Guided Nondual Meditation with Michael Taft
Let’s begin meditating as usual. Let me get my timer, my meditation thing, going here so I do know where we’re at. What I’d such as you to do meditation fans is begin by organising your posture. Meditation posture is crucial. Meditation is an embodied practice and your body feeling good and in addition expressing the meditation is a giant a part of it, right? So, what do I mean by feeling good? I just mean, regardless that we’re going to take a pleasant posture with an upright back, having your spine upright, I would like it to feel good. I don’t want you to feel such as you’re sitting at attention in an uncomfortable way. It is best to make certain your body is blissful with the way in which you’re sitting, especially because we’re going to be still for an entire hour, right? After we’re doing these meditations the concept is to remain quite still because in case you move the body the mind starts moving. Also in case you keep the body still, the mind will change into still as well. We do, especially at the start of those sits, sort of want to sit back things out a bit bit, get the mind nice and calm, so there’s that.
After which also what’s interesting is that, in a way, the essence of the shamatha a part of meditation is to be each alert and relaxed, and what’s interesting is that we all the time consider that as occurring–this alert rest–we expect of as occurring within the mind, but in fact alert rest also can occur within the body. So the alert part is to perk up, right? That’s the signal to the nervous system, when the spine gets upright, that we’re alert, right? We will even call it sitting at attention, right? We sit up, get that spine nice and upright, and that signals–or we will say that’s the body’s expression of alertness after which the remainder of our posture is relaxed. So we get our spine nice and upright after which we let all the things else loosen up and so we’re embodying the essence of the shamatha right there; alert rest, the body is definitely doing it and that’s really interesting. That’s also why we stay quite still because that’s the deep peace or the deep relaxed a part of the body. This is just not a tense-tight or stiff-stillness. It’s the stillness of complete rest, the stillness of utterly letting go.
So, I would like you to take a seat up nice and straight. You’ll be able to wave your spine out, wave your spine around like a young sapling in a fresh breeze. It’s sort of moving in various directions until you discover that spot where the upright spine feels perfectly balanced. There’s this beautiful balance point. It feels good. Once we get that we loosen up the remainder of your complete body and, in truth, tonight we’ll do for the shamatha part a progressive rest like we do sometimes before moving into the remainder of the meditation. So find that perfect upright spot, top of your head pulling upwards in a extremely nice manner, chin tucked just a bit bit so the back of your neck is open. Your chest must be–actually it’s very nice if it feels good. Again don’t do that if it doesn’t feel good. But when it feels good the chest is kind of open, you’re not hunched forward in any way, or caving the chest. It’s actually; the shoulders are down and back, and the chest in a really, very, very light way, not an exaggerated way, but in a really light way, feels almost prefer it’s pulling outward and upward just a bit tiny bit. It’s got this type of upward, outward, expanded mode happening, just a really gentle relaxed flavor of that. And, in fact, the lower back has that curve within the spine, in order that your like hips are barely rotated forward so the spine sort of goes up just a bit bit while you while you roll your that lower spine back you sort of slouch and your head goes down you roll it forward just a bit bit the entire spine goes upright.
Okay, so we’ve got that nice upright spine expressing the alert a part of shamatha, after which the remainder of our whole body is relaxed expressing the tranquility of shamatha. So, alert tranquility, alert rest, that’s the shamatha portion. Now, before we go into that entirely, let’s just in a short time recall that we’re already fully woke up beings. We’re already fully enlightened beings. On the very basis of your being is already complete awakeness, already complete awareness, already complete buddhahood. There’s nothing you could have to do in any respect to make it more complete, to make yourself someway more woke up. It’s already there, right? And all we’re doing once we sit is recognizing that fact, right? We’re coming out of the dream of non-recognition and just recognizing that fact.
