Innate Confidence

The confidence and strength that we ordinarily seek in our personality and its features can be found in the intrinsic being within. Contact with it reveals an ever-present solidity, stability, and indestructibility.

Transcript

I'd like to begin the meditation the same way we began class,

Which is to begin to breathe into the belly.

We can remember here that the belly is an activation point to activate our will,

Which we'll explore a little bit today.

But before we get into that,

Before we get into considering anything like our intention or focus or even any kind of awareness of our experience,

To just develop a sweet,

Consistent rhythm where your breath deepening flows into your belly.

So we really want to invite the belly to move a lot here initially.

The belly expands,

We inhale,

The belly contracts,

We exhale.

And to begin to orient some of our life force,

Attention and energy,

Not to the head and not to the heart,

Representing thought and emotion,

But to the belly,

The being center.

And the more we breathe into the belly,

The more we're going to feel a sense of embodiment,

A sense of being really present and really here,

And also deeply in touch with ourselves.

We're often in touch with ourselves really only at the mental level.

We know what we're thinking or we know what we're feeling,

But not at the being level where we simply know that we are,

Which in the traditional form is simply that practice,

I am,

I am,

I know that I am.

So as you root down into the belly here with your breathing,

Let your body unwind a bit.

For those of you who've been practicing asana,

That's already well accomplished.

For those of you who have come in later,

There may be a more significant process that has to happen for that unwinding.

But relax your eyes.

You can let your eyes sit in a steady position facing forward or downward or upward,

Relaxing your shoulders,

Opening your chest,

Sitting with a tall straight spine.

As I iterated in class,

With meditation,

We don't need to put ourselves together in some way.

We don't need to change anything.

We're actually just here practicing what it's like to be extraordinarily natural and organic in our being.

This means we can show up as we are without having to become something different.

When you lose contact with your belly center and begin drifting into emotion or thought,

Thought of course taking you into past or future,

You'll notice that it's impossible to go to the past or future in your emotions alone or in your body alone.

You have to use your head for that.

So we're relinquishing the power of the head to control this meditation.

And we're relinquishing the power of the heart to dictate it through emotion,

Both of which are welcome if they arise,

But neither of which is the driver.

So we're doing something very subtle here.

When we breathe into the belly,

We are breaking the contracts of our ego.

The ego has a set of strategies and games and ways of turning,

Ways of manipulating,

Ways of referencing or viewing.

By being here and breathing into the belly,

We're breaking all of the contracts with the past,

Spiritual and worldly.

And in breathing into the belly,

We are discovering the appointment that we have with now,

Now and here.

As you breathe into the belly,

You may begin to discover a subtle form of stability,

A subtle form of ground,

Recognizing that our thoughts are not stable.

They move and arise and change and fluctuate and shift and alter according to perception.

Emotions aren't stable.

They move and they change and we react and we feel things we don't like.

This body is not always stable.

It gets sick.

It gets old.

It gets tired.

Our relationships are not stable.

They can change.

They can get disrupted.

They can be uncertain.

And our circumstances aren't stable.

The weather can change.

Disasters can happen.

As we root down into the belly,

We're rooting into a subtler and deeper form of confidence,

A subtler and deeper form of stability and solidity.

At some point,

The practice of breathing into your belly will just turn into an automatic sense of placement.

You're just there in your belly,

Planted in presence.

The need for thought or emotionality is virtually gone when that happens.

And your senses are far more alert,

Sounds stand out,

Sensations stand out,

Vision stands out.

We feel much more lucid and crisp.

And rather than looking through a haze or a fog or looking through a glass darkly,

We feel the natural sense that we're seeing clearly,

That we're experiencing clearly.

Here,

What our ego directs us to want or the things the ego directs us to fear or resist,

Simply fall away.

Those contracts too are broken.

Where we might seek a sense of confidence and solidity through thought activity or through emotions or through our environment or relationships,

We realize that all of these are faulty strategies,

That the only real confidence and solidity are innate,

Intrinsic to our being.

So I would just invite you now at this point in the meditation to feel,

To sense,

To know this innate confidence and solidity,

To know it as the very core of your being,

Regardless of what is happening in thought,

Emotion,

The body,

Relationships,

Or the environment.

This presence that is here now is solid,

Unmovable,

Unbreakable,

Indestructible.

As soon as you recognize this indestructible presence,

You can see very clearly that it's capable of handling anything that arises.

Not because it's tough and strong and mighty and powerful,

But because it's so effortlessly present.

Here too we recognize that there is no need to be shy or afraid of our thoughts or emotions,

Our circumstances,

That we have every capacity to meet and to engage with whatever arises.

So everything in our meditation becomes open game.

Any experience can arise any state can arise,

Any feeling can arise.

We're not busy keeping some out and fostering others.

If we're sad,

It's beautiful.

If we're blissful,

It's beautiful.

From the point of view of this inner indestructibility,

Everything is just weather.

If we meditate in this way,

We realize that we don't need an additional strategy for living our life in the confidence of our true nature.

So out beyond the bell that closes our meditation,

There is the clarity and certainty of our presence always,

Always,

That never wanes,

That never leaves,

That never leaves always,

That never wanes,

That never leaves.

It never is diminished.

It is only and ever,

It is only covered up,

Only temporarily obscured by thought,

By emotion,

By circumstance.

So before you hear the sound of the bell,

Let this deep knowing of your indestructible nature,

Your Vajra essence,

Let it be known,

But not known just by the mind and not known just by your emotions and not known by your physical body.

All of these feel a certain way in this moment,

But none of them will remain constant.

Your mind will change,

Your emotions will change,

Your bodily sensations will change.

Obviously,

This circumstance will change,

But this deep core,

This deep diamond does not change.