Recently I saw an interview of spiritual teacher Francis Bennett. At the end of the interview, Francis did a short guided meditation on the three stages of surrender. Since surrender is so essential and such a sticking point for so many of us, I am offering this model of surrender here this evening.
Good evening and welcome to Monday Group Meditation. We will be sitting from 7:30 to 11:00 PM Eastern Time. It is not necessary to sit for the entire extended time, which is set up to make it convenient for people in four North American Time Zones; sit for as long as you like and when it is most convenient for you. Monday Group Meditation is open to everyone, believers and non-believers, who are interested in gathering in silence. If you are new to meditation and would like to try it for yourself, Mindful Nature gave a good description of one way to meditate in an earlier diary, copied and pasted below:
"It is a matter of focusing attention mostly. In many traditions, the idea is to sit and focus on the rising and falling of the breath. Not controlling it, but sitting in a relaxed fashion and merely observing experiences of breathing, sounds, etc. Be aware of your thoughts, but don't engage in them. When your mind wanders (it will, often), then return to focus on breath and repeat."
Sangha Co-hosts for meditation are:
7:30 - 10:00 Ooooh and davehouck
9:30 - 11:00 thanatokephaloides
|
Pick a person, thing or situation with which you struggle. Start small, don’t pick your biggest issue, we want to see how this works, not prove it wrong. :-)
We start out by knowing there is a place in our hearts that is already surrendered to everything. It is just that we don’t normally have access to that place from our conventional human awareness. Now think of that issue or person, and just imagine allowing it to be as it is. Say, “I allow this.” Allowing is the lowest level of surrender, it’s like saying I might not like this situation, or person, or thing, but I’ll tolerate it as it is without pushing back at it. So, once again, with all that in mind, think of your issue and just say, “I will allow this.” Just sit in that awareness a while, maybe you’ll need to repeat the words, “I will allow this.” occasionally, but just be with this and see if it helps you relax at least a little bit around this “thing” you normally resist. You’re not intended to repeat the words like a mantra, but sit with the issue in your awareness, and if you feel resistance solidifying again, repeat the words.
Moving into the second level of surrender, bring your issue to mind and say, “I embrace this.” Here in the second level of surrender we are learning to embrace what we formerly resisted. As we practice embracing what we formerly resisted we sometimes see there is actually some kind of truth, or some benefit in embracing that thing which we formerly resisted. So just sit with that thing and see if you can soften around it even further by saying to yourself, “I embrace this.”
The third and final level of surrender is loving what is. Bring your issue to awareness and say to yourself, “I love this.” I find it’s a bit harder to bring my "thing" to this level of surrender, maybe you will notice that too. But try it anyway, because I’ve noticed using this model really does help me to loosen my resistance around things. So just try your best, bring your issue to mind and say to yourself, “I love this.” And continue in this manner for some time.
In my experience, even if I can’t bring myself to love the person, thing, or situation that challenges me, some new comfort arises in me simply in the knowledge that learning to love the issue will bring me to the end of suffering it causes me. It helps me to feel there is a possibility of learning to surrender, bit by bit, to the items that bring me suffering.
Surrender, like forgiveness, is another one of those things which everyone tells us we should do, and yet no one ever tells us how to go about it. Here is one method we can use to lead ourselves into surrender.