My name is Larissa.
We're going to practice together for about 15 minutes.
Take a few moments as we always do,
Settling into your body.
Settling into your posture.
Just taking a few moments to see,
Can I soften my shoulders just 5% more?
Maybe I let my body sink back a little further.
Finding a little more comfort.
Some days leaning forward ever so slightly gives you the right amount of alertness.
Finding this balance of effort and ease.
I'm going slow.
There's never any rush here.
Anytime you notice a sensation of rushing or feeling like you need to get to something,
That's just your mind doing what your mind does.
And anytime you can witness that happening,
You can choose then just a little bit of slowness.
Not that slowness is better than quickness.
But it's finding balance.
Be slow in your alert waking life.
Is not super common.
Very often we have plans,
Things we need to prepare for,
And all of that is wonderful.
But here we have the opportunity to just simply witness.
Is to experience one breath at a time.
Take a few moments landing here,
Just noticing your breath moving through you.
Just noticing how you're responding to the environment around you.
You might also note,
How is it that you're feeling in this moment?
And then just notice again,
Where is your mind headed?
And remember that your body is right here.
We just continue to connect our mind back to the present moment again and again and again.
Best of your ability.
Practicing witnessing yourself.
With openness,
With gentleness,
With tenderness.
And opportunity.
To let yourself simply be exactly as you are.
And it's with this intention of tenderness and openness that we really start to meet the true self within.
We have so many layers within our mind of shoulds and supposed tos,
Ideals that exist outside of us.
And it doesn't mean that those ideals are bad.
It doesn't mean that having desire.
Or having something that you want to work towards.
Is not a good thing.
It's starting to recognize when.
A goal starts to steal our present joy,
Because we can only be happy when something happens.
It's a mind state in modern psychology called if-this-then thinking.
If this happens,
Then I'll be happy.
And we've all done it to some degree.
But it's this idea that we get future-oriented.
Or we get stuck in the past.
But it's in the present that we can really start to see clearly.
Start to see with both the eye of our heart and the knowledge that's in our minds.
I have the hardest sometimes called the wisdom body.
Or bringing together our knowledge base in our minds.
And also the wisdom of our body,
The wisdom of the nature of who you truly are.
It's this heart that beats within your body right now.
This heart is a gift to you.
A gift that was created in a womb however long ago.
And this heart has beat every single day.
Every single second.
Even if you had an accident.
Or a heart murmur or some moment where your heart skipped a beat,
Whether it was As we playfully say in our language,
My heart skipped a beat when I saw that person,
As if skipping with joy.
Or perhaps some tragedy occurred and your heart actually stopped for a moment and you needed support from the outside to get it going again.
Whether that's literally,
Physically.
Or also,
Metaphorically,
Sometimes there's a spark of another person that ignites something within us,
And we remember.
Oh yeah,
There's my heart.
There's me.
When we sometimes get lost in the world.
So as we sit in our meditation and our mind moves and we have random mundane thoughts and we jump to the future and the past,
Right here in the center,
Never not present.
Is your heart.
Your anatomical heart beating,
Bringing you life.
The lungs surrounding your heart breathing,
Bringing you life.
And also giving life back.
Nourishing the grasses around us.
Perhaps nourishing every single human you come into contact,
Every single being.
And in ways that we can't even understand.
And the good news is you don't have to figure any of it out.
It's just happening.
And we get this moment in time to just witness.
Feel this breath moving into your body.
Receive the gift of it.
Allow the softening of your exhale and remember that you're giving a gift back.
Let the anatomical beat of your heart remind you of the wisdom of your body,
The eye of your heart.
What a gift to be able to just sit and breathe.
Let the wisdom of your body take care of you.
Let your mind rest in that deep care.
Just breath by breath.
Heartbeat by heartbeat,
Moment by moment,
Present awareness.
And in moments we land in pure awareness.
The constructs of mind have slowed down enough.
We can just be in this fully loving presence.
And the present moment is that.
A loving presence.
We come into our meditation to the best of our ability with loving awareness.
Kind awareness.
An openness that allows us to be who we are,
Flaws and all.
That is the wisdom of the body,
The wisdom of the heart combined with the knowledge of the mind.
There's a really beautiful quote by Thich Nhat Hanh.
He said it in many,
Many different forms.
It was such an important teaching.
And it's written down in many ways.
But he said,
You may miss the truth.
The truth will come knocking at your door and you will miss it.
For all of the knowledge in your mind.
And that is sometimes what happens,
That knowledge in our mind,
We just douse out our heart,
Because we're trying so hard to figure everything out.
Your heart keeps beating,
There's embers in there.
And when you take a deep breath and you blow it out,
Let your breath fan the embers of your heart.
So that you can combine knowledge and wisdom together.
This slowness,
This steady dedication that we have to our meditation practice allows us to meet and greet our heart.
In a million different ways.
And start to combine.
Brilliant knowledge of your mind.
The need we have of this wisdom of the heart,
This wisdom of the body.
And you just rest in your next exhale and trust that that wisdom is right here.
Not something you have to figure out or try hard or study.
It's just remembering.
Where do you feel your breath?
And that's it.
That's the wisdom.
I'll invite you to bring your hands into any of your closing habits or practices.
Maybe hands over your heart.
Just contacting yourself with your hands,
Your hands.
And the yogic tradition are said to be an extension of your heart.
Will end as we often do with loving-kindness phrases,
Repeating them back as they make sense for you.
May I continue to remember.
My open heart.
May I listen both to the knowledge of my mind.
And the wisdom of my body.
When action is needed.
May I choose to move with ease and peace.
And may the merits of our practice ripple out to benefit all beings.
Whenever you feel complete.
Go slow if you can.
Take a moment to thank yourself.
Find movement if that feels good.
As always,
Thank you for being here,
Supporting each other in our sangha.
