Guided Night Meditation For Sleep

0:06 The day is over. Whatever kind of day it was, long or short, kind or difficult, it has reached its end. There's nothing more it can ask of you now. And for the next hour or so, there's nowhere you need to be but here. What follows is a night meditation. It is made for the moment when you are already in bed or somewhere you can safely let yourself drift off.

0:49 Please keep it away from driving and from anything that needs your full attention. Take every suggestion as an offer. You are free to leave on the shore. Whatever does not suit you tonight, can simply pass by. Let your eyes close when they are ready. Let your body find the shape it wants to rest in, perhaps on your back, perhaps curled on one side. A small shift of the hips a softening of the knees, a settling of the head into the pillow. Take whatever time you need. There is a very still place we can visit tonight. Imagine you are lying in a small wooden canoe on a quiet lake late at night the canoe is long and narrow made of smooth pale cedar and someone has laid soft blankets along the bottom of it and a cushion

2:30 at one end for your head you are lying down inside it low in the water wrapped up warm with only the sky above you. The canoe is still tied to a small wooden jetty at the edge of the lake. You can feel it rocking very slightly, the way a cradle rocks when someone has just stopped pushing it. The rope creaks once against the post Then it is quiet.

3:19 The night air is cool and smells of water and pine trees and the end of summer. Somewhere along the shore the frogs are calling to each other in long slow wooden notes. Far across the lake a bird calls once a long, wavering cry that drifts over the water and fades. Above you, the moon is up, not full, but nearly. It hangs over the far side of the lake, soft and silver, and lays a long, broken path of light across the water towards you. You are completely safe here.

4:23 The canoe is broad and steady, built for exactly this kind of quiet night. The water is calm, the shore is close enough That you could reach it at any time if you wanted to. But you do not want to. You want to stay exactly where you are. Wrapped up warm, looking at the moon. It has been a long time, perhaps, since you simply lay and looked at the sky. Children do it without thinking. Adults almost never find the time. Tonight, there is time. Before we let the canoe go, let us take a few breaths together. Breathe in through the nose slowly, as if you were smelling the cool night air over the lake. And let it out again, long and unhurried. through softly parted lips. Again, in, filling gently.

6:20 And out, letting this one take a little longer. Once more, in through the nose. And out, letting the shoulders sink as the air leaves you. Good. Now let the breath settle back into its own rhythms. You do not have to manage it. Somewhere at the edge of your awareness, the rope that ties the canoe to the jetty begins to loosen. You do not need to untie it yourself.

7:26 It simply slips free the way a knot comes undone at the end of a long day. and falls softly into the bottom of the canoe. And the canoe begins to drift. So slowly that you can hardly tell it is moving. Only the jetty at the edge of your vision, very gradually getting further away. Only the faint whisper of water along the cedar sides. There is no wind tonight, no current to speak of. The canoe is not going anywhere in particular. It is only drifting out from the shore onto the wide, dark, open water. Let the land behind you be the day, all of it, the people, The tasks, the noise, the screens, the conversations. It is all back there, on the shore, with its lights going out one by one. And you are drifting away from it, gently,

9:22 onto the stillness of the lake. As the jetty slips further behind, you can still make out a few things on the shore. A small boathouse with its door closed for the night. An upturned rowing boat on the grass. A lantern hanging from a post at the end of the jetty, its flame turned down so low. that it is only a small orange point reflected in the black water beneath it. Somebody hung that lantern there so that boats could find their way home in the dark. Tonight, nobody needs it. Everyone is already home. The canoe drifts on past the tall reeds at the edge of the shallows.

10:53 They stand very still in the windless air, dark stems against the silver water, and as the canoe slides past them, their tips brush the side of the hull with a soft, dry whisper. Then they are behind you too, and there is only open water. Out here on the water, there is time to listen to the breath. We are going to try something very simple together. We are going to count the breath. Not to control it, but to give the mind a small, quiet thing to rest its hand on, like the smooth, wooden rim of the canoe, Here is how it works. Each time you breathe out, count one number, silently, in your own head. The first out-breath is one. The next out-breath is two. And so on, up to five.

12:21 When you reach five, you start again at one. That is all. One to five. And back to one. on the out-breath. And if you lose count, which everyone does, which is part of the practice, simply notice that you have lost it and begin again at one. There is no score. Nobody is checking. Losing count and beginning again is not a failure. It is the meditation itself. Let us begin, wait for the next out-breath and let it be one. Five. And back to one. Carry on by yourself.

