Meditation In The Body, In Yourself, And In Life

Welcome.

Thank you for coming.

Please be comfortable.

Maybe letting your body also be welcome on the ground.

When we're coming in to practice towards meditation.

The main thing is really connecting with aliveness beyond ideas,

Each in our own unique ways and a trust that there is a kind of childlike way in each of us that we can animate,

Discover and let it have life.

And so on any one day feeling for yourself,

Do you feel like having your eyes open or closed?

What feels more quieting?

And then maybe do you feel like being in stillness or in movement would be more quieting,

More connecting?

And then whether you're in stillness or movement,

Coming into a sense of,

Is it possible to feel the ground?

Is it possible to feel your body?

In feeling your body,

Do you feel alarm?

Does the alarm rate go up by coming into feeling your body?

Would it be better to hang out with sounds or with seeing or with a sense of a deep wish for this lifetime?

Or is it possible to feel the ground to start to come sliding in like a waterfall,

Maybe into your physical space,

Into your body,

To bring gentleness to your physical presence,

To discover that you have a presence,

To discover that part of your so-called unconscious minds,

Part of the wider mind is already in touch with your body.

And sometimes we can allow the conscious mind to relax down and be in touch with that base,

The wide mind that already feels the ground.

Even when my sense of I is really maybe caught up in a story,

In an alarm,

A worry,

A drama,

A fear,

An injustice,

A right or wrong,

A shame or blame.

So naturally,

The I,

The me,

The small sense of self is caught up in those stories.

And we don't have to make that right or wrong.

Notice if that's happening a lot,

If there's a lot of agitation,

If you feel like it's too big or too small,

Explosive,

Blank,

Then maybe coming farther from the head and chest into the contact with the ground or your feet as far away as we can,

Refuge in just feeling our feet or just feeling contact with the ground like pools of presence,

Pools of now,

Or feeling your feet,

That there is skin,

That there is temperature registering somehow,

That you have toes,

That your toes are nestled together,

Each one unique and also similar to the others,

Close and distinct,

That our feet have a heaviness.

Sometimes if it's really hard to feel our bodies,

It could be a helpful reflection kind of exercise to go through if I could hardly feel my feet or if I feel like I'm flying away with thinking or alarm to get a sense of,

Yeah,

There must be a weight to my foot.

Because if that foot wasn't there,

That would be different.

There would be a lighter sensation.

So that must be the weight,

The heaviness.

And allowing our feet to take up a little more space,

Allowing our whole bodies in contact with the ground,

Perhaps to spread out a little bit more,

Staying longer in your feet if you have a bit more of a sense of alarm or urgency in your mind can be a good thing.

Not pushing away the mind state,

Letting it be,

But feeling what else is also here.

Down here.

Cells feeling themselves.

And perhaps the possibility of feeling as if we could feel the space around our body as well as our bodies.

A little bit wider pool of presence in which we feel the body sensations.

Letting your body,

Letting our bodies be as heavy as a bag of damp sand or a pile of heavy wet sand on sand.

Gradually becoming one with the ground.

As if the big heavy bag of damp sand starts to open and even disintegrate.

And this big heavy pile of sand starts to fall into the sand below.

Comfortably heavy,

Comfortably falling into the ground.

The head for a while,

Just like a pile of sand.

Not quite picking up a thought.

Not quite picking up a thought.

Perhaps shoulders and upper back and chest also just like free as a pile of sand to just rest into the ground,

Rest into our ground.

Falling into the earth.

Not quite so easily picking up the worries.

And the hurries.

Perhaps allowing a sense of our back filling with life and spreading a bit wider and longer.

As well as melting into the ground.

Not quite so easily picking up the thoughts.

Not quite so easily picking up the thoughts.

Not quite so easily picking up the thoughts.

The back enlivening.

The body heavy on the ground.

Not quite picking up a sense of time in the same way as usual.

Falling into the ground,

Falling into now.

Falling into your inner space.

Falling inward.

As deep as your inner calling calls you.

Falling intimate with the deepest seat or heart of your being.

Where your deepest sense of longing or calling,

Your deepest sense of questions or what's important can maybe be felt close for a while.

A question,

A value,

A love.

Or just that nearness itself being as near as you can be to yourself.

100% nearness.

No holding back.

And if what you find in yourself is a sense of loving life or gratitude or a sense of knowing what's important for you,

What makes sense or feels meaningful,

Is it possible to feel your closeness,

Your permission to know what's important,

To love what you love,

To feel that physically?

To relax into that.

And feel what do you feel and where do you feel it?

Just for a little while.

Being allowed to love what you love in life,

What makes life worth living.

Or just being with a sense of a question of what is life,

What is life.

Or if what you find yourself hearing or feeling is more of a feeling of a lack of,

A lack of loving life,

A lack of connection or whatever.

Is it possible to kind of turn from not liking,

Not having connection to loving connection?

Is it possible to kind of pivot from it feels awful to feel that I don't have meaning or what's precious?

To the same kind of amoeba animal that knows I don't like not having meaning,

Fulfillment or a calling or love.

To how I would be open to or love to.

Could I?

What if there could be connection?

What if there could be love of life?

Even that could be.

Not have to,

But could.

Just for a little while playing with feeling.

Experimenting with shifting from the dryness and pain of a sense of lack or problem not having.

As if that's one end of a spiritual instinct or amoeba that we could feel,

OK,

If I don't like not having.

A love of life or a sense of belonging.

The other end of the same animal is a mouth that's open,

That could open,

Could be receptive.

I would love to feel belonging.

I'd love to feel fulfilled.

And all the voices in the mind that may come up saying,

Yes,

But what about that can't be because.

And just leaving that outside this room.

For now.

Just for a few more moments.

Just the possibility of this.

Main intimacy with life.

Very subtle,

Hard to catch,

Falling in touch with.

What moves you?

What you love or long for or know is important or what is your main question and how that can bring you closer?

And being open to what is life?

And how that feels in your body.

And then whenever you wish,

Releasing all of that reflection and questioning.

Whenever you feel like staying as long as you like.

And whenever you like just releasing,

Feeling the ground.

The body,

A heavy bag of sand.

On a beach.

Merging together,

Sand on sand.

Being allowed to feel whatever you feel.

And also to feel what else is also here.

Including the ground.

The body on the ground.

The body welcome on the ground.

Breath welcome in the back of your body.

Aliveness in the back of your body.

Openness in the back of your body,

Perhaps.

As if we could rest floating on the surface of a lake.

Of kindness.

Or a lake of what we long for.

Just resting there.

Rising and falling on the breath.

Like gentle waves on that lake of kindness.

Rising and falling,

Resting on the lake of what you love in life.

Here.

Nowhere else but here.

Here and rising and falling gently.

The breath in our back.

Fully alive.

So full of aliveness and so here.

We could almost get a sense of a boundless,

A boundlessness of here.

A boundlessness of aliveness of life.

May all beings be peace on Earth and in our lives,

Inner and outer.

May all beings be peace on Earth and in our lives,

Inner and outer.

May all beings be peace on Earth and in our lives,

Inner and outer.