2020 3 16
Simple meditation
Feet, back, breath
What would it be like to live in a world where there's enough time for meditation?
Settling into your place and allowing each breath to feel like you have all the time in the world for that breath.
Settling into your place on earth. The miraculous body and this whole breath just now.
And what about not even trying to meditate yet?
But just settling and a few breaths, as if each breath has all the time in the world.
All the time in the world for the out-breath.
All the time in the world for and in-breath.
Letting the body be heavy, spreading into the ground, as if welcome. Beloved of the earth. As you are.
And just another wave of breath moving through the body, by itself, and being felt--enjoyed, even...Why not?
Not even trying to meditate. Just being here, as you are, is enough for a while.
Letting your body feel itself, on the earth. Being welcome, a child of life.
Not made by your own hands. Not your own fault. But here is a body, full of life.
And here are your feet. Can you feel something in your feet? And as you feel your feet--maybe allowing them to be just small and heavy and exactly as they are: those spaces between your toes. Those curves. That wondrous and strange architecture.
And perhaps sometimes just feeling the feet as they are, sometimes you may have a sense as if the feet are also bigger. As if you lose track of the boundaries of your feet. As if at the end of each leg is a cloud of sensations that doesn't necessarily end right away, somewhere specific. There's the warmth and the coolness; the soft air. The firm ground; the pulse. But also, sometimes, almost as if the feet were bigger and softer, almost as wide as the horizon.
Not being busy with our feet, but just enough interest to be immersed, to be inside that flow of sensations of your feet--here and here and here. Heaviness, lightness.
Sometimes after a while of feeling our feet, the mind can relax and maybe there's a bigger breath. And there could be feeling of the whole entire body, as well as,
and along with, feeling your feet. Almost as if your real head is down there in your feet. The most important part of you is down there in your feet. And also the rest of you can be felt. You can play with how it is for you feeling about half of your interest and awareness with your feet and about half for the rest of your body.
Just letting it all be. Letting that part of us that might've been really used to being busy all the time... letting that busy part start to melt, like ice. And just leaking out all the edges, all the gaps between sensations. And allowing the body to be here and to be felt--the feet and the contact with the ground.
The breath, and wherever the breath massages and pulls and pushes and strains and releases in the body.
Like a game. Feeling your feet and noticing also, where do you feel the movements of breathing? If you wish, maybe feeling the feet, as well as where the feet connect into your lower legs. The feet and the lower legs and maybe the back of your body. Something like a raft, a simple boat that gives a place for the breath to happen. You can feel the raft of the legs, the feet, the back. And in that raft, in the boat, the movements of breath.
Just for two or three more breaths if you like.
Allowing the most enjoyable breaths that you can imagine to really take their time to move through your body. Wherever it reaches. As if the movements of breath are a delicious honey or thirst-quenching spring water. That wherever it reaches, is delicious to every cell.
Just a simple delicious breath, being drunk by your body.
On the raft of feet and legs and back.
And then, if you're not feeling completely relaxed with this practice, just relaxing everything. Not trying to stay in touch with feet and legs and breath, and make the breath delicious and all that.
But just somewhere simple that you can connect in your body. Maybe it is the feet. Maybe it is your back. The lower belly. Maybe the movements of breath. Whatever works well for you. Something simple, just relaxing into the moment.
So it’s something like a creature that's in the water and mostly made of water.
Both heavy and floating.
In the water of now.
So that you don't need to hold yourself in now, but now holds you in itself.
Here you are, and here’s this simple lower belly or back or breath. Felt by itself.
Like a creature made of water, in water.
You are a creature of now, in now.
Simply being in touch with the sensations, somewhere that it's possible or easy. And the deliciousness of letting go of everything else, and just being held in now. Like in the lap of a beloved.
Nothing special, nothing special, nothing special. Just this.
No burden of special-ness. Just the wonder of this simple moment here.
Yes, there are all those currents that would take you away from just this simple here.
And yet, here we are still.
Just this simple moment, nothing special. This simple moment that's freely available, freely given to us. And what in you loves that simple freedom?
Nothing special; here we are.
And as we come towards the end of our meditation session, maybe it doesn't need to be the end of your meditation. If you have some time you can stay quietly resting into aliveness.
And I would also like to propose a few questions to savor or play with.
And one is: is there an image or a word or an object or a posture that you could revisit or keep with you during the rest of your day? Until we meet again, something that would just help you connect to the simplicity and that freely given-ness of life.
To connect to what's important. To connect to here-ness and love.
It doesn't have to be a perfect word or object or image, but something that helps you.
And I'd like to propose also that you consider thinking of a gesture of love or kindness that you could offer yourself today or tomorrow. And a gesture you could offer to another.
If there’s someone that you know who could use some appreciation or a meal, some encouragement or a listening or a little massage. Whatever is possible and feels good to you—to even just have as an idea. Maybe it's possible or not.
Thank you.
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