14:53 I will stay quiet for a while, and the lake will keep you company. If you have drifted off into thought, that is fine. Begin again at one. Notice the breath going out and the small number that goes with it. Notice the little pause at the bottom of each breath before the next one arrives on its own. Thank you.

17:24 you may find that the numbers get softer as you go, quieter, further apart. That is a good sign. Let them. Let them. Now let the counting go altogether and simply notice the breath, the way you might notice the water lapping against the side of the canoe. Arriving, leaving, arriving, leaving. While you have been counting, the canoe has drifted out a long way.

18:46 The jetty is a small dark shape behind you now. The shore is a low line of black pines, with only one or two lights still burning in the windows of the houses along the water. As you watch, one of those lights goes out. The surface of the lake is so still that it holds a perfect copy of the sky. The moon is down there in the water as well as up above you. The stars are down there too. If you let your hand trail over the side, which you could, if you liked, it would seem as though you were floating in the middle of the night sky with stars above you and stars below. Let yourself float there among the reflected stars. Now and then, A small fish rises somewhere out in the dark, and a ring of ripples spreads slowly across the water, wider and wider,

20:56 and fainter and fainter, until it disappears and the surface is smooth again. A passing thought is much the same. Something rises, a small ring spreads out, and then, if nothing is added to it, the water smooths itself over, all on its own. Smoothing the water is not your job. Left alone, it does that by itself. Let us count once more, very gently. This time, the numbers will go down instead of up, from five to one. One number for each out-breath. Five. Four. Three. Four. and rest. Now, if you like, We can let the breath lengthen just a little, using the moon as a guide. Look at the long path of moonlight on the water, stretching from the far shore all the way to the canoe. As you breathe in, imagine your attention travelling slowly along that path,

24:56 away from you, towards the moon. As you breathe out, imagine it traveling slowly back again, all the way home to the canoe. Out along the silver path, breathing in. And back along it, breathing out a little slower. Out towards the moon. And home again, slowly. There is no need to make the breath long. If it lengthens by itself, let it. If it does not, that is fine too.

26:24 The moonlight does not mind how fast you travel along it. Out along the path. And home. Now let the path go and let the breath be however it wants to be. There is an old practice kept by monks and by sailors and by a great many ordinary people over the centuries of looking back over the day just before sleep Not to judge it, not to replay the difficult parts again and again, the way the mind sometimes likes to do at night. Just to look at it once, kindly, and then to let it go. Tonight, we will do it in a slightly unusual way. We will go backwards.

28:42 starting from now and drifting back moment by moment towards the morning, a little like the canoe drifting slowly back along the shoreline, past the places of the day. You do not need to remember everything. Whatever comes up is enough. And whatever comes up, you can set it on the water, beside the canoe, like a leaf, and watch it float away.

29:29 Let us begin with, right now, this moment, lying here, listening. The covers lying over you. the pillow under your head. And just before this, getting into bed, perhaps turning off a light, Perhaps setting an alarm or putting a phone face down. The small, ordinary movements of the end of the day. Let that moment become a leaf. Set it gently on the water. and let it drift. And before that, the evening. Whatever the evening held, perhaps a meal, perhaps a conversation, or a program on the television, or washing up, or simply sitting quietly in a chair, You do not need to analyze any of it. Just notice it as if you were seeing it from a little way off, from out on the water. Then set it down on the lake and let it float. And before that, the

31:44 late afternoon or the end of the working day, the time when things begin to wind down, or perhaps when they did not wind down at all. If there was something difficult here, A sharp word, a mistake, a worry that followed you home. You can notice it too. You do not have to pretend it was not there. But you do not need to carry it into sleep either.

32:25 Let it become a leaf like all the others. It is small out here. The lake is very large. Watch it drift. And before that, the middle of the day, lunch perhaps, whatever you were doing in the busy hours, the places you went, the faces you saw, some of it you may hardly remember, That is fine. Some days pass like that. Set it on the water Perhaps there were moments in the middle of the day that you were not really present for at all. Hours that went by on a kind of automatic pilot, driving somewhere and not remembering the road, reading the same line three times, waiting, queuing, scrolling.

34:28 Those moments are part of the day too. They do not need to be judged. They were simply the mind doing its best to get through. Let them become leaves and float away with the others. And perhaps, somewhere in the day, there was a small good thing. It does not need to be much. A cup of tea that was exactly right. A moment of sunlight. Someone who was kind.

