Settling yourself into a comfortable meditation posture.
Whether you're sitting on a chair.
.
.
Or with the offsetting on a floor.
Making sure that you feel stable,
Grounded.
And you're able to have your body upright.
Extending through the crown of your head.
Your eyes.
Cast downwards.
You're welcome to have your eyes slightly opened.
Or let your eyes close.
As you wish.
Finding a comfortable balanced poise.
In your posture.
And from there,
We can turn our attention inwards.
Seeing how you are right now.
Noticing what's going on.
Checking in.
With yourself.
You might notice things on all sorts of different levels.
Physical sensations.
Thoughts and feelings.
Energy movements.
Just noticing.
I'd invite you to drop in a question to this awareness.
Of Who Am I?
This is the first koan we study in our Zen practice.
And you could say it's the most fundamental of all the koans,
The questions or the points of contemplation.
Who am I?
So we might drop it in like a pebble down a well.
From our brain where we formulate and ask the question,
Dropping it down into the belly,
Into what in Zen they call the hara.
The Guts.
So letting the question form.
Down here,
In the belly.
Asking from the very centre of your being.
Who am I?
Now this question.
.
.
Points us towards the very fundamental nature of ourselves.
And of.
All that we relate to.
All that we're part of.
And traditionally we'd ask,
On the out-breath,
Who am I?
And on the in-breath,
Just be open to whatever is arising.
But you might find that rhythm.
Is a bit fast.
It might just start to take on a rhythm of its own.
The asking.
And the openness.
So we could ask.
.
.
Who am I?
And then just be open to what arises for a while.
Who am I?
And then if you get distracted.
Or you lose the train of thought or.
.
.
You get pulled off somewhere else,
Just refocus.
Down in the belly.
Who am I?
You might get all sorts of ideas and thoughts around who you are.
I'm a man,
A woman,
I'm a father or a daughter or.
.
.
I'm an employee or.
.
.
I'm a citizen.
I am a meditator.
All sorts of things and they're all true.
But they're not the whole truth.
So we let them come.
We see them.
Do our best not to edit or criticise or judge,
Just let them go,
And come back to the question,
Who am I?
Who am I?
And gradually the layers of the onion skin begin to lift.
There might be memories or.
.
.
Experiences with your eyes.
There might be things which seem completely unconnected.
And that's okay,
We just let them come,
We let them be seen not judging,
Or let them pass.
And come back to the question.
And like this we gradually.
.
.
Begin to uncover.
Who we really are.
And it can feel like we're wading through mud.
Or it can feel like it goes very,
Very dull and boring.
I'm sick of asking this question.
Or there can be all sorts of insights that arise.
But we just keep on asking.
We get closer and closer.
We're seeing more and more clearly that actually i am not a thing I'm not a role.
I'm not a memory.
I'm not defined by what I do.
Or how people see me.
There's so much more.
These fixed ideas about who and what we are.
Arise!
And they pass,
They're not the whole truth.
As we delve deeper,
As we enquire further and further,
Who am I?
Who am I?
We start to see that I am not this fixed thing or this idea.
I'm a continuously dancing flow.
A flow of change or a flow of impermanence.
And what is a flow?
Well,
It's ungraspable.
It's not pin-downable.
It's not labelable.
It's always changing.
I am a process evolving.
Of fixed objects.
And that's getting closer now.
To what you really are.
The idea of me being a separate,
Isolated individual.
Becomes more and more.
.
.
Just not how it is.
I see myself in relationships.
In a dynamic interaction.
In a kind of manifesting of the whole universe in this moment.
And the answer to this question does not come in the words,
I am.
Because any answer to that in the form I am is necessarily limited,
Like the next part I am this or I am that,
That is a label.
It cannot be the whole truth.
So weak.
Change our camera lens.
We shift our perspective.
From a place of being separate.
To a place of being.
How?
Of a flow.
Of a dance of energy.
I wonder how might that look when we ask the question?
Who am I?
Continuing to ask.
For as long as you need.
When you're ready to finish your meditation.
Swaying your body from side to side.
Taking a deeper breath,
If you like.
Our eyes lift.
Offering the merit of our practice today to all beings.
May they be content.
May they be happy.
May they find true liberation.
Thank you everyone.
