How To Create a Spacious & Peaceful Mind - Guided Meditation With Zen Master Henry Shukman #643

As you may know, all throughout March, I have been releasing short 10-minute meditations from Henry Shukman every single Sunday to inspire you to join our 30-day meditation challenge with The Way. In this final bonus meditation from Henry, he takes us back to the original purpose of meditation – to rest the nervous system and to show us we’re not just the self but part of a larger consciousness. Thank you to all of you who have taken part. I hope it has shown you how just a few minutes of practice each day can have a transformative impact on the way you experience life, and I really hope that some of you will continue with the practice beyond March. If you didn’t manage to join us but are still keen to give it a go, please don’t worry, it’s never too late to start you can sign up now and you’ll still receive your 30 FREE guided meditations to begin at a time that’s right for you. In fact, anyone who visits: thewayapp.com/livemore into April and beyond can access this special offer. So if you’ve already taken advantage, why not tell a loved one? Now that you have a daily meditation habit, you can join Henry and me on our mission to bring this life-changing practice to as many people as possible! Wishing you the best of health Show notes https://drchatterjee.com/643 DISCLAIMER: The content in the podcast and on this webpage is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your doctor or qualified healthcare provider. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have heard on the podcast or on my website. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:03Rangan Chatterjee?

  Hey guys, how you doing? Hope you're having a good week so far. My name is Dr Rangan Chatterjee and this is my podcast, Feel Better Live More.

• 0:16Rangan Chatterjee?

  As you may know, all throughout March, I've been releasing short 10-minute meditations from Henry Schuchman every single Sunday to inspire you to join our 30-day meditation challenge with The Way. Now, throughout the month, over 25,000 people around the world have taken part in the challenge. And I'm delighted to share with you that there have been over 300,000 completed meditations so far and an incredible 7.63 million minutes of meditation completed throughout the month. Thank you so much to all of you who have taken part. I really hope it has shown you how just a few minutes of practice each day

• 1:01Rangan Chatterjee?

  can have a transformative impact on the way you experience life. And I hope that some of you will continue with the practice beyond March. If you didn't manage to join us but are still keen to give it a go, please don't worry, it's never too late to start. All you have to do is go to thewayapp.com/livemore to sign up and access your 30 free meditation sessions. And now, for the last time this month, here's another short meditation with Henry.

• 1:36Speaker 01

  Welcome back to another meditation with me, Henry Schuchman. So meditation is a wonderful practice for resetting our nervous system, for recalibrating our nervous system so we're more centered and grounded and really can feel more calm and are less liable to be taken out by our reactivity. It's great for all of that. And that's the primary reason, probably, why most of us take it up. It certainly was my reason. I'd grown up with a lot of stress and I didn't know it, actually. But when I began to meditate, I really felt the difference, that I was living with a calmer, better-adjusted nervous system.

• 2:20Speaker 01

  And it made a tremendous difference. However, there is actually also a deeper side to meditation. And this is why I believe it survived for thousands and thousands of years. It can open us up to discoveries about the very nature of who and what we are, and what our real relationship to this world is. Of course, our real relationship is just as we imagine it to be and feel it to be, that we're moving through this world, trying to arrange things the best we can for ourselves and for those around us, and perhaps for wider circles of concern. And at the same time, there's another side to it,

• 3:02Speaker 01

  which these deep meditation traditions have known about, where we find there's a boundlessness, and there's a way that we're not separate from anything at the deepest level. So in this meditation, we're going to just explore a little bit whether we can get some taste of these deeper sides of the practice. But this is not something you have to do in any special way. It's just about dropping into ourselves, being present to ourselves, and seeing what we find. So let's get comfortable in a seated position.

• 3:43Speaker 01

  I invite you to just sway a little bit from side to side if that's comfortable for you, or perhaps rock backwards and forwards, just as a way of settling in and finding your own way to the comfortableness that your body can feel. Close the eyes or lower the gaze. Then we start to drop in. So start to sense your body as a cloud of softness. Can you let your whole body become a little bit floppy?

• 4:28Speaker 01

  So you stay upright, if you're sitting upright. You stay upright, and yet you're like a rag doll. There's no holding in the body, just a gentle tide of releasing, of relaxing.

• 4:51Speaker 01

  Lovely. And becoming aware, so we're aware of the sounds around us. Let's just have a little spell of listening.

• 5:08Speaker 01

  Just hearing the sounds, perhaps of the building that you're in.

