If we uncover that still silent presence when we are in meditation, we can also uncover it in our day to day lives. In fact it is always there, patiently waiting for us to notice it, to give it our attention and allow it to become more apparent in our moment to moment awareness. It actually issues invitations from time to time throughout every day, we only need to be attentive and open to the possibility. If we allow ourselves to accept these invitations it is a method of bringing natural meditation into our moment to moment awareness.
Good evening and welcome to Monday Group Meditation. We will be sitting from 7:30 to 11:00 PM Eastern Time. It is not necessary to sit for the entire extended time, which is set up to make it convenient for people in four North American Time Zones; sit for as long as you like and when it is most convenient for you. Monday Group Meditation is open to everyone, believers and non-believers, who are interested in gathering in silence. If you are new to meditation and would like to try it for yourself, Mindful Nature gave a good description of one way to meditate in an earlier diary, copied and pasted below:
"It is a matter of focusing attention mostly. In many traditions, the idea is to sit and focus on the rising and falling of the breath. Not controlling it, but sitting in a relaxed fashion and merely observing experiences of breathing, sounds, etc. Be aware of your thoughts, but don't engage in them. When your mind wanders (it will, often), then return to focus on breath and repeat."
Sangha Co-hosts for meditation are:
7:30 - 10:00 Ooooh and davehouck
9:30 - 11:00 thanatokephaloides
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For example, when we are doing some kind of work that requires intense focus, from time to time we may notice our mind just stops for no apparent reason. That is an invitation to sit back, open our focus and notice the silent unconditioned awareness that is always present. If we just sit effortlessly with that it allows silent presence to expand. We can simply relax into it for a few moments, and when we return to our task we find ourselves refreshed. We also might notice after an impromptu session of merging with silence, that creative ideas surface during or just after one of these small breaks.
When we are driving in city traffic and stopped at a red light, we might find our mind stopping for a moment. We can relax into that, allowing the stillness to expand. In the few short moments our focus is opened we might get the feeling that everyone else waiting for the traffic light to change is no different than us, we all have places we need to go, things that need to be done, we all have hopes and desires, and at the end of the day we all want to be home in comfort.
When we are reading a book, we look up for no reason, or perhaps when we pause to turn a page, there is an invitation from unconditioned presence to pause for a few moments and fall into the silence…Mmmmmmm.
When we are working around the house, perhaps we hear a bird singing outside our window and we stop to listen. This too is an invitation into stillness.
In fact, any time we are watching animals in Nature it is an invitation into unconditioned awareness, because animals live there all the time. For them there is no past, no future, no freight train of discursive thought, there is only this moment.
We only need to be paying attention to notice the invitation. In order to accept all that is required from us is is to relax and fall in, allow stillness to expand and fill the moment. Breathe in THIS moment. Just…be…here…now.
When you touch one thing with deep awareness, you touch everything. The same is true of time. When you touch one moment with deep awareness, you touch all moments.~Thich Nhat Hanh