This moment right now is one of my favorite phases of meditation.
You have an intention to practice for a little bit of time here.
Maybe you're sitting,
Maybe you're lying down,
Standing,
Walking.
Whatever you're doing,
Whatever the shape,
The posture of the body,
You can take these first few moments to do nothing,
Or as close to nothing as you can tolerate.
Just let the body return to its natural state.
You're not trying to make something happen.
You can't make something happen,
Not anything that's ultimately important anyway.
You're making way for something,
For stillness,
For openness,
For grace.
Settle in.
Stay with it.
Particularly when you're in stillness,
You'll start to detect layers of tension starting to melt.
Now that doesn't mean you'll be tension-free necessarily,
But hardened layers of the body will tend to soften.
Things that you didn't think could let go will just let go of themselves,
Of their own accord.
It's really normal to find yourself wanting to get somewhere in this phase.
When you notice that wanting to get somewhere,
You can soften even that,
Allow yourself to get nowhere,
To return to what Merton called the Palace of Nowhere.
Excellent.
The body can continue to settle,
To unwind,
But in the meantime we're going to shift our attention.
I want to invite you now to put the mind in the heart.
By that I mean to just find your awareness on the inside of the physical heart.
If that's too literal for you,
You can find awareness on the inside of sensation,
Centered in the chest.
The thinking mind so busily works out what's happening moment to moment in life,
What's going to happen,
What just happened.
It goes on processing all day and into the night,
Asking what it means.
But when we put the mind in the heart,
We're entering into a different kind of knowing,
A different kind of meaning.
Imagine that your primary way of knowing anything came through the intelligence of the heart.
Just imagine there are thoughts going on in the mind,
That all-too-familiar thinking process that we're so oriented to normally in daily life.
Just imagine for a moment that that thinking process is there,
But it's not all that interesting.
It has things to say,
But they're not all that important.
What is important is what you know in and through the heart.
If you want to know anything that's worth knowing,
Imagine that this is how it is known,
The instrument,
The organ through which it is known.
Feel the warm,
Resonant,
Knowing intelligence of the seat of knowing.
Not paying attention to the heart,
Paying attention from the heart,
As the heart.
And of course,
Because we've spent a lifetime acting as though the thoughts of the mind are the most important data available to us in sensory experience,
When we engage in this imaginative,
Contemplative practice,
Prioritizing the knowing of the heart before everything,
Of course we'll get pulled back into the thinking mind.
Of course we'll get captured by the contents of the mind.
Notice this.
Smile.
Relax.
Sinking back into the heart,
Falling behind the display of the mind,
Thoughts and images,
Back into the cave of the heart where this dark,
Silky knowing resides,
Emanates from,
From the seat of the heart.
Perception changes.
Notice,
When you pay close attention,
That moment-to-moment experience presents itself as a kind of vibratory resonance,
From sensations,
The body buzzing,
Tingling,
To the rising and passing of sound,
To kaleidoscopic imagery,
Appearing,
Disappearing rapidly through the mind's eye.
Any aspect of sensory experience that you're aware of is coming and going,
Coming and going,
And you're aware of this from the seat of the heart,
Open awareness,
Moment-to-moment,
Rising,
Passing,
Coming,
Going.
We have a strong habit as human beings of attending to what's arising right now,
What's happening,
What new thought,
What new sound,
What new sensation.
Our attention is naturally captivated by what's new.
Always captivated by what's new,
We fail to appreciate what's gone,
What's just passed.
On a macroscopic scale,
The year has passed,
We're in a new year.
But more microscopically,
The moment has just passed,
And again has just passed,
And again has just passed.
And I want you to really appreciate this passing,
This vanishing,
The gone.
See if you can start to taste this gone that leaves in its wake a majestic openness that allows for now to arrive,
And now to arise.
And now,
When we really appreciate the vanishing,
The what-just-past,
We flood our sensory circuits with a nothingness that softens us,
Unwinds the body,
Softens the hardened patterns of the mind,
Leaves us more open,
More receptive to what's now,
What's new.
Every single moment,
We celebrate the new year,
We let go of the old year,
But we don't have to wait an entire year to let go.
Every single moment is a letting go,
Is a new year,
Is a good morning,
The dawn of a new day.
Every single moment.
You don't have to produce anything new.
Newness is all about us,
The now pregnant with possibility,
Heaving forth,
Taking life,
Taking on new life,
New form.
Let yourself taste the vanishing.
Rest in the vibrant vacuity of what has just passed,
What is gone,
And not even a hair's breadth away,
Is the fullness of what's now,
What's birthed,
A new world,
A new life,
A new self.
Feel yourself made new as every passing moment is already gone.
The greater the death,
The greater the birth.
The more fully you can experience the gone,
What's just passed,
The more deeply you can open up your whole being to what's now,
And the shape you give the now,
Your response to the now,
Is the gift of your unique life on this planet,
In this world.