• 5:17Speaker 01

  Or of the world outside.

• 5:23Speaker 01

  Just listen.

• 5:29Speaker 01

  You don't have to do anything special. Just noticing the soundscape.

• 5:50Speaker 01

  Great. Now let's notice the field of body sensations. Notice your feet on the floor.

• 6:01Speaker 01

  Notice the pressure where your buttocks meet your seat.

• 6:12Speaker 01

  Notice how your skin feels where clothing is touching it, keeping it warm.

• 6:24Speaker 01

  Notice where your skin is exposed.

• 6:29Speaker 01

  Perhaps the face and hands.

• 6:37Speaker 01

  And let's see if we can detect a subtle energy field all through the body. Perhaps a sense of warmth within the body.

• 6:52Speaker 01

  Or perhaps a very light, subtle tingle in parts of the body.

• 7:03Speaker 01

  Whatever you're feeling is just fine. Just be with the sensations of the body.

• 7:16Speaker 01

  Now and again, thoughts will arise. It's completely natural. When they do, when we notice that we've been thinking, just acknowledge it by saying to yourself in your mind the word "thinking", "thinking", it's just a little label to acknowledge what's been going on. And then come back to being aware of the body, of the field of sound all around you,

• 7:52Speaker 01

  of just being present.

• 7:58Speaker 01

  No need to do anything special, just being present

• 8:06Speaker 01

  and aware.

• 8:14Speaker 01

  So can we notice that whatever we experience, whether it's sounds, body sensations, thoughts,

• 8:27Speaker 01

  they all arise within a kind of awareness. Without awareness, we wouldn't notice these sense experiences.

• 8:45Speaker 01

  Awareness is here to meet our experience.

• 8:54Speaker 01

  So the invitation now is to see whether we can just become a little bit more aware of awareness.

• 9:08Speaker 01

  That might sound a little strange or paradoxical, but is there a way you can sense your very own presence, your aware presence, as something like a broad field, within which sounds arise, within which body sensations appear?

• 9:41Speaker 01

  As if there's something like a background to all our experience.

• 9:49Speaker 01

  And this is what our awareness really is.

• 9:56Speaker 01

  Like a backdrop, or a screen almost, on which, in which, within which, all our known experience arises.

• 10:14Speaker 01

  So the invitation is to, just as it were, fall back a little bit, come backwards, just a little bit, as it were, into

• 10:28Speaker 01

  the breadth of awareness that allows and welcomes and recognizes all our experience.

• 10:49Speaker 01

  Again, this isn't something special, or some kind of meditative accomplishment, not the least of it. It's simply recognizing a quality of awareness that's always been with us.

• 11:10Speaker 01

  And that's here, right now. A simple presence.

• 11:21Speaker 01

  A being here.

• 11:28Speaker 01

  An awareness

• 11:32Speaker 01

  that's here, right now.

• 11:37Speaker 01

  And has always been here for us.

• 11:45Speaker 01

  It's really part of our own nature.

• 11:49Speaker 01

  It's part of our makeup.

• 11:56Speaker 01

  It's a lovely thing to sense in however smaller way we get a sense of it.

• 12:03Speaker 01

  Welcoming awareness or presence.

• 12:19Speaker 01

  Okay, let's gently come out of this meditation. I invite you to move your body a little bit, however feels good. To open your eyes or raise your gaze, come back, have a little stretch if that feels good.

• 12:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, I know that what we've just been doing might seem a little strange or abstruse or something, but it really is about something very commonplace that's just here all the time and just learning to recognize it or getting little invitations back into our native awareness can be a really helpful thing and over time we get to drop into it more easily. Thank you so much for joining me on these meditations and for this little journey into the world of meditation. I'm very grateful for the opportunity to share this practice with you and I wish you a very fine rest of your day.

• 13:24Rangan Chatterjee?

  So, how was that for you? How do you feel now compared to when you started? You see, just a few minutes of meditation each morning helps me start off each day feeling calmer, grounded and more present. So, if you want to join this free 30-day meditation challenge, all you have to do is go to thewayapp.com/livemore to sign up and receive practical tips, exclusive content and 30 free meditation sessions to get you started.

• 14:05Rangan Chatterjee?

  If you enjoyed today's episode, it is always appreciated if you can take a moment to share the podcast with your friends and family, or leave a review on Apple Podcasts. Thank you so much for listening. Have a wonderful week, and always remember, you are the architect of your own health. Making lifestyle changes is always worth it, because when you feel better, you live more.