Earth, Water
first, let’s work with the posture, down into the body, remind yourself of all the bits of the body you haven’t been aware of. back of your knees, heels, elbows, wherever your special bits that you don’t notice are. Notice them now – check your spine, that your spine is rising from the pelvis in a beautiful curve, upwards a beautiful curve that feels straight. lift the breastbone, so your chest opens out – adjust your chin so it’s not pushed in or jutted out. Your head floats on top of the spine – feel how, when you take your awareness down into the body like this, how it changes from talking mode
our body, the physical body is the earth element, the most obvious earth element part of us. feel your bones that are like rocks, start with the feet and go up the shin bones – thigh bones – pelvis – spine – arm bones, feel how solid they are. They don’t last forever, they are quite lasting –
you might want to imagine yourself sitting on a rock – or be a rock. feel what’s it like,
to be a rock – that sat there for a long time – as you sit there, the world passes by – it rains, it thunders, sun shines. Animals come and go, trees come and go – you keep right on sitting there.
the love that expresses the earth element is friendliness, loving kindness. Loving Kindness doesn’t distinguish between different weathers or the different trees that grow and disappear. There’s a basic feeling that everything is equally part of nature. You, all the animals that pass by the rock, have their own special nature, all precious in their own ways
loving kindness is stable. It’s willing to be friendly to all creatures and see the good in them, see them just because they exist, not because they’ve got any special virtues or do anything great, just because they exist, giving friendliness to them.
come back to being a human being, feel what’s that like in your life, the people around you – animals and trees around you as well. explore what this earth feeling is like. I can be friendly to all, whether I personally like them or not, or whether I approve of what they’re doing. They are creatures in nature. They exist. I have this basic loving kindness towards them. Nature’s creatures are all pretty special, including human beings.
this love isn’t flat, like you might imagine a rock – it appreciates the specialness and preciousness of each creature – every creature that lives wants Happiness, every human that lives wants happiness, very simple. We may be going about it in the most unlikely ways that don’t produce happiness for anyone, but still, what we want is happiness. However misguided our methods of trying to get it – when we tune into each person, each creature, how they desire happiness, it helps us feel love for them.
basic, friendly love, not a big deal, not a wow thing, Just gentle friendly or acceptance, or respect — explore how when you have that open feeling – everyone actually just wants Happiness. How grounding it is to eel that way – you’re not swayed back and forth by what people do, unskillful or skillful – just sitting there like a rock, seeing their basic nature, their basic desire, their happiness.
Now let’s move to the water element, which is the opposite. Water has no shape of its own, it fills the shape of whatever it meets, whatever it flows down into. Sensitive to change – if there’s a lot of heat, it evaporates – goes up and forms clouds. if it gets too heavy or too cold, it comes down again as rain – flows downwards through streams and rivers and through the ground.
explore the feeling of water in your body, the water’s moving, the blood moving around all the time through your body. More comes in when you drink – goes through the stomach into the blood – then goes through the kidneys and out. always changing.
feel water moving around in nature – always responding, as it flows down one place, it picks up mud – absorbs salts. So the ocean is all salty like blood – evaporates and leaves the salts in the ocean – absorbs pollution in the air, rains it down again,
sensitively responding to what’s around it –
water in our psyches, is things like our emotions – always responding to what’s around us, our feelings about things
The love of water is compassion – responding to the suffering of others – in particular circumstances. feel in your own life, maybe remember times when somebody is in trouble and you have a compassionate response. What’s it like?
this isn’t just Oh, I’m so sorry. It’s all sorts of things that are compassionate love, being supportive, being helpful in all kinds of ways. feel how compassion is quite emotional, you’re always responding, oh, this has happened to so and so. This happened to so and so. There’s an emotional response. You feel sad with the person,
responding like water
check, do you feel compassionate towards yourself when you struggle? try that out. many times, we can become very critical of ourselves and also of others, rather than being compassionate. I shouldn’t be so stupid, that sort of thing.