35:12 A small task finished. A laugh. If you find one, you can hold it a little longer than the others. Let yourself feel it again, just for a moment, like holding your palms to a small fire. And then, when you are ready, let that one go too. It has done its work. It was part of today. And before that, the morning, getting up, getting ready, perhaps rushing, perhaps not, the first light of the day, which seems so long ago now, And the very first moment of the day, waking up, opening your eyes this morning, in the same bed you are lying in now, or perhaps in a different one. Set that moment on the water too. And if you like, you can go back a little further still, not day by day, Just a glance over your shoulder

37:33 at the week behind you. The things that have been weighing on you lately. The worry that keeps coming back. The plan that has not worked out yet. The thing you keep meaning to say to someone. You do not need to solve any of it tonight. Just let each one become a leaf, a little larger and heavier than the others perhaps, and lay it on the water with the rest. The lake can hold it until morning. The lake can hold a great deal. And now, look out across the lake. All around the canoe, the leaves of the day are floating. Dozens of them, scattered across the silver surface, drifting very slowly apart in the moonlight. Some are bright, some are dark. Most are just ordinary. And as you watch, they drift further and further away, out

39:24 towards the edges of the lake, into the shadows under the far trees. until they are too small to see. The day has been lived. It is complete. Nothing more needs to happen to it tonight. Anything left unfinished can wait on the shore until morning, and you can meet it then, rested. For now, the water around the canoe is clear and dark and empty. Now that the water is clear, there is one more small thing we can do before we rest completely. It is a very old practice too, found in many places and many traditions. It is simply a way of wishing other people well. Tonight, we will keep it very gentle and very short And we will wish only one thing. That people may rest.

41:39 Let a face come to mind. Someone you saw today. It can be anyone. Someone you love. Someone you work with. Someone who served you in a shop. Or passed you in the street. Or spoke to you on the phone. Picture them, wherever they are tonight. Perhaps they are already asleep. Perhaps they are still awake, tired, finishing something. You do not know, and it does not matter. Silently, in your own words, or in these, Offer them this wish. May you rest tonight. May your sleep be deep and easy.

43:05 May you wake up a little lighter than you were. Notice how it feels to wish that for someone. Perhaps nothing much. Perhaps a small warmth. Either is fine Now let another face come, perhaps someone who was difficult today, someone who was short with you or who worried you or who asked too much. You do not have to like them or agree with them or forgive anything. Only notice that they too are lying down somewhere tonight, tired in their own way, carrying their own day. And if you can, without forcing it, offer them the same small wish.

44:39 May you rest tonight. May your sleep be deep and easy. If that feels like too much tonight, that is alright. Simply let them go out across the water with the leaves of the day. now look at the dark shore all around the lake where the houses are in every one of those houses behind every dark window someone is lying down old people and young people children in narrow beds with the covers kicked off Couples back to back, people alone, people in hospital beds and in night shifts, and in long trains crossing the country in the dark.

46:12 All of them, tonight, in the same night as you. Let the wish spread out over the water to all of them, the way the moonlight spreads across the lake without choosing. May you all rest tonight. May all of you sleep deeply. May all of you wake gently. And last of all, Bring the wish home. Back across the water.

47:34 Back to the canoe. Back to you. Lying here under the blanket in the moonlight. You have had a whole day. You did what you could with it. You too are tired in your own way You too deserve rest as much as anyone on the shore. So let the wish come to rest on you. May I rest tonight. May my sleep be deep and easy. May I wake a little lighter than I was. Notice that the wish does not need to do anything. It does not need to fix anyone's day or solve their problems or change the world by mourning. It is simply a kindness sent out across the water in the dark, the way the lantern on the jetty shines for boats that may never come back.

49:55 And let the words go now. You do not need to say anything more. The canoe has drifted out, into the very middle of the lake. Here the water is deepest and stillest. The shore is far away on every side, a low ring of dark trees, with the outline of the hills behind them against the sky. The last lights in the houses have gone out. There is no one else awake on the whole lake. Only you and the moon and the night. Let us simply listen for a while.

51:27 not reaching for sounds, just letting them come, the way the water receives the moonlight without effort. Perhaps you can hear the frogs still calling along the reedy edges of the shore, far off slow, each one taking its turn. Perhaps there is the faint lapping of water against the cedar of the canoe, tiny sounds, almost nothing, Perhaps far across the lake, the long call of the night bird again, rising and wavering and falling away. And underneath all of it, the silence, the great soft silence of the lake at night, which holds every other sound the way the water holds the canoes. You might notice that the silence is not empty.

