The Zoom Sessions No 9: Saturday Meditation Drop In 23rd May 2020

Hello,

My name is Matt Albury.

The following meditation session is a live recording of a Zoom meditation session that took place on the 23rd of May 2020 during the corona pandemic.

We were unable to meet as a group face to face so we used Zoom as a way of meeting each week.

The following session includes a body scan,

A meta loving-kindness practice,

And then a mindfulness meditation technique to bring us to a place of stillness.

The session also ends with an examine which is a technique to review your day.

So to begin our practice just allow yourself just to bring your awareness to the sensation of your feet on the floor and the sensation of the chair or the cushion supporting your body.

And then take your awareness then to the sounds around you where you are.

Notice the sounds in the room and the sounds outside of the room.

And then take a lovely deep breath in through the nose and sigh out through the mouth.

Again a lovely deep breath in through the nose.

And just allow yourself just to settle.

Just allowing your body to know that you are about to just now start to practice.

Just allowing that stillness to come in.

And then we will start our body scan.

So take your awareness first then to the bottom of the feet and up to the toes,

The tops of the feet and the ankles.

Taking the awareness up onto the shins and the calf muscles,

The knees and the thighs,

The backside and the hips.

And just take a moment then just to bring awareness to your legs,

The sensations that are there and just have that sense of gratitude for our legs.

And then allow your awareness to flow up through up onto the belly and the lower back.

Taking an awareness then to the upper back.

Just notice the physical sensations that you can feel there in your body.

And just for a moment take awareness then to all the organs that are working away inside.

Just in your mind's eye pitching all those organs,

Just doing their job without us even prompting them.

And then take your awareness then up onto the shoulders,

Shoulder joints.

Flowing the awareness then down through the upper arms and the elbows,

Forearms and the wrists,

The tops of the hands and the palms.

Just noticing that little hollow in your palm.

And then take your awareness out onto your thumbs and your first fingers,

Your second fingers and your third and your fourth.

And then flow all the way back through your arm,

Just bringing awareness to the sensations in your arms.

Again with that sense of gratitude for our hands and our fingers and our arms.

And then flow your awareness around up onto your throat and the back of the neck.

Taking your awareness then up onto the jaw.

Taking your awareness to your mouth and your lips,

Your teeth and your gums,

The insides of the cheeks and the roof of the mouth.

Taking your awareness to the tongue and the space underneath your tongue.

And then just take a moment just to be aware of the taste and the physical sensations in the mouth.

And then flowing your awareness up onto your nostrils and your nose,

Around onto your ears,

Onto your eyelids and eyelashes and the eyeballs themselves.

And then have a moment then just to think and be grateful for the way that our senses help us interact with the world,

Our sense of smell and our taste,

Our hearing,

Our sight.

Just having a sense of gratitude for those senses.

And then take your awareness then up onto the forehead and the back of the head and finally the crown.

And then just take a moment just to focus on your brain,

This powerful organ that helps us just do so much to engage with the world around us.

And then as you scan through your body,

As you scan all the way down to the bottom of the feet and the tips of the fingers,

Take a moment to think of all the ancestors before us who survived different things,

Different hardships and survived so that we are here today.

So having that sense of gratitude for our ancestors,

Generations and generations of them.

And just flow all the way back down to the bottom of the feet as you think.

And then when you're ready,

Flow all the way back through your body,

Feeling yourself afresh.

Just picturing just that sense of freshness and life flowing through your body all the way back out from the tips of the fingers and tips of the toes all the way up to the crown of the head.

And when you reach the crown of the head,

Just allow yourself just to settle for a moment in that presence of your being in your body.

And again,

Just having a sense of gratitude for that sensation of our presence,

Which is so unique.

And then when you hear the bell,

Start to guide us then through a loving kindness practice.

So to start the practice,

Bring into your mind's eye an image of yourself as you are today at this moment.

And picture this image of you as if it was sat opposite you.

Just take a moment just to notice how you feel.

Notice the mental chatter that's there as you look at the image of yourself.

Notice the physical sensations in your body.

And then as you look at this image of yourself,

Drop your awareness down to your heart center.

Picture your heart center like a really precious flower.

And gradually allow this flower just to open as if the sun is shining on that flower.

It just opens up and full radiance.

And as this flower opens,

All the qualities of loving kindness come out from this flower,

Out of your heart center towards this image of yourself.

The key here is we bring in kindness to ourselves whether we think we deserve it or not.

Whatever our opinion is of ourselves,

We are valid to have kindness and empathy like everybody else.

And as you watch these qualities of loving kindness,

Empathy,

Goodwill,

Love pass from you out of your heart center to this image of you,

We'll say these words of kindness to the image of ourselves.

May I be happy,

May I be well,

May I be safe,

May I be peaceful,

And may I be loved.

May I be happy,

May I be well,

May I be peaceful,

May I be safe,

And may I be loved.

Just continue to look at this image of you.

And if you like in your mind's eye picture,

This image of you benefiting from your practice,

Maybe your face softening or a gentle smile coming onto your face.

And then we'll say these words of kindness again.

May I be happy,

May I be well,

May I be safe,

May I be peaceful,

And may I be loved.

So for a moment now just allow that image of yourself just to dissolve away and bring to your mind's eye a picture of someone you care deeply about,

Someone who is easy to love,

Someone very precious to you.

And just allow this image of that person to form before you.

And then we'll say these words of kindness to them.

May you be happy,

May you be well,

May you be safe,

May you be peaceful,

And may you be loved.

Just continue to notice all those qualities keep flowing from your heart center towards this image of this person as we say the words again.

