So,
I'd like to invite everyone to close their eyes for a few moments to maximize and magnify the gift of positive emotion that we are able to share with the loved ones of ours who have passed away.
So,
If you'd like to make yourself comfortable for some meditation practice now,
Closing your eyes very gently and breathing deeply to yourself to relax and to slow down,
Bringing your body and mind back to a place of quietness within yourself.
Meditation practice is mostly about working with our mind,
For our mind to relax and recover focus,
But we need to make sure our body is relaxed first of all.
So initially,
We scan down through the whole of our body,
Relaxing each and every muscle as we go,
Starting at the top of our head,
Relaxing all the muscles of our forehead,
Relaxing our eyebrows and our eyelids,
Even the way we close our eyes should be as light and gentle as possible,
Relaxing our jaw and letting our shoulders drop to their natural height,
Relaxing both arms,
Forearms,
And then our hands and fingers.
We can relax the whole of our torso,
Chest,
Trunk,
And the muscles across our core before relaxing both legs all the way down to our feet and our toes until the whole of our body feels as if it has become completely relaxed,
Almost as if it has melted away into the atmosphere around us so that we can forget about our body for now and turn our attention inward to our mental state.
Relaxing our state of mind relates to that feeling inside our body,
The sense of warmth and well-being within.
Relaxing the mind is mostly about letting go,
Especially as we take this opportunity to think about the loved ones who we've lost.
It becomes hauntingly obvious how painful it can be if we are unable to let go of all the unreliable things in this present life of ours.
If we are unable to let go,
Sometimes our mind can be overcome by grief or a sense of loss.
It can make living our lives start to feel like a chore or an endless struggle to pursue elusive feelings of happiness.
We can try to distract ourselves with new experiences,
But what happens when the excitement wears off?
We end up dependent on those external things for our happiness and to some extent become trapped by them.
Sometimes we never entirely recover from the loss of a loved one,
And that's okay.
The nature of grieving is we gradually learn to adapt to the gap that person or loved one has left behind in our life,
So we don't let our mind wander to thoughts of the past or thoughts of the future,
But we keep our mind firmly in the present moment.
We keep our mind on the task in hand of relaxing the mind,
Of training and cultivating the mind in meditation for which we've set aside these precious few moments,
And we fill our mind if we can with thoughts of happiness and joy.
If those feelings don't come naturally to us,
We might cast our mind back to a time in our life when we did feel truly happy,
Copying and pasting those emotions as much as possible into the present moment.
We make our mind spacious,
Radiant,
Light and refreshed,
Spacious like the ocean,
Radiant like the morning sun,
Light as a feather,
And refreshed like a flower bud in the early morning dew.
So we fill our mind with happiness and joy,
As if those tiny particles of happiness and joy completely filled our mind,
Leaving no space within our mind for any other sort of thought.
And to make space for the maximum positivity of mind for today,
We can imagine that inside ourselves is just an empty space,
Without any organs or tissues,
Without any muscles or bones.
Inside the empty space of our body we can imagine brightness,
Perhaps we can even imagine the picture of the loved one who we've lost,
Imagining that picture within the brightness inside of ourselves.
The image inside us may not be very clear,
After all it's seen with the mind's eye rather than our physical eyesight,
Or we might imagine their names or their faces.
If our mind wanders away onto other things,
Each time we realize,
We just bring our awareness back again.
If the picture disappears,
We can just think of a new one,
But we sustain that inner object by our feeling or by our mind's eye,
As continuously as we can,
For as long as we can.
If thoughts come up in our mind,
We do our best to ignore them,
To keep our mind clear of thought,
But if there are too many thoughts in the mind for us to focus continuously on our inner brightness,
Then we might make use of the traditional mantra,
Hearing the sound of the words Samma Arahang,
Samma Arahang,
Samma Arahang,
Just to keep our thoughts at bay.
Hearing the sound of the words Samma Arahang,
For as long as we need to quieten down the thoughts in our mind,
To complete silence and serenity within ourselves,
And we continue to cultivate the focus of our mind in this way,
Lightly and gently for a few more moments now in silence.
If we find our mind wanders away,
Each time we realize,
We bring it gently back again to the meditation object at our center like before.
If the inner object disappears,
We can conjure up a new one.
If it changes,
Then we follow it in its new form.
And little by little our meditation will bring with it an underlying sense of peace,
A feeling of fulfillment or unshakable contentment,
No matter what emotion might be in play.
The wiggle room meditation restores to our mind is not a quality dependent on superficial emotions.
It can be experienced just as clearly in periods of sadness or anger as it can in times of excitement and laughter.
Essentially it's being okay with whatever thought you're experiencing or emotions you're feeling.
That's why meditation feels so good,
Often even from the very first time we practice.
The sense of contentment arising from meditation may not lead to emotional fireworks,
But rather it leaves you with a sense of having touched upon that underlying sense of a place in life where you just know that everything's going to be okay,
And the consequences of this can be life-changing.
The time we spend meditating can change the way we feel about stress and the triggers in our lives,
Like the absence of a loved one.
It may not make the situation less stressful,
But it changes the way we respond to those stresses.
Although we might experience a great sense of loss and sadness at times,
We'll be able to treat it differently,
Almost like engaging with a place beneath those thoughts and feelings,
Where there is a sense of peace,
Of stillness and of calm.
And having learned to access these deeper emotions through meditation,
We find it is an aptitude that can never be taken away from us again.
That no matter what else happens in our life,
We'll always have this place within ourselves to which we can return.
And any changes we hope for in our life will become that much more attainable.
So we continue in this way,
Just for a few more moments in silence,
Until we come to time for some loving-kindness meditation and also dedication of merit for those loved ones who have passed away.
The way meditation can make a positive difference when coping with loss is to turn negative emotions around into something more positive.
Out of a brutal sense of loss which we might feel,
Or even anger at someone's passing,
We allow our feelings to morph perhaps into gratitude for the time we had the privilege to share,
With a friendliness towards the loved ones who are no longer with us.
Instead of letting grief paralyze us,
We can slowly push back by starting to cultivate positive things in our lives in honor of the memory of those loved ones,
Entertaining in our mind the possibility that the loved ones who we've lost have not disappeared but are simply in a different place,
But a place that is still within the reach of the positive energy that we are cultivating in their absence,
As if they are able to pay witness from afar to the good things we're doing and be glad for us,
Absorbing some part of that positive energy for themselves.
So we allow the positive energy to magnify and multiply from our center,
Emanating in ever-widening circles from our center.
We continue to cultivate our merits in this way for particular loved ones of ours who have passed away,
And for all beings everywhere,
With good wishes for all of them and the wish that they can pick up on all the positive energy we are sharing today for the last few moments of our meditation together in silence.
