So let's begin in meditation with an elegant breath.
That is to design your breathing in a way that is artful,
In a way that is celebratory,
In a way that gives purpose and depth to that act which is so,
So very mundane,
So very ordinary,
So common.
Knowing as we do that,
That to elevate your breathing,
To elevate the mundane,
The common,
The ordinary,
To the level of extraordinary,
Just by your enhanced attention.
And as we do so,
As we enter meditation this way,
We are not in a state of contemplation or conceptualization,
More so in a state of activation.
We are activating that alive,
Dynamic,
Loving presence that is the core,
That is what we call the heart.
To breathe elegantly is to breathe with deep care,
To dwell in a state of care,
Deep care.
Inside each inhale is an expansion,
Inside each exhale is a return.
Allow your consciousness,
Your attentive,
Aware,
Wakeful mind,
Ride these two movements,
Expansion and return.
Let this evoke in your body a lightness,
An unwinding,
A radical simplicity,
To be here,
To be here without pretense or delusion,
Without fear or grasping,
Without a program to follow,
Sensing in your experience the intimacy,
Closeness,
How your elegant attention touches each thing,
Your breathing,
Your sensations,
The environment,
And because there is the fragrance of love present in it,
A closeness,
An intimacy,
A depth.
If you are at all wrestling with your mind,
Stop.
Stop wrestling with your mind.
Join with an artful,
Elegant breathing.
Join with your physicality.
Feel the landscape of your body like a field that is being touched by the dawn.
Feel the natural composure,
The natural majesty of your heart alive.
And in each of these artful moments,
A forgiveness takes place,
Some relinquishment of what was.
A small piece of our habitual self is freed as we meet with something new,
Something fresh,
Something alive and dynamic in ourselves.
Let this meeting take place in your heart.
Let it take place in your belly with any sense of lack,
With any sense of conflict,
With any fear,
With anything that may feel stuck in us.
Join your elegant breathing,
Your pristine awareness with it.
Let each limitation that you find in yourself be refabricated,
Blended,
Blended with your loving awareness,
Blended with your knowing in a way that it becomes one with it.
As each element of the past is forgiven and our loving awareness blends with our problems,
We develop a clear sense,
A clear sense of our integral wholeness,
Being whole and in being whole to be holy.
Here dwelling in such a way there is no sleep.
We are awake even too in the present.
If anything should come to capture your attention or snag you or hook you,
If we are keen in our awareness,
We can forgive it,
We can relinquish it instantly,
Letting nothing stick.
We breathe here the way Kabir points to when he speaks of the breath inside the breath.
That's our breath,
The breath inside the breath.
Whatever may result in that relinquishment,
An openness,
A love,
Deep unfathomable peace,
Joy,
Freedom,
Power,
Whatever may arise,
Give it its welcome.
Let it begin to reveal to you its mysteries,
Its depth.
In this opening it will become evident to us that what we want,
What we hunger for,
What we desire,
What we long for is astonishingly here.
Along with the past,
The seeker in us rests.
Consider the bell when you hear it,
An invitation to new,
A way of once again saying yes,
Once again aligning with that elegant breath,
The breath inside the breath.
