This guided meditation is going to be a quiet sitting time, with relatively few prompts. I like this approach this time of year. Less guiding energy and attention and more being with what is. You could call it opening into emptiness.
Some of the prompts, for some people, could bring up a bit of fear. If that happens, just put your hand on the seat you’re sitting on, and if you really need to you can open your eyes for a minute. You may not experience anything like that, but just in case, you have options.
There’s nothing wrong if your mind wanders. Just come back to the breath when you notice your distraction. This is normal and expected and happens more on some days and less on others.
One semantic correction. I use the word spacious. In some ways I’m referring to it, I recognize that we are letting go of space, which would mean space-less is more appropriate if we want to be technical. But that’s a weird way to say it, so spacious is good enough for me.
Sit Upright. Hands. Feel how this posture supports an attentive, dignified, awakeness.
Notice the Breath. Get into a smooth, quiet, even rhythm. Lower lungs. Ribs out to the sides. The breath will be an anchor today, for our attention.
We have no agenda today, no states we’re trying to accumulate, no recognitions to acquire. Let go of what you think meditation is, and what a meditator does. We are entering non-doing now.
Let go of being spiritual or peaceful or being good at this. Allow whatever arises.
No expectations of anything except being present for what is.
Let go of the concepts that I’m suggesting and guided toward, and relax into the non-conceptual experience of the prompts.
Imagine you are holding as still as possible without affecting your smooth breath, like a tiger ready to pounce, or an antelope not wanting to be seen. Feel the resonance of holding very still. Your breath can move naturally and easily in this perfect stillness.
Even in movement, all movement, there is a stillness from which it arises. Feel the serenity of quiet stillness. Imagine or feel the vast stillness that holds all movement. Rest in still awareness. You are not only still, you are stillness.
Notice the space within your still body. Imagine that inside your body is nothing but empty space. Clear, open space inside your skin, and the breath is a gentle wind flowing through it, filling and emptying it.
Now let go of the idea of a border to the body. Let it dissolve, or imagine it, removing differentiation between inside and out. Feel the freedom and openness as the idea of form drops away.
Rest in the awareness of open spaciousness, the smooth, relaxed breath still moving naturally and freely. Rest as spacious awareness. You are not only spacious, you are spaciousness itself.
In this open spaciousness, listen to the silence. Even if you hear sounds around, be aware of the silence within the sounds. The silence that holds all sound. Feel your breath meld with and be held in the silence. Notice and rest in quiet awareness of silence. You are not only silent, you are silence.
Emptiness….
Let the quiet deepen.
Let the stillness deepen.
Let the spaciousness open without limit.
We could call this emptiness. With no connotations a scary void, this is our sacred source. The dark, velvety ground of being and becoming.
There is nothing to reach for or understand here.
Nothing to hold things or ideas in place.
No particular place where you and your ideas end and this openness begins.
There is nothing to fear. This is our most natural and true presence.
The smooth, free breath is still our anchor, even if we barely notice it.
Let even the sense of resting in emptiness soften.
No distance from it.
No us trying to be with it.
There is no separate awareness watching the emptiness.
Aware presence and this open emptiness are not two things.
They are sacred source.
Awareness and emptiness are also fullness.
Awareness is inherently free and blissful.
We rest as this awake awareness, in free and blissful presence.
In the invocation we called it the ocean of compassion! The reverend Great Divinity! The Benevolent Lord!
This is also simply being.
Quiet. Still. Open. Free. Blissful.
Let the words fall away.
