Wider Harmony In The Heart Of Life - Metta Practice

Please be comfortable,

Like maybe snowflakes falling into place.

So gravity and spaciousness.

And if you wish also to consider,

We'll be practicing loving kindness meditation.

And the original Sanskrit word is Maitri,

Which literally means friend or friendliness or gentleness.

And as we get settled and comfortable,

You could just let something float into your mind of what is friendship?

What is a friend?

What was a moment where you felt friendliness?

Whether someone was friendly with you,

A good friend.

What is a good friend?

Getting a sense of that.

What was a moment that you really could feel the quality of friend or friendliness?

And then what about gentleness?

A moment of gentleness and what is the felt sense of gentleness for you today?

Maybe even feeling around,

Is there some texture or color that feels like a good friend,

Friendliness or gentleness?

So we can communicate with our deeper mind sometimes better non-verbally.

So feeling,

Whether literally feeling a texture or literally receiving a color that reminds you of friend,

Friendliness or gentleness.

Or maybe you remember,

Maybe a memory floats by and letting your inner atmosphere,

Your consciousness,

Your cells,

Fluids of the body start to be influenced.

Get into that texture or felt sense.

And in case something of gentleness or friendliness has come to mind and in a way that you could feel,

Then perhaps it would be great to start over from here,

What would be comfortable?

And just a few moments or breaths,

The body on the ground.

In whatever position feels like a good way to go deep,

A good way to really come close to the heart of life.

Life breathing in your cells and in your organism.

Perhaps allowing some of the stories that might be kind of tied onto you to wash away without breath.

Feeling if there's somewhere in your body that feels like a good anchoring place,

Somewhere that feels like home or that feels comfortable or good or okay.

If there's somewhere where you could get a sense of the sweetness of aliveness,

Life beyond biology,

Beyond birth and death right here in yourself.

And loving kindness or metri.

That is called a Brahma Vihara.

It's a resting place that is expansive and is built into a human being.

We have that access in us.

So we're not practicing something alien.

We're finding our own language and our own way together.

So a capacity that we all have and each of us in our individual ways,

Flavors,

Languages,

Experiencing that intimately,

Discreetly.

As if the fluid of the cells and the fluids of the bodies would be in harmony with this quality of friendliness and gentleness.

And so to begin,

I would like to ask you to feel what's juicy for you.

What's the most juicy?

What might be a secret innermost most juicy?

Love in your being,

In your life.

What's the most juicy thing?

It might be a very secret innermost beloved.

It might be something in plain sight,

Something very easy and obvious.

What you love most.

What you need most.

That if you could,

You would rely on most.

That quality or state.

And if we could also notice just asking ourselves these questions.

Does it feel shaky?

Does it feel too intense?

Does it feel like a relief?

Does it feel good?

So if it feels good,

If it feels like a relief,

Feels like,

Ah,

Permission to do what I would have always loved to tune into,

Then please go for it.

Breathing and kind of swimming in that quality for a while in every cell.

Inner and outer bath in that.

With the help of words,

Images,

Memories,

And if possible,

A texture or felt sense.

But if the question,

What is the most juicy thing in your life feels a bit too intense,

Then we could just back up a little bit.

What's something that's a bit juicy?

Something you love.

Something that opens your heart or moves you,

Relaxes you.

Where you can feel a definite yes.

Yes,

I would love to be at peace.

Something you can get a bit of the taste or texture of.

You can feel the relief of that permission to love,

Peace or joy or belonging,

Home,

Nurturing,

Clarity,

Freedom,

Awakening,

Whatever it may be.

Maybe something that you have no word for,

But you feel it.

Or you have an image of it.

And there's a sense of recognition that's perfectly fine.

More than fine.

So letting it be juicy enough that you can feel the yes in your cells.

But maybe not something that's overwhelmingly juicy,

That has too much intensity for the day.

Finding your yes and what your yes is towards or with.

And feeling that kind of marrying of permission to have or live or breathe or swim in that texture of peace or freedom.

Or ease no matter what.

That you might feel,

Wow,

What if I could really live in that?

Live from there.

So feeling the yes is feeling that sense of a resting place.

Yes,

I would love to live with peace no matter what.

No matter what circumstance.

Yes.

And as we allow the yes to that place or that quality,

That chemistry,

That harmony.

