Settling into a comfortable seat for meditation.
Coming into the posture of meditation,
We both invite stability through the lower body,
Brightness through the upper body,
The tall spine,
The lifted heart,
Softening jaw and face,
And the gentle settling of the gaze,
Either with eyes open or closed.
As it feels right,
Turning from the looking outward to the looking inward,
Or in a certain way to not looking for anything.
But we settle the activity of seeking sensory contact.
And in that settling,
The possibility that the life of the body in its fullness,
In a very simple way,
Shows itself,
Becomes manifest to us,
With us,
In us.
There's a way that we invite the posture and its wholesome qualities.
And a way that as practice matures,
As we get used to the posture of the sitting,
The practice of coming into stillness,
The inviting,
And at times even the discipline of taking the seat,
Taking the posture,
Becomes a kind of allowing the seat,
Allowing the posture.
Remember the law of thermodynamics,
That a body in motion continues in motion,
But if new energy or impulse is not put into that body like a rolling wheel,
There's drag,
There's momentum,
But also inertia,
Friction.
The wheel slowly rolls to a stop when not compelled to do otherwise.
The profound resting point of the body,
Heart,
Mind,
We call samadhi,
The gathered,
Immersion.
It's not so much something we can force ourselves to get into.
It's a thing that happens when we stop pedaling,
We glide into stillness.
We don't slam on the brakes,
That's jarring.
But settling into the posture,
Simply letting go of further action.
Over time,
A few minutes,
A few decades,
A few lifetimes,
We start to get used to the feeling of gliding into stillness,
Simply by not doing anything.
And we allow the posture and the beauty,
In a way,
Of rest,
The sweet pleasure of less,
Doing less.
In the way that you can't make yourself fall asleep,
But you can get in the posture and kind of forget about it,
And sleep will come.
You can't make yourself come into stillness of body-mind,
Of thought,
Of obsessive spinning,
But you can get in the posture and kind of forget about it.
Meditation is the awake mirror image of sleep,
Effortless,
Autonomic,
Nourishing.
You fall into it.
We should call it falling awake.
The breath settles,
And you can help it settle if it's tense by sometimes taking a few deeper breaths,
Or really noticing the out-breath like a sigh.
The pathway toward falling asleep and falling awake are similar,
Up to a point.
And the point is the moment where,
In falling asleep,
Awareness turns off.
Unconsciousness arises as your state.
When you're falling awake,
It's the same relaxing,
Doing nothing,
Forgetting about it.
But then in a certain way,
Awareness turns on,
Brightens,
Consciousness appears,
Mindfulness turns on,
You know what you're doing,
Where you are.
So notice your awakeness in a task just as if you were noticing your sleepiness,
And you would lay down to give into it and invite the nourishment of sleep.
Notice your wakeiness,
The way your system wants to be bright,
But so relaxed,
So at ease,
Nothing to do but delighting in the sweet feeling through the body of being gathered,
Collected.
Steady.
Delight in wakeiness,
Like you delight in sleepiness when you don't have to force yourself to be otherwise.
And then fall awake,
Allowing the pleasure of bright awareness to wash through the relaxed body,
Enjoying the breath,
Enjoying the body.
As the sutta on mindfulness says,
Letting go of grief and distress for the world.
So we'll rest together in silence,
Here in circle,
In community,
And in the wide circles of community,
Wherever you are practicing,
Falling awake together.
So sweet.
