This meditation is aiming at cultivating Right Diligence (or Right Effort) – the ability to create enough space within myself so as to look at my negative formations and embrace them, so that they become less personal, less controlling. Right Diligence is the cultivation of our awareness of patterns that control us, define us, limit us. Recognizing that our consciousness has been occupied by these patterns, Right Diligence envelops them and allows them to return to the Alaya Vijnaya (Store Consciousness) so they are no longer invaders but seeds that exist (in the universe so to speak).
In the first phase (or exercise) we create the space, literally in our body. We keep playing with creating this space so we can go back to it, so as to not be overwhelmed or controlled by our patterns as we bring them up. I mentally create space, or hollow my abdominal cavity, starting with the perineal floor, the space between my sits bones. I then mentally hollow the chest cavity. Moving my awareness from the front of the body towards the back, letting this receding motion create space. I then create space in the skull.
When that space is well established, and I feel my awareness more just in front of the spine (than say the skin of the front), I begin the second phase: looking at the themes, the patterns, of my life.
I look at those things I keep wanting, like achievements, recognition, love, acceptance. I also look at things I dislike like my fears, my attachments, my grievances, regrets, etc.
I touch the patterns that keep coming up in my life and trap me. These themes can be both negative or positive. They can also be aspirations. What makes them patterns is that they keep coming back, they define me and my sense of limitations.
As I look at these patterns, I keep creating space within the 3 cavities of my body as needed.
The third exercise is to look at these patterns, these themes, and seeing that life is always moving, regardless of what pattern, or movie, is playing within me. I see that there is one plane in which all of my patterns, desires, attachments, seem to be very important. This is the plane of my everyday life in which my patterns and attachments are in control.
I see also another plane, where these patterns, these attachments play no role at all, and life is just there no matter how strongly the patterns push. This plane tends to come through more clearly, the more I recede my awareness physically towards the spine
In the fifth exercise, with that space within me, I embrace both dimensions, and I bring up the statement “I already have more than enough conditions to be happy.” I just allow the statement to permeate the mind, and to soften myself as I allow myself to open to it. I can also play with different aspects like “there are no conditions for happiness,” or “do I need any conditions to be happy?” There is no one answer to be arrived at, only the process of contemplation.
In the sixth exercise I contemplate that there is no greater than, no less than, no equal to.
I now contemplate that there is no happiness, there is just being, just life.
Happiness is diving into the depth of the ocean, touching the ground of being, and at the same time swimming and playing with the waves