So welcome.
This is a short guided meditation practice to put us into contact with what matters most to us in our lives.
It will begin with a spoken section and then we'll go into exploring two questions to keep us in touch with what we most value,
What is true in our hearts and our lives.
It is so valuable to meditate each day,
To take a moment to settle our minds and open our hearts.
Meditation can also make our lives more meaningful.
It puts us in touch with the deeper currents within us and around us.
We get to feel what matters most in our lives.
We can use these micro moments of meditation as a kind of daily cause checker to make sure that we are going in the direction of our dreams,
That we are living a life that is authentic to us.
Today we will ask two questions.
The first is what do I want from life and the second is what does life want from me?
There can be so little time in our day-to-day lives.
We may be so busy caring for people earning a living,
Doing a hundred tasks,
But this question of what do I really want from life can get lost,
Can get buried amidst it all.
There is great value in knowing our values,
Knowing our truth.
Even if we can't immediately move towards it,
It is so valuable to know what matters most to us so that we can live the deeper currents of our lives beyond survival.
We can live with a passionate heart,
Live our truth and our purpose.
The second question what does life want from me is also so valuable from getting us out of our ego and our minds.
The me I want,
I want,
I want.
It's okay to be human and have wants and needs,
It's important.
And yet I find this question what does life want from me to be beautiful,
To be an invitation to serve life,
To see what's needed.
Maybe we need to open up or soften more.
So in a moment we'll go into a guided inquiry into these two questions and how they can inform us day to day.
So feel the place in which you are sitting or standing or lying.
Feel your contact with the ground or the chair or the bed underneath you.
Put yourself in a position which is both upright and alert and comfortable for you to be in.
If it feels okay to you close your eyes or lower your gaze.
Consciously soften your forehead,
Soften your jaw.
Let your shoulders drop a little.
Relax your hands.
Let your arms hang or rest down.
Soften the midline of the body,
Soften your belly,
Soften the area around your heart.
Feel your thighs,
Your knees,
Your feet,
The surface which you are resting on.
Come into the physical sensations of having a body.
We are going to answer these questions not from our mind figuring it out but from the wisdom that is deep within us.
From the knowing that we all have beyond our mind.
So take some deepening breaths.
You can sigh and stretch if you need to.
We're using the body to bring us in touch with the present moment.
Before we drop these questions in like Zen cones,
We may not have an immediate answer about how wonderful it is to live these questions,
To dare to ask the big questions in life.
So I ask you this big first question.
What do I want from life?
What do I want from life?
See what arises.
It might be on the physical level,
It might be relationship,
It might be qualities of the heart.
I'm gonna ask you a third time and then we'll have a period of silence to consider this question.
So ask yourself what do I want from life?
It is okay if your mind wanders.
These may not be easily answerable questions but bring yourself back,
See what arises from within you.
See what currents are within you.
I'm yearning for.
I may not always dare to let myself admit it but I really want.
There is power in knowing ourselves.
In living this question what do I want from life?
And then we come to the second question,
Perhaps a more receptive question.
What does life want from me?
What does life want from me?
The answer may be intangible.
Life wants me to soften.
Life wants me to grieve more.
Life wants me to be kinder to my neighbors or patient.
Life wants me to get on with it,
Put my project out there,
Dare live fully,
Be brave.
Life wants me to feel my feelings.
I do not know what the answer is for you but it is beautiful to live this question.
I will ask you again a third time and then we will have a period of silence to let the question resonate within us.
So ask yourself what does life want from me?
The poet Rilke says that we get to live these questions of our lives.
There's a beautiful quote from Rilke that says,
I beg you as much as I can to be patient towards all that is unsolved in your heart and to try to love these questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue.
The point is to live everything to live the questions now.
Perhaps you will then gradually without noticing it in some distant day get to live the answer.
So I want to acknowledge your bravery in this sitting practice in taking time to be with these bigger questions of life.
They can be tougher than carrying on with a day-to-day moment.
Place your hand on your heart.
Thank you for your bravery.
Thank you for your willingness.
Thank you for taking this time to look at the big questions in life,
To live life deeply,
To live life fully.
So we'll come back to our days now.
Have a stretch,
Have a yawn.
If your eyes have been closed then open them.
Notice the room you're sitting in,
Your surroundings.
Notice your feeling body having spent some time asking these big questions.
Notice the quality of heart.
Our meditation practice may touch us deeply.
We may inform us like gosh I do not know.
What amazing information to set us on a journey of finding out,
Finding out what matters most.
So I thank you for your practice today and I wish you a meaningful and heartful and joyful day ahead.
You
