We're going to start with a little reading from Stephen Levine.
Buddha nature is like the sun,
Which is always shining,
Always present,
Though often obscured.
We are blocked from our natural light by the clouds of thought and longing and fear.
The overcast of the conditioned mind,
The hurricane of I am.
So on this retreat,
In this meditation,
We're taking the view that our true nature is like light.
And from the talk last night,
The Buddha said that we need to know this,
That our mind,
Our heart mind is luminous.
So we're going to be exploring this,
Seeing what effect it has to take this view.
So as we settle into our posture,
Seeing if it's possible for our posture,
For our body to express this view that there's already beauty,
Clarity and love here.
It just needs space to unfold.
There's no need to force anything.
And seeing how that might feel in the body,
In the posture,
If we really just knew that,
Fully had faith,
That our true nature is like light.
And it's all here,
There's this basic goodness and wisdom,
Clarity,
This basic nobility.
And letting the earth support this knowing.
Didn't it hold us and witness us in our Buddha nature?
Feeling perhaps breathing into the places of contact between the body and the ground,
Feeling into the feet,
Legs,
Buttocks,
Pelvic floor,
Or if we're lying down,
Hold the back of the body.
Feeling that solid,
Quiet support of the earth under us.
Seeing if we can feel it seep right into our bones.
Maybe a sense of us drawing up that support for the breath.
With the out breath,
Just releasing the body more and more into that support.
It's all in our soul,
As is it right here,
Creating that Kampalagroup that's this and now scanning through the body noticing the places of tension holding on and perhaps bringing the breath to those places breathing in to the tightness as if through the pores of the skin and releasing with that out breath so our awareness illuminating revealing what's there in the body bringing clarity showing us where this holding and noticing how our awareness is infinitely sensitive there's just no limits to the sensitivity so how deep and how far in our awareness can reach to what it can illuminate feeling that infinite depth infinite reach of our sensitivity so how deep and how far in our awareness can reach to what it can illuminate and now still aware of places of tightness holding in the body and seeing if it's possible to tune in to the part of us that knows that we don't need to hold on that it is actually safe to let go we don't need to defend ourselves keep ourselves separate hold ourselves separate so some part of our being has that clarity seeing if we can tune to that so that knowing might feel just like a whisper a glimmer that's okay just letting that whisper that glimmer have space to be heard felt seen and if we can't find any trace of that knowing in this moment no problem just imagining that we do know that there's no need to hold on what would that be like how would that feel just going to let go.
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And now feeling into our heart.
So feeling the part of us that longs to connect and open.
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The part that resonates with others suffering and their joy.
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So we might feel that part in the physical heart center or somewhere else in the body,
Or it might not have a particular location.
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