So for only a moment here at the start of the meditation I’d such as you to picture in front of you–today we’re going to make use of the visualization of a rose, the flower, a rose, right? Just imagine probably the most gorgeous, open, red rose. Okay. I actually could make it any color you wish but I’ll do it a red rose and it’s like that sort of rose in a cheesy photograph where it’s even got some little water droplets on the petals and stuff. It looks entirely fresh. Imagine that rose scent and really see in your mind’s eye, a rose in front of you.
Okay. That is just the visualization we’re using tonight.Sometimes we use a bodhisattva being, sometimes we use a sun, or whatever. Tonight I just feel inspired to have or not it’s this beautiful rose. Okay. This rose is a logo or an external–regardless that we’re doing it internally in our imagination we’re projecting it externally as a logo–of our own already existing awakening, our own already existing enlightenment, our own already existing buddhahood. And that’s why this rose is so beautiful, and so perfect, and fresh. It’s representing our own woke up mind, which is already present. And so what I would like you to do now’s allow that rose to offer forth the scent of wisdom. Normally we use light. Tonight it’s going to be a scent of wisdom, right? Just that rose scent wakes up the deep enlightened wisdom, the deep buddha wisdom within the mind. Okay. And just feel your mind clearing and opening with that rose scent. Obviously just an imagination exercise and yet since the buddha awakening, the enlightened woke up fully realized mind is definitely there already, this imagination or visualization exercise actually has a robust effect of helping us to acknowledge our own indwelling awakening.
So, we’ve got that scent of wisdom that opens the mind, opens the wisdom mind, after which one other scent pours forth from the rose, and we feel our heart of affection, compassion, and joy opening. Blossoming, unfolding like a gap rose with this sense of affection, this sense of joy, this sense of kindness. After which a 3rd scent arises from this rose and we feel in our belly the energy of life, the energy of playfulness and spontaneity filling our bodies, just pure life energy, the scent of pure life energy. And we all know there’s loads of Buddhist scriptures and Hindu scriptures where there are beings of scent, beings product of smell, and in truth, whole universes product of wonderful scents. Considered one of them is known as . That’s the name of the universe: Sarvagandha Sugandha, and in Sanskrit which means “all the things good smelling.” It’s a universe composed of wonderful scents. In order that’s what we’re tuning into here, the scents of wisdom, the scent of compassion, and joy, the scent of this playful, spontaneous, beautiful life force that’s flowing through our body.
So just feel that now, after which herald this rose of wisdom, this rose of awakening, this rose of your individual Buddhahood into the guts where it fully blossoms and provides forth this fragrance to your complete world. It’s beaming out the fragrance of wisdom, beaming out the fragrance of compassion, bringing it, beaming out–or effulgently giving forth radiant spontaneity and life force. So feel that now. And it’s just filling your whole body, filling the entire mind, filling the entire being with this glorious scent of awakening, right? Scent of awakening, after which let that rose vision just dissolve into this pure, radiant, emptiness of wisdom, clarity, compassion, love, joy, spontaneous, playful vigor, and life force. And just feel that essence of awakening coursing through the body, mind, through the guts, and beaming out to your complete world.
Okay. In order that’s just the start, that’s our opening visualization and just if you wish to you possibly can then just let that whole visualization vanish like a scent on the wind. After which it’s just vast spacious awareness, just open empty awareness and from this place, I’d prefer to do as I promised a progressive rest to get us into the true relaxed a part of shamatha, deep, deep, deep into the relief a part of shamatha. But do not forget that’s only half in order we’re doing this rest we also want to recollect to remain very alert, very awake. The attention is vibrant and crisp and clear. Remember the word Buddha means right? Not , not dreaming. Awake, it literally means awake. So the Buddha’s title is just not like ‘god,’ or ‘the holy one,’ or something, it just means ‘the woke up one,’ ‘the one who’s not asleep.’
