My name is Larissa.
We're going to practice together for about 15 minutes.
As always,
Just an opportunity to spend some time with yourself.
We get to do it in community.
Just taking a little bit of space right now just to settle into your body.
How are your shoulders?
How's your jaw?
How's the support beneath you?
Do you need any small adjustments?
And that first little step,
Just checking in,
Making sure you have the right amount of support in the posture you've chosen,
That is the beginning of being gentle with yourself,
Being kind to yourself.
And you're welcome to close your eyes or set your gaze downward.
Just starting to draw inward a bit more.
There,
Of course,
Are many forms of meditation.
Some forms would ask us to keep our eyes open.
But here it's just this invitation to start to witness yourself a bit more internally.
And when we look at all of our sensory awareness,
Our vision,
For folks that can see,
That takes up the largest capacity of how we take in information.
So just the softening of your eyes allows you to start to notice the information that's already here within your body.
Just notice your feet touching the floor,
The parts of your legs that are touching a chair,
And everything beneath you being held by gravity,
Being held by the earth.
It's this reminder of your groundedness.
And from the earth,
That stability,
That remembrance that we have of groundedness,
We have the support beneath us all the time.
And from that groundedness,
Start to notice the movement that's happening within you,
The movement of your breath.
Perhaps you're even still enough to notice your heartbeat.
Just noticing that we need both.
We need both that stable groundedness,
That complete stillness,
How the earth is always steady,
The ground beneath your feet stable as you walk throughout the day.
It's something that's more transient,
Like snow or mud.
You can feel it moving as your feet touch the earth.
But beneath all of that,
There's stability.
We have both our stability,
But also a natural rhythmic movement of our breath.
We need both.
So when we come into our meditation practice and when we invite in stillness,
We recognize we're not trying to be perfectly still.
The only thing that's perfectly still is something that doesn't have life moving through it.
And so we witness our breath moving,
Our thoughts moving,
But always coming back to that groundedness beneath you.
We also carry within us a groundedness.
We know that it exists because we have phrases like fly off the handle or flip my lid.
You know,
We have these ways that we recognize when we lose ourselves a bit.
But that also means that we know that there's a stability within us.
In your meditation,
It's just a remembrance.
It's every single breath a reminder of the life that's moving through you.
And I'll invite you here to take a big,
Deep breath.
Invite your shoulders to soften as you exhale.
And just notice how that deepening of your breath helps refresh your attention.
And that right there,
That's enough.
We don't always have to be making monumental efforts.
It's just this gentle returning.
Just one big,
Deep breath and suddenly you're back to present again.
We don't need to make our mind wrong when we get lost in thought.
Sometimes getting lost in thought is where our creativity comes from.
But it's also so important to be able to come back to the present,
To reground,
To feel the literal ground beneath you.
And that stable ground that you carry within you.
No matter how many millions of thoughts come rushing through,
There's a stability right behind your breath.
Perhaps imagining as if part of you is sitting atop your heart.
Able to witness each breath coming through.
Just witnessing as your lungs and your heart work together.
Your lungs quite literally hugging your heart.
And every time your heart beats,
Giving your lungs a tiny massage.
All of this,
All of these inner workings just happening.
Your body tending to you,
Caring for you.
And if ever you feel lost,
Whether it's in a thought or just lost in a season of life,
Just come back to this breath right here.
Take a big,
Deep,
Full breath again.
And release something as you exhale.
And just settle in that moment of groundedness.
Any time you need a refresher,
Just deepen your breath again.
Invite something in your body to soften as you exhale.
Just allowing your exhale to be quite slow.
Just very gently working with breath as a grounding practice.
Your breath is always with you.
No matter how you're feeling.
A deep,
Slow,
Steady inhale.
And an even slower exhale.
Your body will respond by starting to calm.
Just witness a few more rounds of breath like that.
Maybe appreciating that your body breathes for you.
But also appreciating that you can pay attention to your breath.
And you can slow down your exhale.
To invite in a bit of calming.
And I'll share here,
As we start to come to a close,
This is a quote by Rachel Naomi Remen.
Author and poet.
And she's talking about the importance of silence and stillness.
On the first part,
She talks about the silence we bring to another person.
But also consider the silence that you bring to yourself.
She says perhaps the most important thing we bring to another person is the silence within us.
Not the sort of silence that is filled with unspoken criticism or hard withdrawal.
The sort of silence that is a place of refuge.
Of rest.
Of acceptance of someone exactly as they are.
We are all hungry for this other silence.
And it can be hard to find.
In its presence,
We can remember something beyond the moment.
A strength on which we build our lives.
Silence is a place of great power and healing.
With that,
I'll invite you to place your hands into any of your closing habits or practices.
We'll end with a few loving kindness phrases.
Just repeating them back as they make sense for you.
May we remember the wise silence of our breath.
May we seek and find contentment today.
When action is needed,
May we choose to move with ease and peace.
And may the merits of our practice ripple out to benefit all beings.
Go slow if you can.
Find a little movement when you feel ready.
Take a moment to thank yourself just for showing up today.
As always,
Thank you each for being here,
Supporting each other in sangha and community.
