Last week, I spoke some about the phrase planting ourselves in the universe, which

happened to like, it's from Lady Chattelley's lover, Dage Lawrence. And I think it's a really

beautiful way to consider meditation practice, that we're planting ourselves right here in this

moment, in this earth, in this body that's right here, in this awareness. And I'd like to continue

in that theme. One of the early terravada meditation texts, which in terravada Buddhism is kind of

the ground from which Vapassana, the practice we do here, springs. One of them reads this way,

it says that we are learning to touch enlightenment with the body. And this teaching is really a way

of saying, well, what is enlightenment? Enlightenment is really the realization of our fullness of

this awareness and love that's here. And this phrase is basically saying, the gateway to this

realization is this presence in this alive, in body being that we are. And it's very apt because

one of the big misunderstandings of meditation has been that in some way we're exiting the body,

we're leaving the body and hovering somewhere else, you know, some transcendent place that is

kind of detached from this earthly realm. And it's not so. In fact, the most profound and full

presence can only be experienced if we're awake right here in this body. So we'll be exploring

what I sometimes call embodied spirit, but how to feel a quality of sacred presence that comes

when without any resistance, without any grasping, we really plant ourselves in the universe,

in this body, in this being right here. This is one of one teacher, Ajahn Buddha Dasa,

opened a ten-day retreat with this instruction. She said, do not do anything that takes you out of

your body. And I thought that was, wow, what kind of an instruction? Just imagine if through the day

or through a week, on some level you knew that your intention was, and it's not a kind of a

finger wagging do not. But it's like, what if your intention was not to leave? Just not to leave.

All sorts of interesting things happen when you have that intention.

...