If there are a group of friends that care for each other and wish to meditatively support each other it can be good to periodically come together in a circle and meditate.

To support the flow of contemplation, create an arrangement of beauty and inspiration, (flowers, offerings, candles, a bowl of water and so forth) in the centre of the circle.

Someone can read the following on behalf of everyone and, if you have one, they can sound a gong or bell between each section.  As the reverberations feather into silence, everyone can settle with their breathing and allow the contemplation deepen.

Read slowly, giving time for the meaning behind the words to sink in.

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Sometimes the most wonderful things to do are the simplest.  Sitting together with friends.  Breathing with the world and feeling our deep connection with all of nature.

Life is a mystery.  When we try to grab it, it slips from our fingers.  Delicate, fragile and poignant in its transiency.  So precious.  So easily over-looked or taken for granted.  Yet when we surrender in faith and trust and wonderment, everything seems readily available and utterly here and extraordinarily perfect in all its ‘just as it is-ness’.  Let’s breathe with this for a while.

Our physical substance is deeply flowing through each other, breath through breath, carrot through human, human through trees, mother through child, child through mother.  You are part of my environment.  I am part of your environment.  We shape each other.  We are made with and for each other.  Me, you, carrots, trees – all of us.

Our emotions – the rich, constantly dancing shifting of metabolism, cell chemistry, muscle/bone balancings and more – are coupling in intimacy with the emotional shiftings of those around us.  We are co-emotioning, languaging and linking at myriad levels of feeling and response.  Dancings of empathy and deep shared knowing.  What you do affects me.  What I do affects you.  What we do affects each of us.  What we do together as a community affects the world.

Our thinking, dreaming, imagining, remembering, and associating is mutually dancing with the mental processings of countless other beings.  Opening to the immensity of these linkages.  Our lives swim through each other in myriad wondrous ways.

Our bodies, emotions and mental abilities are profoundly and irrevocably interwoven within themselves and with countless other beings.  Let’s breathe for a while and open into a deepening direct knowing of this living mystery.

Resting, breathing, present;

We feel, within us and around us, the presence of our teachers, guides and mentors, those particular beings who have inspired us to grow in the direction of wisdom and compassion.

Resting, breathing, present;

We sense the great braided river of history, a backwards branching tree of ancestors that eventually includes every being and creature that has lived; a river of talents and abilities, flowing through the landscapes of time, this beautiful world unfolding.

Resting, breathing, present;

We experience  our intimate connection with all living beings.  Breathing in, – gifts from the green plants.  Breathing out, – gifts to the green plants.  Feeling the moisture in our bodies and knowing that it was once a cloud, a drop of rain, a snow field, and a tear.  Breathing with a deepening sense of  gratitude and connection.  We are all parts of a living earth.

Looking into the whole of yourself, feeling the magnitude and mystery of all the connections and linkings that are necessary for you to be you, you discover you are immeasurable.

Looking into the whole of another living being, and sensing the magnitude and mystery of all the connections and linkings that are necessary for them to be them, we see that that they too are  immeasurable.

We finish the meditation by breathing softly, gently, caringly and respectfully, and releasing into a place of warmth and wonderment in our hearts – hearts as big as the world.

Feel the presence of  _______ (the name of the person needing healing) and _______ (the names of their close family members).

Feel the presence of each of us with them and them with us, and breathe with the aspiration that we may accompany each other and support each other in this precious journey of unfolding life and love.

Sitting in this stillness, imagine everyone being bathed in a radiance of healing and whole-ing.

(gong 3xs)

Recite together:

By the power of these wholesome activities,
May our lives be rich with awakening.
Living thus, may we abandon all unwholesomeness.
Within the endless river of birth, illness, old-age and death
May we help all beings to realise their true nature.

Sarva Mangalm,  Sarva Mangalam,  Sarva Mangalam

All is Blessing