Beginning The New Year With Love

If we slow down and pause just for just a moment, we can reconnect with what's most important to us. Our deepest, most honest and pure intentions are always just below the surface, waiting to be rediscovered. In this guided meditation and talk, we identify intentions that align with who we really are and help to guide us throughout year.

Transcript

I thought we could start our meditation sessions day three with a dose of love.

Just to say love is a big word and I think for a lot of people it doesn't really land.

So I just encourage you to use whatever substitute works for you,

Whether it's kindness or it's ease,

Anything could evoke for you the sense of starting the new year with this deep aspiration,

This human aspiration for connection,

Care,

Whatever language works best for you.

I think just about all religious traditions have this notion of the year.

They mark the year usually on a different calendar with the same sense of being able to have a fresh start,

A fresh beginning,

A sense of some sort of openness or possibility for life to come in that year.

And I think it's a wonderful feeling.

At least for me,

I have a way of tumbling into the new year,

Particularly after a break and the emails pile up and there's so many things to do upon the return to the office.

So I thought it would be good to just reconnect today and start with this dose of love.

So we're gonna use the loving kindness practice,

Which we've done often together.

And I know for me,

Loving kindness,

I have a sense of forgetting and remembering with loving kindness.

I kind of forget that it's there or that it's available.

And then I remember or decide,

I'm just gonna send myself a few phrases.

And it's always like a homecoming of some way or this just remembering like,

Oh,

Right,

There's love.

Yeah,

Right.

Yeah,

There's kindness.

Yeah,

It's all there.

And that these practices just make it so accessible and easy maybe in the West,

When we think about meditation,

When we practice meditation,

There's often a lot of doing that's involved.

You know,

We wanna focus on following the breath or calming the mind or sometimes working with difficult emotions or feelings or maybe always kind of checking ourselves to see if we think like,

Are we getting it?

Are we not getting it?

And I think loving kindness has a great quality that it can cut through some of those things to just put us in this direct contact with the desire to be well,

To be happy,

To be at ease.

And the heart just naturally responds,

Yes,

Like that's it.

Why do I keep forgetting?

Like,

That's it.

There's a simplicity to it.

And some sense in which with these simple phrases,

You can evoke a feeling that it's already here.

It's not trying to wish something into existence that isn't there,

But it's almost like you ring a little bell and you just feel the resonance or the reverberations of the phrases.

For me,

And I think for many,

There often can be some resistance with loving kindness practice that you feel that you look inside and things are kind of messy in there.

Well,

Maybe I'm not really a good candidate for loving kindness or I'm not ready or I'm worthy of it.

And I think this can be a near universal feeling.

But as I say,

For me,

At least,

When I turn to the phrases,

There's a feeling like,

Even though I may not feel like I'm ready for love,

That love is ready for me,

That it's right there,

It's waiting.

Or as the Buddha said,

And I think I've quoted before,

You can search throughout the entire universe for someone who is more deserving of your love and affection than you are yourself.

And that person is not to be found anywhere.

You,

Yourself,

As much as anybody in the entire universe,

Deserve your love and affection.

And I think with experience in loving kindness practice,

These very simple desires to be well,

To be at ease,

To be happy,

They can grow and they can give you a sense of certainty that really,

This is what the heart is made for,

This is what we were all made for.

And partly because just using the phrases feels good.

What more proof do we need than that?

Reconnecting with what the heart was made for,

Sensing it's already here.

So let's give this a go.

And we can start as we often do,

Just by checking in with your posture,

Just seeing the way your body is right now,

Feet on the floor,

Your arms can rest in your lap or at your sides,

And make any micro adjustments that are needed to the posture to align,

Remain relaxed,

Eyes closed if you feel comfortable doing so or you can focus on a neutral place somewhere in the room and begin by arriving fully this moment,

The newness of this moment,

The simplicity of what's simply here right now without concern or whatever was happening up to this moment or might happen later.

And connecting with what's right here,

Coming home to the body,

Starting by smoothing out the brow to the area around the relaxed muscles there,

Bringing awareness into the jaw,

Ease and relaxation there that send a signal to the rest of the body to settle.

Shoulders,

Sensing handstand,

Letting them drop a little bit down from around the head and relax,

Moving the awareness to the heart center,

The area in the middle of your chest and seeing if you can allow that space to feel undefended that you're in a safe place.

You can open to whatever is here,

Moving the awareness down the shoulders to the arms and hands,

Feeling the aliveness there,

Any sensations,

Heat,

Tingling,

Whatever's there,

Just bringing the awareness,

Relaxing down the hips to feel the presence of the body in your chair,

Its weight,

Its groundedness,

Connecting through the feet to the floor,

Connection from the floor down through wherever you're living down to the earth and bowing to and honoring whatever you are knowing right now,

Whatever is in awareness.

Could be a sense of relaxation,

The opening of the sense doors,

Spaciousness,

Heart and mind,

Or it could be something that you're carrying right now,

Something that you're holding in this space.

Beginning this year together,

We'll extend kindness to whatever's here.

I'll offer phrases for you to silently direct to yourself and then pause to let each one sink in a little bit.

May I be happy,

May I be healthy,

May I live with ease.

We can repeat the same phrases silently again.

This time you could breathe in with each phrase.

May I be happy,

May I be healthy,

May I be at ease.

As you silently speak these phrases,

Great kindness and gentleness,

You can just sense that they are the natural intentions that we have for ourselves and reconnect us with this solace and this peace and this goodness that we all seek and that's available right now.

Free to adjust the phrases or repeat just one of them that most resonates for you.

May I be happy,

May I be healthy,

May I live with ease.

Extend these same wishes to this group that's gathered today.

And as you repeat the phrases again,

You might recall some of the faces or the names of those who are here today.

May you be happy,

May you be healthy,

And may you live with ease.

Can include yourself in this group and feel kindness that's being extended right now back to you by all those gathered here.

Now widening the focus to include all those inside your circle of friends and relations,

People you're closest to,

Pausing to extend to them,

Kindness as we begin the new year.

May you be happy,

May you be healthy,

May you live with ease.

You might call to mind their faces as you extend to them these well wishes.

And finally,

Extending out to all beings everywhere these same wishes that they may awaken,

Live in health and safety,

Perhaps scanning the world,

Particularly where there's violence or racism,

Any other form of oppression,

Poverty or disease,

And offering these wishes.

May you be happy,

May you be healthy,

May you live with ease.

Feel how the heart naturally opens interconnection of all beings everywhere.

We share these same deep desires.

Pause for a moment,

Just feel that bond,

Love for this deep structure of the world,

How naturally these desires flow between all beings everywhere,

Including with a feeling of gratitude for the chance to practice together,

To pause,

To center our hearts and our minds in this beautiful way.

Welcome this new year.

And when you're ready and you're on time,

You can slowly come back.

Arrive,

Or you can turn your camera on for a moment.

Greet everyone,

Wishing each other good rest of this week and weekend and a beautiful new year.