My name is Larissa.
We're going to practice together for about 15 minutes.
As always,
Take these first couple of moments just to settle into your body.
Your body is always present.
We almost always start with just body.
Do I have the right amount of support?
Finding these small comforts.
Tucking my hands in if they're chilly.
Spreading my fingers wide and making some wrist circles if I need to adjust any energy in my body.
It's all just suggestions to check in.
And as you're settling and choosing a posture that feels supportive,
Finding these small moments of comfort,
I'll invite you to close your eyes or steady your eyes downward so that your eyes can be still for a bit.
All of this,
An invitation just to slow down.
Not forcing stillness.
And not needing everything to be perfectly still.
There's still movement happening as you breathe in and out.
It's perfectly natural that your mind moves.
But as we invite in this slowing down,
We have an opportunity to witness all of these things.
It's hard to notice how and where your mind moves when we're busy,
When we are activated.
Very often in this slowness is when we start to notice the subtlety of a bird song in the far background of all of the noises around us.
The stillness is where you start to remember your heart is continuously doing its work for you.
Can you feel it at all?
Being so still that perhaps you can even notice the subtlety of heartbeating.
Certainly noticing the rhythmic expansion and softening of your breath.
Let's land here for a few moments.
Maybe pausing at the bottom of your exhale,
Seeking your heartbeat.
In our meditation practice,
In three parts,
Quite simple.
Not always easy,
But simple.
We choose a focal point.
We return to it again and again.
We do that with as much kindness to ourselves as possible.
That last step,
That third step of being kind to yourself,
Is perhaps the most important step.
Then we return to that chosen focal point.
We choose it because our mind will choose one for us if we don't consciously choose.
We've all accidentally gotten stuck in a worry loop,
Some future anxiety that hasn't yet happened,
Some past rumination that we can't go back and change.
And it doesn't mean we need to get rid of those things.
Just a witness.
Oh yeah,
My mind is headed to the future today.
Let me witness that from this place of presence within my body.
And then invariably our mind will move again.
And when we notice,
Ah,
There's thinking happening.
That's the moment we can return.
Here's breathing happening right here in the present moment.
A tiny soft bird song in the very background.
And as we notice,
As we come back to presence again and again and again,
We start to hone and train our concentration.
We start to train our mind.
Sometimes we have unknown training manuals in our mind that are running in the background.
And as we get to know them,
We can start making wiser choices for who we are right now.
Just notice again your breath.
This is almost always the balance for when your mind starts spinning quickly.
Just come back to the slowness of your body for just a moment.
The pause that it requires to take a deep breath might be the most important thing you do any given day.
Just notice here the consistency of your breath,
How your body cares for you.
And perhaps even your heartbeat and the very stillness between breaths.
Anytime your mind gets a little caught in a thought or starts to get a little sleepy,
The most important thing is to notice it,
Not to fix or change it.
To witness yourself with as much kindness as possible.
Sometimes we have little voices inside,
Little parts of us saying,
You're not doing this right.
You should do better.
They should do better.
I'm always right.
I'm always wrong.
I always,
I never.
And the mind just moves and it very often says these things out of habit,
Not out of context to the present moment.
The more we can witness,
Oh there's a thought happening.
That's not who I am.
That's not me even thinking the thought.
It's just a thought that's appearing.
And sometimes we can work with our thoughts.
Very often the simplicity of coming back to your focal point,
Your body,
Your breath,
What is present in the moment.
This chosen focal point of feeling your breath move through you.
That sensory awareness takes us down into our body and into the present for just a moment,
So we're not caught up in our thinking mind.
Never making our thinking mind wrong.
Never forcing.
And when we notice forcing is happening,
Say,
Oh yes,
I'm noticing that's happening.
There's a gentleness in that.
Ah,
Thinking is happening.
Instead of following the thought,
Trusting that it's true at all times.
Let me just bring in a little levity,
A little curiosity.
It's ah,
Thinking is happening.
To balance my brilliant thinking mind,
I need to feel at times.
Where do I feel my breath?
Is it possible to even feel my heartbeat?
It's possible that believing every single thought we think is the thing that leads us away from presence.
Not every thought you think is the truth.
Very often we have these habitual thoughts that miss the context of the moment.
And there's a couple of Mary Oliver poems where she asks specific questions,
And I've seen them sometimes out of context of how they were written.
And one of them is this beautiful line,
So famous now.
What is it you plan to do with this one wild and precious life?
Sometimes that's asked because it's trying to consider our precious lives.
Or what we do for our work in the world.
But she wrote it as she was contemplating the importance of understanding a grasshopper.
The importance of just standing and letting the wind touch your face.
She asks a few questions in the poem,
The Messenger.
She says,
Are my boots old?
Is my coat torn?
Am I no longer young and still half perfect in my mind?
Let me keep my mind on what matters,
Which is my work.
And sometimes the poem is stopped there and somehow pointed toward the work we do in the world is the most important thing.
But what she says next,
The context,
Is so important.
Are my boots old?
Is my coat torn?
Am I no longer young?
Let me keep my mind on what matters,
Which is my work,
Which is mostly standing still and learning to be astonished.
The Phoebe,
The Delphinium,
The sheep in the pasture,
And the pasture itself,
Which is mostly rejoicing,
Since all the ingredients are here,
Which is gratitude.
To be given a mind and a heart and these body clothes,
A mouth with which to give shouts of joy.
I'll invite you in this moment into that kind of work.
What is happening in this present moment in the nature of my body that I can simply receive and appreciate?
A birdsong,
The ability to take a deep breath,
The fact that my hands have sensation.
What is it that you can appreciate in this moment?
And I'll invite you to bring your hands into any of your closing habits or practices,
And as we often do with a few loving kindness phrases,
Just repeating them back as they make sense for you.
May we remember our work is to connect.
May we remember part of our work is to receive rest.
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.
And go slow if you can,
No rush.
It's just whenever you feel complete,
Find a little movement,
Take a moment to thank yourself just for showing up.
And as always,
Thanks for being here,
Supporting each other.
