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Guided Meditation: Being in Time

Warm greetings from Redwood City, from the meditation hall at the Insight Meditation Center. I'm happy to be here with you this morning to do meditation.

One of the things that helps meditation is to live in time, not by time. Meaning that rather than being harried by time, feeling like we have limited time, or being concerned with time, we can be at ease in the midst of it. We can have time be something vast and expansive that we choose how we live with. We find our way and navigate it like a large territory, as opposed to having time hound us, having too little time, or being in a hurry. Any time we're in a hurry, we're living by time.

To sit and meditate as if there's lots of time—infinite time, as if we have all the time in the world—so much so that as we settle in enough, we can move into something that sometimes feels timeless. But do not rush into the timeless in a hurry. You don't need to feel like you need to be on time or get over it. Just sit with lots of time. That allows for all kinds of settling, calming, unfolding, and opening that meditation enables, rather than something that we do or make happen.

So to sit this day, we say that we are sitting for thirty minutes or so, sitting until 7:30 in California. But what would it be like to sit here, to be here without concern about a fixed time, an end time, but to sit in the vastness of time? To just be here, content with this time. And when the forces of hurry, the forces of time, and all the things we measure by time crowd us and crowd in the mind, that becomes the object of mindfulness. That becomes something we hold in awareness, which has lots of time. We don't deny anything, but we give it its place.

So, taking an upright or alert posture for yourself, begin by gentling yourself. Be gentle. Find a way to gently close the eyes. Gently adjust your posture. Gently take some nourishing breaths. I use the word "gentling" to imply or to cover a range of attitudes, including being friendly, being supportive for yourself, and being caring. A caring beginning to sitting here.

Then perhaps take a few of these caring, deep breaths. Let go and relax as you exhale. Perhaps use the exhale as a way of settling into this particular place where you're sitting, where you're meditating. So there's a definitiveness in your recognition of, "Yes, this is where I'm sitting. This is where I am." To the point, maybe, of relaxing or letting go into this location. So that you feel the support, the groundedness of your body against what your body is touching—the object which is holding your body up from gravity: the floor, your cushion, chair, or bed.

Let your breathing become normal, breathing in and breathing out. Take a few moments to relax and settle further, letting the muscles of your face fall away from the skull. Fall away, and perhaps rest in the skin that holds them in place, so you don't have to be holding your muscles all the time. Relaxing the muscles of the shoulders and shoulder blades, releasing the way that tense shoulders might be holding ourselves against life, or even maybe pushing ourselves through time.

And perhaps softening your belly, releasing. Maybe releasing also worry and anxiety, which usually concerns another time, a future time. Relax your belly to be in this time, now.

To a big extent, time is a mental construct, and it's possible to let go of our usual ideas of time. Sit here with lots of time, lots of space for what is here. No hurry to accomplish anything. No deadlines for breathing. Sitting here aware, as if there is infinite time—which in a sense is actually true, there is. It's our agendas and concerns and wishes, our aversions and fears, that contribute to our usual sense of time, a sense of time that we unconsciously live in. And for these minutes now, perhaps you can live, breathe, and be aware in the vastness of time, the abundance of time.

If you find yourself thinking a lot, you might notice that your thinking is bound by time. And if that's the case, unbind your thinking from being caught in the grips of time, so that you're here living in time, on time.

Rather than getting rid of anything or letting go of anything with your awareness, place it in the middle of vast time, vast space. See if you can be content, at ease, and at peace, because you live in time, not by time.

Reflections on Time

And then, as we come to the end of the sitting, to reflect on this idea: that all ways in which we become attached and cling are ways of being bound by time. When we are unbound from time, we live in time, but are not pushed around by time, not defined by time. Then there's lots of room for what happens when we're not attached, not clinging. In this non-clinging, love can flow freely and gently. It's in this non-clinging in the vastness of time that generosity and kindness exist freely. It is without clinging, in the vastness and contentment of infinite time, that our care and our good will for others can flow from us as if it's a natural capacity.

May it be that as we sit and meditate, we allow ourselves the opportunity to sit here in infinite time, vast abundant time—all the time in the world. So that our care, our love, and our compassion can be available as we leave meditation, to wish for the welfare and happiness of all beings. So that we might act for the welfare and happiness of all beings. May it be that our meditation together today is for the welfare and happiness, the peace, joy, delight, and goodness of all beings everywhere.