for a few minutes, practice compassion on your own sufferings, little sufferings or big ones – feel the healing effects of that compassion – how much better it feels to say, Oh, I still love you, even if you’ve done something silly – to yourself or to someone else – The healing effect. feels like water – gentle water poured on things – the waters of compassion can also be calm
we can practice these loves. We can notice when we don’t feel compassion to ourselves or others, and we can try it out. What’s it like to practice compassion
let’s share the power we’ve gained from this meditation – may all creatures live in friendliness and compassion.
el luvs rock + water Tu 121029 tr g? RX
Fire, Air, Space
Go into the body space. let the spine uncurl, the body balance so the shoulders are balanced – the two sides of the body are balanced
fire element, imagine the sun, Feel its warmth – fire element is heat and light – the
warmth of the sun – the light of the sun, feel the warmth in our body which keeps us alive.
how beautiful – as long as things are not too hot. Fire’s a very intense element. when things get too hot, it becomes most uncomfortable – the right amount of heat, how blissful
feel that in the warmth of your body, the warmth of the sun, which warms all creatures on this earth and all plants – how beautiful Fire is, how beautiful the light of the sun is.
in our culture, we value fire above everything, speed – intensity – pressure – busyness – rushing – bombs – war. We’ve got it right out of balance. So a lot of the negative qualities of fire come out. It’s overwhelming. we’ve got climate change, which is Our over-fiery culture heating up the planet.
in this meditation, let’s focus on when fire is in balance, we need fire – just not too much, like we’ve got in our culture now. feel what it’s like when fire is the right amount – the right amount of heat from the sun – how beautiful it is when it’s just right
the love that’s from the fire element is the love of beauty. It’s called sympathetic joy in Buddhism, joy that rejoices in the delight of yourself and others. Oh how lovely this is. What a wonderful thing she’s doing. She’s laughing, how delightful that is. the birds are singing, how beautiful they are. love in response to wonderful things happening, – notice where you feel that in your life –
this can be a harder one for us to get than compassion. It’s sometimes easy to feel compassion, love and compassion when people are in trouble. to rejoice with them, when they do something great, when they’re happy, a bit more unfamiliar, perhaps. practice it a little
in our culture, we often take people down a notch, or say, Ah, it’s not always going to be like that. pour cold water on it. feeling delight for the birds that sing, for children playing and laughing, the meeting that goes well, the beauty of the beach or the bush, enjoy it, sympathetic Joy. What does that feel like in the body
the next element is Air, the lightest – we mostly don’t even notice it’s there so light and clear, we see straight through it – it keeps our body alive from moment to moment. feel the breath, the air we breathe in and out all the time – invisible, carrying the oxygen we need. air blows everywhere
I breathe in now, then I breathe it out. Someone else breathes it in, then a tree breathes it in, it blows over to Africa, blows around the world.
our thoughts are like the air element – invisible and powerful, it’s easy for thoughts to blow over to Africa too. Go anywhere. air touches everything as it moves around the world
love that’s associated with air is equanimity – just being present with whatever is –
wherever you blow, whatever you touch, it’s all somehow the same, not saying one thing’s special, one thing’s not, one thing’s good or bad, just this deep feeling like breathing in and Breathing out, that whatever is around, it’s part of everything. rest with that –
equanimity is not like a passionate fire or water more emotional sorts of love.
Equanimity is more like friendliness, just rest with whatever is – in a union state of love
now go even finer – to space itself, space that’s everywhere. Out among the galaxies and within the rock – feel that space within everything, like the physicists say, we’re mostly space. The rock is mostly space. There’s a few atoms dancing around in it to give us the impression of form.
when we rest in that feeling of Space, feels like we’re one with all things – space within us – space around – it’s also a quality of love – be part of everything – rest in quiet love
el luvs fire Tu 121029 2 tr