Dear friends,
Whoever you are,
Wherever you are,
And wherever you are on your journey of life,
You are welcome to this period of reflection and relaxation.
For the next little while you and I are going to just let things be,
Or as the song says,
Let the world turn without us.
Make sure you're comfortable in whatever position suits yourself,
Hopefully in some space that you have made your own,
A place for meditation and quiet reflection.
If you don't have such a corner,
See if you can set one up soon.
Some people when meditating keep their eyes open.
Some people find it more relaxing to close their eyes.
Whatever you wish,
Whatever suits you,
It's just fine.
We don't usually breathe fully and you would often wonder how the bottom half of our lungs ever gets enough oxygen to keep working.
So now take a deep breath in,
Hold it for whatever time seems comfortable,
And then slowly breathe out.
Repeat this a number of times in your own time and then let your breath return to normal.
So we'll pause to allow you to do that for a few moments.
Now relax,
Just let things be.
We're not trying to blank our minds,
We are just paying quiet attention to what is happening.
We are not getting involved in ideas as they come,
We're not going off on a tangent.
Just notice the idea if it comes and think I'll deal with you later.
For now this is taking it easy time.
Let's give ourselves a little time to experience this.
Welcome back.
Now let's carry out a quick check on our bodies.
Flexing in turn our toes,
Then our feet,
Our calves,
Thighs,
Pulling in the abdomen,
Tightening the chest,
Flexing the upper arms,
The forearms,
Then the hands,
Fingers,
Tightening our neck,
Our face,
Our eyes,
Tightening everything up.
Notice all the wonderful parts of our body,
The wonderful working parts of this body of ours.
Sometimes all the parts are not working as they should or as we'd like them to be.
If that's the case,
Still be grateful for the parts that do work.
Let's try it again,
Tightening up each part of our body and then relaxing.
Just becoming aware of our bodies working away day and night and what a great gift it is to be alive.
This next period of quiet is where we just pay attention to the sounds around us.
Near sounds,
Far sounds.
We're just paying attention to what's happening in the sound world and again if ideas come,
They very often do,
Just notice the idea.
Tell it you'll deal with it later.
Don't get involved because just for now we are just relaxing here and we're taking in the wonderful world of sound.
Welcome back again.
As we repeat these exercises it's important to be easy on ourselves.
Training the mind has been described as being like training a puppy.
You ask it to sit,
It sits for one second maybe,
Then it runs away.
No use hitting or shouting at the puppy.
That won't work.
You just gently and calmly ask it again and again to sit and again and again to sit.
Then someday it will sit easily and we think the training is done.
Yippee we say.
But the next day the puppy runs away when we tell it to sit down.
We are just like that but don't worry about it at all.
Observing this tendency tells us a lot about how un-concentrated we can be.
Meditation is a training in concentration and present moment awareness.
The mind is like a monkey hopping around from thought to thought,
Image to image.
Rarely do more than a few seconds go by in which the mind can remain single-pointed,
Empty.
So says Dan Shapiro.
But as we near the end of this meditation just consider the next 24 hours that lie ahead.
What you might face in the next 24 hours.
Who you might meet and make a resolution to face that 24 hours in a mindful caring way.
In a way that will circulate a little kindness and help make the world a better place.
So in conclusion today may your life be a blessing on the people you meet and when your friends and acquaintances count their blessings may they count you twice for all your goodness.
Namaste.
You
