So bring your attention to the body for a few moments.
The body is what got you to the center,
To this place of meditation.
It drove your vehicle here or got you in the car to ride here.
It walked from the car into these,
Through these doors.
And you made your way to the seat or upon the cushion.
You made yourself comfortable,
Made the body comfortable as possible.
And with a comfortable body,
We know from experience that that is very,
Very helpful in meditation.
And basically what is happening,
It's helping to prevent the mind from worrying about too many things.
If there's discomfort in the body,
If there's any pain in the body,
Any tension,
It's just another thing that the mind has to pay attention to in some way.
It's very natural,
Very much a part of being human.
Part of the mind's job is to pay attention to any kind of ailments in the body to help protect it,
Help it heal.
Otherwise we would cut ourselves or bump into something and not realize it.
It would be a very difficult life without that kind of awareness,
Agreement between the body and mind.
One of the first things that leaves the awareness when we're doing well with our meditation is the body.
And so it's,
Again,
It's very helpful to have the body relaxed,
Comfortable.
And then if we're consistent with our meditation practice,
We become consistent with our posture and become second nature.
We find our cushion,
We sit down and it's like we get right to work.
And if everything is well and healthy with the body,
We realize when we go within that we're working with the mind more than anything else.
Sometimes we're just trying to settle the mind down.
That's why we focus on a single stationary object and most people will use the breath,
Focusing on the breath to bring themselves into the present moment.
With the intention of not worrying about what happened in the past or what might happen in the future.
And non-judgmentally allowing the thoughts to arise into our awareness and fall away again.
Every experience that we have is arising and falling away.
Every memory arises and falls away.
And this is all part of being human as well.
The memory of an experience that happened in the past will come into our area of thought,
We'll think about it and then it falls away.
This is our activity of recall or a memory.
And this is very natural,
Very much a part of being human.
Sometimes these things get repressed into our mind and body.
They become part of our subconscious and they can serve us well and they can also cause problems for us.
So when we have problems in everyday life,
Sometimes we don't even recognize where they come from.
And meditation isn't a practice of going into the past to do any type of self-psycho-therapy or anything like this.
It's a practice of resting in the present moment.
With a great deal of acceptance and the ability to let go of what hasn't been previously let go.
And that can be anything or everything.
And in this letting go,
We realize what our attachments are,
The things that are sticky in our life that are causing us problems.
These are the things that arise into our awareness but don't fall away as easily as most things do.
So if we have any repressed experiences,
Memories,
Something that we aren't able to exactly understand,
We can notice that these arise a part of our meditation again and again.
So the habitual patterns of the mind that we sometimes notice in meditation.
In other words,
The things that are giving us problems.
Sometimes they're very noticeable and sometimes they're very difficult to spot.
Then inevitably it's always the habitual patterns,
Sometimes seen and sometimes unseen,
That give us the difficulties.
Sometimes subconscious,
Sometimes conscious.
We might even have something in mind right now,
Something that we might actually feel as if we could do some work with.
And I'm using the word work very lightly because that's not exactly why we're here.
For an example of how meditation can work,
We use this as an example.
But we find the problem and locate it and are able to see it.
The habitual patterns that come up.
And once found,
We can take a very close look at it.
We investigate something not from a personal standpoint,
But from the area of the truth.
So with awareness,
If we were to investigate something,
We don't take a personal interest in it.
We take a non-judgmental look at the way something is.
A private investigator,
If hired by somebody to watch somebody,
His job is to collect information and then bring it back to the client.
But if you would take a personal interest in the other party that he is investigating and find out their activities,
This would taint his opinion and the information that he could bring back to the client.
It's the same way with the meditator or the person investigating.
To see it for the truth and hopefully see it through the light of insight in between the area of thought to see the truth of the matter as insight is.
And then once investigated,
Then we nurture ourselves and others,
Anybody involved.
This can mean a great deal of forgiveness,
Understanding,
Support and love for everyone involved or everything involved.
Most of it directed directly towards us,
Ourselves.
Once this nurturing is complete,
Then we can accept the consequences,
Accept what has happened.
We can see it with a very clear mind,
Clearly understand it.
Kind of rinse it off of the ugliness that might be there or the impurities.
And then from there we can let it go.
We can just set it free or allow it to drift off to the river of life,
If you will.
So if we're sitting in meditation and something,
Irritation habitually arises.
We find and see what that is.
We know then what we're working with.
We investigate it through nurturing and acceptance and letting go.
And we can heal.
All this can be done behind the foundation of the breath.
Because we should remain very present while we're doing this.
While we're doing the finding or seeing and investigating and nurturing,
The acceptance and the letting go.
We can be very present.
We can be resting in the stillness in a very non-judgmental way.
Very mindful with very clear intention.
We bring our attention to the breath.
If it's not there already.
Take a nice deep inhalation.
Bring energy into the body.
Bringing yourself back into this room.
Take another nice healing breath of air.
Do this a few more times.
Wake yourself up.
Bring yourself to energize.
Thank you.
