GONG
first adjust the body – how you know if your body is in a good posture is when it becomes spacious – adjust the spine – the spine is holding you up – feel the space coming in between the vertebrae in the spine – lift the breastbone – feel the space – coming into the chest area
you have space outside your body – all around your body – feel the space outside your body reaching out to the ends of the universe – as you adjust your posture you have space opening up within the body – exactly the same sort of feeling of space
as you lift the breastbone slightly the shoulders drop back a bit, and drop down and relax, so you can feel the space in your shoulders – when you adjust the chin – so it’s not jutting forth or pressed inwards – then you feel the space opening up in your throat – when the throat and the neck is spacious – feel the space opening up in the head – the head’s just floating on top of the neck – full of space – let your face relax – so it becomes spacious
although you might know there’s organs and bones and things in there – it feels like space as well – go down into the belly – let the space flood into the belly diaphragm area – let it open out so it feels like the body’s expanding – as it becomes spacious –
go into the pelvis bone – let that expand – go into the legs and the feet and hands – let them all expand – till they’re full of space – till your whole body is hollow – like a hollow bamboo –
how restful that spaciousness is – deeply feel how the two mothers can be present at once – Mother Nature who made your body out of the four elements – your body is there – made out of the four elements – and innate in all those elements is Great Mother who is like space – both are in each others’ embrace – both present in our body – in the same body space –
people say the Western Goddess is innate – in all of nature – is immanent within form – and Buddhists say exactly the same thing – Great Mother is innate within form – dwells within form –
feel how that makes your body sacred – the Great Mother dwells there – Great Mother space dwells there – and Great Mother nature, the four elements, dwells on your body as well – feel this woman’s body – I was probably brought up to feel as not so holy – this is a sacred body –
ask, not with your mind but with your experience – your physical experience – let your body ask – what is this Great Mother – what is this Great Mother who is immanent in my body and yet nothing but space – is she a blank nothingness? – or dos she have some quality of presence? – is she like a light? – and not a light? – ask those questions and let your physical experience explore – feel this presence is not only in my body it’s in everything that’s made of the elements everything that arises out of the Great Mother has the Great Mother innate within it – all sacred –
this indwelling sacredness is the basis of the partnership model – everything is equally sacred – take your awareness right out over the earth all the trees and rocks every living creature and the space and the stars – all the Great Mother innate within them –
feel how beautiful mother nature and the four elements are that arise within the Great Mother – because they carry this beauty within them of space how beautiful they are – let all the image go and rest in the spaciousness in your body and around your body –
we share this great sacredness because we’re not separate from all other – all other things that arise – we share it to remind ourselves – we are part of the whole –
GONG