A Meditation on Rest in the Enoughness of Now, with Dr Rick Hanson

I offer these every week along with a short teaching. Just click the subscribe link below to be notified through YouTube when I post the recording of the latest one. Or if you'd like to join me live, which I'd really welcome, go down into the description section below and follow the link along to be able to sign up for free. Find a posture. Find a comfortable position for your body, which could be while walking or lying down or standing up or being seated, as for most people included, with your eyes open or closed. I think it's a good idea to move around a little bit, which will increase interoception, proprioception, which will tend to decrease internal verbal activity, tracking sensation. And we'll be exploring a meditative, physical, embodied foundation for really resting in the present. To begin with, you could bring a little attention to how you're seated or standing by first getting a sense of your pelvic area, your hips, shifting in your chair if you want, imagining that, if you like, that your pelvis is like a bowl of water, and you want to sit in a way that the bowl is level and relatively calm. So taking a moment to get a sense of that, and then sensing your spine with qualities of uprightness as the base of your spine is stable and your spine feels more and more as if it's being gently guided or lifted by a little thread at the top of your head, reaching up to infinity as you come into a greater sense of uprightness in your body, perhaps chin tucked in a little, chest opening, shoulders spreading, head rising. You can notice the psychological associations with an upright physical presence, feeling more perhaps dignified, self-respecting, strong, a saying from Zen, soft in the front, firm in the back, both psychologically and physically. As you find a growing stability in your body, there's a growing stability of presence, of steadiness of mind. For example, feeling stably present while sounds pass through awareness, and sensations pass through awareness as well, such as sensations of breathing. Take some time with sensations of breathing in your lower abdomen, in the area of your lower belly and hips. See if you can sustain attention to sensations of breathing in your lower abdomen, applying attention to the beginning of an inhalation, sustaining attention along its course, and then doing the same, applying and sustaining to the exhalation over and over again. And then allowing attention to shift to breathing in the area of the diaphragm, just under the ribcage. And here it can be particularly helpful to scan your mind for any little bits of anxiety, any worries, any bracing. And as you flow with breathing in your diaphragm, you can be releasing any needless anxiety. And as we let go of needless fears, needless apprehensiveness, a natural calm and peacefulness can become more present. Appreciating this calm and peacefulness while we still breathe, breathing peacefully, peacefully breathing. Then being more aware of breathing in the area of the heart, opening the heart. And going forward in this meditation, see if you can be aware of the receivingness of what you're experiencing, that there is a receiving of grounding in your lower body, a receiving of peacefulness, and a receiving of heartfeltness, and receiving of sounds and sensations, so that there's no need to reach for anything more. So much being received as it passes through awareness, no need to try to hold on to anything, continuously letting go while enjoying the receiving of the present moment continuously. The breath is coming to you, no need to go out and reach for it. Kindness and caring are naturally arising. You don't have to fabricate them. Can you allow yourself to feel that what you're receiving in the present, sensations, sounds, passing thoughts, feelings of lovingness, peacefulness, and all the rest, can you allow yourself to feel that what you are receiving in the present is enough for now and now? Can you let yourself feel the richness of the present? Can you enjoy it? A sense of not knowing helps us stay in the present, feeling the enoughness of the present and letting go habitual straining into the future. How lovely to feel these things. You might be experiencing what are like brief pulses for a second or two or three of complete okayness in the present, with no movement at all toward becoming. It's good to appreciate these pulses and to allow them to become longer and more frequent. So you really are spending more time in the present, often with a sense of relief, laying it down, laying the burdens down. Don't have to go anywhere. Do anything. Not jostled. Not rushing. Enough. Now.