Subtlety

An exploration of the focus and concentration that opens towards subtle experience. A shift in consciousness away from the storied mind and towards the quietude inherent in all experience.

This is the third recording in a series of meditations.

Transcript

Welcome.

This profile offers a series of meditations and inquiries that explore the interconnections among our thoughts,

Breath,

Emotions,

Posture,

And well-being.

The meditations will vary from 35 to 55 minutes.

Please start in the seated position with the back unsupported,

If possible,

Either on the floor or in a chair.

If at some point you feel the need,

You can lean back against the wall or the back of the chair,

But try to stay upright as much as possible.

And at any point you feel like you would like to lie down to finish the recording,

Please do so.

Each recording will begin and end with wooden clacks.

Enjoy.

Last time we looked at,

We started with just breath observation.

And then we moved the awareness down to belly breath awareness,

Down to lower belly and pelvic bowl breath awareness.

And then exploring the bottom of the exhale,

And that might have turned into slightly strong breathing so that you could start to notice or consciously encourage dynamics in the lower torso perineum of the activities that occurred during a grunt,

Which is the body's way to generate pressures and alignment that are the healthiest,

Especially for heavy work,

Lifting something,

Or even possibly dangerous work.

But these dynamics will,

If the spine is already in alignment,

It will re-up that alignment,

Or if things are kind of out of kilter,

It will encourage movement towards that alignment.

And this can happen with every slightly firm or firm exhale down to below 12,

10,

8,

3%.

With the breath awareness and a lot of other modalities,

Such as Tantra or yoga,

Or getting women ready for childbirth,

These dynamics are engaged,

Rather than holding the breath,

Which you do in grunting,

It's done just through long,

Smooth exhales.

Some of the yoga work will actually purposefully hold the breath as well,

But it's not about halfway holding,

It'll be either be three-quarter or almost all the way through.

So it's not just about holding the breath,

It's about three-quarter or almost all exhale and playing with the dynamics of what in yoga is called Mula Bandha,

Which is a engaging firming of the muscles,

Mostly around the front of the pubic bone,

Front of the perineum,

Behind the genitals,

But it will also tend to engage some dynamics around the pubic bone and slightly towards the back of the perineum,

Sacrum,

Tailbone.

So we'll go through some of those steps again,

And then we'll go to what's called Ajana Mudra,

Which is the horse mudra,

Which is also another natural dynamic that's important to develop that awareness and the health through understanding how and when it's contracted and especially how and when to release it.

And that's going to be a contraction that once you get to the Mula Bandha or the front contraction,

You work kind of a cone of contraction pressure from the top of the colon down to the anus.

So it'll be more to the back and work more the front of the sacrum.

So,

And this can take years to really develop and sensitivity to,

Or at least a couple of weeks.

So starting with breath awareness,

No right or wrong.

And I usually start where I can notice the breath most easily.

Right now it's kind of front lower rib cage,

Bottom of the sternum.

Again,

You can never notice the breath directly.

You can only notice its influences on your sensory awareness of your body.

So you can be noticing the stretching of skin,

So you can be noticing the stretching of skin,

The relaxing of skin,

Some sort of change in movement,

Shift in pressure,

Shift in tensions,

Muscular movement,

Skeletal movement.

You might notice sound,

You might notice a change in temperature,

And you might notice a change in mental state.

Inhales are activated.

If the breath is slow and long,

By a slight panic of either needing to expel CO2,

So it's not about wanting oxygen,

It's about the body's trying to redistribute the carbon dioxide.

It's not uncommon for us to have an idea that the breathing is mostly front body.

So if I'm paying attention to my abdomen,

I'm paying attention to my front body,

I'm paying attention to my spine,

I'm paying attention to my spine.

So if I'm paying attention to my abdomen,

I'm paying attention to my front belly or my navel or my chest,

Front chest.

But eventually,

You will develop a sensitivity to be able to feel the breath in some aspect,

Anywhere on the skin.

But also in the sides and back body.

So if you're not already doing so,

I invite you to float the awareness at whatever level you're at,

But see if you can feel it for a 360,

Like as much for the side and back body as the front body.

And again,

Subtlety is defined by an experience that doesn't enter your consciousness immediately,

Directly,

Obviously.

So if the attention is moving or being moved swiftly or quickly or darting,

Then the whole realm of subtlety is off the charts,

Is off the radar.

