Today,
I want to share one of my favorite practices.
It's a very simple and accessible,
Essentially distillation of self-inquiry that I learned from Adya Shanti,
This American modern day teacher I've mentioned a few times as he has inspired a few of the practices in this course.
This practice is called Pivoting Toward Peace,
And the idea is that if we pay attention,
We start to notice that there are little pivots and choices available to us at any moment throughout our day and throughout our meditation.
These choices are related to either pivoting towards peace or pivoting more towards our egocentric mind or some egocentric fixation.
And when we start to notice that this is indeed a choice,
We are liberated and liberated in this sense that we always have this potentiality to move towards openness,
To move towards this capacity to zoom out.
And so this opportunity to pivot can be found in our relationships,
Our relationship with ourself and our relationship with others.
We know that our meditations and also our conversations with others,
We could say meditation is almost a wordless or sometimes wordful conversation with ourselves and similar to a relationship with others.
It doesn't just go in one direction,
It moves in different ways.
It goes left,
Goes right,
Gets a little more intense or gets lighter,
Moves around a little like a river.
So if you're sensitive and paying attention,
We can notice that there are shifts and points where this conversation or indeed where our meditation can go in a more conflicted direction.
So,
For example,
If we are in a conversation and you might start to feel resentment coming up,
You might start to sort of turn away from the other person.
That instead,
We can pivot towards listening more deeply toward to the other person,
Toward being more present or to really understanding what someone's trying to say,
This is a pivot.
It doesn't mean moving through life in a kind of passive,
Idealistic way,
Like everything must be peaceful.
It's quite the opposite.
It's not trying to push anything away or deny anything,
But rather noticing that we have the capacity to pivot away from an egocentric understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
And this is exactly what self-inquiry is.
It's just using some different words.
So in this example from Adyashanti,
We are pivoting towards peace.
Self-inquiry is asking us to do exactly the same thing.
When we notice we're caught up in the story or when we notice we're feeling some resentment or frustration towards another person,
We ask ourselves,
Who am I?
And in that moment of asking the question,
It is helping us pivot to make that choice,
To move towards expansion,
Move towards a deeper recognition of who we are and to recognize the capacity we have to respond with love,
With openness,
With attention and with presence.
Instead of,
Again,
Narrowing our conceptualization of ourself and doing so,
Responding with anger or frustration.
And so a question we can ask ourselves is,
What would it mean to make a pivot right now?
What would it look like to make a pivot toward peace in every encounter with yourself and with others today?
And there's not any particular specific instruction here because,
Of course,
Every situation,
Every encounter is unique.
But it starts with just noticing that we have the capacity to pivot in one direction or the other.
And we have a choice to make so many times throughout our meditation and throughout our day.
So let's meditate.
Closing the eyes down.
Adjusting your posture.
To be fully upright with a straight spine.
And yet,
Also relaxed and soft.
Become aware of the breath and take a few deep belly breaths here,
So noticing the abdominal area,
Filling up with air and releasing air,
Expanding and contracting.
Enjoying the sensations of taking deeper,
Fuller breaths.
And then focusing on the breath expanding and contracting in the lungs,
Feeling the ribcage open up with each inhale.
And now paying attention to the subtle sensations in the chest area with each breath.
Not changing anything,
Just noticing the sensations in the chest as we breathe.
You rest here in the heart center,
In the middle of the chest,
Perhaps a little to the right.
Connecting with the silent,
Intimate presence of your heart.
Continuing to watch the gentle rise and fall of the breath while you remain resting in the heart center.
Aware of these short pauses between breaths.
And when I practice this with sincerity,
This awareness of the pauses between breaths,
It's very potent in its capacity to calm my mind.
So experimenting with sincerely bringing attention to the pauses between breaths for some moments.
We ask ourselves a question at this point.
What would it be like to have a more peaceful relationship with your experience of being right now?
What would it be like to have a more peaceful relationship with this moment now?
So this sort of questioning is pointing to a certain sort of feeling,
Not again an intellectual answer,
But this feeling of pivoting toward peace.
Making this conscious shift toward a more peaceful relationship with this moment.
So in this meditation,
We'll do a similar practice to yesterday where we remain with the attention in the heart.
We watch the breath rise and fall and pay attention to the pauses between breaths.
And if we catch ourselves lost in thoughts or feelings or strategizing,
We experiment with this concept of pivoting toward peace.
Pivoting away from an egocentric fixation toward peace.
We can even ask the question,
What would a more peaceful relationship with this experience be?
This sense of resting in the heart,
In stillness.
One more minute.
Pivoting toward peace in this moment.
Asking ourselves one last time,
What would a more peaceful relationship with this moment be?
New avenues open up with this question,
Where conscious choices and a deeper state of consciousness can flow.
