Welcome back to Meditation Monday. Many of us, of course, have difficult emotions at times, and meditation might seem to exacerbate them sometimes because we're, as it were, more exposed to them. We haven't got distractions, other things we can turn to; we're just sitting still and doing nothing. So if a difficult emotion comes up, there's kind of nowhere to hide. Now, in early Buddhism, these kinds of emotions—things like worry, regret, frustration, craving, aversion, or dislike, strong dislike—were viewed actually as hindrances to meditation, that they would make us not want to meditate, they'd make it harder to meditate. And I think it's quite a helpful lens to recognize that difficult emotions are a problem, as it were, in meditation, in that they will discourage us from doing it. So fortunately, we have tools for being with difficult emotion, and actually what they often lead to is a kind of restlessness—'get me out of here,' you know—when we're trying to meditate. So I want to do a sit now that offers a tool for working with restlessness and emotions that might be associated with it.
So I hope you find this helpful. Let's come into our seated, comfortable position. And just a footnote: if you want to recline, you go right ahead. We just want to be comfortable; that's the main thing, because when we're comfortable, it's easier to relax, and when we start relaxing, it's easier to be still. And in some ways, it might be that the most powerful agent in meditation is simply being still—that all the lessons and learnings and shifts and transformations that meditation can offer simply come from stillness. So let's give ourselves time to be comfortable, to arrive here, to come into being here, into this space where nothing is asked of us, nothing we need to do. We're really getting to put down the burden of doing, all the responsibilities, the to-do lists—leave them outside the door just for now. This is really a time just for you.
So again, checking that your body is comfortable—a little bit of progressive relaxation. Letting your shoulders go, letting them sink and settle, and letting your arms be limp like old rope. Letting the face soften, and it just sort of hangs like a curtain, no tension in it. Let it go. Let there be a warmth in the chest, a warmth in the belly, softness in the chest, softness in the belly. Let your hips go, let your legs relax, and your feet.
So in this space of meditation, we're going to explore how we might allow restlessness if it comes up. And I invite you actually to imagine that you are feeling just a little bit of restlessness. It's a familiar feeling for pretty much all of us, I think—that 'enough of this, I want to go and do something else,' or 'I want to move,' or 'get me out of here.' Now, instead of doing what it says, we're going to be still, and we're going to see if we can find it—find the restlessness in your body. What actually is it? Could it be that it's just a kind of energy, maybe like a little miniature dust devil or something, of energy somewhere in the torso—maybe the belly, maybe the chest, possibly the throat? Can you find some trace of an energy of restlessness within your torso?
Whatever you're finding, or if you're not really finding anything, we're going to let things be just as they are. We're going to allow any energy of restlessness, or the absence of it, to be just as it is. What if we don't have to do anything about it? What if we have it in us to just let it be there, let it be here? No need to change it. Welcome it. Allow it. Let it actually be part of your experience. Rest with it. If you are tasting restlessness, you can name it in your own mind: 'restlessness is present.' Say it to yourself: 'restlessness is welcome.' Try saying that to yourself in your own mind.
It may be that you're sensing some other emotion that might be uncomfortable. If so, see if you can find the sensory correlates of it—the actual sensation in probably the chest area, or perhaps the belly—that associates with it, and let them be present. Let your shoulders be soft. Let your flanks be soft. Let your back be soft. And let the whole front of your torso—the front, the skin and dermis of your torso—let it also be soft, like a kind of drapery hanging loose. And let the softness in your body allow any discomfort of restlessness or emotion. Let the softness welcome any trace of discomfort. Let yourself just be with it, being still, being quiet, resting with your own heart, your own emotion center, and letting it be.
Yeah, so part of this homecoming, we might say, that meditation can be, is also coming back to, you know, our feeling self. It's a beautiful thing, actually, that we feel—like many, like all other mammals, we have emotions; they're part of our makeup—and learning to allow them is a real form of growth.
Okay, so let's come out of this sit. Bring movement back into the body. You might do an inhale and an exhale. Move around any way you feel you'd like to. Fantastic. Thank you so much for joining me in this little exploration of a perhaps unexpected kind of tool that will help us with our difficulties and sort of defuse them for our pathway into meditation and along the great journey of meditation. Thanks so much. See you next week.
