[CHIME] As you hear the sound of
the bells, take your seat. And maybe even in the
early stages of this, it's valuable to give
yourself a little pat on the back for
having made the time to come to formal
practice in this way, stepping out of the endless
river of doing and just dropping into being. As I've been emphasizing
from the very beginning, this is a radical act of
sanity to stop and drop and a radical act of love. Taking your seat is an act of
not only wisdom but of kindness towards yourself, a profound,
kind of, caring for oneself, friendliness towards oneself. And in that sense all
of mindfulness practice is loving kindness practice. But that being
said, sometimes it's really valuable to be more
explicit about the loving peace. And so as we establish
ourselves in a posture that embodies wakefulness
and dignity as we've been doing all along,
feeling the breath moving within your body
and how beautiful it is and trustworthy it is that
it actually moves in and out of the body with
drinking in the air and expelling the
spent air effortlessly. We don't need to
strain, but it is helpful to actually feel
it coming into the body, leaving the body,
and appreciating the beauty of this
rhythmic process that actually keeps us alive
moment by moment in breath by breath. So feeling the entire
body sitting here breathing and letting
this sitting here breathing be a
radical act of love. And the beauty of love
is it's like the sun. It illuminates. It radiates in all directions,
so inwardly and outwardly. So placing the sun in your
own heart for a moment and recognizing the
radiant luminous warmth of the sun-like heart as we sit
here bathing in that warmth. And when you feel
stabilized in this way, I'm going to invite
you to call to mind one moment from your
past, whether it was in childhood or at any
other point in your life up to this moment
when you actually were the recipient of
unadulterated unconditional love, where you were and felt
completely accepted for who you are no matter how you were. And just bathing in that
and feeling it as the breath keeps moving in
and out of the body almost as if we can
breathe with that receiving of unconditional
loving kindness, unconditional acceptance,
unconditional recognition of the fullness of who we are. And just letting
that wash through you as we sit here breathing. And if thoughts
or memories arise, well, we're actually
inviting them to arise in this moment But more
the feeling of being completely recognized and
accepted and cared for with a degree of kindness
just as you are or were.
