Guided Nondual Mediation by Michael Taft
So, as usual, take your meditation seat. And your meditation seat might be seated. You may be sitting, but you could possibly also lay in your back. So long as you might be in a position to stay up, in a position to stay alert and awake in your back, you’re nice to meditate in your back. You too can meditate standing up. Standing up is an important way for those who can rise up on this alert relaxed posture. It’s an important strategy to stay up for those who’re having trouble with drowsiness. So, rise up and meditate. As usual this can be an hour of meditation so be ready for that.
For those who’re going to do seated meditation, I’d recommend having a meditation cushion that you just’re sitting on, either a zafu or a gomden. And for those who don’t know what those are, look them up, however the zafu is basically the thing that’s shaped like a legume. It’s form of a pillow. After which a gomden is sort of a brick shaped zafu, invented by Trungpa Rinpoche, interestingly specifically for westerners. Today, I are likely to sit on a gomden. I like those, they’re really, very nice. So, that will be ideal since it gets your butt up, which allows your legs to go down so your knees might be lower than your hips. When your knees are lower than your hips, it rotates your pelvis a bit bit, so that you get that nice curve in your lower spine. So, if you will have it, sit in your meditation cushion, if not, sit in a chair but don’t lean against the back of the chair. Sit, I’ll display, sit forward within the chair and don’t lean against the back and then you definately cross your legs on the ground like that, and that keeps you nice and upright.
And using your muscles to maintain your spine upright will keep you more alert, right? We would like to be alert and relaxed. That’s the fundamental stance of meditation; alert and relaxed. And in order I’ve often mentioned, our bodies can partake in that alert rest by being each upright, that’s the alert part, and in addition physically relaxed, and in order that’s the start of a great embodied, somatic aspect to our meditation, right? Our bodies and our minds are really one thing. They’re not separate. So after we sit in an accurate posture it already helps our mind. If we sit each upright and relaxed, it helps our mind be each alert and relaxed, so the body and the mind work together in our meditation. The opposite thing we wish to do with our bodies is be very, very still, not tense tight stillness, however the stillness of complete rest.
So tonight I’m gonna just throw out a meditation image. I need you to take a seat like a mountain. Sometimes we sit like an ocean. Sometimes we sit just like the sky, or whatever. Tonight I need you to take a seat like a mountain. When you consider how a mountain sits, it’s completely relaxed nevertheless it’s also upright, right? It’s higher than the bottom around it. It manages to face nevertheless it’s as relaxed as it could possibly be. Meaning the slopes are only as at an angle, that’s, as relaxed because the rock must be. And likewise and more interestingly in this fashion of talking about it, after all, this will not be geologically true but in the best way of the metaphor the rock is immovable and unchanging and that’s the metaphor we wish here. We would like to assume ourselves seated, sitting in a way that’s immovable. We’re not only any old mountain, we’re the world mountain or Mount Meru or Mount Olympus where it’s type of the middle of the world.
And so the entire world rotates around. The whole lot’s changing, every thing’s doing its thing, the dance of the world is going down and yet we, seated on our meditation seat, are Mount Meru. We’re Mount Olympus. We’re seated on the unmoving center of the world and that’s the thought we’re utterly, utterly motionless. After which what I’d such as you to do is to stay nice and still for the entire meditation.
Okay. Nice. And still you’re gonna see me drinking from my grown-up sippy cup, and that i’ll try this at once, and that’s because I want to speak for the entire time. And for those who know the the air-blown heat is on on this house and if I attempt to talk the entire time without taking a drink, my throat gets really dry, so I actually have to take a drink so I’ll be moving. I’ll be breaking my very own rules but that’s because I’m leading the meditation–but that’s because I’m the boss–no, it’s because I’m leading the meditation and I just must allow my throat to do its thing. Okay. But you alternatively mustn’t move if possible. Don’t move for the complete time. That might be great for those who were just perfectly still, perfectly still in a way that felt really, really good. Again, this is an element of how the embodied or somatic component of the meditation mirrors the mental or cognitive component. Now we have the body be nice and still and that helps our body be still or remain still.
