Guided Nondual Meditation with Michael Taft
So, let’s begin. We’re not going to do most of our usual lead-in today. I just want you to establish your posture and, as usual, get your back nice and upright, pleasantly upright. Top of your head form of feeling prefer it’s being pulled upwards in a very nice way. Chin is tucked a bit and your whole body relaxed. Okay. Face is relaxed, and so forth.
After which only for a moment I need you to take into consideration why are you meditating. Why are you meditating? What’s your purpose in learning to meditate and spending time meditating? And just take into consideration that for a minute after which just let that go into the ethers, just release that. We don’t wish to keep that in mind. We’re just using it to focus our attention and remember why we’re here.
Okay, after which what I need you to do is to start to contact your respiration. After I say contact your respiration, I mean the body sensations related to the respiration process. So, you’ll be able to feel the breath coming out and in of your nose. You’ll be able to feel the air moving in your trachea. You’ll be able to feel your chest expanding and contracting, rising and falling. You’ll be able to feel your diaphragm pulling downwards on the in-breath, after which retracting backwards on the out-breath. You’ll be able to feel your belly region expanding and contracting, expanding and contracting with each breath.
Okay. So, you’ll be able to feel all of that, or any of that. Nonetheless, today, for the start a part of our meditation I’m going to suggest that you’re feeling all of that. So, feel the breath coming in your nose, happening your trachea, expanding your chest, each in front and in back, and on the edges. The entire rib cage expands. Feel that expansion and contraction. After which, still on the in-breath your diaphragm pulls down in your belly region, again, each in front and in back. The belly region expands after which on the out breath the belly region contracts. The diaphragm retracts upwards, the rib cage contracts. Feel the breath going out.
Okay, and so we’re doing full body awareness of respiration. Not simply breath in a single spot, but we’re keeping the eye relatively wide, not tight narrow, but relatively wide. Feeling the breath coming in.The entire process all the way in which down, all the way in which down, the complete in-breath after which going back the complete out-breath. And I need you to, at first, here, really make an effort to stick with every stage of the breath. So, you’re noticing the start of the in-breath, feeling the breath all through the in-breath, noticing it all of the approach to the underside, noticing the start of the out-breath, feeling the out-breath all the way in which, all the way in which, all the way in which up, all of the approach to the very end of the out-breath. And really ensure that you simply notice the very end of the out-breath. Really ensure you notice that part. After which, come back to feeling all of the in-breath and all of the out-breath. Let’s try this together here for somewhat while.
Remember we’re attempting to get continuity of attention on the breath, so we’re really noticing each a part of that in-breath, and every a part of that out-breath, and never missing any parts. And for those who notice within the cycle that there’s a certain spot where it becomes easy to lose your attention, then really focus each cycle with extra intention on that part. So we keep this nice continuity of attention going.
Okay. Good. Now we’ll switch to shamatha without an object. So we were just using the breath as an object now we’ll let go of the item and we just–shamatha in the long run means peaceful stability, right? So, we are able to have peaceful stability even without using a spotlight object to form of borrow stability like that. So now, typically we might do that with our eyes open. You don’t need to, but typically we do the eyes open and we just allow awareness to rest in itself. And for those who want you’ll be able to notice the breath within the background, just as form of a really, very faint background hum, or whatever, but we’re probably not being attentive to it. Simply awareness is resting very wide open and it’s not involved with anything. It’s not going after considering it’s not going after emotions. Awareness isn’t going out to sights and sounds. They’re there, after all, but we’re probably not being attentive to them. Quite, awareness is solely resting in itself, perfectly completely relaxed, utterly open, utterly non-engaged, right? So, simply shiny, clear, crisp, vivid awareness resting in itself. If anything comes up, you begin getting involved in a thought, just let go of it. Start getting involved in a sense? Let go of it, come back to easily this stable awareness that could be very wide, notice that you simply don’t need to make awareness wide, awareness is already wide. You don’t make awareness shiny and clear, it’s already shiny and clear, right? It’s like that while you don’t do anything in any respect with it. We will narrow it and check out to do stuff with it but we’re doing exactly the other now, doing nothing with awareness, letting it’s naturally vast, naturally very wide, naturally relaxed and open, and uninvolved in anything. That’s the essential part; for those who end up grabbing onto something with awareness, just let go of that. That is tremendously relaxing and open. There’s no effort involved here or let’s say little or no effort awareness by itself simply rests in itself.
Simply resting in vast spacious awareness, letting go of involvement with anything that arises.
Okay. Good. Now we’re going to change to a different form of shamatha called or So, remaining open-eyed with vast spacious awareness, that vast stillness that’s naturally present. Now as an alternative of uninvolvement with anything, we are able to just notice thoughts arising. Now, again, we’re not getting involved within the thoughts. We’re not becoming the thoughts. We’re not identified with the thoughts. We’re not fusing with the thoughts. But as an alternative of just focusing awareness on itself, we’re actually allowing this vast space of awareness to note, or concentrate on, the thoughts as they arise.
And just as before we could notice that respiration was happening, now we’re also noticing that considering is going on. And we are able to even know what the content of the thought is, but we’re not getting fused with it. We’re probably not stepping into the content as much as just noticing it’s there. That is interesting, we’re not changing the contents of our mind in any respect, we’re just letting the mind do what it does. But meditating on the mind naturally doing what it does. It’s very, very easy here to get caught up within the thoughts because we’re just letting them come into awareness. So, don’t get caught within the thoughts. It’s just awareness itself, in its own open stillness, noticing thoughts arising, not changing the thoughts or interacting with the thoughts, or being the thoughts in any way. Let’s do this now.
Awareness is like space, it’s tremendously open, it’s tremendously vast. It’s different from space in that it’s aware, it’s cognizant, it’s a form of knowing space, an aware space. And so thoughts are simply coming up on this aware space and the aware space is aware of the thoughts. That’s it.
In a fashion of speaking you might be that aware space, you usually are not the thoughts. So just allow this aware space to know the considering without being the considering.
Okay. Good. Let’s let go of that now. That’s a really interesting meditation because in a way we’re probably not changing our mind in any respect. With that last bit, the part that I call or that form of shamatha, we’re not doing what a standard meditation does. In a standard shamatha meditation we’re either taking an object and attempting to train the mind on that object in a way that the mind settles down, or with shamatha without an object we’re just the settled a part of the mind without engaging with any object. So we’re changing something concerning the mind form of, but with this one we are only allowing your mind to be your mind, it’s just considering it’s normal thoughts, and it’s having its normal emotions and all that but we’re changing the middle of our…we’re changing our home base. We’re changing the place we’re coming from. As a substitute of being the thoughts and being the thinker we’re as an alternative “being the notice” and just letting the natural whatever thoughts arise. And so in a technique we’re not changing the mind in any respect, we’re not changing the contents. In one other way we’re shifting our basis, we’re shifting our view, right? We’re shifting where we’re coming from, which is the really essential part about awakening anyway, right? It’s not that we modify the contents of the mind, but change whose mind, or what we even think the mind is. So with that we’re going to finish our transient half hour of guided meditation today.
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