So our already existing Buddha nature is of the character of wakefulness, alertness, clarity. So even while our body becomes an increasing number of relaxed, we wish our mind to be vibrant. And even the body in rest is vibrant, right? There’s energy there. It’s not dull. It’s very up and alert. And yet, like cat muscles, just totally–you recognize how a cat relaxes the entire body. It’s just got that goopy wonderful sense of deep, deep, deep core rest, right? On the skeletal level. So let’s go into that now. And I would like you to start together with your brow and eyebrows, and also you let that loosen up. And the meditation object here is to feel that rest happening there. Now if something doesn’t need to loosen up, something is tight, something appears like it desires to stay tight in your body for whatever reason, don’t force it in any respect. Let it do whatever it wants.
So that is just an invite to rest and I would like you to get focused on the parts that do loosen up, and the parts that do open, the parts that do feel ease and soft and open. Don’t give attention to the stuff that’s tight, and get all involved in it, and, “why is it tight? And now I’ve got to loosen up it.” Nothing like that in any respect, it’s the alternative, I would like you to double down, triple down, quadruple down on the parts of the body that feel relaxed. So feel your brow relaxing, and your eyebrows relaxing, and really feel that deeply. Take it in. Breathe it in. Notice how good that rest feels, even in that tiny area of the face. After which next allow your eye eyelids to loosen up, and your eye muscles to loosen up in such a way we will close our eyes during this shamatha meditation. Allow your eyes to loosen up in such a way you can’t open them even in case you try, because to be able to open them you’d should put tension back into the muscles to make use of them. And so the eyes are so relaxed, the attention muscles are so relaxed that you simply actually can’t open them without getting tense again. And same thing your cheeks, loosen up your mouth and lips, loosen up your whole jaw. Let go. And the scalp and the entire remainder of the pinnacle just experiences this type of deep nice letting go. And I would like you to simply tune into that straight away for a moment and just feel how good that feels.
Good. Now continuing to tune into that rest and just feel the letting go, feel the discharge, feel the relief in that. Let’s tune into our throat, neck, and shoulders where we release and loosen up and let go. Now you’re keeping your head upright, but again, we found that place where the spine just feels so good, so balanced that there’s sort of a minimal tension or minimal effort required to maintain your head upright, and aside from that the entire area becomes relaxed, open, and released, including the throat. When your throat relaxes it’s that muscle that keeps your, regulates your vocal cords to be tighter or looser, so it’s the thing you do while you lower your voice. That’s relaxing the throat. Chill out the throat all the way in which, and to speak normal, I’ll put a bit little bit of tension back in my throat, but you retain doing the relaxing of the throat, and letting the shoulders release.
After which, that is the essential part, feeling that release, feeling the stress fading away, and the softness, and the openness, and the pleasantness, and ease coming into those areas. And really specializing in that, and respiration that in, and taking it in, and allowing yourself to enjoy it. In order that’s what we’re doing with this progressive rest variety of shamatha. And so your face and head are relaxed, your neck and throat and shoulders are relaxed, and now we’ll just allow the arms to let go of all of the doing, all the stress, all of the tightness, all of the busyness of the day. We use our hands and our arms to achieve this much, right? We’re thumb typing, or we’re keyboard typing, and swiping on screens, and swiping on trackpads, and all of that keeps your hands very tight and so we wish them to be loose. We would like our arms, our elbows, our wrists, our palms, our fingers to simply release all that tension and feel the stress draining out, feel the stress draining away. And moreover feel the arms and hands getting as limp as wet rags. So there’s not even that background tension where you’re keeping your arms able to move regardless that they’re still. Sometimes we keep them able to move. I would like them to shift out of readiness to maneuver mode into complete non-readiness to maneuver, where they’re just limp like wet noodles, and feel the limp like wet noodles in your arms, and in your hands, and in each of your fingers. Really feel that. Spend a while happening the fitting arm, and happening the left arm, and feeling that rest, and tuning into it, and allowing your mind to be inside it and resonate with it, and open, open, open.