Okay, after which from here, as usual, I’d such as you to bring up a picture of the bottom of being, a picture of your personal already existing Buddhahood. We could even say a picture of your personal god-like nature, which already exists, right? We’re not inventing this, we’re not making it up. Awareness, the facility of your personal awareness is already there. It’s not something you’re constructing or cultivating, it’s just something you’re learning to acknowledge. Okay. So I need you to bring up a picture of that. And the image we’ll use today is the image of a phenomenal diamond, okay? Whatever shape diamond you would like. It’s a diamond that you just visualize in front of you. You may do that along with your eyes open or your eyes closed but imagine this incredibly gorgeous, lovely, brilliant, good diamond. It’s perfectly clear, it’s shining with light, and it’s a logo of your personal already existing total awakening. And so what I need you to do here is picture that in front of you, and just notice this beautiful diamond and see it glinting and shimmering and glowing with its own good awakening, its own good depth and clarity.
Okay, and from this diamond I need you to picture a beam of sunshine coming from the middle of the diamond into the middle of your brow, and the diamond is filling you with its wisdom, the wisdom of a Buddha, the wisest wisdom there may be. It’s filling the mind with wisdom. It’s filling the mind with perfect clarity and it’s filling the mind with a form of flexibleness. The mind can do anything you would like it to since it’s got this Buddha suppleness or what we’d call pliancy. Okay, so into your mind–and that is again that is your personal Buddha nature–you’re feeling the properties of your personal buddha nature. So allow that beam of wisdom to come back into your mind and just feel the wisdom filling the mind. Allow that beam that also includes tremendous clarity to fill your mind.And see the clarity filling the mind after which also the beam includes pliancy. It features a form of mental suppleness. Your mind isn’t stuck. It’s not one way or the other fixed. It’s in a position to do whatever you would like it to do, whatever you would like it to do. It could change in whatever way it needs to vary to do every thing we want it to do.
Okay, so just sit for a moment visualizing this beam of wisdom and clarity and suppleness or pliancy coming into the mind from your personal Buddha nature, from your personal–let’s imagine, if we desired to sound theistic, let’s imagine from your personal god-nature. However it’s really just the facility of your personal pristine awareness.
Okay. Good. And now from this diamond in front of you permit one other beam of sunshine to come back out and strike you in the center. And this beam of sunshine is filling you with love. It’s filling you with joy. It’s filling you with an amazing peace and it’s filling you with good will towards others, right? Goodwill towards men and ladies, goodwill towards beings. It’s filling you with compassion during this holiday season so that you’re feeling your heart open. The grinch’s heart was two sizes too small but after he heard the Who’s singing, after he stole Christmas, he hears all of the Who’s in Whoville singing and his heart grows three sizes. So it’s an additional–it’s actually one size greater than it must be. It just opens up. And I need you to have that size three heart, just absolute open, gushy, mushy heart of affection, and joy, and tremendous peace, and just kindness. I mean compassion is such a precious word, it makes it sound so type of like such an enormous deal. It’s just being nice, just being kind. It’s not that tough. Give it a shot.
So feel this heart opening coming from the diamond representing your personal already woke up mind, your personal already woke up being. Good, now also from this diamond in front of you this beautiful radiant clear delicious diamond one other beam comes out and strikes you below your navel. So possibly an inch or two below your navel and you are feeling just that one spot contained in the lower dantian. You’re feeling this beam of energy hitting you below your belly, and you are feeling the way it fills your body with health, fills your body with life, fills your body with a way of play and spontaneity. Play comes from feeling alive, feeling stuffed with vim and vigor, right? Once we don’t have any energy it’s very hard to play but after we feel like we’ve loads of energy play and spontaneity, and just openness, and freedom, and lightheartedness comes about.In order you’re feeling this beam of life energy coming into your lower belly region you’re feeling yourself stuffed with health, stuffed with strength, stuffed with life, and after all you get that sense of playfulness, and spontaneity, and openness. So notice that now.
