Find yourself a quiet space where you will not be disturbed.
Bring yourself to either a seated position or lying down.
If you're sitting,
Make sure your spine is straight but relaxed.
Your legs are perhaps crossed underneath you in a comfortable position.
Your head is upright and your eyes are closed.
And if you're lying down,
Your body is in one long line.
Your neck or head gently supported.
Your spine straight and supported.
Become aware of your breath here.
No force.
Are you breathing shallowly?
Are you carrying a lot with you today?
Are you breathing deeply?
Just becoming aware of the breath.
The inhale.
The exhale.
And now,
Find yourself in a shared experience.
And I do a series of real breaths where you're breathing in.
And your exhalation is twice as long as your inhalation.
So I'll count us.
The first five or six breaths.
On a count of four and a count of eight.
And just find yourself with your breath,
Leaving behind whatever jangly energy brought you here.
Whatever frustrations,
Disappointments you carried with you.
And leaving behind as well the things you have to do after this meditation tomorrow,
Next week.
And notice how those two energies are perhaps different,
One the energy brought with you.
Heavy,
Sad perhaps.
Like a heavy lump.
And perhaps the energies coming towards you in the future.
Sharp,
Annoying.
Like little pinpricks of energy.
And see as we go into our breath,
If we can find a way to bring those energies as we go into our breath,
If we can't leave them behind.
So for the remainder of this meditation,
We'll be focusing on breathing in and then on our exhalation,
Doubling that.
I'll start us,
As I said,
With a four,
Eight count.
But then after that,
Perhaps it's a five,
10 count.
Or a three,
Six count.
Wherever you're most comfortable.
And follow me as we take a small journey with your breath as your guide.
Beginning in inhalation in three,
Two,
One.
Inhale,
Two,
Three,
Four.
Exhale,
Two,
Three,
Five,
Six,
Seven,
Eight.
Inhale,
Two,
Three.
Exhale,
Two,
Three,
Four,
Five,
Seven,
Eight.
Inhale,
Two.
Exhale,
Two,
Three,
Four,
Five,
Six,
Seven,
Eight.
Inhale,
Two,
Three,
Four.
Exhale,
Two,
Three,
Four,
Five,
Six,
Seven,
Eight.
Inhale,
Exhale.
Inhale.
Exhale.
Exhale.
In,
Out,
And leave you there.
Your breath be your guide.
And let my voice come only from a distant place.
Imagine now that you are a suspended,
Vast matrix of energy.
That there is no thing that is absolutely solid.
That the ground underneath you is just a vast storm of energy coming together and holding you ever so lightly.
Imagine now as well that this vast matrix of energy surrounds you.
Know that the air that surrounds you,
That touches your skin,
Is the air of distant stars exploded in a massive cataclysm.
And you,
Your one consciousness,
Are abiding now instead of this matrix.
Stay here now.
And let me know how you feel.
Stay here now.
Sense the energy.
And know also that your body is just a seething storm of energy.
A just seething storm of energy.
Everyone you have ever known,
Everyone you have ever hated,
Are just seething storms of energy.
So much shrapnel projected into a distant void.
I am no thing yourself.
I am a thing body.
No self.
And in that stillness,
In that stillness of no thing,
Which is the closest thing to nirvana that we know,
Indeed the word nirvana means no wind,
And so now this space,
Precious,
Rare,
Only nirvana.
Know that you are every,
Every self.
You are everyone you have ever loved.
Everyone you have ever hated.
And that is resting in the space in which everything is no thing.
And everybody is nobody.
No thing is not everything.
And nobody is not everybody.
Come back to your breath.
In and now,
Carry with you as you prepare to enter that world.
Better or worse,
We recognize to be solid the ground underneath you,
Your body,
Your space.
But carry with you as you go forward in your day,
In your week,
That you are also all energy,
All flow,
All space.
Let this thought guide you when you meet those difficult problems,
Those intractables that come up,
The traffic jam,
The steptoe,
The heartbreak,
The death.
Just energy.
Let that energy be your guide as your breath has been your guide.
Be patient.