And feel that rest in your arms and your neck and your head just sort of permeating awareness. Good. Now let the front of your chest loosen up, your pectoral muscles, and the entire upper a part of your chest, and in addition in back around your shoulder blades and lats, and so forth. Let your whole upper chest region in front on the perimeters and back just release and loosen up and let go. And feel all the stress drain away, drains out, and it’s replaced by almost like relief and rest, and openness, and gentleness just almost descends into the upper chest. You’re feeling it, boom, land there and just allow the entire area to simply loosen up, and release, and open, and let go of all tension, let go of all cares, let go of all worry within the body, all tightness within the body, and all of it just drains out. Again, not fighting anything, not moving, actually not stretching in any way, but just allowing pure intention, and pure care to permit the body to release. And feel how good that feels now that your whole upper chest, and upper back, and your arms, and hands, and your neck, and throat, and face, and head have all relaxed?
I’m tuning in, drinking and savoring that rest in a extremely open, easeful, nice, playful manner. I would like you to simply notice that that feels so good, that feels so relaxed, that it allows your mind now to simply sink down right into a deeper, deeper rest where the entire upper body, and the entire body, and even the mind just sort of drops now right into a much deeper sense of openness, much deeper sense of undefendedness, a much deeper sense of rest. So just tune into that now. Spend a while with it.
Good. Now, on this much deeper mode of rest, allow your diaphragm to release and open, and feel how good it feels when the diaphragm releases and opens, relaxes, finds settledness and peace. After which the belly releases and opens, the perimeters of the belly, and in back within the kidney area all loosen up and open. And just feel how good that feels. We sometimes keep loads of tension in our belly. It’s quite common spot for anxiety, tension and so just noticing that the actual muscles within the front of the belly might be very very relaxed, letting go of all that tension, just letting the belly flap out. With a sigh, you notice yourself becoming far more relaxed at this point.
After which the entire pelvic region releases and relaxes and lets go. Your hip joints feel so good once they release and let go and are stuffed with a way of easefulness and openness. The perineal region can loosen up and open. After which just allow your complete legs and feet again to do the wet noodle thing. They simply change into completely like wet rags. There’s no sense that you simply’re gonna do anything together with your legs straight away. They’re just completely allowed to flop and so that you notice the large muscles within the quads and the glutes all releasing, and relaxing, and opening, letting go. Those are large enough muscles you can really feel that once they loosen up. The entire body relaxes further after which your knees release and open, and the calves and shins loosen up and open, and the ankle joints loosen up and open, and the feet loosen up and open, soles of the feet open, tops of the feet open, and the toes loosen up, and even between the toes relaxes and opens.
So while you feel now the diaphragm and the belly region, and the pelvic region, and the hips, and the legs, and the feet releasing and opening. Joining the chest and back, that are released and open, and the arms and hands, that are totally, totally relaxed and open. Feel how your palms now are wide open, the backs of the hands wide open, the throat wide open, face wide open. All the things relaxed and released, calm and tranquil and yet energized and alive, not asleep, not powering down into sleep, but quite feeling a sort of energized release, energized openness. Just feel that now. Tune into that now as you drop into a good deeper, much more profound, much more completely relaxing depth of openness and release and tranquility. Let’s just be with this now for just a few minutes, respiration together, feeling how good the body feels to be this relaxed. Noticing how the core of the mind–that tension on the core of the mind–also relaxes, also melts, also releases and opens, in order that because the body relaxes and opens, the core of the mind releases and opens, and there’s a way of deep tranquility and yet tremendous alertness, tremendous awakeness. So let’s sit with that together now.
Feel how with each in-breath we change into more awake, more energized, more alert. And with each out-breath we change into more relaxed, more at peace, more open and soft and delicate.
