Like many of you.
I'm in a period of great change right now.
Lots of uncertainty.
It's never been clearer that we live on shifting sands.
Can I be okay with that?
Yes.
The brain.
Has something called a negativity bias.
That means that If there's any uncertainty.
We go straight to the negative.
The What Ifs.
And it's built into us.
It comes from our ancestors.
Those who.
.
.
Were more nervous and didn't take risks survived.
And as a result we inherit their genes.
So the brain isn't trying to make us comfortable with life.
He just wants to keep us alive.
At any cost.
And we don't live in the same world.
That we lived in.
Hundreds of thousands of years ago.
Yet we still have the same brain.
So when we go to negative,
The What Ifs.
It's worth remembering that This is normal.
It's not anything going wrong.
And nothing's certain anyway.
Everything changes and will always change.
So let's meditate now.
Allow your eyes to gently close.
And come into an upright posture.
Take your attention to the top of your head.
Feel whatever's present.
And allow the scalp to relax Take your attention into your forehead.
Let go of any tightness here as if your forehead can just slide down Take that into your eyes.
Making sure they're not squeezed shut.
Good job.
Making sure that's not gripped tight and if it is just relax it sweep that same awareness.
Down onto the shoulders softening the arms the hands.
The torso.
And the legs.
Then just come.
To ease.
Ease and stillness.
See if you can notice the breath in the body.
The rising and falling.
Of the chest or abdomen wherever you feel it most.
And notice that the breath changes.
No two breaths are the same.
So the breath coming in now.
It's slow and deep Because it's shallow.
Does it come in smoothly?
Or bumpy,
Stopping and starting.
Don't change your breath.
Let it be as it is.
The out-breath does that come out in one gentle exhale Is it bumpy and rough?
Is it short or long?
And then just allow the breath to fade into the background.
And now the whole field of the body becomes.
The object of meditation That might still be your breath that's coming to the fore.
It's most prominent.
Or it might be an ache in the back.
It might be an itch.
Whatever's here in the body now.
Just be with it.
And watch it Watch it go through lots of little changes.
And then watch it fade away then rest back into awareness until something else arises.
Tingle.
An itch and a some things a gun in a flash Some things stay around and change a lot.
But all things.
Coming to being from nowhere.
So it seems they change a little reach a peak and fade away.
Back to the place from which they came.
Arising and passing away.
The nature in us.
That we're observing now the arising and passing of all things.
It's the nature of the entire universe and all of us struggle.
All of us suffering.
Comes from not seeing that.
And not accepting it.
Is very hard to do.
But the more we do it especially when we feel it viscerally in the body.
During meditation.
The more That happens.
The more at peace we become because.
.
.
We know that's the nature of reality.
Change loss and gain and loss is not a problem.
Holding on to it Is.
And I myself am going through Incredible change at the moment.
And whenever I come and sit in meditation Feel the nature of reality.
Embrace the uncertainty.
A piece arises that is higher.
Than any happiness.
That the things I hold on to could ever bring.
So we let go.
We don't push away.
We have to feel it first.
Get to know the presence of that which bothers us.
Live intimately with it.
Feeling it in every pore.
Because that way,
It feels heard.
And it leaves when it's ready.
And it leaves you without any of the poison left inside.
Healthy.
Happy and unscarred.
So greater than let go is let it be.
And try to become at peace.
With its presence.
Once that's mastered It leaves all by itself.
Begin to move the body slowly.
When you're ready,
You can open your eyes.
And just keep doing this over and over.
Knowing that there is the changeless The Deathless.
Which is what we really are.
Sounds like a contradiction when we say everything changes.
Winner,
Thank you.
