So just finding that perfect posture,
One that supports your practice.
And that could be seated upright,
That could be lying down.
That is completely up to you at this time,
So check in with yourself,
Ask yourself,
What do I need?
Feel into your body for the answers.
And land in a place that feels authentic and comfortable.
And once you've arrived in that lovely posture,
You're settled within your meditation nest.
Just come to feel into your body.
Feel your heart beating.
Feel your chest rising and falling.
And feeling where your body connects with the floor,
The earth beneath you.
Scanning along that back line,
Noticing that connection.
Feeling yourself becoming grounded here,
In this time.
And sometimes it can take a little while for the body to come to resting state.
You may have been moving around a lot up to now.
And so while you're continuing to really land into the practice physically,
And allowing the mind to soften as well,
I'd like to share with you a poem.
And this poem is called The Anatomy of Peace.
And so it goes.
My brain and heart divorced a decade ago,
Over who was to blame about how big of a mess I have become.
Eventually they couldn't be in the same room with each other.
Now my head and heart share custody of me.
I stay with my brain during the week and my heart gets me on weekends.
They never speak to one another.
Instead they give me the same note to pass to each other every week.
And their notes they send to one another always says the same thing.
This is all your fault.
On Sundays my heart complains about how my head has let me down in the past.
And on Wednesdays my head lists all of the times my heart has screwed things up for me in the future.
They blame each other for the state of my life.
There's been a lot of yelling and crying.
So lately I've been spending a lot of time with my gut,
Who serves as my unofficial therapist.
Most nights I sneak out of the window in my rib cage and slide down my spine,
And collapse on my own.
Most nights I sneak out of the window in my rib cage and slide down my spine and collapse on my gut's plush leather chair that's always open for me.
And I just sit and sit and sit until the sun comes up.
Last evening my gut asked me if I was having a hard time being caught between my heart and my head.
I nodded.
I said I didn't know if I could live with either of them anymore.
My heart is always sad about something that happened yesterday,
While my head is always worried about something that may happen tomorrow,
I lamented.
My gut squeezed my hand.
I just can't live with my mistakes of the past or my anxiety about the future,
I sighed.
My gut smiled and said,
In that case you should go and stay with your lungs for a while.
I was confused.
The look on my face gave it away also.
If you are exhausted about your heart's obsession with the fixed past and your mind's focus on the uncertain future,
Your lungs are the perfect place for you.
There is no yesterday in your lungs.
There is no tomorrow there either.
There is only now.
There is only inhale.
There is no tomorrow there.
There is only inhale.
There is only exhale.
There is only this moment.
There is only breath,
And in that breath you can rest while your heart and head work out their relationship.
This morning,
While my brain was busy reading tea leaves and while my heart was staring at old photographs,
I packed a little bag and walked to the door of my lungs.
Before I could even knock,
She opened the door with a smile,
And as a gust of air embraced me,
She said,
What took you so long?
And that poem by John Rodell will inspire our practice for the remainder of the time that we have together.
There is only now.
Perhaps inviting that to be the intention for your practice.
There is only now.
And so if you haven't already,
You can come to soften your gaze,
Close the curtains that are your eyelids,
And turning on the light through your internal landscape,
Knocking on the door of your lungs by taking a few deep breaths,
Inhaling deeply and slowly,
And exhaling,
Sighing out the day,
The night,
Sighing out anything that has led you up to this point.
One more round of deep breathing.
Coming to fall into the natural rhythm of your breathing.
No past,
No future exists here.
There is only now.
Giving yourself full permission to hand yourself over to the present moment.
Give yourself over completely wholeheartedly to the simple act of breathing,
Being.
And one breath after the other,
Just being.
Noticing that your mind may begin to transport you back into the past,
Bounce forward into the future.
And this is okay.
This can be okay.
There's nothing wrong with the mind,
It's doing exactly what it is trained to do.
We need thinking.
We wouldn't be humans without it.
The only difference is that we don't need it so much now.
So just gently guiding your attention back to that rise and fall,
The flow in and the flow out of breathing.
Resting in a state of doing nothing.
No.
No.
No.
And as best as you can,
Just staying with this flow.
This inhale.
And this exhale.
For there truly is only now.
No.
No.
Continuing to soak yourself in this limitless life source,
Your prana.
No.
Surrendering yourself and your attention over completely to breathing as if there were nothing else.
Just breathing.
And naturally at times,
The pull of the mind can be quite strong.
So it may be helpful to bring in a soft,
Gentle cue,
Perhaps silently saying to yourself,
In breath as you breathe in,
And out breath as you breathe out.
In breath.
Out breath.
You.
You.
I'm beginning to deepen your breath now.
Inviting in some gentle movement into your body.
Gradually transitioning back to where you find yourself nested.
And before completely coming out of the practice,
You may wish to place a hand on your heart.
And gently and kindly express thanks and appreciation for your lungs,
Your body,
Everything that's involved in breathing.
Expressing thanks to these structures for providing you a quiet place to just be.
To come and step out of the mind and the heart when at times they do not agree.
And just rest,
Soaking in the nourishing air.
Silently whispering,
Thank you lungs,
Thank you lungs.
And with that,
Bringing a soft smile to your lips,
Opening the curtains that are your eyelids,
And taking your time and stepping back out into the world,
Moving with ease and grace.
Thank you so much for choosing to practice with me.
And have a lovely day.
