This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video above. It likely contains inaccuracies, especially with speaker attribution if there are multiple speakers.

Guided Meditation: Meditation as the Continual Act of Caring

Warm greetings. Happy to be here with all of you.

Many years ago, I was inspired by a definition for meditation as the continual act of befriending oneself. These days, I think maybe it requires a little bit more complicated consideration to befriend oneself. So, I like the idea that meditation is the continual act of caring. Caring for oneself, maybe even caring for the world.

What if your meditation this morning was in fact the continuous activity of caring? Certainly, you can do your regular meditation practice no differently than how you usually do it, but it is done with an attitude that you care for yourself. The kind of care that means to value something and to take good care of it, to tend to it carefully. Also, to be careful with it, meaning to offer support for the health needs, spiritual needs, and emotional needs of someone. To offer care.

Now, what if every time you wander off and you begin practicing again, being mindful again, you actually return to caring for yourself first and foremost? It is the continual act of care.

So, sit caringly. Find a way to sit that, in the finding of it, you begin caring for yourself. Perhaps rock forward and back, sway side to side, as a way of settling in, waking up the body, and finding a nice aligned posture to sit in. Maybe close your eyes. See if there is some little bit of moving or letting go that can happen in the body as you care for this body of yours. Letting go of tension that might have built up, any holding that is there.

As a way of caring for yourself, and the care of breathing, breathe in a conscious way. Breathing is one of the most ongoingly important ways in which we are cared for; our health and well-being are maintained. Often, our breathing is done without much thought about it. In meditation, you can allow yourself to feel the support that the breathing gives. Being aware of breathing is to have a care. Care for yourself, care for your body. Even caring for your lungs and your diaphragm.

The very nature of attention is to have within it caring attention. Attentive caring. This idea of a continual act of care is to be careful not to harm yourself with wanting too much for things to be different. To want to get rid of something, or to meditate in a way that is subtly harmful. But to meditate in a way that you yourself can feel that your attention, your mindfulness, has some element, maybe a small quality, of care in it.

Just settle into your breathing. Feel the subtle corners of breathing, the parts of your body that are participating in breathing that you normally don't pay attention to. Down in the corners and the sides. The back rib cage. The movement of the shoulders. Perhaps opening up fully as you can to the body's experience of breathing. Bring caring attention to your breathing, and your breathing is caring for you. Continual mutual care. Breathing in and breathing out.

Relaxing any tension or agitation in the mind. Quieting your thinking. Maybe even slowing your thinking down. Perhaps letting your thinking become simpler. As simple as simply saying the word "care" to yourself. Very quietly as you're with your breathing. If you're going to think anyway, think the word "care." Quietly, slowly.

As a small stone dropped into a large lake can create ripples flowing outwards in a circle, so you might drop the word "care" into the ocean of your breathing. Let whatever ripples through that ripple outwards through your body.

Care for yourself as if you are important. Important to take care of. Care in such a way—with an attitude of care, concern, value, carefulness—that something inside of you responds to that care. Something receives it. Something, perhaps, that has not been cared for enough.

One of the ways of caring for oneself is to let go or step away from any thoughts, attitudes, and feelings that in any way or form are harmful to have, that undermine us or deflate us, make us less. Sometimes, simply letting our thinking become quiet, letting go of it, and being present for our experience in an embodied way is one of the most caring things we can do.

Reflections on Collective Care

And then, as we come to the end of this sitting, to whatever degree we can sit here and feel or be motivated by care, let our meditation be an act of caring for ourselves. And whatever capacity of care we have as we get ready to come out of meditation, let our care join the collective care of our societies.

We are living in a time where care—care for people who are sick, care for people who are not sick yet, caring for them so they don't get sick, caring for the caregivers—has become one of the most shared, focused, and public concerns of our society, of our world.^[1] It's remarkable that care should be brought to such a forefront for all of us.

May it be that our care joins all the other care in this world. And as we leave meditation, let it be our slogan, our mantra, the two words: we care. We care for the welfare of all beings.