Lake Meditation

This is a lake meditation for cultivating equanimity and spacious receptivity. Taking some time to find your way to a lying down position, taking care to make any adjustments that you might need to offer support and comfort to the body. So lying down on a supportive surface, back supported underneath, maybe grabbing a blanket if this feels supportive, or you might explore talking a small pillow under your head or behind the knees. So offering yourself whatever comforts might help the body to be at ease to feel relaxed and allowing your eyes to close, if this is comfortable. And just touching base with the body in this resting position. Becoming aware of the body as a whole, lying here, breathing, open, expanded, releasing to the floor, to the earth, anything that wants to be released. So there's no need for holding, for efforting in any way. Just letting the body surrender, melting into the surface beneath, watch the way water pulls itself downward. And when you're ready, picturing in your mind's eye a lake, a body of water that's formed and held in a receptive basin of the earth. Even perhaps this is a lake that you know well and that you frequent, or one that you've seen in a picture. And an imaginary lake is just fine too. So just seeing if you can bring this image into vivid focus in your mind's eye, this image or maybe a full sense of this lake. Perhaps noticing in your mind's eye and in your heart how water pulls in low places, how it yearns to be cradled and to be held. And maybe observing how the lake you are picturing might be large or small, blue or green, deep, shallow. And maybe this lake is muddy and dense, or the surface clear and flat, no wind. The lake might be fed by a spring or a stream. And by gentle rain or maybe melting snow caps. And if you watch and observe the lake carefully, you'll notice that it's always changing. Dynamic, alive. And yet it's also always itself of an immutable nature. Its surface might change as the sun moves across the sky. Light reflected off the water in different ways. And the appearance of the lake might change in other ways depending on the weather, maybe on the seasons. Sometimes on very calm days, the surface of this lake might be like glass, reflecting virtually everything with great precision that comes by. Clouds, birds, trees or rocks that might surround the lake. And the sun as it makes its journey across the sky. And for this matter, reflecting the moon and the stars at night. So there are times when the lake is extremely reflective and contains in a certain way everything that comes in here or passes by. And in other periods of time, the surface might be choppy, with roiling and frothy waves. And even in these times, the light still sparkling off the waves, in different to how disturbed the surface might be. This showcase of glistening jewels. Of course the lake changes through the seasons. And the winter, the lake might actually freeze over, or at least the surface of it. Underneath, life's still brimming, thriving, moving within and through the lake. Through day and night, through the seasons, through the years, the lake constantly changing. But also always remaining its own essential, noble nature. As you lie here, breathing against the floor, connected to the earth below, establishing this image of the lake in your mind's eye. And allowing yourself, when you feel ready, to bring it inside yourself, completely, becoming one with the lake. So that all of your energies, your entire being in this moment, are held with awareness. The same way the lake's waters are held by the receptive basin of the earth, cradled by the earth below. And the lake itself in this moment, cradled by awareness itself, breathing as the lake, inviting lake-like qualities into the body, into the mind and the heart. In receptive, reflecting whatever comes. And maybe there's a sense of seeing clearly, all the way to the bottom. Experiencing moments of complete stillness, where both reflection and waters being completely clear. And perhaps there are times of choppiness. When the surface is agitated and disrupted, reflection and depth lost for a time. And through it all, as you lie here, simply observing the various activities of mind and heart. The fleeting thoughts and feelings, impulses and reactions. Maybe bodily sensations, rippling through the body, noticing it all. Which the same way you might notice and observe the effects of activities, rippling across the lake. Becoming aware of how thoughts, feelings, other activities of your heart and mind ripple across this lake-like body. And do they disturb the surface and clarity of the mind's lake? Do they muddy the waters? And is this okay for you in this moment? Maybe observing how agitated waters and muddy clarity are also part of being a lake. Maybe exploring if it's possible to identify with other qualities and features of the lake. Not only the surface of the lake, but the entire body of water, becoming the stillness that resides below as well. In the same way, in meditation as in life, is it possible to be in touch with not only the changing intensity and contents of thoughts and feelings of the surface waters, but also with the vast unwavering reservoir of awareness itself, residing always beneath the surface of the mind, capable of holding all phenomenon in its embrace. The lake can teach us this. This reminder of the lake that exists within ourselves, stillness always residing, no matter how disturbed the surface of the lake might become. So, as you lie here, experiencing the fullness of your being, this lake-like body, and holding this knowing, this other intelligence that reminds us that even at times when the mind is choppy and upset, overactive, or dealing with difficulties, we can drop beneath the surface of the mind's waves and find a stillness. A calm, a majesty, this aliveness, this immutable lake-like nature, ever-present nobility, always available to us each and every moment, as close as this breath. The breath that can drop us beneath the choppy surface of the mind's waters. Lying here under the canopy of this vast awareness, experiencing the moment-to-moment changes in the body, insensations, thoughts, feelings, impulses, sounds, and all the while, lake-like, simply lying here, watching the play of the weather of the mind's and the body, allowing awareness to hold it all, moment by moment, and breath by breath. In your own fullness, your own completeness, moment by moment by moment. Thank you. [Bell] [Bell]