Find your comfortable meditation posture.
Maybe you're already there.
Something that allows you to be grounded,
Stable in your foundation and then upright and aligned in your upper body.
Thanks Elisa.
Yeah great,
Great to hear.
And then letting your eyes lower,
Maybe allowing your eyes to close completely or just let them stay a slightly open cast downwards.
Softening your body,
Softening anything that doesn't need to be holding.
And we're going to do what they call in Zen,
Echo hensho,
Echo turning around,
Hensho,
Which is kind of like something about shining the lamp,
You could say.
So we'll turn the lamp around,
Shine the lamp within ourselves.
We come to meet ourselves.
Just seeing how you are,
Checking in,
Noticing.
We can notice on the physical level,
The sensations,
Feelings.
Noticing tensions and tightnesses in your body,
Discomforts.
Any aches or pains.
Noticing the heaviness and the connection with the ground.
The feeling of breathing.
We can notice our inner world on the mind level.
Just seeing for yourself right now.
Do you feel calm?
Calm?
Or a bit energized?
Do you feel concentrated or scattered?
Are there lots of thoughts?
Or not so few,
Not so many?
We can meet ourselves on an emotional level.
And maybe emotions are not particularly intense or even particularly easy to discern right sitting here,
But we could ask,
Do you generally feel down or up?
What's the tone,
The emotional tone?
And if it feels like you're kind of in the middle,
Neutral,
Would you say,
Are you on the one side of neutral,
You know,
Maybe more towards feeling content and happy,
Or a little bit discontent,
Uncomfortable?
Would you be leaning slightly one way or the other,
Just right now?
Doing your very best,
Not to judge,
Not to turn away,
Not to wish things were different.
We can meet ourselves on an energy level.
Starting from the broad brush.
Would you say your energy levels are high or low right now?
Maybe you could think of it in terms of being tired or awake.
Do you feel energy concentrating in different parts of your body?
Sometimes it feels a little bit tingly or hot or full in the belly.
Or in the head.
Sometimes in the fingers.
Would you say there is a flow of energy in your body?
Maybe flowing upwards or downwards.
Or maybe outwards or inwards.
Or it might be feeling more chaotic.
Or none of those.
So we meet ourselves,
We sit as we are.
I'm going to be quiet now for a bit.
To leave us the opportunity to sit within ourselves,
As ourselves.
Facing ourselves.
Being ourselves.
And if your mind wanders off,
We start thinking about something else.
That's also okay,
No judgement,
No need to criticise ourselves.
Just bringing our awareness back into yourself.
This intention to simply be who you are,
Right now.
And as we come to the end of this meditation practice,
Starting to sway your body a little bit from side to side.
Maybe take a deeper breath if you like.
Letting your eyes lift when you're ready.
And we offer the merit of our practice today to all living beings.
May they find well-being,
Health.
May they be content.
May they find liberation.
Thanks everyone for joining today.