You think,

Oh,

There's not much there to notice,

But that's the whole gift of meditation is that you have to slow down,

You have to be patient,

The mind can't be grabbing everything,

But what can show up in the realm of subtlety once things have slowed down,

Maybe even the breath has slowed down through the concentration,

Might be sweetness and softness,

Or there can be psychological aspects that are more daunting,

A resistance,

Things that feel a little cruddy or awkward or unpleasant.

And you go,

Well,

Who wants to sensitize to those aspects?

But I will invite you to question and explore if all those little discomforts and awkwardnesses or places that you realize are not even when you pay attention to them,

There's nothing there,

That those are all aspects of the emotional physiology and are somehow in a fugue of the emotional content that is underscoring and motivating everything else that's happening in your conscious activity,

In your thoughts,

In what you hold important,

In your actions.

So I'm still up near my middle torso,

So I start for five to 10,

12 minutes of just awareness,

Wherever it's easiest to notice.

And then the invitation is to move,

If you're not already there,

To belly breath awareness.

It can be anywhere in the abdomen,

Starting at the plexus and that level at 360 degrees,

Or you can lower down towards the navel.

My awareness doesn't want to just easily drop down,

So I'm slowly lowering a breath or two or three,

Maybe at each vertebrae as I'm breathing.

Sort of encouraging,

There's still resistance to even be at my navel and slightly lower.

Now I can feel stuff in my kidneys and in my hips,

And now in my lower belly.

There.

So many practices,

Belly breathing and belly breath awareness at the lower belly somewhere,

At and below the navel.

It's sort of the home base of the practice,

So the attention might get pulled off to thoughts or it might move to different parts of the body or often to your surroundings,

But the invitation is to come back and find and just notice any of the experiences connected to the breath in the lower belly.

From there,

It might even start to open up into the pelvic bowl.

You might notice dynamics around the pubic bone,

Perineum,

Tailbone and sacrum,

And I have to consciously go look for them.

Might notice some dynamics in and around the genitals and anus.

No right or wrong,

Good or bad.

The invitation is to notice that all these experiences are an act of change,

That everything that you're noticing is just changing,

A movement,

A vibration,

Something that showed up and disappeared.

Nothing sits static in existence except for or intellectual mental constructs,

But nothing in direct perception,

Even of mental constructs,

Is static.

Everything's changing.

All experience is an aspect of change.

Good.

We're going to play with slightly strong breathing.

Next time we'll play with listening into subtlety,

But whenever you're opening up to subtlety,

The mind,

And especially if you're in and on the body,

The mind will slow down the mental dialogue,

And the breath will tend to slow down to the point that you can't hear it on either the inhale or the exhale.

But here I'm going to encourage slightly strong breathing,

So find the bottom of the exhale,

And where does it really end?

And just that awareness may feel other dynamics continuing the exhale,

Exploring the bottom of the exhale.

The exhale will have experiences,

Sensations somewhere else,

Upper in the body or maybe in the ankles,

But the exhale tends to accentuate experience.

In the lower belly,

You might feel the lower belly flatten,

You might feel the hips,

The waist,

Some dynamics on the back or front of the sacrum,

But also the pubic bone perineum.

And the inhale will tend to release,

Relax some or all those dynamics,

Depending on what type of inhale is going to ensue,

Either because of that's your habitual pattern or through the intention.

So if the intention is to keep the awareness down in the pelvis,

It will either help relax those dynamics or it might keep them gently activated and constricted.

So we want to play in order to inhale up higher than a deep lower belly breathing,

So up into the plexus or up into the ribs,

Lower ribs,

Side ribs,

And up towards the back and armpits,

And then to the chest,

Throat,

Any of those upper direction and activation of inhale above the plexus requires some support from dynamics that we had generated through a longer,

Firmer,

Conscious exhale.

So the lower belly,

Lower back,

Hips can't relax completely in order to breathe into the upper body and that's okay.

We're going to play with chest as much as possible,

Letting the lower belly above the pubic bone,

Pelvic floor,

Side waist,

Everything relaxed on the inhale.

And it might be a small inhale or a shorter inhale,

But see if you can let that lower belly and waist at least relax and maybe think about just inhaling,

Like it might just be 10% or a 20% inhale.

It can be hard to invite and encourage relaxation of things that we don't know how to activate.

