So let's just begin with a moment or two of silence.
And on your next inhalation,
Hold the breath briefly and let it just fall out of you all at once to give you the experience of dropping down.
And do that a few times.
So don't guide the breath out,
Let it just fall out of you.
And let the dropping down,
Opening of that exhalation,
Help you locate in the lower body.
Dropping down to the pelvis,
To the buttocks,
To the legs,
To the feet.
Letting the lower part of your body take all your weight,
Which is the beginning of our letting go.
You can feel or imagine the bottom of your feet,
The back of your thighs,
Your buttocks,
Almost reaching down into the cushion or the chair,
Seeking greater support.
Let your belly be soft,
Almost falling forward.
And notice how that possibly opens you to grounding more deeply.
Letting go is an act of trust.
Do you trust the chair and the floor and your own body to support you?
With the belly soft and released,
The breath can come down more easily.
See if the breath can deepen into the navel belly area to further bring the weight of the attention and the energy down.
If you're feeling any greater sense of rootedness,
Groundedness,
What does it bring you in terms of any shift in your mind?
We want to feel the effect of what we do.
We don't just want to do an action mechanically.
What does the groundedness bring to the awareness?
Can the body's greater rootedness be shared with the mind so that it can find greater stability?
So it's as if when you can bring your awareness to enter in to the felt sense of the body's stability,
Greater peace,
Solidity,
Stability,
Rootedness,
Unshakable comes to the awareness.
So that downward pull,
That letting go,
That sense of stability can tip too far and become a seduction into dullness.
So can you feel from the base of your spine a sense of elongating upward without a lot of muscular action that might bring tension,
But the upward intention lifting us into the wakefulness of the upward spine.
Now notice,
Did you lose any of the firmness of your ground as you did this?
It becomes interesting to reflect,
Huh,
I wonder if when I move to alertness I do in fact lose the stability of the base.
So can you simultaneously maintain the firmness of your base as you use the upright elongated spine to bring you a greater wakefulness,
Presence?
Can you find that balance?
Sometimes as people try to sit straight they tighten their belly,
Which helps block access to lower chakras,
It closes the area down.
Keeps soft and open in the base,
Soft and elongated in the spine.
And notice as you bring your body upright,
If you do this with tension,
Do you push forward?
Or do you fall back?
As you sit with a straighter torso,
Can your awareness spread to include the front of the torso and the back?
As you spread awareness to include more of your body,
The awareness has to open to do this.
It has to be lighter,
More permeating.
Can you feel that?
Yes.
From the center of your heart,
Can you feel the chest expand left and right equally?
Without tension,
You might notice that the shoulders need to release a little to free the heart,
To free the chest.
And as the chest opens,
Can you link the awareness to this action by recognizing the expanse of the mind that comes with the support of the open heart,
The open chest?
It's something we know but can forget that every aspect of meditation posture supports what we might call the meditating mind or the stance of the awareness that most supports our practice.
It's not just get your body in the right position and then do practice.
So the mind expands,
And you feel the expanse in the back of the body as well.
So there's a three dimensionality of your experience that brings a greater roundness and wholeness to that inner space that we're creating.
Feel your shoulders,
Allow them to release.
You can even move them a little bit if you need to to loosen so that the arms drop down.
They're not held up by the rigidity of the shoulder girdle.
Just let them drop onto your lap,
Your knees.
And when you do this,
Can you feel both arms?
And can you notice if each arm is equally relaxed?
One arm might carry the tension of a readiness for action,
For doing.
Muscles tensing in preparation.
Can each arm be a little freer,
Again supported on the knees by the lap dropping down?
Continue to feel both arms equally.
Feeling the balance.
And from that felt sense of balance,
Recognize the possibility for the equanimity of mind to be experienced.
Return for a moment to the base feeling.
If you have lost any sense of firmness,
Rootedness,
Again using exhalation to release again,
Because every time we move to a different,
We could call it activity,
Things tense up in preparation to help us to just get busy again,
I guess.
But just encouraging the legs to continue resting down.
Encouraging the belly to continue falling forward,
To open the pelvis,
To release the spine so we can continue lifting up without tension.
Feeling the expanse of the chest and the roundedness of the torso,
Right,
Left,
Front,
Back.
The resting arms in balance.
Bring awareness to the back of the neck.
And feel the back of the neck begin to elongate so that the head curves downward,
Allowing the chin to come a little down.
Feeling that from neck to the top of the head,
You arch over the throat so you don't close it.
It's like you create a protective little hollow for the throat so that it stays soft as the chin comes down.
And feel and recognize what does this bring you to do this?
You might notice that a sense of calm or peace comes to the mind.
The dropped chin might bring a sense of self-closeness,
Inwardness.
And you feel the soothing of this action.
And feel your eyes.
Just feel how they are.
Feel the muscles around your eyes.
Notice if there's any kind of movement,
Chitarini,
Energy.
Do the eyes feel hard?
Can those eyes melt into their own sockets,
Falling down,
Maybe back?
Whether your eyes are open or closed,
Let them be very soft.
Let's take a few moments with the eyes to really feel what it is to let go here.
There's so much identity in the eyes.
What is it to really release consciously the point of view,
The origin of perception that the eyes hold?
Can you let it go?
Can you notice if you need to let go of any tension in the jaw,
In your tongue,
Forehead,
Everything soft,
Ears soft,
Everything soft.
Soft means open.
Now can you feel the whole of your meditation posture,
The whole of your self as a body in this moment,
With the awareness completely interpenetrating the experience of the body?
Your legs are grounded,
Your mind is stable,
Your spine is elongated,
Your awareness is fresh and present,
Your chest is open,
The mind is expansive,
Your chin is down,
The mind is peaceful,
Your eyes are soft,
You might notice that as a certain area is more released and there's a little more space that opens,
That space can flow into the opening of other areas that have released so that you can create through your relaxation a more unified inner space and a greater flow,
Greater vitality.
See what your own experience of space is as you continue to allow your body to rest into the posture.
And then through the balance of the body,
The rudeness of the body,
The greater awareness of the body,
Can you enter a felt sense of stillness?
The breath continues to flow,
And the movement of the breath can remind us that stillness is not a destination,
It's a journey,
That we become still,
We rest in order to wake up into something more essential,
Something more truly alive.
About fifteen minutes into the Bhagavad G Fort,
The gesture that we held outside of the hands of theHello 25 graves,
.
.
.
And really feeling yourself and your body and your posture.
If your eyes are closed,
You can open them,
Gazing down for a moment,
To allow the awareness of the surroundings to begin to balance with whatever the meditation brought you.
Let it be integrated with that.
.
.
And then as you're ready,
Eyes open.
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