Feeling the texture of what we love as well as the texture of our love,

Of our loving,

Of our yes.

The texture of having permission.

And then we can also maybe feel that there's a generosity to this quality.

There's a spreading or expansiveness to it.

We just find permission and yes and there's something about that quality of peace that we love that spreads through us.

So by doing kind of less,

Allowing that quality to give itself a bit more.

By relaxing and receiving,

Letting the texture of peace stream through,

Trickle through,

Spread through each and every cell.

Each and every corner of your being without forcing.

Like the fragrance of a flowering tree in the evening.

Like the light at dawn or at sunset.

Letting it soak into every surface.

Every place in your inner landscape.

That breeziness of confidence or freedom or love or home or that silkiness or that solidity or that embrace or that flow.

Whatever you find in your own experiential language.

Inner language.

Your inner language of love.

Your inner language of your own experience.

How you experience home and a release into home.

A yes.

What it feels like in your being,

Body and mind to feel welcome or awake or at ease or free.

And your welcome of welcome or your yes to freedom.

Freedom no matter what.

Yes.

Sometimes words are helpful,

Sometimes not.

Maybe just a word like freedom or freedom no matter what.

Or sometimes a whole sentence can give more of a feeling of having all the time in the world.

May I be at ease no matter what.

May I feel at home in every cell in every situation.

May I feel loved and loved in every cell in every situation.

Or sometimes when you don't really have a name.

Something nameless.

But you feel like honoring it with some kind of offering of words like just this.

Just this.

And really to have permission to do it in the way that works well for you.

With or without words.

With or without an image.

If possible with some kind of felt sense or texture.

But if that's not the way your mind works,

No problem.

Feeling the way that nourishment happens in your mind.

The way your body and mind can drink.

What's nourishing for you.

No hurry.

Resting into the ground.

Using some time for a natural way for you to connect.

With a natural rhythm.

May I feel welcome in every cell in every situation.

And finding your way to wish yourself well if it's challenging for you.

For some people that's the most challenging part of this practice.

Perhaps you could imagine yourself as a child.

Or feel yourself as if you're kind of at the top of your room or the space where you are looking down and seeing that form of yourself.

So willing.

That person with sincerity,

With vulnerability.

That person of yourself.

May you feel welcome in every cell in every situation.

Or if it feels playful to you to imagine a mentor,

Someone that you feel respect and love for,

Whom you feel really trustworthy for yourself,

That they would also love and respect and want the best for you.

Could be someone that you've never met,

But you've read their book or whatever.

Meaning sensing that person wishing you well.

And we could fruitfully just stay with this part of the practice,

So feel free to do so.

Or at any time if you feel like letting that texture and that quality,

That image overflow,

Radiate into the space around you.

The ground,

The air.

The ecosystem.

In a way that you connect with.

So for some people that would be more about the creatures that are nearby.

In the building or in the forest.

On the city block or in the field.

So depending where you are,

If you're in a building,

You might want to just expand to where you might include a few other creatures or one other creature.

A dog or a cat or a bird or a tree or another person.

And adjusting the words if you're using words.

But as much as possible,

Letting it happen,

Letting it be a happening.

More traditionally,

The words might be something like,

May all beings in this hall or in this room or in this space feel welcome in every cell,

In every situation.

And just as yourself having permission to say yes to what you love most,

To what you need most,

To what you're being most honors.

Feeling how that other animal,

Whether human or otherwise,

May also really love to have permission to be filled with welcome or peace,

Groundedness or freedom.

Or you can shift the wording to just say,

May there be welcome in every cell,

In every situation.

Whatever feels less complicated.

Whatever feels more juicy.

More fun.

More really harmonizing with the heart of life.

In your own way.

And letting the quality spread a little bit further like a sunrise,

Like the fragrance of a flowering tree.

Like music.

Spreading freely with no agenda,

Without forcing and without holding back.

In the words of Rilke.

Noticing if with your mind it's easier and more fun and juicy to connect with one other person or creature at a time or one place or object.

Or if your mind finds it more juicy to just spread and have a more of a global sense of all the beings or all the life in this space.

Or if it's helpful to alternate coming back to yourself and then coming back to another.

What's most juicy?

What's most fun?

What's most centering into the heart of life for you?

What means the most,

Feels more worthwhile?

The possibility of just allowing a sense of that texture or music,

That silkiness or breeze or groundedness or flow,

Sweetness.

