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Guided Meditation: Allowing Well-being

Thank you for the notes about having no sound. I was just saying that the electronics, we think, have been repaired, and now there's no buzz. Hopefully, when you hear me speak, there is no buzz. One of the wires was not properly connected, or it needed to be reestablished inside one of the electronic boxes we have here. So, great. No buzz, and I miss the buzz. [Laughter]

To the beginning of a new week, continuing with mindfulness of breathing. In a sense, this is a recipe for meditation: these sixteen steps of mindfulness of breathing. I'd like to compare it to making bread.

First, you gather your ingredients together. You see what you have, and you measure it all out—all the dry ingredients and all the wet ingredients. At some point, you mix the flour and maybe the water if it's very simple bread, and you mix it well. It all becomes cohesive, connected, and equally moist throughout. Then you might knead it, soften it, stretch it, take out the lumps, and get the gluten stretched and receptive for the yeast that's going to do the work. Then you leave it alone and let it rise. At some point after it's done that, you push it down, knead it some more, and let it rise again. And then you're ready to bake.

With mindfulness of breathing, it begins by gathering the ingredients together, which means gathering yourself around the experience of breathing. The breathing is part of the core ingredients, and you want to familiarize yourself with it. It isn't that we have to measure out the right amount, but it is to really get to know and become familiar with the different aspects of this experience. Each time we sit down to meditate, the breathing will be slightly different. We just discover what it's like, enter into the world of breathing, and really be there for it. Really establish oneself in the breathing.

Then, we start feeling the whole body as we breathe. That's almost like letting the breathing or the awareness spread throughout the body—the full length of the in-breath, beginning, middle, and end. The full experience of the breathing body throughout the torso, where the experience of breathing is, or becoming aware with peripheral awareness of the whole body within which the breathing is occurring.

Maybe this is like really getting the water into the flour and spreading the awareness, opening the goodness of awareness into it all. So, there's a holistic feeling.

Then, we relax. Kneading is like relaxing; we're letting go, softening, kind of like the kneading when we get a massage. We allow the body to relax, to soften, and even to melt a little bit in the context of it.

Those steps of the recipe are done in a leisurely way, not in a hurry. Take your time with each one. After a while, you'll become familiar with this process and the goodness of staying with each step until it feels ripe for the next one.

And then, at some point, you can just let it be. You let the dough rise by itself. At some point, we let something bubble up from the inside. Something begins to work itself—the yeast begins to work—and there's a growth and cultivation of an inner sense of well-being that seems to come from just sitting so rooted in the present moment, rooted in this body, having done some relaxation, and really being present here for this.

That's the topic of what happens when the yeast begins to work. What begins to surface is the beginning of what we're doing when we move into step five of Anapanasati^[1].

So, for now, to start the process, assume a meditative posture. Open up your chest a little bit, and feel the spine. In some postures, there's this idea that you want to sit with a strong spine. A certain kind of strength in your vertebrae, going up your back, holding yourself upright if you're sitting upright.

So your back is strong, and your front is soft. A soft belly, a soft chest, and shoulders soft and relaxed. Letting the belly hang forward and loose. Maybe there are some muscles around the diaphragm you can soften as well.

Then, take a few long, slow, deep breaths, settling further into your experience here with the exhale. Maybe the exhale can be grounding as you settle into your seat. The place where your body touches whatever surface is holding you up. Whatever surface is holding the weight of your body.

And then, let your breathing return to normal. Gather together the ingredients for meditation. Become aware of your breathing, with the idea that you're familiarizing yourself with that experience: the body breathing.

As you experience your breathing, breathe in a normal way. Relax on the exhale. Relax the body around the experience of breathing. Relax. Wherever in the body you're holding yourself up or are tight and tense, soften and relax.

Then, let yourself be simple again with your breathing. Maybe don't do any more relaxation. Just have simple awareness of the body breathing. Aware of the body inhaling and exhaling. An intimacy with the body breathing, where the rhythm of breathing might be like the rhythm of the waves washing up onto the sandy shore, and then receding.

Allow the thinking mind to be quieter, so you can better feel and sense your breathing. If you're thinking about things that have nothing to do with the meditation, you probably don't need to do so. There's probably no need to talk or think about them now. They can wait for later. For now, go deeper into yourself.

Softly, as you're breathing, open up more widely to include the whole body as you breathe, in whatever way that global awareness is easy. So that the awareness that is centered on the breathing is broad and open, receptive to the body as a whole.

Including the whole body, there is both that which is comfortable in the body and that which is uncomfortable. For now, you don't have to focus on one or the other. Just focus on the ability to breathe with the whole body. Almost as if neither the comfortable nor the uncomfortable gets any priority. Just a rhythm of breathing with it or through it. Beyond it. Everything is held in a more global awareness. Everything is included, the whole body.

Then, very simply and lightly, without trying too hard or making it too much of a project, as you breathe with the global body, spend a few moments here to relax the body further. Relax with the tensions and the holdings. Allow the tensions and holdings of the body, the hardness of the body, to melt and soften. Especially as you exhale, soften deep within.

Soften and relax the heart. Soften and relax the physical sensations of the thinking mind—the pressure, the agitation. Breathe in and breathe out. With a light touch, make small movements of relaxation, of calming the body, where the effort to calm and relax is itself calm and relaxed.

And then, no longer relaxing the body, just be in the body. Being in the body breathing. The activity of relaxing comes to an end, and you just become aware of the body breathing.

With the analogy I used earlier, you now leave the dough just to sit and for the yeast to begin its work, to expand and lift the dough. Let yourself just sit here quietly, not trying to do anything more than just being present for the body breathing. Allow something to bubble up—some kind of inner warmth or well-being.

Whether you're feeling comfortable or uncomfortable in the body, just sit here quietly. Allow what is comfortable, what has a feeling of goodness in the body, to have some space. Let it be the yeast, and the body itself is the dough that grows.

At this point, it's not so much that you're making a mental effort to practice, as much as you're making a very soft and relaxed effort to allow the awareness to bubble up from within. For the awareness to bubble out of the sensations of breathing, out of the sensations of the body. Stay intimate and close to the sensations of breathing. Receptive to the in-breath, and receptive to the out-breath.

It is as if, breathing in, you're aware of the full wave washing up on the beach—beginning, middle, and end. And the full receding of the wave as you exhale. Feel the delicacy of the way the full inhale and exhale washes through the body. Be receptive to the goodness of this. The well-being of just being here. In this global body breathing.

There may be experiences you're having now which are comfortable, and maybe those which are uncomfortable. And maybe there's a goodness that's larger than both. A kind of well-being or calmness of an awareness which is inclusive of it all. An awareness which is supported by breathing in and breathing out. An awareness which has a kind of breadth to it, or lots of space in it to include everything without conflict, without judgment, without being for or against.

Perhaps in these last few moments, see if you can feel that goodness or wholesomeness, even if it's very faint—an awareness that includes everything. In principle, it has space for everything: the pleasant and the unpleasant. Then imagine that that awareness can become even more expansive, and it can include what's pleasant and unpleasant in this world. It can include the people who are challenging and those who are not challenging.

Just for these few moments where you don't have to say anything, do anything, or take care of anything, see if you can hold all the challenging and all the easy people in your life. Just hold them in your open heart, in your inclusive awareness. And from within, maybe you can awaken a basic goodwill. Your wish that these people in your lives, all of them, be happy. That they be healthy and safe. That they become free, free of suffering.

May we come out of this meditation with a wish and the intention to include everyone in our hearts, everyone in our kind regard. To sit and be still, and gaze upon everyone kindly in this inclusive way of being aware. May all beings be happy.