Life In Me As Spring Begins

We rest with the natural breath to begin with, allowing any head chatter we may experience with detachment. Then we begin to sink into our own silence, to experience the deep well of life that connects us to the 10,000 things of the world, as the Tao Te Ching describes it. We connect to the source of all that drives the seed to grow, the bird to lay its eggs. We experience the desire to live and grow. Photo by Henry Chen on Unsplash

Transcript

Let's find that comfortable place for our body. Having a little fidget until we find somewhere we can be still for a little while. And when we find that comfortable place, Taking those few deeper breaths. Arms and legs at rest. We can let our spine get a little bit taller as we breathe in next. And then relaxing a little as we breathe out. And we'll stay with the breath. Comfortable, Relaxed breath. Natural breath. Feeling our body move and interfering with the breath as little as possible. And if stuff comes up in the mind, It's okay. Don't even worry about it. We just come back to the breath. Being still. Breathing. Even if we have to do that over and over, It's okay. It's all good practice. Our mind wants to carry us away, But our observer self brings us back. Can we get a sense of enjoyment from just being and breathing? Because there's nothing else to do. That's rather nice. Let's think of the breath, The air moving into and out of our body as life. We're not disappearing into our head too much to think about it. Just being aware how vital that breath is. How it gets to the root of our existence on earth. And in some sense, We're sitting and observing our life, Our life force. And as we rest with our breath, Hopefully we've relaxed a little. We can do that deliberately if we find we've got tension anywhere. Hopefully the breath has slowed a little as the demands of the day have been put aside. Brain waves gently slipping into that slightly slower alpha pattern. So from our quiet breathing center, We're going to imagine, Allow our mind to wander into the room around us, The space around us, The building, Whatever there is beyond that. The busyness, All the things, The 10, 000 things as the Tao teaching describes it. You might call it the 10 trillion things, The world with all the stuff it's doing. Let's see if we can observe it from our quiet, Dispassionate center. So we're just casting our gaze over it. Some of them we want, Some of them we push away, But we're just observing it all. And beneath those 10, 000 things is peace. So imagine sinking down into our center as if traveling below the 10, 000 things. Sinking away from the 10, 000 things and all their busyness, Their desires, Their wants, Needs. We're leaving that behind into a place of quiet, Of peace. The source of the 10, 000 things that is undifferentiated. So the source of life where all life is connected. Because of course we are part of the 10, 000 things and we also are part of the undifferentiated life, The source. We were created in the same way as the bird, The grass, The house. So if we imagine our egoic self, The small I, As part of the 10, 000 things, Sitting with them, And then our observer self, The I am, The unlimited I. That's the part of us that connects with the source of all. And if it's difficult to visualize, I offer another metaphor of the ocean. The 10, 000 things is like the waves on the ocean. Each ripple, A person, The differentiated form. But beneath, Sinking down, Is vast, Vast energy, Consciousness. The unlimited source of the waves, Resting with the source of all life. We don't have to go anywhere, Do anything, For the know we are part of it. Both as the busyness of the 10, 000 things and at their silent center. Feeling our connection with the 10, 000 things and with the source of life that generates it. What is it that life wants? Wants to grow. It makes the 10, 000 things to grow, To experience, To live. It wants to live, To expand. Can we sense in us a desire that wells up from the center and wants us to grow? That's why we are here. Why we became a wave, A differentiated being, One of the 10, 000 things. We wish to experience that growth. I invite you now to see if you can feel the desire that flows up towards the 10, 000 things, Wants growth. And if the word desire, Maybe it has carnal connotations for you, Can you allow it just to be innocent, Just to be something we wish to experience, A fundamental force in our being? Can we allow the desire to flow up into us, Into our differentiated form, Without the need to satisfy the desire, Just feeling the desire? Whether or not we satisfy it, Feeling that flow of energy, The will to breathe, The will to expand. We may or may not act on that desire. Feel it flow into you, Creating the will to go and act in the world, To take part in the 10, 000 things. As energy flows into our being, The reason we want to go and do things is this flow of energy, Of desire to be in the world. The same thing that powers the seed to grow and expand, The bird to lay its eggs, And the world to turn. Feel that energy flowing into you, The grass, The seed, The bird, Feeling our will to be here in the body, Our desire to grow and expand and experience things as this being, Separate but also part of the whole, Feeling that life force in us. And we will soon return to our waking state of consciousness and start to move amongst the 10, 000 things. But let us remember to pause when we see the sun, The sky, The grass, The bird, And feel that connection we have with them, The same forces powering us. And so we start to move our body, Take a few energizing breaths, Having a little stretch, Maybe giving ourselves a rub, And slowly returning to our waking state of consciousness. Thank you for practicing with me.