Take a few moments to really settle comfortably into a posture that you can sit in if you're sitting for the next 15 minutes or so.
Invite your shoulders to relax.
Let your chest be open so you can breathe easily.
You might rest your hands in your lap or on your knees,
On your thighs.
And if you're in some other posture,
Lying down for example,
Just relax into the surface beneath you.
Let yourself be fully,
As fully here as you can be.
And if you're listening to this talk,
This session,
While walking,
Just let your attention,
Let the words come in,
But let your attention be grounded in your body as you move your legs and move through space and touch the earth and move.
Feel the breeze on your face,
Feel the air around you,
The scent of the blossoms if they're there.
So wherever you are,
Just letting yourself be here.
Come into the present.
Come into this moment just as it is.
You might close your eyes if it's comfortable to do that.
Let your attention come inward.
Take a few longer,
Deeper breaths.
Breathing in,
Calming the body.
Breathing out,
Calming the mind.
So letting yourself settle.
Letting your breathing help you arrive as fully as you can.
Breathing in,
Calming the body.
And breathing out,
Calming the mind.
You might invite a smile to your face if that's helpful to the,
Activate the muscles around your eyes and around your mouth.
Maybe thinking of people in your life that make you feel happy and joyful.
Maybe thinking of everyone else,
Everyone here.
So all of us together,
Practicing together.
Now can that bring a smile to your face?
It brings a smile to my face.
Think all of us in our,
In our different places now.
Just practicing together,
Being here,
Being in this moment.
And if you move off into the future,
No problem.
There'll be a common moment when you remember why you're here and come back.
Or something I say will remind you to come back.
So no problem if the mind does go off into stories,
Plans,
Memories,
Worries,
Daydreams,
Or into some strong emotion.
When you can,
Just notice and come back.
Short reflection from the power of now.
Now is the most precious thing there is.
Why is it the most precious thing?
Firstly,
Because it's the only thing.
It's all there is.
The eternal present is the space within which your whole life unfolds.
The one factor that remains constant.
Life is now.
There was never a time when your life was not now.
Nor will there ever be.
Secondly,
The now is the only point that can take you beyond the limited confines of the mind.
It's your only point of access into the timeless and formless realm of being.
In the language of the Buddha,
Now is the only,
Or the teachings of the Buddha,
Now is the only moment that we can find freedom from suffering.
It has to be now,
In this moment.
Now the Buddha's central teachings of mindfulness,
The four foundations of mindfulness,
Really are ways of just bringing awareness to our experience in the body,
Feelings,
The mind.
All our experience bringing awareness to what's here,
Right here,
Right now.
Notice right now.
Is there some holding on to anything?
Are you caught up in some kind of worry?
When we're worrying,
We're really not in the present.
We're moving away from the present into what we think of as a better future,
When things will be okay.
But they can only be okay now,
This moment.
It's not something we accomplish in the future.
It's something that's here and available right now.
So just meeting your experience right now,
With an attitude of kindness and acceptance,
This moment just as it is.
This is Eckhart again.
Have you ever experienced,
Done,
Thought,
Or felt anything outside the now?
Do you think you ever will?
Is it possible for anything to happen or be outside the now?
The answer is obvious,
Is it not?
Nothing ever happened in the past.
It happened in the now.
It was the now when it happened.
Nothing will ever happen in the future.
It will happen in the now.
What you think of as the past is a memory trace stored in the mind of a former now.
So we're remembering a former now.
When you remember the past,
You reactivate a memory trace and you do so now.
The future is an imagined now,
A projection of the mind.
When the future comes,
It comes as the now.
When you think about the future,
You do it now.
Past and future obviously have no reality of their own,
Just as the moon has no light of its own,
But can only reflect the light of the sun.
So a past and future are only pale reflections of the light,
Power,
And reality of the eternal present.
Their reality is borrowed from the now.
So remembering this,
If you can,
Not just in the meditation,
But as you go about your daily life this week,
See if you can just keep coming back.
Notice when you're on the way somewhere,
You know,
I mean that not so much literally,
But in the mind,
Got to get this done,
Got to do this in order for this,
Leaning into the future or looking back into the past.
See when that gets that sticky quality,
That clinging quality,
That shempa,
A Pema Chodron's word,
That clinging in the Buddha's language,
And then just come back.
What's here right now?
What am I noticing?
Tension,
Tightness in my belly,
Tightness in my face,
Muscles,
Warmth,
Tension.
Can I breathe into this and just come back to this moment,
This moment without judgment,
This moment just as it is.
Breathing in,
Breathing out with whatever is here right now for you.
And as we finish up,
You might appreciate your effort today in coming here.
Just wish yourself well.
You might send a wish out to all of us here together.
And out into the world with so much suffering,
May all beings be safe and free from harm.
May all beings find deep peace here in the present moment.
And I'll share this poem in,
It's called In Memory of My Mother,
On my mother's birthday.
By Patrick Kavanagh,
The Irish poet from County Monaghan.
I do not think of you lying in the wet clay of a Monaghan graveyard.
I see you walking down a lane among the poplars,
On your way to the station,
Or happily going to Second Mass on a summer Sunday.
You meet me and you say,
Don't forget to see about the cattle.
Among your earthiest words,
The angels stray.
Among your earthiest words,
The angels stray.
And I think of you walking along a headland of green oaks in June,
So full of repose,
So rich with life.
And I see us meeting at the end of a town on a fair day by accident,
After the bargains are all made,
And we can walk together through the shops and stores and markets,
Free in the oriental streets of thought.
Oh,
You are not lying in the wet clay,
For it is a harvest evening now,
And we're piling up the ricks against the moonlight,
And you smile up at us,
Eternally.