May you be happy,

May you be well,

May you be safe,

May you be peaceful,

And may you be loved.

And now picture this person benefiting from your practice,

Maybe their face softening,

Small gentle smile coming on their face.

And then we'll say these words of kindness again.

May you be happy,

May you be well,

May you be safe,

May you be peaceful,

And may you be loved.

And then allow the image of that person to dissolve away just for now and bring into your mind's eye a neutral person.

So like we were saying at the start this is a person who you might not know very well.

It could be a neighbour,

Someone in the shops that you visit.

Like Spike was saying,

Somebody who brings up neither a positive or negative response in you.

Just picture this person in front of you.

And then we'll say these words of kindness to them.

May you be happy,

May you be well,

May you be safe,

May you be peaceful,

And may you be loved.

May you be happy,

May you be well,

May you be safe,

May you be peaceful,

May you be loved.

We'll just say these words one more time to them.

Just picture them still in your mind,

Again benefiting from your kindness.

May you be happy,

May you be well,

May you be safe,

May you be peaceful,

And may you be loved.

So just allow that image of that person just to dissolve away now.

And then bring into your mind's eye someone you find challenging,

Someone who is difficult to be around perhaps.

And allow the image of this person to form before you.

And as you look at the image of them,

Bring your awareness again to the thoughts that are going on in your mind as you look at this person.

Notice the physical sensations present in the body.

And then we set an intention to bring kindness to this person,

Whether they deserve it or not in our mind's eye.

The fact is we're bringing it to them because they're another human being,

They're fallible just like us.

May you be happy,

May you be well,

May you be safe,

May you be peaceful,

And may you be loved.

May you be happy,

May you be well,

May you be safe,

May you be peaceful,

And may you be loved.

We just said those words one more time to them.

Again picture them benefiting from your practice.

Maybe even noting a sense of relief in yourself that you are choosing to come from a higher place where you are sending this kindness perhaps.

May you be happy,

May you be well,

May you be safe,

May you be peaceful,

And may you be loved.

So then gently now just in your mind's eye bring back the image of yourself,

The loved one,

The neutral person,

And the difficult person.

Keep these images in front of you and then bring into this image any other person you want to bring.

So are the loved ones,

Friends,

Family,

Colleagues,

Are the neutral people that you might have seen today that just popped into your mind,

Or are the difficult people.

And then just take a moment just to look at the whole group of these people in front of you.

And then when you're ready we'll say all these words of kindness to them.

May you all be happy,

May you all be well,

May you all be safe,

May you all be peaceful,

May you all be loved,

And may you all live at ease.

May you all be happy,

May you all be well,

May you all be safe,

May you all be peaceful,

And may you all be loved,

And may you all live at ease.

May you all be happy,

May you all be well,

May you all be peaceful,

May you all be safe,

And may you all be loved,

And may you all live at ease.

And then as you look at this group of people in front of you,

Take your awareness then back to your heart centre,

This open flower,

Also known as the furnace of the heart,

And just allow any kindness,

Any compassion,

Anything you want to let out from your heart towards this group of people in front of you.

So just take this moment just to allow that furnace of the heart just to release as much matter,

As much loving kindness as you want to,

To all these people,

Including yourself.

And then when you're ready,

Just allow the images of all these people just to dissolve away.

Now picture this matter,

This loving kindness coming back into your heart centre,

Back into the furnace of the heart.

Just watching the petals close around again on that flower,

Just as it brings all that loving kindness back into your physical body so that you benefit from the practice as well.

So all that kindness,

That empathy,

That goodwill,

Just coming in and being absorbed into your being as you're sat here.

Just allow yourself just to feel those qualities just coursing through your body.

And then when you're ready,

Just bring your awareness then up to your breath.

So coming back to bring your awareness to the breath at the nostrils.

Just noticing the sensation of the breath coming in and coming out.

And then when you hear the bell I'll start to guide us in our observation style meditation.

So again now we'll start to visualise using our mind's eye as we do the practice.

So as we're watching the breath at the nostrils,

Start to think of this mountain.

This is what we talked about at the start.

So you're bringing into your awareness perhaps a mountain that you've seen somewhere,

Somewhere you visited.

Or it could be one that you picture in your mind,

What you see as a most magnificent mountain that you would ever see.

And as you picture this,

Notice the qualities of the mountain.

Its sheer presence,

Its stillness.

Regardless of whatever weather is thrown at this mountain it doesn't move.

Just notice those qualities of that mountain.

And then when you're ready,

Become the mountain yourself by absorbing this mountain into you.

So your head becomes the lofty peak of your mountain,

Your legs and your backside and your feet become the base of this mountain,

Rooted solid in the Earth's crust.

So that you become this living presence of a mountain.

So as you sit here your breath rolling in and out of your body,

You take in the qualities of the stillness,

The majesty,

The calmness of this mountain.

This is where we sit,

As a living,

Breathing mountain.

We have our own weather that comes against us at times.

But like the mountain we can have that steadfastness,

That sense of majesty and stillness.

So just continue to be in that place of watching your breath coming in and out of your body.

Picture yourself as that mountain,

As you do.

Now keep an eye on the time and chime when we go past the five minute mark.

So just continue with the practice for now.

Just continue and be in that living mountain.

Just notice in those qualities of stillness,

The steadfastness.

Just watching the breath roll in and roll out.

Just if you get distracted that's fine,

That's normal.

We just come back to here,

Noticing that sense of being the mountain,

Watching the breath.

And again I'll continue with keeping an eye on the time.

Thank you.

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