Grounding In The Divine

Life can be heart-stretching and disorienting in countless ways—politics, family division, anxiety, and stress. This gentle 15-minute guided breath meditation invites you to return to your Source and access the infinite reservoir of strength, peace, and presence that is always available. Allow yourself this time to rejuvenate and reconnect amidst the chaos.

Transcript

Hello friends,

My name is Dr.

Brandon Knappe,

Host of the Leaders Way podcast lecture here at Yale Divinity School,

Spiritual teacher and spiritual guide.

And today I'll be leading a 12 minute guided meditation for grounding in the divine amid these chaotic times.

And I welcome you to simply get comfortable in your chair.

Here you may wish to lay down as well,

Any posture really that feels comfortable for you in this moment.

I invite you to close your eyes if that's available to you.

Some of you may wish to just lower the gaze.

If the eyes remain open,

Letting the gaze be soft and unfocused and perhaps pointed downward toward the ground.

And bringing awareness to the soles of the feet and just feeling all of the sensations that are available to you at the soles of the feet.

If your feet are coming into contact with the floor,

Just noticing the way the earth rises up to meet your feet and feeling sensation through the toes,

Through the balls of the feet,

The arches and the heels.

And then bringing awareness to the breath of the belly.

In our contemplative practice,

We often work with the breath as a kind of anchor because the breath cannot unfold at any other moment other than the present.

And of course,

The present moment is the only moment that we have to discover our life,

To know ourselves,

To love and be loved by others,

To engage with this amazing world of ours and to meet this mystery that we name as God.

So the first dimension of any contemplative practice is the practice of presence.

And in today's practice,

We'll work with the breath as a way of anchoring us in the present moment.

And so just noticing all of those sensations that surround and support the breath at the belly.

So breathing in,

Feeling the belly rise,

And breathing out,

Feeling the belly fall.

And letting the breath unfold completely organically.

We're not trying to manipulate the breath.

We're not trying to choreograph our breathing in any sort of way.

The breath should be relaxed and completely organic.

So letting go of the need to control the breath in any way,

Just letting it do what it's been doing for years and decades.

And you might even imagine a kind of balloon whose inflation upon the in-breath and whose deflation upon the out-breath are unfolding with great ease,

Just noticing sensation and movement that surround and support the breath with great care.

Letting your curiosity be imbued with great care and affection and even love.

There's a kind of tenderness to this kind of awareness practice.

So as we watch the breath,

Let there be a kind of tenderness in your observing.

As you notice inhalation and then exhalation,

Also noticing this slice of stillness that exists between inhale and exhale.

This beautiful sort of wisdom teaching right here within the breath that both the stillness and the movement are in this synergy,

That are in this rhythmic interplay,

That these are not enemies of one another,

That they're actually companions on the journey.

That movement and stillness are both sacred and needed.

So often in life,

Especially in contemporary life,

We tend to privilege movement and not give sufficient time and space to stillness.

Of course,

One isn't better than the other.

We need both.

And so the breath beautifully embodies and holds this paradox of movement and stillness.

So just notice this in your breathing.

The movement of air and then stillness between movement.

Breathing in,

I know that I'm breathing in.

And breathing out,

I know that I'm breathing out.

We can survive many days without food,

Fewer days without water,

But only a few moments without breath.

So breath is the fundamental nourishment.

It's our primary nourishment in life.

And so as we breathe,

Just honoring the reality that this is our fundamental way that we're being fed moment by moment.

To not receive this nourishment is to cease to exist for very long.

It's no wonder that the poet Kabir called God the breath within the breath.

The breath becomes the place where our little lives and the big life of God meet.

The place where our little lives are being sustained by the great life itself.

So as we breathe,

Just beginning to honor the way in which our lives are being nourished by something far greater,

More vast,

Deeper,

This gracious,

Mysterious,

Infinite mystery of life that some of us name as God.

To cease to breathe is to cease to exist.

And if God weren't breathing life into us,

We would no longer exist as well.

So to breathe is to literally draw life from this great reservoir of life.

And now shifting awareness from the breath at the belly to the breath at its point of entry into the body,

The nose or the mouth,

And just sensing what there is to sense here.

How does this feel perhaps different than breathing from belly?

What sensations are available here in the nose or the mouth?

And just noticing the texture of the air.

Becoming aware of the temperature of the air that we draw into the body.

And also becoming aware of the temperature of our exhalation and the differential between the two.

The air having been warmed and cradled within the lungs emerges differently than the air that we draw into the body.

So just taking a few cycles of breath slowly just to notice this.

And now from time to time,

Let's observe the way in which the attention that we hold on to in the breath wanders away.

How our minds become distracted.

Our attention,

Which we'd like to rest in the breath,

Wanders to thinking and judging and planning in the future,

In the past.

Some research suggests that half of the time,

In fact,

Our attention has wandered away from the present moment.

This is not a problem.

The mind behaves a bit like a puppy dog.

And so just like we wouldn't hate or harshly scold a puppy dog for being a puppy,

We don't have to do that for the puppy mind.

We can simply bring the wandering attention back to the present moment by bringing the attention back to the breath.

And so this is the ancient technology.

It's been a part of several wisdom traditions,

This ancient technology of returning to the breath.

And that's all the contemplative practice is.

It's a kind of return.

In this moment,

Return to the breath.

As a way of grounding ourselves in the present moment.

So let's just practice this for a moment of silence.

And any time the mind wanders away,

I'll close my eyes now at this moment.

Any time the attention wanders away from breath,

We,

With exquisite gentleness,

Without any need for self-criticism or harshness,

We just simply return.

Over and over.

Returning back to the breath.

Really trusting that the present moment is the safest place to be,

The present moment is the only place to be,

And to go beyond the breath for these next few minutes is to go too far.

Each time we become distracted and recognize it,

Of course we're no longer distracted.

We're already back.

And so we simply return to the breath.

Every return to breath is a kind of homecoming.

Every distraction in that way represents a homecoming.

A homecoming to your life,

A homecoming to life itself,

And we believe a homecoming to the Divine Presence.

And so now in these moments as we breathe,

Really beginning to trust that the great life of God is flowing through your little life.

And despite whatever turmoil you have in your life,

In the world,

In our politics,

Across the planet,

We can always come home to this breath as a way of returning to the Holy One.

That to breathe is to be nourished by life itself and the vast sacred mystery of God,

Who is love,

Who is spirit,

Who is infinite graciousness,

And that this is available to us with every breath we take.

So as we breathe,

Literally breathing in the life of God.

Really trusting that our lives are in fact being held by this infinite mystery.

That there is no separation between you and the Holy One.

And as we breathe in,

Trusting that this infinite self-giving gift of grace and love is happening within you moment by moment and breath by breath.

And so taking maybe two minutes together now to breathe in silence and to practice,

I'll invite three rings of the bell to begin our two minutes of silent practice.

And then three rings of the bell will bring our practice to a close.

And letting this silent time of practice be a time when the breath can ground us in the very infinite mystery of a love beyond all knowing.

So listen.

The sound of this bell calls us to our true home.

Friends taking three more breaths with great care as we open eyes,

Beginning to bring movement back to the body.

And trusting that we are being held,

Supported and empowered by a loving presence throughout all our days.

I look forward to practicing with you very soon in the future.

Reviews

Brandon, thank you. That was lovely. I will return to this meditation. Namaste 🙏🤎

I liked the calm presence and return to my true home through the breath we shared in this meditation.
Brandon I am glad I found this track this morning. I have been following a thirty day journey listening to the track in my "Top Pick for Me" each day.

May we all return to the stillness of the life sustaining breath. Thank you Brandon. ✌️❤️