So if you'd like to start by making yourself comfortable for some meditation practice,
Which is essentially realigning our mind with the most peaceful place within us.
Some people might be sitting on the floor,
In which case you'd sit cross-legged with your right leg over your left leg.
If you're sitting on a chair,
Then you're sitting with your back fairly straight.
And the ideal way to put your hands together is with your right hand on top of your left hand,
Your hands palm upwards in your lap.
The index finger of your right hand touching against the thumb of your left hand.
And at this point you can close your eyes very gently.
You might close your eyes as if you're only just half closing them,
Almost as if you were closing your eyes to go to sleep.
Never squeeze your eyes closed and make sure there's no pressure around your eyes.
And although we've adopted the ideal body position for meditation,
We might take a few moments just to check down through our body to be sure that each and every muscle in our body is as relaxed as possible.
Starting at the top of our head,
Scanning down through the whole of our face,
Relaxing the muscles as we go.
Relaxing our jaw,
Our neck,
And letting our shoulders drop to their natural height.
Just letting any tensions go.
Relaxing both arms,
Forearms,
Hands and fingers.
Until the way our hands rest in our lap is as light and gentle as possible.
Going on down,
We relax the whole of our torso,
Chest,
Trunk and abdomen,
Especially the muscles across our tummy.
And then we relax both legs all the way down to our feet and our toes.
You might notice in case there's any knots of tension remaining,
We do our best to relax them as far as possible until our whole body feels ideally light in weight,
Possibly as if it has disappeared or melted away into the atmosphere around us.
At this point we can turn our attention to relaxing our state of mind.
It's also part of our pre-flight check before the meditation itself.
So putting our mind in a positive mood as if our whole mind were filled with happiness and joy.
As if within us felt bright and clear,
Free of any worries or anxieties,
With no concerns about anything at all.
Letting go of any baggage that we have brought to the practice and filling the mind with positivity so that our whole mind feels buoyant.
And you might imagine that inside your body is just a hollow cavity,
As if you were sitting alone in an empty space,
As if your body were just a transparent shell,
Completely empty inside you.
Or perhaps as if your body has been transformed into a sort of transparent bubble with nothing on the inside,
Or as if your whole body has become nothing but a delicate surface.
And within this empty space of our body,
This personal space of ours,
We remember back to that visual image or tactile object which we imagined a few moments ago.
This time letting it float gently downwards within the space of our body until it reaches a point somewhere around the centre of our abdomen,
At our solar plexus,
Or as we sometimes know it in our tradition the seventh base of the mind,
About two finger breadths above the level of the navel.
When we're starting out in the meditation,
It's always slightly approximate,
Because the mind really needs to settle to a point of stillness to see the actual centre of the body clearly.
In practice we just approximate to this point,
Focusing our attention anywhere in the area of the stomach,
Giving the exact position the benefit of the doubt for now,
Acting anywhere that feels right for us.
And later as the mind settles more,
It will naturally gravitate to where it needs to be all on its own.
If we feel the need to anchor the mind in place,
Then we might conjure up some sort of inner image or an object that we can feel in a place that feels the most comfortable for us.
Holding the attention in place as continuously as we can,
For as long as we can,
Avoiding letting the mind slip away anywhere else if we can help it,
Bringing it back each time if it should happen to wander.
If thoughts come up in the mind,
We do our best to ignore them.
And generally they will die down into silence all by themselves.
But if we feel the need to use a mantra as a mechanism to run interference on our thoughts,
And basically block the thoughts from the mind,
We might make use of that traditional phrase,
Samma Arahang,
Samma Arahang,
Samma Arahang,
Over and over again,
With the source of the sound coming up again from the centre of our stomach,
Gently lulling the mind towards a state that is free of any thoughts.
And the two things hand in hand,
That is the inner object and also the sound of the mantra if necessary,
Will help to lead the mind to a place of focus within us,
While freeing the mind of thought.
We cultivate our mind in this way,
Lightly and gently,
Using only the lightest possible attention.
Little by little,
We'll start to pick up on the sense of increasing quality in relation to our inner self,
And by implication,
This spreads outwards towards our quality of life and quality of environment as well.
Because sometimes meditators are characterised as a little bit selfish,
Almost as if we were turning our back on the problems around us in the world.
But on a deeper level,
What we're doing in the mind is like returning something of the benefits of our meditation to the world around us,
Not to speak of what loving kindness can do for those around us in the world.