Good. Now, as usual, I need you to take the wisdom within the mind and convey that down into the center. Sometimes it’s called the and convey that energy, and health, and strength, and playfulness from the belly, and convey that into the center. So it’s one ball of pristine awake Buddha nature in your heart. And actually, on the subsequent breath, we just breathe in that vision of the diamond, in order that this good, radiant, lovely, precious diamond in our heart is just radiating out our own already existing enlightened nature. And you are feeling it filling your body as usual with wisdom, clarity, pliancy. You’re feeling love and joy and peace and caring and kindness and you are feeling healthy and powerful and vivacious but all those things together also really bring you the sensation of confidence. I need you to feel confident. I need you to feel competent. You’ve got all–because you will have already existing Buddha nature, because your pristine mind, your pristine awareness is there–you absolutely have every thing it takes to do anything in meditation. And since you’ve got the pliant mind it’s even easier. You may just allow a few of these meditative insights to unfold.
Okay, so just radiate that, radiating out, radiating out, now radiating out all through the body, all through the being, all through awareness, your personal awake awareness, your personal pristine nature, your personal buddha nature, radiating forth now. And just feel that that’s you. That’s who you actually are. That’s not some form of fantasy. That’s not imagination. That’s who you actually are. The actual fantasy is about being the story of you. That’s the fantasy, the dream that you just’re buying into on a every day basis. Whereas this Buddha nature–that is what you actually are. That is your deep being, pristine awareness itself, timeless, boundaryless, deathless awareness.
Good. Now from here we’re just going to spend just a few minutes doing our shamatha with an object. So I need you to do slow, deep respiratory if that’s comfortable. For some those that’s not comfortable but I’d such as you to do slow, deep belly respiratory and let the out-breath be longer than the in-breath. And for some folks you possibly can–it’s going to feel comfortable to let the out-breath be quite a bit longer than the in-breath. I don’t want you to push it. I don’t want you to strain in any way. It should feel very comfortable but do a pleasant deep, deep, deep belly filling in-breath after which let the out-breath be long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long. And if you must, on the out-breaths, to assist control your respiratory and provides it more length you possibly can do ujjayi breath, right?
So remember how you can do ujjayi breath? You do the thing along with your throat–I’ll do it at once while I’m talking, it’ll sound funny–you do the thing that makes you sound like that whenever you talk but you’re just doing it respiratory. So it’s like you only got that little tightness in your throat and it permits you to regulate how briskly the breath goes out. And so you possibly can do really, really long out-breaths that way. It’ll just sound like a hiss. You don’t must do the sound I used to be doing. It’s just hiss like. It’ll sound just like the surf going out after a wave the best way it is available in after which with the ujjayi breath it’s just like the sound of the surf going up. So, deep in-breath long, long out-breath and I need you to be meditating on the sensation of that breath. For those who actually need to get into it, really get focused, really search for the tip of the in-breath, be sure you’re meditating then you definately notice the sensation of the tip of the in-breath. And then you definately’re following that out-breath, feeling it, feeling it, feeling it, feeling, it feeling, it feeling it, feeling it and noticing the tip of the out-breath.
So so long as you notice the tip of the in-breath and the tip of the out-breath and every thing in between then you definately’re nice and focused. You’re doing shamatha with an object on these long breaths. So I’ll just be quiet now for some time while we try this together.
