Please find a comfortable and stable posture for meditation.
You can be seated or lying down.
The most important thing is that you have a stable base beneath you,
Supporting you in ways that allow you to let go of all unnecessary tension.
Once you arrive in your posture,
Begin to bring awareness to the natural movement of the breath.
Simply observe the natural movement of the breath in each moment as it is.
As you continue following the flow of the breath,
Begin abdominal breathing,
With each inhalation allowing the abdomen to gently expand,
And with each exhalation allowing the abdomen to gently contract,
Allowing the shoulders and chest to remain relaxed and still.
Use each exhalation to release any unnecessary tension or holding within the physical body.
Now,
Bring to mind someone that you love.
And as you bring that person into your awareness,
Feel that love you have for them.
Experience the felt sense of love within your body.
See this being in their wholeness,
Their struggles,
Their fears,
Their beauty and gifts.
Notice how you love them in their entirety,
In their complexity,
In their wholeness.
Feel that experience of love growing within you.
Notice how it softens you,
The more you allow that love to manifest.
Now,
Moving at your own pace,
Begin to bring more people,
More beings into your awareness.
Those that you love,
Those that might be friends,
Those that you might have more of a passing acquaintance with,
Colleagues and coworkers,
People you have known throughout your life.
And allow this felt experience of love to continue to expand,
Enveloping all of them,
Seeing all of them as complex,
Multidimensional beings that have hopes and dreams that we may not know of,
And struggles and traumas we might not know of.
Allow this love to expand so you accept them completely as they are.
Notice that as you extend this love and accept others as they are,
One of the qualities of love is forgiveness.
It becomes easier to forgive others for their unskillful actions and moments,
And to realize that this is not an essential aspect of who they are,
But a manifestation of their underlying struggles and fear.
Now continue to extend this feeling of love to enclose those with whom you have had difficulty.
And allow this love to extend and grow,
Allowing you to see them in their wholeness,
In their complexity,
Their difficulties and struggles,
And their unique beauty.
Feel how this love expands,
How you can feel it growing,
Permeating your entire physical being and the atmosphere around you.
Now bring to mind the earth as a whole.
Allow this love to expand to encompass the entire earth and all of its inhabitants,
All of the humans,
All of the animals,
All of the trees and plants,
All of the rivers and lakes and oceans and mountains.
See the earth as one whole.
See it in its complexity,
Its diversity,
Its challenges and struggles,
Its beauty and gifts.
Now bring this love,
This gift of love to yourself.
Experience yourself in your wholeness and complexity,
Your difficulties and fears and challenges and pain,
And your beauty,
Your gifts,
All of the things that you bring into this world.
Hold yourself in your wholeness with this love,
Forgiving yourself for the unskillful moments,
Seeing how they are not who you are in your essence,
But merely a momentary manifestation of an underlying fear or defense mechanism.
Return to the natural movement of the breath,
Noticing if it has shifted since the beginning of the practice.
Experience the felt sense of the body as a whole,
The solidity beneath you,
Supporting you and holding you up.
Become aware of the air around you in which you are immersed like a fish in water.
When you are ready,
Maintain an awareness and grounding in this love as you gently and slowly begin to open your eyes,
Taking in the world around you with a soft gaze.
We can choose to focus on the light and the love within us,
And in so doing,
That will grow stronger and it will clear away all darkness.
As we move towards embracing ourselves in our wholeness,
The ego naturally softens and the light grows.
So be gentle with yourselves.
Have compassion and allow yourself to surrender to the light.
Thank you all for joining me today.
