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Guided Meditation: Simplicity

Warm greetings. I'm happy to be here with you all and share this time together. We'll start with our meditation.

As an introduction to meditation, one of the great teachings about this mindfulness meditation is that it's meant to be simple. If it's not simple, it's not Vipassana^[1], it's not mindfulness. And there are many implications of this word "simplicity." One of them is the simplicity of being.

In meditation, it's a time for a ceasefire. This is not the time for any kind of relationship to oneself that is complicated by repulsion, aversion, blame, anger, or the opposite—attraction to oneself in some kind of egotistical way, or praising and glorifying oneself. It is the simplicity of putting aside both diminishing ourselves and criticizing ourselves, or approving of ourselves. It is the simplicity of being that doesn't need either one, but almost a situation where we can forget about ourselves, forget about our self-definition, and proving ourselves, or becoming something, or being anything at all. Just to be sitting here, just to breathe is enough. Just to be alive is enough.

By putting aside all this self-concern, attraction, and repulsion to self, we can begin to forget the self and discover a freedom of simplicity. The freedom of a kind of lightness and openness, maybe even a kind of spontaneity and ease that can come when we're not carrying along the self-concern, the self-preoccupation of any kind. The simplicity of being just here.

So, take a meditation posture. The idea is that if you can, assume a posture that itself embodies a degree of attention, a degree of intent to attend to this present moment experience. For some people, that means to sit up a little bit straighter, or to do something with your hands and arms that is a little bit more an expression of being present and being here. Gently close your eyes.

Perhaps you can begin by swinging your arms, flapping your elbows a little bit, just to loosen them, just to keep it loose in your arms. Maybe adjust how your hands lay on your thighs, on your legs, so the hands feel at ease and relaxed.

Softening the belly so that all the muscles around the waist, the belly, and around to the lower back can feel like they release a little bit. Relax. Maybe even the tops of the thighs can be softened and relaxed. Perhaps sometimes when you soften the tops of the thighs, it releases something in the small of the back, some holding. Also, when the belly is soft and relaxed, when you inhale, the diaphragm pushes down, pushes the belly forward, and expands the belly, ballooning it a little bit. But it also ever so slightly gives a small massage at the small of the back, the curve in the lower part of your spine. With the relaxed belly, things become looser all around your waist.

Relaxing around the chest, solar plexus, and heart area. Appreciating how the rib cage and the chest expand and lift as you breathe in, then come back and settle as you breathe out. Even if some of those feelings feel like work, and breathing is a little hard, perhaps there's some part of that movement of the chest that can have a sense of ease to it, a rhythm.

As you exhale, relax the shoulders. Maybe ever so slightly rotate or shake your upper torso to see if you can help your shoulders free a little bit more. And then softening around the eyes with the eyes closed. Softening around the mouth and cheeks. And softening a bit in the brain. As if the brain is a muscle and you can feel any tension or holding there. As you exhale, relax the brain, letting the mind become spacious and open.

And now bring the attention more fully to the experience of breathing. Probably for most of your life, your body has breathed unselfconsciously. The breathing just breathes itself. And perhaps for these few minutes, it's enough just to be present breathing. Nothing to prove, nothing to attain, nothing to become. Nothing you need to be thinking about beyond the simplicity of what's happening now, here in this body, in this body breathing.

And whatever ways that you're wandering off in thought and distracted, notice how that is. In a sense, notice the complexity of that. And hold that in contrast with a possibility of a simplicity of being. Of being here and now in a simple, honest way. A light way. With lightness.

Whatever way you are concerned with "me, myself, and mine," allow that to be there as a reference point to feel into it, to recognize how it is to be here breathing in the simplicity of the moment without any concern for me, myself, and mine. That just to be alive breathing is enough. Staying with the rhythm of breathing. Trusting. It's enough just to be here. Devoted to breathing mindfully. One inhale at a time. The next exhale for that time.

Any way that you're caught up in your thoughts or self-concerns, recognize that honestly. And then see if that can stand in contrast with a whole other way of being. A simplicity of being that feels so good, so right to just be here in oneself. That there's no need to involve with self-concern. No repulsion, no attraction. No criticism, nothing wrong, and also nothing right, in the sense of thinking about what's right. Just a simplicity of being. Content, at ease. Honestly being here in the middle of the simplicity of this moment. Breathing. Mindful. Present in this body. Entrusting oneself to the breathing, in the simple way of just breathing.

When meditation brings us to a simplicity of being where we forget our self-preoccupations—ways in which we are upset about ourselves, ways in which we aggrandize ourselves, ways in which we think that we're special, or ways that we think that we are awful—to be free of such self-thoughts, to give ourselves the gift of allowing ourselves minutes of meditation to just be. To be present without the swinging between repulsion and attraction, diminishment and aggrandizement. Just being.

And it's a gift for others as well. We become a safe person for others if they don't have to contend with how we diminish ourselves or aggrandize ourselves. When we're not trying to compensate for feelings of being inadequate or wrong, or trying to assert the truth of ways that we feel we're better or special. To be present without all the selfing. Lightness of being. Simplicity of being. We become someone who's safe for others, someone who's available, present, and attentive to the circumstances of the moment.

And may it be that as we learn this art of forgetting the self, that we gain the world. We gain a greater connection, awareness, and presence for the world as it is in the moment that we are. May the ease and simplicity of just being be a vehicle for us to care better for the world. To care for the world with some sense of ease, without duty or requirement, but to care for the people around us, the world around us, as simply as we would be breathing in and breathing out.

And as we prepare for this new year, may we dedicate the value, the benefits, the merit of the practice that we're doing, the meditation we do, to the welfare and happiness of all beings everywhere. May it be that this simplicity of freedom and the freedom of simplicity provides us with lots of opportunities to support the welfare and happiness of others, to care for others as if we're caring for ourselves.

May all beings be happy. May all beings be safe and healthy. May all beings everywhere be free.