Let's find our posture and settle in.
Allow the entire system to settle down.
Feel the breath in the body.
Feel all of our sensations.
The body is always in the present.
And just tune in.
For this practice,
I invite you to drop any previous framing or reference.
Everything that we notice that arises.
Simply approach it with beginner's mind.
The mind of a child that's not yet built an entire structure around how they view and perceive the whole world.
Just take that basic joy,
Curiosity,
And make that alive in each moment.
Open yourself up to possibilities.
We're not here to seek,
To confirm,
Or deny.
We're here to just bear witness to whatever it is that shows up.
Now keeping attention open and wide.
Become aware of whatever is showing up in the entire sense field.
All the sensations inside and outside the body.
Smell,
Taste,
Sight,
Hearing,
Touch,
And notice the activities of the mind as a sense as well.
Notice how they're just all ways of contacting the world,
Both inside and outside of us.
You might just begin to notice how blurry the line is between inner and outer.
Now just notice your own reactions to whatever shows up.
If we stay open,
Spacious.
Simply experience all the phenomena that shows up.
And if some kind of judgment or assessment does show up,
Just notice it.
Tiny little reactions,
Ripples on a still pond.
Sometimes it's not a tiny little ripple,
And it gets a little bigger.
We notice that we want more of it.
Or we want it to go away.
Just notice that leaning.
Take an interest in it.
And if nothing like that shows up,
That's fine.
Continue sitting,
Notice whatever arises.
It's not always about diagnosing some issue,
Just noticing the sequence of events.
Today we're noticing that when a story does come up,
Just see it as that,
A story.
Notice how the stories we tell about ourselves,
Others,
And the world are just as impermanent as the sensations and feelings that show up.
Even if you know the story,
You've said it before,
Perhaps a thousand times.
Just look at it with curiosity.
Huh,
Why is that coming up now?
Allow it to play itself out and let it go.
Notice that stories enter with a certain energy.
They swirl around for a bit and then they go away.
Just notice that intangibility.
As stories show up.
Just regard them with curiosity.
How is this serving me?
Or,
How did this used to serve me?
How much am I simply repeating it?
Stories can be useful.
But oftentimes it seems that we hold on to them after they've outlived their usefulness.
Some stories that served us when we were 10,
15,
20.
What are the stories we're still holding onto that just don't make sense anymore?
Why do we keep repeating them?
Are they still helping?
Or are they holding us back?
Notice how flimsy these stories we tell about ourselves really are.
No matter how true they might be in one way,
They're only ever partially true.
Just notice how partial they are.
There's so much more to you,
To your life,
Than these narrow,
Partial stories.
There's a vision of you,
This perfect idealized version you think you're supposed to be.
That person is unattainable.
They don't exist and they never will.
How much effort do we put forth trying to be an idealized version of ourselves?
And how liberating is it to just set it down.
No cell flagellation required.
Just set it down Isn't it so nice to take a break from trying to be that?
So if you're noticing that the stories are constantly shifting and changing,
And you are not their stories.
Who are you?
Not who were you in the past,
Not who do you think you're going to be in the future,
But who are you now?
It's fun to play with that question.
Who am I without the story?
What does it feel like to just let all the stories go?
How much heaviness is there to drop?
And as we begin to end our practice for the day,
Just return to open awareness.
With curiosity,
Mindfulness,
Openness,
Beginner's mind.
Just see what it's like to live without all these stories.
And retired efforts.
Unless we notice more of this.
Perhaps we just learn that we don't have to hold on to our stories quite so tightly.
Maybe the story needs to get trashed.
Maybe it needs to get kept for a while.
Maybe it needs to get modified.
Or we just hold on to it a little bit more loosely because we know that it's going to change anyway.
That's what our practice really shows us,
Is that it's all going to change.
So there's never really a reason to hold on to anything very tightly.
Or just leave with a light touch.
Just come back to awareness over and over again.
Let's end today with one more mindful breath,
Breathing in.
And out.
As always,
Thank you for joining me and thank you for your practice.