53:50 It is full and calm and patient. It has been here all along, underneath the noise of the day. Listening to it now is like coming home to it. Away to your left, in the shallows near a fallen tree, a tall grey heron is standing perfectly still on one leg, its long neck folded down into its shoulders. It has been standing there since dusk. It will probably still be standing there at dawn. It is not hunting now. It is simply resting in the way herons rest, upright and patient.

54:51 with the water around its ankles. There is something in that you could borrow tonight. Not the standing on one leg, just the patience. The willingness to be still for a very long time without needing anything to happen. Further along the shore, a small dark head moves across the water. leaving a long silver V spreading out behind it. A beaver, swimming home late with a branch in its mouth. It glides past without a sound, and slips in under the bank, and the silver V spreads wider and wider behind it, until it reaches the canoe and lifts it once, very gently, and passes on. and then the water is still again.

56:33 Now bring a little attention to your body lying in the canoe, Feel how the canoe holds you, the long curve of the hull under your back, the blanket soft beneath you, the cushion under your head, and under the canoe, the deep, cool, dark water, holding the canoe, and under the water, the bed of the lake, holding the water, layer under layer of holdings. there is no part of you that needs to hold itself up let the canoe take your weight let the water take the weight of the canoe Notice how the canoe moves when you breathe.

58:18 As you breathe in, it lifts by the smallest amount. As you breathe out, it settles. In and lifting. Out and settling. The lake answering your breath. In and lifting. Out and settling. In and out. Let us rest the attention for a few moments on what each of the senses can find out here, slowly, one at a time.

59:42 What can you see? Even with your eyes closed, perhaps a faint softness of light, the moon through your eyelids, or perhaps only darkness, which is fine. Darkness is something to see as well. What can you hear? The quiet. Perhaps the far frogs. Perhaps your own breathing. Very close. What can you smell? The cool water. the pines on the shore, the clean cotton of the pillowcase. What can you feel? The weight of the blankets, the air on your face, The slow rise and fall of your own chest.

1:01:30 And is there any taste at all? Perhaps the faint trace of toothpaste or of the last thing you drank. Perhaps nothing. Nothing is fine. Each of the senses, one by one, reporting that all is well. Nothing to see that needs you. Nothing to hear that calls you. Nothing to feel but warmth and stillness. The whole body quietly agreeing that it can let go now. your mind might be a little like the surface of the lake. During the day, the wind blows across it and boats go by and the surface is broken into a thousand pieces and it cannot reflect anything clearly. But when the wind drops and the boats go home, And the night comes, the surface slowly smooths itself, not because anybody flattens it, only because nothing is stirring it anymore. And then it

1:03:19 can hold the whole sky. There is no wind now. Nothing is stirring. Let the surface settle. If a thought comes like a ripple, let it spread out and fade and leave the water smooth again. The moon has moved a little across the sky. Its path on the water has shifted, so that now it runs right up to the side of the canoe, and the silver light lies across your blanket. You are lying in the moonlight on still water in the middle of a sleeping world. No more tasks. No more answers to find. No more remembering.

1:06:50 the canoe begins very slowly to turn. There is no paddle in the water, no hand on the side. It simply turns all by itself in a slow, wide circle, the way a leaf turns on a pond. The moon moves gently across your view, and the line of the shore slides past, and the stars wheel very slightly overhead. Round and round, so slowly, that it is almost the same as being still. Your breath has grown slow and deep.

1:08:23 Your body is heavy in the bottom of the canoe. Your eyes are heavy. Your hands are still. The frogs on the far shore have gone quiet now, one by one. The night bird has stopped calling. Even the water against the hull has fallen silent. There is only the moon and the stars above and below and the slow turning of the canoe. You are drifting. Further from the shore.

1:10:36 further from the day. A thin mist has begun to gather on the water. It rises from the surface in soft pale wisps and drifts very slowly between the canoe and the shore, so that the line of trees grows fainter and fainter, until it is only a shadow, and then hardly even that. Inside the mist, the world becomes very small. Only the canoe, only the blankets, only the moonlight soften now, glowing gently through the haze above you like a lamp behind a curtain. The air is cool on your face. Everything else is warm. Under the blankets, your own warmth is gathered close around you, the way the lake holds the warmth of the summer day, long after the sun has gone. Somewhere, a long way off, a single ripple spreads across the lake and fades away.

1:13:17 And the water is still. Let the night carry you now. It knows the way. There is nowhere you need to go and nothing you need to hold. Only rest. Only stillness. Only the soft dark water holding you. Sleep now. Good night. Thank you.