Guided Meditation by Jon Kabat-Zinn
Foreign [Music] And so let's establish ourselves in a Posture as I like to say that embodies Wakefulness that embodies dignity that Embodies your deepest reason for being Aligned with this intention And then reminding yourself that you're Not trying to uh experience some special State And that if you're a really good Meditator you'd instantly be able to Enter that special State and everything Would be like Kumbaya to a very high Power But rather to recognize that the Condition that you are in is insanely Special already And that no matter what you think may be Wrong with you as often happens with the Patients that come to us in the stress Reduction Clinic you know with all sorts Of medical diagnoses From our perspective as long as you're Breathing there's more right with you Than wrong with you no matter what the Mind or your health care team comes up With in terms of what might be wrong And this practice pours energy into What's already right with you And let everything else kind of in some Sense take care of itself with a lot of Support and collaboration From our love relationships from our
Family from our work and the meaning Meaning in our life and from of course Our health care providers And so we're not trying to get anywhere But we're actually reminding ourselves That it might be possible to be where we Already are And that that's not only good enough it Turns out it's perfect Which is why the Buddhists talk about Buddha nature and basically you're Letting your original mind or Buddha Nature or true nature or original Beauty Just shine forth and you don't have to Make any of that happen because it's Happening all the time and what we do is We occlude it By getting so lost in thoughts and Emotions and turbulence of one kind or Another And then silence and Stillness become Your friend And perhaps you can feel The entirety of your body Sitting and breathing Whatever posture you find yourself in Perhaps you can be in touch with the Envelope of your skin With how the vertebrae of your spine Elevate the one on top of the other out Of the pelvis And into the neck and balancing of the Head In such a way that
You aren't falling forward you're not Falling backwards you're not listening From side to side but you really are Stable And at the same time making yourself Totally available To the domain of experience in inner and Outer The inner being thoughts and emotions And Sensations in the body that could be Any of them either Pleasant unpleasant Or or neither And that could mean real discomfort or Irritation or anxiety or sadness or any Infinite number of different mind States Or body States many of them quite Painful that we can wind up in and this Practice is asserting Asserting that awareness has the Capacity to hold it all or any one Single aspect of it And not be caught in any of it And so it is a practice of immediate Freedom Often spoken of traditionally as a Liberative practice When we stop self-identifying With the features of the landscape so to Speak And begin to Take up residency and awareness itself Which is a capacity you don't have to Develop uh we're born with it But we're never taught how to inhabit it
And so they leave formal practice On a on a schedule you know so that you Do it on a regular discipline basis Usually at the same time I do it early In the morning Although it's not fair to call it a Doing it's much more a being but there's A certain kind of Interior and exterior statement that you Make when you stop and drop in this way Into formal meditation practice Sitting lying down standing walking Including mindful Hatha Yoga Or some may launch of all of that On a regular every basis every day as if You're life depended on it Because it does as we all know or we Wouldn't even be here today And so I won't go into any more of the Particulars uh at this point in time of Guiding the meditation practice and how To deal with intrusive thoughts and Emotions and the sort of whatever arises And how to deal with you know Trauma when it arises or you know a list For that matter when it arises but uh But to just know that the practices not Just trustworthy but self-revealing so That if you keep it up for days weeks Months years and decades In the first few decades maybe there's The conceit that you're meditating But after some more time goes by you may Realize that the meditations doing you
More than you're doing the meditation And then there's just no separation Between life you Your meditation practice The world And it all sort of becomes a love affair With the Beauty and the privilege and The fragility Of This moment Fully Alive Fully embodied And In the form of you And yet this is not an isolated just me Practice but it's a we practice because You're not alone And you never have been even if you Think you are And just looking at the screen right now Will show you that And the fact that As I look There are like 12 pages of people Sitting right here right now Now if we had more time we could extend The silence Out infinitely But I want to point out that Inside and underneath and in between my Words has been nothing but silence and In the same way as you can't have music Without spaces between the notes and Silence
You can't have thought without spaces Between the thoughts and silence and if We learn to recognize and tune into that Silence Then there's an element of being that's Never disturbed no matter what's going On and Other aspects of One's life And in times when the proverbial stuff Is hitting the proverbial fan in your Personal life or in in the world or You know where the threats to the planet Whatever they may be at this moment And it's very powerful to be able to Drop right into This Timeless present moment And know that you don't have to be a Good meditator or have all sorts of Uh Campaign ribbons on your chest or Shoulders or anything like that but that That you are an important part of What we sometimes call indra's Net or Indra's network where every node of Indra's net which is a ancient model of The universe Um is like the great God injures net is A web of Diamonds at each uh Vertex of the web So it's just a web of diamonds in all Directions And the feature of this web is that
Every facet of every Diamond reflects All the other diamonds in the net It's a little bit like The internet and it's like if you want To think of it in its most positive Light But it's really Way Beyond technology It's just an aspect of life Where we're pointing out deep Interconnectivity And a sense of profound belonging Inwardly and out We're all cells of the one body politic Of this planet And we all have basic needs that need to Be met by the blood supply if you will And we also have Unique Elements that we can contribute to the Well-being of the whole planet The world Our societies Our own Communities and health Our own individual And it's a lifetime engagement as it was Suggesting So then in that sense It really is true that there's no Beginning and no into the meditation Practice even though it is essential to Grounded in Daily formal practice of one Kind or another for really extended Periods of time that are
Sometimes uncomfortable because we don't Want to do it for that long But if you remember it's not a doing Then maybe you can just be at home With it And when you do take your seat in that Way the world is already and dangerous Net is instantly different because You've taken your seat And you're at home Anywhere And everywhere And Asserting in a non-self-centered way That you're here you belong you're one Of an infinite number of flowers and the World needs absolutely every one of us To flourish in our own unique beauty So when you're ready if your eyes have Been closed allowing them to open I'm Not bringing any bells to Signal the end Of the meditation I didn't really need To start the meditation Again in the kind of spirit of there Being no beginning and no end to the Meditation practice sometimes we dwell In silence for extended periods of time Sometimes months at a time we can Arrange it and sometimes we are in Conversation but the awareness Doesn't have to And doesn't Pretend to prefer One aspect of
Human interaction to another and then Dialogue questions conversation like This getting together like this and Inquiring together that's as much a part Of the meditation practices sitting like A statue in the you know some Temple or The British museum