Now stick with it. Don’t let yourself get distracted. Stick with the sensation of the breath. Notice the tip of the in-breath. Notice the tip of the out-breath. Feel every thing in between and in addition feel how good it feels to do these long in-breaths and long out-breaths. And be sure it does feel good. You don’t need to be straining. You don’t need to do anything that’s uncomfortable. You wish it to feel really delicious. And again, I at all times like adding on this ujjayi breath especially on the out-breath. You may do it on the in-breath too but especially on the out-breath and that can allow you to get really, really long out-breath, which is superb for settling and relaxing. Now at the identical time that we’re settling and relaxing, notice that the mind is getting brighter, the mind is getting clearer, the mind is getting more awake. We don’t need to settle in in such a way that we get sleepy. We would like to be brilliant and crisp and clear.
Okay, good. Now let’s move into shamatha without an object, or as I call it, dropping the ball. So the thought here is that we let go of concentrating on the respiratory and we just allow awareness to rest in itself. Now awareness resting in itself implies that we just calm down the mind. You almost certainly should do that along with your eyes open, it’s easier. You only calm down the mind and rest awareness, right? And remember you might be pristine awareness. That’s your Buddha nature. There’s nothing you have to do to make awareness more aware. There’s nothing you have to do to one way or the other make awareness greater. It’s already vast. It’s nearly relaxing, allowing your mind to calm down and open and just resting there with brilliant, clear, vivid awareness, but awareness of just awareness itself, so if the mind grabs onto anything in any respect drop that. If the mind grabs onto a thought just let it go. If the mind grabs onto emotion just let it go. For those who start attempting to follow the breath just let it go. For those who start attempting to do something just let it go. And particularly for those who’re attempting to determine how you can do it just let it go.
There’s no figuring this out. That is just awareness resting in itself and we just allow our mind to be vast and open uninvolved with anything, utterly free. And if it starts to collapse and get tight and starts to think, just calm down, let go of that thought and are available back to the mind just being open. It’s already open. It’s already vast and spacious. Just notice that and rest in that. It’s not a doing, it’s a resting. So let’s try this now.
Remember for those who’re doing anything in any respect just let go of it. That’s the entire program here for dropping the ball. Even the dropping is only a form of rest. It’s only a form of letting go. It’s the–after we attempt to do something that we’ve form of left the meditation and so the minute you end up attempting to do something just calm down, just open, just drop the ball. Don’t even struggle to drop, just calm down and open. That’s it.
Okay. Now we’re going to do a more lively meditation here. We’re going to do
inquiry questions. We haven’t done this shortly. I like doing inquiry questions and I’ll show you how you can do it as we’re doing it. Okay, so the very first inquiry query is where is your mind? Or, for those who’re asking it to yourself, “where is my mind?” So how will we do that? Well, here’s how; you don’t do it, you don’t attempt to figure it out, you don’t search for the reply in your memories, you don’t attempt to have an interesting philosophical answer, none of that. For those who go up into pondering, that’s not how we do that, that is an inquiry query, so you only search inside your experience.
Okay. Just directly search. In order I often say, it’s like a thing. If I say–for those who open the book and take a look at the image and I say, “where is Waldo?” You don’t go to Wikipedia and take a look at to look up the proper answer, otherwise you don’t you understand remember, “oh, I learned someone said that Waldo this or Waldo did that.” You only look. That’s it, that’s inquiry practice.
Okay. So I need you to look in your personal experience now. Where is your mind? Find your mind. Do it now.
Again there’s no figuring this out. That is direct experience. You’re just scanning through your personal being attempting to locate your mind. Just keep searching. Find the mind.
Okay. Good. Let’s let go of that query for a moment and just meditate on respiratory for one minute.
Okay. Good. Next we’ll do the classic, probably the most classic inquiry query there may be, which is; who am I? And so again, just this can be a I don’t want you to take into consideration your name, or your body, or where you’ve come from, or anything like that, your history, your loved ones, or something like that. I need you to look directly in your personal experience. Who am I? Who am I?
And look, feel, inhabit Look from time to time keep this. Look again such as you’re form of trying to seek out your keys on the ground at midnight. Keep looking, keep looking, keep looking. Who am I? Who’re you at once?