Okay. Good. Now continuing to remain alert and relaxed, I would like you to note that on this belly region where we were talking concerning the life force, the energy, centered slightly below the navel, just a few inches below the navel, and back in, you possibly can feel, in case you check in that region, you’ll feel a sort of center of–it just appears like a spot where the energy is centered. I don’t understand how else to explain it. And I would like you to simply imagine now, in a really relaxed, gentle, alert way, that the life force energy in that spot, the playful, spontaneous, vivacious life force energy in that spot becomes tremendously more harmonious, regulated, open and healthy, strong and regular, and healthy and harmonious. And just on the in-breath feel that center filling with energy after which the out-breath feel that center becoming more perfectly patterned, perfectly harmonious, perfectly healthy and robust, perfectly tuned. So on the in-breath that center gets more energized, on the out breath it becomes more harmonious. We feel the results radiating through our whole body. The entire body feels healthier, stronger, more alive. It’s purring like a kitten. It’s more perfectly tuned as that center becomes stuffed with an increasing number of energy. Breathe in. We feel the energy in that center. We breathe out. We feel this tremendous harmony radiating through the entire body. So let’s try this together now.
Notice how good that feels. Superb. Okay. Now as much as the brow. Feel in the middle of the brain, at the extent of the brow, in the middle of your head, feel, on the in-breath, the mind becoming an increasing number of alert, an increasing number of awake, an increasing number of clear. Feel the mind filling with clarity and in addition, again with a way of wisdom on the in-breath, and on the out breath let this clarity and wisdom radiate through the entire body, right? Our body has wisdom and it shares that with the mind. So let this clarity and awakeness and wisdom that we feel filling the mind on the in-breath then radiate out to the entire body and mind on the out-breath. A sort of perfect tuning of the mind itself.
Good. And now moving between the 2, in the guts center on the in-breath, taking in a way of affection, feeling a way of joy and kindness, and love growing strong in the guts. After which, really tuning in on the out-breath, just allowing that love and kindness to flow through your complete body, wisdom of affection and kindness and caring flow through your complete body, which is already, again, tuned and healthy, and already smart and clear, and now this energy of affection and compassion is just moving through your complete body. So on the in-breath we’re taking in additional of that feeling, the energy and the guts growing, then within the out-breath that love, and kindness, and caring, and joy move into every tissue within the body.
Now from this place of tremendous clarity, and aliveness, and compassion, and love just come to resting in open awareness, within the vast space of awareness. You don’t make awareness space vast. It’s already wide open by itself, so just bring this sense of total rest, total openness, total awakeness and aliveness into the sense of vast spacious awareness. And this vast spacious awareness is just resting, it’s clear, it’s vibrant, it’s awake and yet it’s absolutely relaxed. It’s absolutely comfortable. It’s just resting in itself. And permit this awareness to simply simply rest in itself, uninvolved with anything, probably not meditating in any respect on anything. It’s already completely awake. It’s already completely a Buddha. There’s nothing to do. There’s absolutely nothing in any respect that should be done, nothing needs to vary. There’s just resting on this awakeness. Let’s try this together now.
When you end up involved with pondering in any respect, just drop it, come back to simply resting in openness, resting as vast spacious awareness. The attention doesn’t get entangled with any thought. That doesn’t mean thoughts stop but we’re not getting involved in any mental content. We’re resting as vast spacious awareness.
Okay. Good. Now allow that wisdom energy to collect in the guts, and that life force energy to collect in the guts, along with the love and joy and compassion that’s already existing in the guts, and permit that to radiate–not only out to your individual body and mind but–out to the entire world around you, everyone around you, everyone in the entire world, and in truth everyone in all of the worlds and all of the universes all over the place, including Sarvagandha Sugandha. Let that love energy, the compassion, the kindness, the wisdom, the clarity, and the enjoyment, and the playfulness, and spontaneity, let that energy radiate out, radiate out powerfully in all directions. Imagine it actually impacting the minds, the hearts, the beings of all of the people, all of the animals, all of the beings around you and on the planet, and in truth, all over the place.
So just let that radiate out. Let that energy beam out, pour forth, pour forth out of your heart to the entire universe.
