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Guided Meditation: Relaxation and Receptivity

I'd like to begin by evoking something which is central, very important in the Buddhist teachings and the practice of meditation, and that is your own body. Your body is at the center of meditation practice, and it's so central to it all that it's possible to think of your body as the meditation center, as your meditation hall, as your temple, as your monastery, or your sacred place. Whatever welcoming image you have of a place to go that has some really special and valuable associations, this is what it is to drop into the body, to practice within your body, with your body, as part of your body.

One of the most important things to begin with is to relax the body, to relax it deeply. Not just for the sake of being relaxed, but it turns out that a relaxed body is a body that's receptive. A body that can be receptive to change, to unfolding, to deepening, to supporting the unfolding of meditation. It's kind of like relaxing is readying the body for the full possibility and potential of meditation, because that's the vehicle, the channel through which meditation really opens up: the readiness, the receptivity of the body.

So, to begin by taking a posture that you feel opens your body up in a modest way, to being receptive, to being here in the present moment. Classically, this is to sit upright with the spine erect and with the chest maybe a little bit open, and to gently close your eyes.

If you're sitting, especially, you might feel your tailbone. Maybe the weight of your body against your chair or your cushion moves through your tailbone. Imagine your tailbone is a root of a tree that goes straight down the tree of your spine, with which you become rooted in this place, in this location. Perhaps releasing the weight of the body a little bit, so the weight that goes through your sitting bones or your tailbone is received by what's underneath: the chair, the cushion.

And then to really feel this support or this relaxing. The thighs: exploring how the thighs might be a little bit tense, and if they are, as you exhale, to relax your thighs. Release them. And in doing so, perhaps also releasing the hip sockets, the hip bone, and hip socket.

Maybe there are very subtle ways you can release your knees. Maybe the skin on top of your knees can soften. Maybe a little bit, a teeny fraction of an opening space in your knee joint. Relaxing your lower legs, your calves, maybe by having them become heavier and releasing downward. Softening the feet. Even the slightest little holding or tension in the feet, in the toes, to release.

And then softening the belly. Perhaps the belly can soften, hang forward, and be released downward toward the pelvic cavity. Around the lower back, maybe there too, there can be a little bit of relaxation, release. Sometimes releasing the thighs, the hip joints around your waist, the stomach, can actually—the relaxing of the lower spine can be an uplift. Something gets released and not held down, a teeny bit more space and an upward flow of the vertebrae. Relaxation is not all about relaxing; it's also relaxing so certain things can be released, energies or muscles that can also be lifted up or come into tone.

Perhaps you can soften in the area of your chest, especially on the exhale. The diaphragm and the exhale. Sometimes a relaxed diaphragm will pause at the end of the exhale. There's a pause in the breathing, and without holding on to the pause, the inhale will naturally arise on its own.

Softening, relaxing the fingers and the hand. Maybe as the fingers relax, there is this ever-so-small sense of more space for the finger joints. Maybe parts of the hand become heavier and settle in more wherever they're resting. Relaxing the forearms, the elbows, the upper arms. And maybe as you exhale, releasing the bone in the arm socket. The gentle pull of the weight of the arm can maybe release a little bit the shoulders. Softening in the shoulders. If muscles don't relax, the softening can be making space around the tension, being gently more sensitive to the sensations of tension, the holding.

As you exhale, beginning to relax the muscles of the face. Softening in the jaw. Maybe there's a relaxing of the jaw that lets the teeth fall slightly apart. Softening the muscles around the eyes and softening the eyes in the eye sockets, allowing the eyes to rest. It's possible that the eyes can rest more if you imagine yourself looking backward and down, as opposed to the usual reaching out with the eyes to look forward.

Relaxing in the forehead, the temples, and then the whole top of the head, the scalp, the forehead, the temples. Maybe gently, for a few breaths, imagine that you're massaging it with the in-breath and out-breath, like you're stroking it with awareness, allowing something there to soften, relax, release. And then within the skull, if you do feel any tension, pressure, contraction, or hardness in the area of your brain or forebrain, as you exhale, maybe you can relax the tension or relax around it so there's more space for that pressure or tension to just float in space.

Some people brace their whole body in fear of life, fear of something. You might see if, as you exhale, you can relax and release the whole body. As if the whole body can relax outward. As if all the muscles in the arms and legs can gently fall away from the spine. Muscles can fall away from the bones and be held gently by the skin. You don't need to hold yourself together.

And with the body relaxed, the body can become more receptive to the experience of breathing. Not just to know the breathing and to stay with the rhythm of breathing in and out, but receptive to the breathing. As if the breathing is a warm sun that warms you as you stand outside in the sun, or as if the breathing is a refreshing breeze of wind that cools you on a hot day, and you receive the cooling. The influence of the breathing on your body can be deeper if the body is relaxed enough to receive the experience of breathing in and breathing out.

When the body is receptive, fluid, and soft, it can feel like the whole body is breathing. Certainly, the breathing can be felt, the movement widely through the body, through the torso. Receive the movement. Perhaps allowing your mind, your thinking mind, to become quieter, so that in the gap between thoughts, you allow yourself to be receptive to the experience of the body breathing, one breath at a time. As the body receives breathing, let the body trust the breathing, and let the breathing trust the body, so that they each continue relaxing, letting things become calm. A receptive mode of being in your body is a mode that allows things to release, to settle, to become calmer.

Concluding Reflections

And then, as we come to the end of this sitting, perhaps a relaxed body is also a body that is receptive to the heart, receptive to our capacity for love, care, or friendliness. Perhaps even a tenderness in relationship to others. A receptive body perhaps is also a receptive heart, where we allow ourselves to be touched by the sorrows and the joys of the world, without any contraction or resistance. A receptive heart is also a heart that can have compassion, goodwill, and care for the sorrows and joys of the world.

Trust what comes from being relaxed. Trust what we receive when we're relaxed. Trust the goodness that can flow when we're relaxed. And in whatever relaxation or ease that you feel, may it be the medium, the vehicle by which you extend your goodwill into the world, the means by which you offer to make this world a better place.

And perhaps the most important places to do that is in the small details of your life: small acts of kindness. May it be that from this meditation we extend at least 500 acts of small kindness today, one for each of us. Or if we do two, it's a thousand. Who knows how far this kindness can go? Small acts of kindness.

May all beings be happy. May all beings be safe. May all beings be free.