Shifting To Spacious Awareness - 20 Minute Daily Insight

Welcome to The Daily Insight.

My name is Vijayamala Bhattach and today's meditation is going to be focused on cultivating a sense of flowing and loving.

One of my spiritual teachers died about a week ago and I'd like to dedicate this meditation to her.

Her name was Ratnashiri,

She was 96,

And she was a remarkable woman.

I was thinking about her qualities,

What is it that really stood out in her.

And I think she had a real sense of the impermanent,

Changing,

Fluid nature of everything.

Both within us and in the world around us.

And she was also a very loving person.

So these will be the qualities that we focus on today together.

So to begin with,

Let's settle down into our position,

Our meditation posture.

Whether we're sitting,

Whether we're standing,

Or whether we're lying.

Taking a few deeper breaths,

Sending on each out breath,

Really allow the weight to settle down into gravity.

Feeling down into the points of contact.

Surrendering the weight of the body up to gravity.

And let's begin to draw our awareness very deep in the body.

And to rest right inside all the movements and sensations of breathing.

Seeing if we can allow the belly to be soft.

Expanding on the in breath,

Subsiding on the out breath.

And seeing if we can allow breathing to express itself in the back of the body,

As well as the front of the body.

Feeling movements in the lower back and the upper back as we breathe.

And what about your thoughts?

Your thoughts that may feel so solid,

Stuck even,

Dense.

Let's turn our attention to our thoughts.

What are you thinking right now?

Maybe you're thinking about the meditation,

Or maybe you're thinking about something entirely unrelated.

If that's the case,

Be careful not to give yourself a hard time.

It's completely normal for the mind to wander.

But let's examine the nature of thoughts.

Perhaps noticing a little bit more clearly and directly how our thoughts are also always changing,

Just like the breath.

So instead of our thinking states or our mental states seeming solid,

Real,

True.

Let's see if we can relate to them as mental events flowing through the mind.

A traditional image is that they're like clouds flowing across the blue sky of awareness.

And rather than focusing on the content of our thoughts so much,

We can focus on their ephemeral,

Fleeting,

Impermanent nature.

We can let them come,

We can let them go.

Just like clouds passing across the blue sky of awareness.

Or another metaphor or image is we can imagine that awareness is like a vast,

Limitless ocean,

Still and deep.

And our thoughts are like little fish swimming through the ocean,

Swimming through the mind,

Always moving.

Never stuck,

Never static.

So what we're doing here is we're releasing the hold of our thoughts.

And we're resting back with more ease,

More gentleness,

More perspective.

Letting them come,

Letting them go,

Letting them come,

Letting them go.

And what about your emotional state?

Again,

Sometimes our emotional state can seem so solid.

If we feel low,

Anxious,

Worried.

These states have got a certain kind of felt density,

Solidity.

But let's examine them a little bit more closely.

And what you'll find is that there's always movement in these states.

They're not as stark and solid as they seem.

Breathing into the heart area,

Breathing in,

Breathing out,

Breathing soft,

Breathing flowing.

And seeing if this can loosen up how we relate to our present emotional state.

Likewise,

If our emotions are positive and buoyant,

Enjoy them and see into their fluid,

Open,

Expansive nature.

And now broadening our awareness,

Being aware of the whole body,

Our emotional weather,

Our mental events,

And breathing.

And now seeing if we can bring a quality of care,

Of kindliness,

Even love,

Towards ourselves with each in and out breath.

As we breathe in,

Allowing the whole body,

The whole mind,

The whole heart to be bathed in kindliness.

And as we breathe out,

Allowing this kindliness to pour right inside all the different parts of us.

An image that I find evocative is to bring to mind a breeze on a summer's day.

And the breeze is quite naturally warmed by the heat of the sun,

The brightness of the sun.

And we can allow our breathing to likewise be warmed by a quality of care,

Of love,

Of brightness.

So each breath in and out bathes and saturates our whole being with a little bit more softness,

A little bit more care,

A little bit more ease.

Always making sure that we allow the out breath to flow all the way out of the body,

And then the in breath quite naturally to flow in again.

Now broadening our awareness to include others.

First of all bringing to mind a friend.

Someone for whom we've got existing positive feelings of connection.

Bring them to mind in your imagination,

Or as a feeling it's up to you.

What I do is I always imagine this person coming towards me.

And it's as if I open my awareness to let them in fully into my awareness.

And we just sit together in my imagination.

And we both settle and I become aware of us breathing together.

So whatever way works for you getting a sense of the connection with your friend.

And resting with a sense of solidarity.

We're both human beings breathing.

And our breathing is this gateway to this more fluid,

Open awareness.

The breathing is always changing and flowing.

Our friends thoughts and mental events are also changing and flowing just like ours.

Their emotions are changing and flowing just like ours.

The sense of the body will be a mass of different sensations and movements throughout the day.

And reflecting that if we're both much more fluid and open than perhaps we realized.

Then the edges between us are much less rigid,

Hard,

Stuck.

And there's more of a dance happening between us.

Our thoughts affect one another.

Our emotions affect one another.

There's this continual interplay between us.

And bringing an attitude,

A quality of kindliness and care towards our friend into this dance,

This interplay.

All this change and flow.

On the in breath,

Breathing in awareness of our friend as fully as we can.

What might it be like to be them?

And then on the out breath,

Allowing love,

Care,

Interest,

Connection to flow towards them.

Just as we earlier bathed all of our experience with a loving breath,

Using the metaphor of a summer's breeze warmed by the sun.

Now we allow our friend to be bathed in the same attitude of love and care,

Warmed by our intention of kindliness.

We might not feel it right now.

That's fine.

But we can always have an intention.

Tuning into the possibility of being caring,

Connected and loving towards our friend.

And now broadening our awareness to include all life everywhere.

We stay centered and grounded so we're still in the body.

Breathing in the body.

But it's as if the circumference of our awareness expands on and on and on to include more and more people,

More and more of life itself.

And feeling into the fluid,

Changing nature of everything.

One self,

Other people,

The edges between us.

Breathing in awareness of others,

Not as objects,

But as human beings,

Just like oneself.

And breathing out love,

Care,

Connectedness,

This dance of awareness,

This dance of love.

The seven billion other people on the planet are just like us.

Breathing,

Mental events flowing through the mind,

Emotions flowing,

Bodies moving,

Physical sensations.

Breathing in awareness,

Breathing out love or the possibility,

The intention to be more loving,

Be more caring,

Be kinder.

And we rest right inside,

Flowing and loving,

Flowing and loving,

Flowing and loving.

Always grounding our awareness inside our own embodied breathing and then opening,

Expanding outwards to include others.

And then we rest.

If at any point you get a little lost or even overwhelmed,

Simply coming back to the body,

The contact between the body and the chair or the floor,

Breathing in the body,

Re-centering,

Regrounding and then once again opening and broadening and flowing and loving.

.

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And as we begin to draw this period of meditation to a close,

Bringing the weight of the body to the foreground of awareness,

Breathing in the body to the foreground of awareness,

Allowing the awareness of all the other beings to fade a little bit so that we come into a steady,

Stable,

Centered,

Grounded self-awareness,

Resting and sigh-breathing for a few moments.

And when we're ready,

Bringing the meditation to a close,

Bringing the body into movement or bigger movements,

Because of course the body has been moving the whole time with breathing,

Bringing it gently into bigger movements and then re-engaging with your day.

And I hope you have a great day or if you're doing this in the evening,

I hope you have a good night's sleep.