Transcription
So these afternoon meditations, I think I said at one point, they may feel quite different. It may feel like the whole retreat we're just doing all these different, unrelated practices. It's fine if they feel different. It's not a problem. And just to go with what feels like it's helping, it's working, what feels good. In a way, though, they're really not different. And in the afternoon meditations, as I've already said, I'm wanting to present different ways of entering the same kind of territory, you could say.
Okay. So let's just do a guided meditation together, then.
[00:55, guided meditation begins]
So settling again into the posture. Reminding yourself, reminding the heart, of kindness, or your direction of, your aspiration of kindness. Just spending a few moments settling into the body, and allowing a sense of calm. Finding, even, a sense of calm. Anchored, centred, in the awareness of the body.
Seeing if it's possible to be sensitive to stillness. So whatever stillness there is in the body, and the stillness in the hall. Feeling, sensing that stillness, inside and outside. And from that centredness, from that stillness, within that stillness, opening to listening, opening wide the awareness to listening, to the sounds that come from nearby and from far. Aware of their arising and passing. Receiving sound, receiving it in that openness of awareness. And listening also to silence, to the quality of silence -- between sounds, around sounds, as if silence is the ground out of which the sounds emerge and into which they fade back. Resting in that silence. Is that possible? Opening up and resting in the silence as the sounds are resting in the silence.
Is it possible to imagine the mind, imagine awareness, like the open sky? Clear, bright, vast. And body sensations, thoughts, images, experience, like fireflies in the night sky, like shooting stars streaking through, tracing through, disappearing. Or like a burst of fireworks in the darkness and fading. Or experiences like a cloud coming together in the sky, rolling through. Everything lives for a while in this sky and then fades.
[10:14] So there's no need to get entangled with anything, to reject anything or cling to anything. Plenty of space in awareness, in the vastness, for everything. No need to interfere or control. So whatever arises is embraced in the space of awareness naturally, effortlessly. And the space, the sky itself, remains undisturbed by whatever appears in it, whether it's lovely or ugly. The space of awareness is undisturbed just like physical space is undisturbed by what passes through it.
No need to label experience, sensation. Each moment of sensation just floating, floating free. Within the vastness, within the space of awareness, moments of experience arising, appearing, and disappearing.
[18:13] Whatever arises is already held in awareness, naturally. We don't have to try to do that. Is it possible just to be aware of the underlying spaciousness, the underlying clarity of awareness? And just letting appearances arise, live, and fade. Arise and fade. And let them belong to awareness, let them belong to the space. Just bubbles floating through the space of mind, dissolving back into it, passing through and melting back, melting back.
Perhaps it's possible to get a sense how everything arises like waves in the ocean, and then dissolving back into the ocean. Or is it possible to see everything is an impression in awareness? Like a reflection on the surface of a lake, everything is an impression in awareness, everything. Seeing everything as an impression in awareness, just an impression in awareness.
[27:43] Just as silence permeates sounds, the stillness and space of awareness permeates and pervades everything that arises. Just impressions in awareness. So, okay if things lose their substantiality a little bit; they're just impressions in awareness. Just like waves or calm depths of the ocean, all is water.
So resting in that natural openness, the natural clarity, receptivity, vastness of awareness. Is it possible to see everything that arises as just an impression in awareness? So even if there's an image in the mind that comes up of yourself sitting, of yourself meditating, any form of sense of self that arises -- also just an impression, just an impression in awareness. Seeing it like a reflection in a pond. No need to get entangled, no need to give it substance.
Perhaps it's possible to get a sense of the quality, the qualities, of that space -- the vastness of it, the imperturbability of it, unshakeable, endlessly peaceful. Vast, fathomlessly deep. Receptive to the space, receptive to the vastness, the silence of awareness.
[39:35, guided meditation ends]
So these meditations with a very expansive awareness, as some of you have already been experimenting with, you'll find that they can sometimes work quite well walking, standing, etc., eyes open or eyes closed. It doesn't confine itself to eyes shut, sitting down meditation. If you want to, if you find something in there that feels like "ooh, there's something I want to explore a bit more," take it in other postures, other situations around the house, and just explore it.