So we're going to play with some Spanish vowels to help excavate and explore the depth of an exhale.

So go ahead and take a full three-quarter to full inhale.

At the top of the inhale,

You might even feel your face and nose or shoulders want to lift.

That's all right.

And when I do an ah,

That's all right.

And when I do an ah,

It doesn't matter how long,

It's not a long competition.

It's about an evenness so that whatever tonality you started with,

Find the muscular dynamics required to maintain as much as possible that same loudness,

Firmness tone so that it goes down.

And instead of tapering at the end,

And I often will gently press my wrists or my hands into my knees in order to help generate some transverse abdominis support.

And then you'll feel maybe the perineum lift.

You might feel the pubic bone get activated around.

You might feel your anus,

Tailbone,

Sacrum,

All those can come.

And a little bit of pushing helps to keep the work instead of the torso,

Lowering onto the intestines and lower body.

This is activating the abdominal muscles and back muscles and pelvic muscles.

Also that you're helping push the gut up against the diaphragm as it's ascending into the dome and going up into the chest cavity.

So you're trying to pressurize the gut up into and under the diaphragm.

Exhale,

And then on the inhale,

Nice,

Full,

Big inhale.

You can let things lift and make a little bit of a face if it needs to.

Yeah,

Going back to just breath awareness.

I can notice more awareness and more relaxation and more movement in my lower belly and side waist and my ribs.

And the breath,

The desire for oxygen has the body moving larger.

So I can feel it's like we've warmed up,

Like there's a storm front coming in off the sea and the waves have already started to get larger.

So the waving,

The ebb and flow of each breath is larger just from the physical activity.

And you can use that to feel something new,

Something different,

Something more accurately.

So before we play with the agina mudra,

Let's play with mula bandha,

The squeezing around the pubic bone and the pelvic floor,

Near the genitals.

And maybe depending on my first couple attempts I did here,

I couldn't move it back towards my anus,

Tailbone.

But let's play with,

And what it's going to be,

It's going to be a full exhale.

I work with a little pressure of my palms or wrists into the knees.

And we're going to do one of these full exhales.

And you might be able to hear the exhale.

But then the inhale,

And it might only be like a 2%,

A 1% or 2% inhale.

And then exhale again.

So you're trying to breathe from complete exhale to just letting the inhale happen and see what dynamics you can feel at,

For me,

It's around the front of the perineum and then the genitals,

Pubic bone.

And then,

Yeah,

I can't,

Nothing wants to tighten back,

But that's okay.

And then after two or three or five of these little breaths,

I usually need more oxygen or I need to get rid of some CO2.

So my body will invite and encourage a longer breath.

It can be a full breath.

It can be a half breath.

It doesn't matter.

Take a couple breaths there until you can feel any sense of panic or necessity.

Dissolve if it dissolves or if it was never there.

So I'm going back to a very soft abdominal breathing,

Working on the relaxation side.

So go through that cycle again,

Exhaling firmly long,

Try to get down to 2%,

0% exhale,

And then just breathing a breath in and a breath out.

2% or two above,

And then back down to that base exhale.

And it can be very small.

You can get a lot of air in very quickly.

So the in exhale may actually take quite long,

Even though the inhale is just fraction of a second or a second.

The exhale is taking me three to five seconds,

Even though my inhale is a half a second.

This may seem awkward.

You may have no feel like you're not aware of what's going on.

There's no control.

Make you a kind of good G and nebulous.

It's all fine.

There's so much benefit that comes from this contraction and relaxation.

Some of us can't relax our daily thing in our life is that we never fully contract these dynamics.

Or some of us have tightness that never relaxes.

That never relaxes here.

So this isn't about getting super strong,

But it's about awareness and blood flow.

And so many systems require muscular activity to support healthy tissues,

Healthy organs.

Both the genitals,

The digestive tract.

Most American men by the age of 55 have prostate issues.

Colon cancer is a huge thing in men's health and disease.

So the ability to consciously find,

Engage and relax pelvic floor dynamics,

Huge.

Let's go to a breath we haven't played with yet.

I call it relax,

Relax.

Let the inhale relax and then wait because the exhale,

Although it will feel like some sort of contraction,

Actually will be just what relaxes.

So you think,

Well,

If the inhale was relaxed,

The exhale must be work.

But they are work in a oppositional support where the exhale can be a relaxation and then the inhale can be a relaxation.

