness.
And notice the seamless continuity from this well of deep silence and your physical form.
They are not separate from each other.
Your body,
Your physical existence is a manifestation of that ground.
Each breath breathes from that ground and each breath breathes into that ground.
And in that deepest ground of your being,
All parts of you are included.
Nothing is forsaken.
All is loved.
I'll be silent for a moment and just continue to picture breathing out of this divine ground and breathing into that divine ground.
That vast space of pure potentiality.
May all beings be safe and free and protected from inner and outer harm.
May they be happy and contented.
May they be healthy and whole to whatever degree possible.
May they experience ease of wellbeing.
May all beings be happy.
May all beings be at peace.
May all beings be free.