Dharma Talk
Okay. Good. Let’s end the meditation there. So just allow yourself now to maneuver, and stretch, and possibly have a drink of water, or something. And just bring your body now into movement and a unique sort of ease. I find it really fascinating because, you recognize, the shamatha style meditation–again the word shamatha means resting in a single spot, it’s like peaceful or restful staying, right? And yet so lots of us bring a sort of tense, yang, doership energy to this practice, like we’re gonna meditate our butts off. Almost the alternative mood, right? A sort of striving graspy acquisitive or aggressive energy to this practice after which wonder why we don’t get very far with it. You recognize you possibly can form of muscle your method to some level of shamatha but at a certain point you simply can’t do it by force. You simply can’t do it by getting tighter or more motivated because–and also you especially can’t do it by getting more aggressive and pumped as much as do it, you recognize. That’s just not the mood in any respect.
As an alternative, again, remember the name is peaceful abiding or tranquil resting and so the primary mood is opening, and softening, and ease, and rest, and application. We’re still alert. We’re not falling asleep and, in truth, we don’t need to get sleepy while we’re doing it. That’s going too far in the opposite direction. We would like to be alert and relaxed. And so, that sort of like curling up like a cat on a couch within the sunshine–that energy– like, “oh, I’m just so cozy. I’m gonna curl up,” that’s going too far, right? That’s going too far into the relief part. We would like to be alert and relaxed but at first I find people who find themselves really motivated to meditate and wish to do their meditation and particularly in the event that they’re like, “I would like to get enlightened,” and all that sort of stuff. There might be this type of force energy in there in intensity and just–I don’t know, competitiveness and it’s just the unsuitable mood to bring to this if you wish to go deeper into the practice, right? And so in our rest we wish to seek out rest, we wish to seek out peacefulness, and openness, and ease, and have that sort of tension release from our bodies.
It’s really fascinating. I’ve talked about this before, you recognize within the West, especially in America, but within the West generally, we sort of consider a extremely intense and in addition tense tight state as joyous. Like, “yeah, I’m feeling great,” you recognize as your neck muscles bulge, “I’m feeling really good. I’m super excited.” We in truth sort of think happiness and excitement are synonyms, you recognize, but in a way that sort of intense energy, I mean, it’s got its place in our lives, but that’s not necessarily what joy and happiness and openness are about. They will have a really different expression that’s really upbeat and has energy but is smooth and open very–again like that sort of cat energy where irrespective of how much they’re doing there is likely to be a moment of tension nevertheless it’s mainly ease and smoothness and rest even once they’re doing something really physically demanding that sort of looseness and wateriness and openness is there, right?
So we wish that in our practice each in our body and even in our mind, where the mind is relaxed, the mind is open, the mind is comfortable. As I sometimes put it, you recognize, I said it tonight, the core of your mind relaxes. There might be that tight core in the middle of your head where it’s like; I’m directing, and I’m taking motion, and I’m doing this, and I’m not doing that, and I’m really clear about… and it’s like… That’s not exactly what we mean by clarity. You recognize, clarity is different than that. That could be a sort of tight solid seeming aggressive mind. And what we wish to do is have that core of the mind release and open, and loosen up, and change into almost like a pool of liquid mercury reflecting the world with total clarity and awareness and yet utterly relaxed, utterly comfortable, utterly at peace, right?
So do not forget that coming to this and allowing yourself to be comfortable is a giant a part of this. And so once we do the sort of meditation we did tonight, a progressive rest, that’s really helping us to seek out that ease. Sometimes due to coffee, and since of tension, and since of labor stuff, and life stuff we will come to our meditation really amped up, and really tight. And so sometimes it’s essential to simply take the time to do that whole progressive rest, progressive opening to be able to find more ease, to seek out more openness, to seek out more peacefulness, to seek out more tranquility. And typically, because if we’re starting out amped up, normally the awakeness, the attention, the clarity of mind is already going to be there. In order that’s how we try this.
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