So my friends,
We have come to a moment of doing a guided meditation to help the teachings just dive in a little bit more,
A little bit more deeply,
To land.
So I invite you to close your eyes,
If that feels comfortable for you,
And to land in your body,
Using your breath as the anchor to bring yourself into present moment time,
Into the here and now,
The only time you're ever alive.
So you bring the light of awareness to your breath,
Inhaling in,
I know I am breathing in,
Exhaling,
I know I am breathing out.
And we begin to meet each other in the space between the words,
Allowing the silence to simply be,
Checking in with our body,
Noticing what is here.
Perhaps a tightness,
Or a contraction,
Or perhaps a gentle flow and expansion.
Peace is this moment without judgment.
Mindfulness is noticing this moment without judgment.
Simply what is here?
And if any thoughts arise,
Simply notice them,
Realizing that thoughts come and thoughts go,
Incessantly and constantly,
Endlessly,
Until our last breath.
We don't meditate to stop our thoughts,
We meditate to meet reality,
To meet the one who is meditating,
To meet what is here,
When I sit in stillness and silence.
Perhaps we can bring a memory of a moment where I took something personally,
Remembering how it felt when I took it personally,
Remember the upset and the hurt that came up,
Remembering the discomfort accompanying these thoughts of taking things personally,
And remembering the teachings from today's second agreement,
That nothing is personal,
That each 8 billion of us is living in our own self-perpetuated universe called the mind.
And our minds create a sense of security by creating the ego identity,
The sense that I am a solid thing,
A solid person.
And yet,
When we hear the wisdom teachings,
We remember that I am simply a conglomeration of processes that are ever-changing in this impermanent world.
I move through life with seeing,
Hearing,
Smelling,
Tasting,
Touching,
And thinking.
These are all my sense processes,
And they all bring the world right here to me.
And so I begin this practice of loosening my self-identification with the ego,
Loosening the I-me-mine mind,
The one that takes things personally,
The one that believes I'm right,
You're wrong,
The one that believes that we are separate selves.
And remembering that though we each carry our own uniqueness,
Unique personality,
Unique characteristics,
Unique sensitivities and sense of humor,
At our core,
Our true nature,
Our ultimate essence is the same.
We come from the one love-stream to return to the one love-stream,
The one,
The mystery,
The other.
With the next breath,
We begin to move the body,
A little wiggle of finger and toes,
Or a little neck roll or shoulder roll,
Coming back into this space with deep gratitude for meeting ourselves here in truth,
In community,
In togetherness,
Looking to transform our own pain and discomfort,
Looking to live from a space of truth,
To live with ease and joy and equanimity,
So that the ups are not so up and the downs are not so down.
Flow in joy and equanimity.
