Two Central Inquiries: Guided Meditation

Let yourself start off by just being aware of the sounds wherever you are. And if it's silent, just see if you can appreciate the silence. And if you're hearing various sounds, just let yourself be present enough to be content with just listening and let it be a seed to remind you that you want to allow yourself to just be as present as possible. Now turn your attention to the morning that you woke up today. And I want you to look at the first moments that you can remember where there was some form of discontent or some form of something that wasn't particularly pleasant. And then I want you to ask yourself, how am I doing? Just allow yourself to have the question come in, how's it going? How am I doing? Where your own presence is speaking to you and taking a caring interest in whatever you're experiencing, it's as if you have this capacity to companion yourself that always exists and that you're accessing. It is as if you have a friend inside that's always interested in your experience. And so even if you're feeling that unpleasantness, there's still a sense of how you're doing. And let that question just hold you. And as you continue, we're going to go through your day and just imagine you asking this question intermittently throughout the day along with another question. And the second question is going to be, how can I best take care of you? Now, as I say those words, I particularly want you to take note of the tone and I want you to make it your tone, which is, how can I best take care of you? Now, the reason why that's so important to be able to isolate and magnify that tone is because it resonates a pure intention inside you and you're recognizing a part of yourself that's interested in your own well being. And look inside and ask yourself, am I interested in what my experience is? Am I interested in my own well being? Well, of course you are. So plant a seed right now. That's just saying to yourself, if this makes sense to you. I want to be asking myself throughout my day the question, how am I doing? And I want to be asking myself the question, how can I best take care of myself? And use your own words that make sense to you might not be, how can I best take care of myself? It might be, how can I love myself? How can I reach my own heart? How can I connect to God? How can I be tender? How can I accept myself? Now, even as we are going through this right now, how are you doing? How are you actually doing Right now and take few moments again just to contact the very experience where you are. And no matter where it is, if you're bored, if you're inspired, if you feel hopeful, just take the time to contact yourself wherever you are. And don't judge, just take that great interest. And then again, ask yourself, how can I best take care of myself? Now, when you ask yourself how you can best take care of yourself, there are several possible ways of doing that. So ask yourself questions. You could ask yourself, how can I nurture myself? Do I want to take a nap? Do I want to go out with friends? What is it that I could do that would give a quality or sense of well being to my life? And you're using your intelligence to activate the sense of caring for yourself. Now why is that important? Because instead of being an ordinary reactivity, you're accessing the purest parts of your own intelligence and you're learning how to activate that place inside you instead of just being randomly reactive. Now see again, if that resonates in a chord inside you, I'd like to activate that part inside of me that cares for itself and wants to care for itself. And I'd like to be interested in what my actual experience is, not in how I think I should be, but actually how am I? I'd like to take that keen interest. Now, let yourself come back to another possibility of how you can care for yourself, which might be to inquire into your heart, are there any qualities that I could send towards myself? Could I be more tender towards myself? Could I be more appreciative? Could I be more accepting? And just really take an interest again in the specific ways in which your heart might be able to reach you. And again, recognizing what you're doing is you're learning how to activate certain parts of your psyche that are for you rather than against you, that are not just randomly reacting, they're actually accessing the very finest parts of your nature. So then continue on your day, just let yourself keep moving through either today or any other day and just let spontaneous memories come up as they do randomly, and ask the question again, how can I take care of myself? And how am I actually doing those two questions? And as you locate your experience of how you're doing, and let's just say you find a place where you're frustrated or annoyed, then just ask yourself that second question of how can I most really nurture myself? Now, you might very well notice that your muscles are tightening when you're frustrated or annoyed. And so when you really Ask yourself how you can care for yourself. It might be relax my muscles as much as possible. It might be breathe in a way that's as calm as possible. It might be let yourself think the thoughts that are going to be soothing rather than the ones that are going to be more aggravating. So keep asking yourself, does this make enough sense to you that you have the motivation to plant the seeds inside? Saying, I want to remember to ask myself, how am I actually doing without prejudice, without trying to influence myself? And I want to be able to ask myself the question, how can I really nurture the way I really am feeling? What actions can I take? How can my heart support me? What kind of suggestions can I give myself? So I'm using the very finest parts of my own nature to care for my life and care for my life as I'm really experiencing it in the moment. And then as we're going through the day, just allow more memories to come in and let it be exactly like it is. Don't try to change it, don't clean it up, don't try to improve, don't try to be superior, don't try to meet any ideals. Just how is it really? Perhaps you're bored, so let's just imagine you're bored. So you say, okay, I'm contacting boredom. That's how I'm really doing. And then you say, well, how can I really care for myself? And let's just assume there's nothing you can do to get unbored. Then perhaps you might think the thought, I'm not being bored on purpose, so at least I don't want to add any judgment towards it. So I can just accept the fact that I'm bored and maybe I could just take a walk, or maybe I can just relax while I'm bored and just let this be a reminder to you that no matter where you are during your day, you're always going to want to remind yourself to be able to be more and more in touch with where you are. And equally important, you have this growing interest in wanting to care for yourself, because what else makes sense? I mean, why wouldn't you want to care for yourself? Why wouldn't you want to nurture yourself? Who's the loser? I mean, it's all gain. And the sad part is you can recognize you just weren't taught that. You weren't taught that at home, you weren't taught that at school, and so now you want to teach that to yourself again and again. Plant the seeds for your future life. How am I actually doing? And how can I really care for myself? The two central inquiries. The two central inquiries and questions that you want to give to yourself for the rest of your life.