Whatever feels true and accurate for you.

Just to spread throughout the space around you.

So this every cell of you.

Everything beyond the cell of you.

And into the ground and air,

Objects,

Buildings and creatures.

The creatures seen and unseen.

The millions of creatures in the earth below us.

The invisible creatures in the air around us.

All of this life that we're in the midst of and live with and don't live without.

And including the more visible life like a tree or a person.

Or different communities of life of water and air and earth.

And the kind of rejoicing in the way we all live with and not without each other.

The different plant creatures,

Different animal creatures.

Microscopic,

Macroscopic.

And just imagining as far as you wish the ecosystem where you find yourself even if you're inside a building.

There is the earth.

There are the winds.

The waters above and below the earth.

And all the creatures that live with and not without.

That earth,

That air and those waters.

In this ecosystem,

May all beings live feeling welcome in every cell and beyond the cells in every situation and beyond situations.

If it's helpful for you with the in-breath to really connect to the felt sense both of what you love and of loving that silkyness or that honey,

That ground or embrace or breeziness,

Flow,

Upliftment,

Expansiveness,

Containment,

Whatever it is for you.

Something simple and juicy for you that your cells celebrate.

And then with the out-breath allowing that to spread,

Filling you and overflowing.

Welcome and the love of that sense of welcome.

Filling with the in-breath,

Overflowing with the out-breath if that works for you.

Or giving several breaths to connect with the texture and feel it and fill and several breaths to fill and overflow,

Allowing it to spread as far as you like.

Feeling that just with our love,

With our yes,

The generosity of that quality giving itself expansively spreading,

Filling you and overflowing.

Perhaps as if through your skin or through your breath.

Or just radiating from your heart,

Whatever way works for you.

Allowed to love feeling welcome or free or at peace no matter what.

And feeling how loving that empowers that quality to give itself and radiate and spread.

And whenever you wish to adjust the sense of your ecosystem to a little bit larger part of this web of life that we are in,

That we live within and not without.

And just playfully,

No need to bother judging yourself or not knowing much about it or whatever may come to mind,

Just here and all of this life here.

And then letting here get a bit bigger if you like.

Letting here bump into,

Oh yes,

The river that's nearby and all the life along the stretch of that river from the mountain to the sea.

May there be welcome in every cell and beyond the cells in every situation and beyond situations.

And really feeling it as much as feels juicy to you and possible for you.

No judgment,

No one's watching.

No one else is doing it the same way that you are,

So there's no way to compare.

You're doing it just right for yourself for today.

Good enough.

And spreading a little bit more,

If it's a river,

Then there's the mountains maybe and there's the sea maybe.

All of that crazy life of the sea,

Known and unknown,

Visible and invisible.

Something specific that you imagine or guess or know about if that works better for your mind or just a global sense of mountain,

River,

Sea,

Or whatever kind of ecosystem that you're part of,

That you participate in,

Give and receive within and not without.

Being more specific,

If it's helpful,

May all the creatures along the whole length of this river,

Along the whole length of these mountains and throughout the depths and all the shores of the sea,

May there be welcome in every cell and beyond the cells in every situation and beyond situations.

May there be welcome.

And spreading if you wish to include our whole vast earth and all of the life of this earth,

Of earth and air and water together,

Not needing to deserve,

But just unlocking that feeling of yes,

Of loving what we love,

Needing what we need,

And already participating in this web of life together within the web of life and not without it,

With each other and not without each other.

Everywhere upon,

Around,

And within the earth,

May there be welcome.

May we really feel welcome in every cell and beyond our cells and in each and every situation and beyond situations.

May we really feel welcome no matter what.

Just as a cell within a body or an organ within a body,

If it would be really full of life,

If it would feel really loved,

How that would spread throughout the body,

How yourself filling,

Swelling and overflowing with what's nourishing for you,

What's enlivening for you,

Supportive,

Juicy,

How that naturally spreads throughout the web of life.

May all on earth feel welcome as it is in each and every cell and beyond the cells,

In each and every situation and beyond situations.

May we feel and be welcome as we are no matter what.

May there be peace in each cell and each situation no matter what.

May there be ease in each cell and each situation no matter what.

May there be welcome in each cell and beyond the cells,

In each situation and beyond situations.

May there be welcome.