So,
If you are ready,
Start by closing your eyes very gently.
Close your eyes in much the same way you might close your eyes to go to sleep.
Find a comfortable sitting position for yourself.
You can sit on the floor with the support of a cushion or a pillow.
Or you can sit on a chair or on a meditation mat.
Wherever your feeling tells you that you'll meditate best.
Notice the flow of your in-breath as it follows down into your lungs and down to the centre of your diaphragm.
And let the sense of relaxation expand from within you as if you are inundated by a tide of relaxation.
The first thing we do is what's known as a body scan.
Which means scanning down to the whole of the body,
Relaxing each and every muscle as we go.
We start at our forehead.
Relaxing our eyebrows and our eyelids.
And even the way we close our eyes is quite important because it sets the scene for the whole of the meditation ahead.
Sometimes it's as if we haven't completely closed our eyes,
It's as if our upper and lower eyelashes are just touching gently together.
We let the muscles of our face become soft.
Especially relaxing our jaw,
Taking care that we're not clenching our teeth together.
And we relax our shoulders,
Letting them drop to their natural height.
Relax both arms,
Forearms and our hands and fingers as they rest gently in our lap.
Leaning on down we relax all the muscles of our torso,
Chest,
Trunk,
Across our belly,
Both legs,
All the way down to our feet and our toes.
Until eventually the whole of our body feels as if it becomes light in weight or has disappeared into the atmosphere around us,
So that we have no more worries about our body anymore.
We turn our attention inward,
This time to spend a few moments relaxing the mind,
Letting go of any worries or concerns on our mind,
Not letting our mind drift to regrets in our past or plans for the future,
Even resolutions.
We're keeping our mind in the present moment.
And we conjure up in our mind a sense of happiness and joy,
As if happiness and joy were tiny particles completely filling the body and mind.
Where we imagine our body has been transformed into a sort of hollow cavity or transparent shell with nothing on the inside.
For some of you have been meditating longer,
It may be as if the body has disappeared completely,
And is just like inhabiting some great empty space of your own creation.
And for those of you who are new to meditation,
You might like to recall the image of a bright full moon,
Or a shining sun or a star down at the centre of your body,
As if you were breathing it down slowly until it comes to rest at the deepest point of your breath,
Or as if you were gently swallowing that bright object down until it reaches the pit of your stomach.
Just imagine it and it's already there,
It doesn't matter if it's clear or well focused,
Even if it's vague we can work with that,
Even if it's a feeling we can also work with a feeling.
It might be a moon shaped object with a tiny diamond sparkling at its centre,
Which may give a slightly different feeling.
And you can tell by yourself,
Observing the feeling and the happiness derived from that inner object,
With or without the bright diamond.
If you're a frequent meditator,
It won't take you long to reconnect with that inner light.
That inner light,
Inner brightness pervades the whole body.
The origin of the bright light is always at the centre of the body,
The light of serenity.
This time we will take this knowledge a little bit further,
Allow the diamond light to shine on through,
Like a perpetual flame of peace,
Shining through the whole body of ours.
And we relax further still,
Deeper into contentment,
Into the luminescence on the inside of us.
If you're a regular meditator and you've reached a point where you can reconnect with the light at any time you want,
All you need to do is make a feather light touch at your centre to reconnect with the light.
You'll find you can stay with the brightness inside any time you want.
And at this point there's no such thing as darkness when we close our eyes anymore.
It's as if we don't see the outside,
But inside is bright all the time.
A bright object you imagine at the centre is a real connection from the world outside to that serene world on the inside.
It's a connection which is beyond what we would logically expect.
Every time we connect through this point there's an overwhelming sense of contentment.
Sometimes the inner object can be bright,
Sometimes it's dim,
But don't force it to become bright or constrain the brightness that you already have.
Instead of trying to hem in the brightness,
Allow the object on the inside to be free to shine forth or give that inner feeling of wellbeing freedom to expand without limits.
The meditation experience will unfold itself in a way that keeps on deepening the path.
If you find yourself saying to yourself,
Oh that is it,
Remind yourself it's not always going to be like this.
Whatever needs attention in meditation will come if you make space.
