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Guided Meditation: The Interface of Agitation and Peace

Good morning to those of you in the morning, and good afternoon, evening, and night for those of you in other spots around the globe.

One of the things I'd like to mention before doing this meditation is that sometimes when people do mindfulness meditation, they tend to focus on one thing, or one kind of thing, at the exclusion of other things. What I mean by this is sometimes we focus on what's difficult—the challenges to being present, or where our suffering is. And sometimes we focus on the opposite—where the peace, or the happiness, or the ease might be.

But an interesting way of practicing is to have our attention somehow be in the interface, the meeting place of agitation and peace. Between suffering and ease or happiness, between being settled and unsettled. This is a meeting place because both can coexist.

For example, it might be possible to experience in the breathing that maybe the diaphragm is pretty at ease and flowing lightly, but that the top of the chest, the rib cage, might be tight. So there can be a sense of both in the awareness: the ease of the diaphragm breathing in and out, lifting and dropping, and then also the constriction that's here in the upper chest. Neither one of them is right or wrong. To see them both, to hold them both, can point us in the direction of where the interface is between being caught and being free.

They can both be there. And when they're in dialogue with each other, holding each other in reference to each other, then it can be a lot easier to work through the challenges we have. The challenges aren't the whole thing, and they're being massaged, met with, or supported by the place that's good in us: the peace or the well-being.

So, take a comfortable, upright posture and gently close your eyes.

Take a few long, slow, deep breaths. Maybe with the attitude that you're really connecting to yourself for the first time after some time of not being so connected. Taking deep breaths in, deep breaths out.

And perhaps, as you exhale, release the holdings of your body. As you exhale, releasing the shoulders. As you exhale, releasing the chest. As you exhale, releasing the belly.

Then, let your breathing return to normal.

As you continue to breathe, and as you exhale, see if you can also release your mind. Release the thinking mind from its contraction or its agitation. Any tightness or pressure that's associated with thinking, perhaps that too can release and relax.

Settling into your breathing. Perhaps allowing yourself, or your awareness, to be lowered or to settle into your body. The awareness you have perhaps goes along with settling your weight into your body.

Let your thinking mind think quieter. Maybe you can quiet or calm the way you think, as opposed to stopping thinking. Have a little intentionality of slowing down, or giving space and time to the mind's tendency to think.

And then, sitting here, is there someplace in your experience where there might be some sense of peace or calm? Even if there's mostly agitation, is there something within, a quiet, calm place or feeling within? Or is there some place within that feels peaceful? Is there a place in your body, your mind, or someplace inside that you associate with freedom? Where there's a feeling of being free, even if there's lots of places that feel contracted or caught. Any place of freedom in the mind, the heart, or in the body.

And then, whatever within you that feels unsettled, does not feel peaceful, feels unresolved, uncomfortable, or like suffering: hold all that in your mind together with what is peaceful. Breathe with both. There is no need to choose one or the other, and no need to prefer one over the other. Rather, let the awareness include them both.

Perhaps at the interface, the meeting place between them. Maybe with a sense that your breathing includes both what is free and what is not free inside of you. What is calm and what has not calmed. Not to make anything a problem, but to gently, openly be aware of both, as if there's a gentle meeting place, or even conversation, between these two sides of yourself within you.

With your awareness, your mindfulness, see if there can be a quiet awareness—maybe even a silent or nonreactive awareness—that holds both the comfortable and the uncomfortable, the peaceful and not peaceful. One breath at a time, with the inhale, with the exhale, breathing with both sides.

Whatever side of peace or not peaceful, ease or not ease, that your meditation falls on, hold the other in awareness as well. If your mind is agitated and there is a lot of thinking, it's okay. Maybe allow it to be so, but see if you can also hold in awareness that which is not agitated, that which is peaceful. The peaceful and the agitated can coexist. Maybe allowing the peaceful to slowly spread into what is agitated.

Allowing awareness to be broad enough to include what is at ease right now and what is not. It is no problem, just something to hold in awareness: ease and lack of ease, as they unfold, as they exist, and as they touch each other. As they relate to each other, allowing the ease to flow through what is uneasy.

Closing Dedication

And then, as we come to the end of this sitting, perhaps you could share the aspiration with me that whatever is peaceful within you, however small it is, may that be available to meet the agitation of our world.

Whatever is calm within us, may that be available to meet the restlessness and upset of the world. Whatever love and compassion we have within, may that meet the hate and the suffering in the world. And in whatever way that we have some inner freedom, may that meet the ways the world is attached and clinging.

May it be our wish and our dedication to come out of meditation better able to serve and care for this world around us. In a world that needs so much support and help, may we be a support and help where it makes sense, where it's appropriate for us.

Whatever personal benefit that has come from meditation, may we share it broadly and widely for the welfare and happiness of all beings everywhere.

May all beings be happy. May all beings be peaceful. May all beings be free. May all beings experience being respected, loved, and cared for. May we live in a world where we care for each other.