Because true peace in the world cannot come about simply by dialogue or debate or even by disarmament.
So meditators have a way of contributing to a state of peace in the world,
Where people try to be the change they want to see,
By bringing peace first of all to their minds,
Sorting out the obstacles to peace on the battlefield of the mind,
By reducing the impurities there.
So for now,
We look inside ourselves to the true source of peace,
Captivating the mind at the centre of the body,
By means of our inner object,
And also the mantra if necessary,
Each to our own practice now in silence,
Just for a few more moments,
Until we come to the appropriate time.
You you you you you you you if you find your mind has wandered off on to other things each time you realize just bring your attention back again to the center of your body as before bring your attention back to the center of the body as many times as it takes to build up that sense of continuity between your awareness and that special place at your center as you continue to cultivate the mind in this way you'll find that the number of thoughts become gradually less with or without the mantra you'll find that the gaps between the thoughts become gradually longer until the gaps between the thoughts become longer than the thoughts themselves and you start to be able to see through to what lies beneath the thoughts in the mind beneath that superficial layer of rational thinking giving you access to more intuitive places in the mind a deeper level of the subconscious gut feelings inner wisdom until at the point where the thoughts die down completely we'll start to have a permanent connection to those deeper functions of the mind but for now we keep our mind on track lightly and gently keeping our mind in place with nothing more than a featherlight touch each to our own practice for a few more moments now we come to time for some loving kindness meditation you you you you you you you so we continue to keep our mind on track at the center of the body the whole of the time always at the center of whatever inner experience we have built up for ourselves as a result of the meditation so far today for some people the meditation will amount to a sense of well-being at the center of the body in which case we place our mind gently at the center of that feeling for others it may be a sense of subtle illumination at the center of ourselves in which case we bring our mind to the center of that illumination for others still it may be more like imagery pictures large or small in the mind in the same way we can come to the center of that picture by touching with the very gentlest of awareness almost like new fallen snow touched lightly with a warm fingertip the inner experience will melt away at the point of contact spreading outwards whether it be light whether it be a feeling of well-being whether it be a gradually enlarging inner image this process of spreading from the center of our body is referred to as the spreading of loving-kindness but at this point we allow the loving-kindness to spread outwards to fill the whole of our own body with the wish that we be well and happy the wish that we be free from suffering suffusing the very fiber of our being with a sense of well-being and light spaciousness and clarity and from there we allow the same feeling of loving-kindness or visualization of loving-kindness to spread outwards beyond the boundaries of our own body out into the room around us out into the building around us outwards into the neighborhood and perhaps beyond encompassing all the living beings in its path in ever-widening circles reaching out to those living beings with the wish that those living beings be well and happy free from suffering live together in peace and harmony in this way we can extend our loving-kindness in ever-widening circles with a sense of brightness with a sense of compassion outwards to our fellow beings in whatsoever countries or nations of the world whole continents across the entire face of this planet in a way that encourages a real sense of peace in the world and in terms of our fellow travelers on this spiritual path we might also make affirmations in our mind resonating with the same sense of peace and harmony that may I be encircled by love and peace and wisdom may I be surrounded by loving caring friends and family may only good and wonderful things be attracted into my life may I add value to the others in my life thereby bringing joy and fulfillment for those others in my life maybe feel a sense of gratitude for all the things people and experiences that are beneficial in our life recognizing the influence of those things and in terms of our spiritual quest we can reflect upon the importance of topping up our own spiritual inspiration to find time each day for quiet contemplation for our own restoration and renewal to connect with the wise inner part of ourselves while being filled with a sense of compassion that reaches out beyond ourselves to our families our homes our colleagues to the whole neighborhood and municipality in ever widening circles to all sentient beings those that we can see or those that we are unable to see may these positive emotions spill over and brush off on the people around us until our whole world will become better as a result because if no single person in the world ever thought of anything but their own selfish desires any bright future for the world would be hard to achieve but if individual meditators can cultivate and share the best in themselves the best of intentions words and actions all around them the world will be turned around into a place that's more welcoming and abundant with opportunities and the same effect will be magnified and multiplied exponentially when individual meditators gathering groups to practice together in person or online until a critical mass is reached that will be the turning point for peace in the world but for now we extend our loving kindness our positive energy in this way for ourselves and others for the last few moments of our meditation practice in silence until we come to the appropriate time you you
