This is a guided meditation on the power of trust,
The first of the five powers.
I would like to invite you to leave behind everything that was,
All the experiences up to now,
And just arrive land in this moment.
Occupy your body and mind,
Being fully present,
Awake,
Aware,
And right here.
There's nothing special to focus on at this moment,
Just a sense of being alive,
Being here,
Sitting in your place,
Wherever you are and however you are,
Relaxing,
And enjoying how it is to come back to your life,
Your experience right now.
Let go of the sense that there is something to do,
That you have to be a meditator,
That there's something to be fixed or changed.
Let go of the sense that there is something to get,
And just drop into the now as it is.
You can begin to give a soft and gentle priority to the body,
Bodily life,
Which is the easiest place to connect us with the lived experience.
Maybe the touch of the hands,
Or the weight of the body on the chair or the cushion.
Be aware of the environment,
The sounds outside,
Or you can move to the breath.
Be aware of the flow of the breath coming into the body from the outside world,
Entering the body through the chest right down to the belly,
The belly expanding and contracting,
Rising and falling,
Feeling the breath as a natural easy flow,
One of the main characteristics of trust is the sense of welcoming things just as they are.
So whatever you're experiencing right now,
Welcome,
Allow it.
The breath doesn't have to be a certain way,
Just as it is deep or shallow,
Relaxed or tight,
Long or short,
Rough or smooth.
We're interested in the experience of breathing,
But we don't ask it to be a certain way,
We allow it to come and go as it wants.
And there will be thinking,
Commenting,
Pictures in the mind.
We allow them as well.
We can keep choosing the breath,
Giving the breath priority,
But when the mind takes over,
There are pictures in the mind,
We allow them.
They come and they go,
They pass by.
We don't fight them.
And gently we return to the breath and the body as our home,
As our ground.
A key place to explore and develop the quality of trust is in experiences that are pleasant or unpleasant.
So right now,
Check through the body.
Is there a place of tension or stress or discomfort?
Maybe a slight tension in the back or a weight on our shoulders or a slight pain somewhere,
Such as the knees.
So we turn towards an uncomfortable sensation with interest,
With acceptance and allow it to express itself.
We trust it to be what it is,
To tell us its story.
We are not against it,
We are not trying to fix it.
We know it may be unpleasant,
But still we allow it to be what it is.
Engage with it,
Listen deeply,
Be with it.
How is it changing?
What are we doing with it?
How are we responding to it?
And what happens when we pay attention and care and give permission to an unpleasant sensation or unpleasant feeling?
How does it change it?
We can turn to a pleasant sensation,
Maybe just the touch of the hands,
A sense of relaxation in the body.
We trust that too.
It's telling us,
I'm OK.
Whether pleasant or unpleasant,
The attitude of trust is simply allowing things to be the way they are.
What arises is what needs to arise.
Conditions create the result.
And we step back and allow things to be the way they are,
To arise and pass as they will.
We can do this with the mind.
What's going through our minds right now?
Our thoughts that are pleasant for us or that are difficult.
Thoughts that bring joy or thoughts that bring concern.
Again,
Just allowing the thoughts to express themselves without censorship,
Without control,
Without trying to fix them or change them or get rid of them.
We trust them to express their life,
Their stories.
But this trust is care,
And this care heals our mind and our body.
Just like a mother that is caring for a child that is crying and laughing,
By engaging,
By holding,
By connecting and by allowing the child to express the joy and the pain of life.
I would like to suggest a small visualization that we can do right now.
Let's remember something that happened to us perhaps recently that was challenging,
That was a bit difficult.
Maybe it produced anxiety or anger.
Maybe it was something that someone else said or that we read or that we heard or that we felt.
Maybe it made us defensive,
Concerned,
Reactive,
Irritated or angry.
Just go back over that experience.
How was it for us?
What did we feel?
What was the situation?
Visualize it as clearly as possible with the details that we can remember.
And now let's go back over that same scene but applying the qualities of trust that we've been practicing here just now.
A sense of allowing things to be just the way they are because that's the way they appear,
That's the way they're happening.
Allowing ourselves not to be against what happens but to be interested and kind and present.
Allowing the other person,
If they're not there,
Allowing the other person,
If there is another person or the experience,
To be what it is.
To embrace ourselves and the other with awareness,
Kindness and trust.
And now,
How would that situation have played out if we'd applied trust?
How would it have been different?
You can imagine rewriting the script.
This way we can feel how trust would work in our daily life as a power that smooths,
That softens,
That calms the stormy seas of our daily life.
And now let's reconnect with our body right now.
Coming back to the clear sensations of life,
The touch of the hands,
The body sitting,
Feet on the ground or the breathing flowing through us gently,
Easily.
And feel as we're sitting here a quality of protection and quiet as if we're sitting under a large tree offering us shade and shelter.
We're sitting on the earth that is holding us,
Supporting us,
Giving us a sense of confidence and steadiness,
Giving us a hint that trust is a power that allows us to navigate through life with more heart,
With more peace and ease and care.
And so let's finish this meditation with just a quality that we bring out into our life of surrender,
Of letting go,
Of allowing things to be what they are rather than resistance and struggle and fighting.
Giving permission to life.