Doesn't matter where the relaxation occurs.

Sometimes there'll be a pause or I'm not even sure what the breath is doing.

It's not uncommon for me to find that like the inhale will happen and then I'm waiting for the exhale and instead of an exhale,

It'll be another inhale.

And then less often,

I'm waiting for the exhale and then I'm waiting for the inhale again.

And then less often,

Something the same on the exhale.

So I'm exhaling and then,

Oh,

Then there's another surge or wave of exhale.

No right or wrong.

But to be in this opening to things that we normally can't access is opening into subtlety.

So the agina mudra,

The evacuation of the colon is usually done on the toilet and it's done with the breath at half full.

So you either kind of exhale a little bit and just a half or you inhale the half in order to do a grunt,

But then the evacuation would then activates,

Not the grunt activates mostly or now that I'm so used to doing it with kind of the mula bandhi yoga,

The front of the perineum and the pubic bone and the lower abs,

But the evacuation will then go from the grunt dynamics of the front of the perineum more towards the back.

And again,

You might feel some dynamics working from a cone of somewhere up in front,

Top of the sacrum,

Down towards the anus and tailbone.

So let's do one first,

We'll inhale the half inhale or three quarters and then squeeze the front of the pubic bone,

Hold the breath,

Squeeze the pubic bone,

Perineum and then see with that half air,

You can consciously find some activation or maybe it's really obvious for me,

It's less obvious.

Let the inhale,

And then I exhale a little bit and then inhale,

Release and take a breath.

Again,

The easiest place for me to find it now that I've been playing with it for about a year and a half is on the toilet.

So I invite you to play with that,

Explore there,

Explore there so that you can bring that sensitivity.

And now play with a long smooth exhale.

And even that's almost like a little pause and at the bottom of the pause,

I'm just seeing if I can find some of those dynamics.

And every day is different like today,

It's there,

I can feel it now in the back of my sacrum,

But not so much near my tailbone,

Anus.

But then practice relaxing.

And that's enough for me for today.

People turn both the mula bandha and the jhāna mudra into exercises and they start doing repetitions and they link it with the breath and holding breaths.

But please know that this is very powerful,

It can be very daunting,

Very powerful,

It can be very daunting,

It can change digestive tract and bowel movements.

And I've had a couple visitors for a month swear that there was something in the water because this kicked up so much emotional distress that was,

In my view of the world,

That was loaded and charged in that part of her physiology.

If you are in a culture where even just mentioning the word anus or being invited to bring awareness to awareness to evacuation can be taboo or at least uncomfortable.

But in my California American,

Fairly liberal upbringing culture,

These topics are still awkward,

If not inappropriate.

But so important.

American health,

One of the worst in the world,

Prostate issues,

Colon cancer,

Prostate issues,

Colon cancer,

Hemorrhoids,

Polyps,

Erectile dysfunction.

So I've moved into kind of the relax,

Relax,

Breath awareness.

Most of it's floating at the plexus,

So above the navel and that space between the lower ribs.

A little bit of movement in the lower back.

But just observing floating.

Floating.

It's relax,

Relax,

But I can feel on the inhale some resistance in my around my navel in that relaxation.

So there's relaxation happening.

No,

A lot of times I catch myself thinking that my breath should be very rhythmic and even.

But right now,

It's very,

Can be very short,

Abrupt on either the both the inhale and or the exhale.

A longer breath and then a short turnaround.

Little pauses.

Little pauses.

If you ever have a chance to observe someone sleeping or snoring,

You'll know just that natural unconscious breath is not always an even breathing rhythm.

Nice.

I haven't taken my awareness throughout the entirety of my body.

I don't know if that feels something you want to do.

You can gently you can gently move your awareness around different parts,

Different levels.

I have no desire for larger to breathe up to my chest.

I'm not going to go there.

A lot of schools of meditation breath awareness will begin in almost the entire of their practice is on the inhale.

But postural restoration and tantra that I've come across through a book called Path to Shambhala emphasize the importance of exploring and understanding the exhale before you start playing with and the belly breathing,

The pelvic breathing before before focusing in encouraging upper torso and throat,

Shoulder,

Collarbone,

Head breathing.

If that's natural for you,

Then please allow that.

And even just talking about that has opened up that slightly more for me.

Next time,

We'll play with some full inhales.