This one is actually interesting. We predict we all know the reply to this however the more you look the more you look it would grow to be less and fewer clear. Because all of the answers that come to mind like and people are only thoughts. Who’re you whenever you really look? What do you discover?
Okay. Good. Now just rest for a minute feeling your breath come and go.
Good. Now let’s try one other inquiry query, one which I actually like and this one is; What is that this? So just ask yourself that query after which look in your personal experience. What is that this? What is that this? What is that this? Keep asking the query and keep looking directly. And remember the more that your mind tries to seek out a solution through pondering, through memory, through reasoning, through all that, you’re just wasting your time. As a substitute, look directly in experience. What is that this? Keep on with it, what is that this? Look, experience, feel, notice, what is that this?
Okay. Good. Now let go of that and just consider relaxed respiratory for a bit while.
Good. Now remember after we tuned into our Buddha nature the Buddha nature is playful? So remember this can be a playful exercise. For those who’re attempting to break your mind on this just quit on that. That is playful. We’re looking, we’re experimenting, we’re noticing.
Okay. So the subsequent inquiry query is; What’s awareness? So just again, we’re not attempting to answer that with ideas, we’re not attempting to answer that with theories, we’re not attempting to answer that with our mind when it comes to pondering in any respect. I need you to note in your personal experience playfully, spontaneously, at once.
What’s awareness? What’s awareness? We could even ask what’s aware? Look now, look in your personal experience. Feel, notice what’s aware?
Okay. Good. Now let’s let go of that and are available back to our own already fully woke up, utterly pristine, Buddha nature. We could almost say our already existing godhood, the sense of timeless, spacious freedom, vast awareness, tremendous kindness, total openness, playfulness, spontaneity clarity, and even health and strength within the sense of liveliness within the body. And I need you to tune into that right once in a while feel it as an enormous ball of energy in the center. Feeling wisdom, feeling clarity, feeling love and kindness, feeling joy, feeling healthy and blissful, feeling strong, and energetic, and playful, and spontaneous. And I—simply because you might be a Buddha—I need you to make use of your Buddha power to only radiate that out to the entire world at once. Not only taking it in yourself but radiating out to the people, and cats, and dogs, and beings within the room around you, the home around you, but in addition the plants, and animals, and humans within the neighborhood around you, and the world around you. This will not be only compassion, even though it includes compassion, it’s kindness, it’s love, it’s wisdom, it’s clarity, it’s peace.
And particularly for this holiday season let’s really concentrate now on that flavor of Buddha nature that we’d call peace on earth, good will towards everyone. So it’s a sense of tremendous peace and tremendous kindness, right? Or friendliness. Goodwill is actually just simply friendliness. What we’d call or it’s friendliness, right? That’s how we translate that word. So, peace on earth, and friendliness towards all beings, and I need you to only radiate that out because you possibly can’t help but radiate it out. It doesn’t even take any effort. That’s what your pristine, already existing, totally complete and excellent awareness nature, your Buddha nature, your godhood is about, right? Effortless peace on earth and kindness and friendliness to all beings. Just radiate that in all directions now with me and feel it pouring out effortlessly. All beings in all places. They’re contacting back and there’s just a way of tremendous peace, and kindness, tremendous peace and friendliness. We would like good things for all beings in all places.
Okay. Good, let’s let go of that now and we’ll bring the formal a part of the meditation to a detailed.
But, after all, nothing has modified. Your already existing pristine awareness, your Buddha nature continues to be there, still fully on. It’s not something you only contact one way or the other mystically through meditation or something that you just make occur. It’s at all times there, right? And it’s at all times who you actually are. You already know this sense of being a body and a mind with a history? That’s cool. That’s a part of it, but the larger wholeness of you is that this tremendously awake pristine awareness.
Join Michael’s mailing list and get notified of latest offerings and courses.
Donate to assist create more of those videos and more.
