My name is Larissa.
We're going to practice together for about 15 minutes.
Let's take a moment here to settle into your body,
Whatever your chosen posture is.
I know I say this almost every day,
But these little choices that we make really set us up for a bit of gentleness,
A bit of self-care.
It's the smallest little notion,
Like a little wiggle in your upper torso.
A big,
Deep breath.
And very often we think about setting intentions in our mind.
But we are consciously.
Creating that intention when we sit down to meditate.
Well,
There's a lot of unconsciousness that's happening always.
A lot of times we think about what's happening unconsciously that I want to bring to light so I can change it.
But think about all the beautiful unconscious things that are happening that are just tending to you,
Taking care of you.
Little ways that we unconsciously adjust so that we're a teeny bit more comfortable.
There's a million things you're always doing to take really good care of yourself.
Just noticing how your breath is moving.
How your hands are situated.
Now your hands are being held.
They can just settle into a resting position.
And now,
No matter what is happening,
How your hands will automatically adjust to help support you.
Just notice right now how your hands can just land and rest.
Can you feel the weight of them?
Temperature of them.
And you can come back at any time to the weight of your hands.
Is feeling the sensation of them.
And it's such a small sensation.
And yet it brings us right back to the present moment.
It's how easily our awareness is shifted and flicked off into a million different directions.
Just notice again the weight of your hands.
It's quite common that your attention,
Your perception,
Might have moved.
It's not about trying to force yourself to stay with your hands.
It's just recognizing when your attention has shifted.
You might come back and notice the movement of your breath.
How that movement feels a little different than the steadiness of your hands.
And we're just pointing our light of awareness in different directions.
And it's in this way that we shift our perception all the time.
On this eightfold noble path we've been working with,
The very first step,
Wise perception,
Wise view.
And sometimes we are unwisely pointing our attention in a direction that's just less than helpful.
It's regurgitating a past conversation and beating ourselves up for it.
Or getting mad at somebody else that isn't even in the room with us.
And that doesn't mean that we're doing something wrong.
It's just perhaps an unwise use of our energy.
And when we notice that,
It's like,
Oh yeah,
Let my wisdom take over.
Let me point my attention back.
Just the steadiness of my hands.
The movement of my breath.
Not because that conversation wasn't important for me to think about.
But it's the regurgitation that sometimes is challenging.
And so we start to just retrain our attention.
So I don't have to run that loop right now.
When we try to force the loop away,
It tends to knock a little heavier.
When we push something,
It usually offers a little pushing back.
So we don't ever need to force anything,
It's just noticing,
Oh yeah,
I got caught in a loop.
Here's my hands.
Here's my breath.
And you're just returning again and again and again.
Wisely shifting your perception back towards steadiness,
Rhythmic movement of your breath.
The heaviness of your hands.
Our wise perspective,
Our wise perception can get clouded for a million reasons.
But very often it gets clouded by the different stories that we carry within our minds.
So we make a meaning of something.
And we become very sure of that meaning pretty quickly.
It's the littlest thing.
Like walking through a store and someone glances your direction and we perceive their face as meaning a certain thing.
And it might mean they made a face directly at you,
But very often it's they're making a face because they're thinking about something.
They're making a face because they forgot something and they just remembered it.
And that face could be a face of discouragement or it could be a smile.
Some of us make more meaning of other people's expressions.
And some of us make more meaning of the words that we receive.
Some of us make meaning out of different things,
But we all do it.
We all make meaning out of something.
So part of our meditation is looking at that meaning-making part of the mind.
And starting to be curious,
Starting to question at times.
Is that true or is that a story I'm telling myself?
Something as simple as,
Gosh,
I didn't get enough sleep last night.
It might feel.
.
.
Tiredness in your body,
But in the moment.
Are you awake enough to do what you're doing just in the present moment,
Not the next task that comes,
But right here,
Right now?
I'm sipping my tea and I have enough energy to do this.
Can that be enough for the moment?
And I let that story about the amount of sleep I got go just for right now.
And it doesn't mean that we don't need discernment,
But part of our wise perception is questioning ourselves at times,
Bringing curiosity.
And just like when our mind,
Our awareness wanders off to some rabbit trail,
We get stuck in the past or the future.
Instead of beating ourselves up and saying something like,
Gosh,
It's so hard for me to focus.
When we say that,
We start to believe it.
And just bring in a little tenderness.
Oh yeah,
That's right,
I was just noticing my hands.
Oh yeah,
That's right,
I was practicing focusing on my breath.
So my focus shifted a bit,
That's okay.
It's this type of curiosity that helps us question our stories without being cruel to ourselves in that questioning.
I'm just curious.
Gentle.
And in the moment,
Perhaps the wisest thing we can do is just notice hands.
Letting our mind rest for a moment.
And feeling just that pure presence,
The pure awareness.
Of these exquisite hands that are connected to your body,
Connected to your heart.
And these hands that do so much for you and so much for others.
And right now,
They don't have to do anything,
They just get to rest.
Can you just notice your hands,
The weight of them?
Our wise perception and our wise intention,
Our wise thinking,
They go hand in hand.
And I'll go back to that sleep analogy again because we've all probably had a day where we probably didn't get enough sleep.
But letting go of the story of that.
And it requires both wise perspective,
Perception,
But also a wise intention.
So if we have an unconscious intention and we just say to ourself,
Gosh,
I didn't get enough sleep,
And we barely pay attention to that,
Our brain will keep looking for truth of that.
So just consciously,
I have enough energy in this moment to breathe.
Can that be enough?
These conscious choices that we make,
Conscious intentionality.
This can really shift our perspective.
Just an invitation to be curious about.
The questions you ask yourself.
The phrases that you say to yourself.
And you don't have to fix or change them immediately,
Just be curious.
How am I speaking to myself today?
To the best of your ability,
Continue pointing your awareness,
Your wise perspective towards gentleness,
Towards curiosity.
I invite you to bring your hands into any of your closing habits or practices.
Ending with a few loving kindness phrases,
Repeating them back as they make sense for you.
May I remember my intention.
To be gentle with myself today.
To the best of my ability.
May I be gentle with others today.
When action is needed.
May I choose to move with ease and peace.
May the merits of our practice ripple out to benefit all beings.
May all beings be free.
Go slow.
Taking a moment to thank yourself.
As always,
Thank you for being here.
Thanks for supporting each other in this practice.
