Welcome,
Begin by finding a comfortable position.
Let your spine lengthen just a little,
Not stiff,
But alive,
And close your eyes now.
And for a moment,
Let yourself do absolutely nothing.
The world can wait,
And the breath can lead,
And you,
You can simply be here.
So,
Take a deep breath in through the nose,
And then exhale softly.
And again,
Inhale deeply,
And then exhale softly.
Notice that the breath happens on its own,
You don't have to control it,
You don't have to force it,
It breathes you,
Like the tide,
And like the wind,
Like the pulse of the universe moving through you.
And now,
Begin to notice the subtle spaces between your breaths.
The tiny pause at the top of the inhale,
The stillness before the exhale,
And the brief moment after breathing out,
Where nothing seems to move.
And that's where this meditation begins,
In the space before something happens,
Now let your attention rest there,
That space,
The quiet between movements.
It's not absence,
It's fullness.
It's the silence that gives sound its meaning.
It's the stillness that gives life its rhythm.
And now,
Allow your mind to drift through the sounds around you.
A faint hum of a fan,
A distant car,
The soft pulse of your own heartbeat.
Just listening,
Not labeling,
Just noticing the sound appears,
And then disappears.
Each sound rises,
Lingers,
And then dissolves,
Like a wave coming to shore,
And then retreats.
Returning to sea,
And between those waves is silence.
And that silence isn't nothing,
It's everything.
It's the sound before thought,
It's awareness itself,
The witness,
The quiet listener who's been here all along.
So,
Let's explore that deeper.
Imagine that you could slow time,
That every sound,
Every breath,
Every flicker of thought is separated by vast,
Spacious silence,
And you're floating in that space now,
The gap between one sound and the next,
Between one thought and another,
Between one breath and the next.
There's nothing to fix,
There's nothing to do.
Just to notice,
Before a thought arises,
There's awareness,
And before a word forms,
There's knowing,
And before the mind speaks,
There's you.
That gap,
That silence,
Is the essence of peace.
It's been here before you were born,
And it will remain when everything else fades.
And now,
Watch a thought arise,
Maybe a memory,
An image,
Or even a question.
And don't chase it,
Don't even push it away.
Just see it appear,
And then dissolve.
Notice that you didn't create the thought,
You witnessed it appear,
And then vanish into the same stillness that it came from.
That stillness,
Now that's home.
And now,
Notice what it feels like to be the witness,
No longer inside the storm of thoughts,
But sitting quietly above the clouds,
Watching the sky of mind shift and shimmer.
And you are not the noise,
You are the space the noise happens in.
You're not the waves,
You are the ocean they rise from.
You're not the voice in your head,
You're the silence before it speaks.
So let this realization settle,
Let it breathe through you.
And every time a thought comes,
Return to the gap that comes before it.
Every time a sound appears,
Return to the silence beneath it.
And every time the body moves,
Return to the awareness that witnesses movement.
This is the sound before thought,
The hum of pure being,
The vibration of stillness itself,
The original silence from which the universe was sung.
And now imagine that silence expanding,
Filling your entire body like light,
From your chest to your fingertips,
And from your spine to your crown.
And the quiet begins to hum.
It's not empty,
But alive.
A silence that vibrates,
A silence that listens,
A silence that is you.
So let it deepen now,
And let it melt every tension,
Every knot,
Every story you've been holding on to.
Let it dissolve into the quiet hum before a thought.
You may begin to notice that the world keeps moving,
But you are unmoved.
The thoughts still flicker,
But you're no longer inside them.
You're observing them as they appear,
Like ripples on a pond.
This is the practice of awareness,
Of resting as one who knows.
So now let's anchor it.
Say silently to yourself,
I am the silence before sound.
I am the awareness before thought.
I am the space where everything comes and goes.
I am the stillness which never moves.
Now let that truth echo softly in the chambers of your mind.
Let it become the rhythm of your breath.
Let it be your natural resting place.
Because this,
Right here,
This space of still,
Aware silence,
Is who you've always been.
Now,
As you return from this meditation,
Keep part of your awareness resting in that stillness.
Let the world unfold around you,
But remain anchored in the space before thought.
So take a deep breath in,
Hold it,
And then exhale fully.
Feel the body once again.
Feel the air in the room.
Feel the sounds returning.
But notice,
Even they rise from silence.
And when you're ready,
Slowly open your eyes now.
And as you step back into your day,
Remember,
You are the quiet that holds all sound.
The silence before every thought.
The calm before every creation.
You've returned home,
And home was never anywhere else.
Good work today,
And namaste.
