Finding Peace In Turbulent Times

Welcome to the Breathing Deeply Meditation Podcast. In this podcast, you’ll hear dharma talks and meditations as given by Breathing Deeply founder Brandt Passalacqua. The recordings are taken directly from our meditation training program. This episode takes a look at the idea that many of us come to meditation looking for instant relaxation and peace, but the true long term benefit of tranquility that comes from meditation may be our ability to "hold" difficult events in proper perspective.

Transcript

I like to theme my retreats,

Long or short.

This one I themed,

Finding Peace in Turbulent Times.

I thought it was appropriate,

Given the turbulence that we're in right now.

I thought that might be a good thing for us to think about.

I just want to say a couple words about that.

Then we're actually just going to move into our first meditation set.

Often we come to meditation looking for peace and looking for relief.

There's other ways to think about it.

Meditation really allows us to hold what's happening.

What happens is we see all the turbulence in the shifting landscape,

But what we don't see is the contentment,

Peace and tranquility that is fueled by our ability to hold all these shifts that's right in front of us.

This is the duality we live in.

We bounce back and forth,

Our tension being pulled by stressors.

I would say right now our stressors are pretty real.

We're not fabricating them.

This is a challenging time for many,

Many,

Many people.

The thing to remember is that we always have the capacity to connect with what in yoga they call a lot like our true nature.

Really what that is saying is our ability to connect with the universal and nature itself.

That is always located in the present.

I like to think of this more as my core nature.

My core nature is in the present at peace and is taking in all these challenging,

Turbulent situations,

But that's not the only thing it's taking in.

What meditation practice really brings us is the ability and capacity to hold both of those things at the same time.

The stressors,

The challenges,

The distractions,

And finding our peace,

Tranquility,

And core nature simultaneously.

In many ways,

That's really the goal of meditation is to do that.

In the present,

We are always okay,

Which is kind of hard to wrap our heads around sometimes because sometimes in the present we don't like what's happening,

But that doesn't negate the fact that if we bring presence into our situation that we will find in a way the relief we're looking for because the real stressor is that our attention has been too condensed and we're being dragged into a very small view of what life is.

An example of that might be you watch the news and you're like,

Oh my gosh,

This is super scary.

Should I go outside?

Should I wear a mask?

Should I hide?

What am I going to do?

Work is hard.

How am I going to feed myself?

All these things that are totally real.

What that does is condenses our attention.

We need to pay attention to it,

But as somebody interested in personal evolution,

What we should always be interested in is expanding that viewpoint out literally at the exact same time.

Many,

Many texts teach us this.

If you've been practicing a long time,

You've probably experienced this shift in your consciousness where you can actually be very upset and very okay simultaneously.

The ancient texts point out that like,

Hey,

Look,

This is how we prep ourselves for dying.

We're going to have this experience of our life slipping away from us.

If we do this,

We're also going to be,

If we prep like this,

We're also going to be in a place where we are savoring every moment even until the end.

Our practice now is to savor every moment even though it is challenging.

I put together a few meditations from the course that string together nicely with this idea that should help us today.

We're going to practice three meditations.

The first one is based on Om Namasivaya,

Which is a vibration of the universal at its core.

That's going to bring us into tranquility states.

It's going to calm our mind,

Hopefully,

And it's going to prepare us to really see what's real.

Then we're going to do a chakra bandhana meditation.

The reason that second is going to,

We're going to use that to tune our system.

Once we have our tranquility state,

We're going to tune our system and become aware as we move up the chakra sequence of all the aspects of ourselves,

Which is what we're going for.

Then finally,

We're going to do a heart-based meditation.

It's called the open lotus heart meditation.

That will help us cultivate a sense of connection and freedom simultaneously with all the other awarenesses we're having.

Those are our three meditations.

We're going to sit with those today.

Sometimes in retreat formats,

It's nice to see how combinations work.

You can really,

As opposed to what we usually do where we sit with the technique because we don't have all day,

It's interesting to see how these combinations work and where they leave you.

I'm hoping this experience will inspire you in your own practice so that you can weather difficulty by having the point of view and also the practice experience that you need to be cultivating this widened awareness of your core nature while dealing with all the things you're dealing with.

That's our task.

I try not to call meditation fun because that's putting a lot on it,

But I like to go into meditations with a slight sense of lightness.

I think it's a mistake to put too much on any given moment.

It also gets in the way of finding presence.

Our job today is to go in and just say to ourselves,

Okay,

I'm going to practice these things and see what happens.

I took two and a half hours off this morning to do that.

That's great.

After this,

I'm going to get lunch and go on with my normal life.

I don't have to put anything else on this experience.

That's what we're going to do together.

With that in mind,

We're going to move right into our first meditation.

I'm just going to give you two minutes to situate yourselves.

I know many of you are,

But I'm literally going to give us 120 seconds.

I'll be right back.

We're going to get in our seats.

My instruction here is going to really be to recommend you being very,

Very,

Very comfortable.

Mind is great because it maintains your attention and it allows you to pay attention to your meditation.

That's the best part of it.

If you cannot be comfortable sitting upright for 40 minutes,

Then lying down may be a better option.

You weigh those two things.

Can I stay awake laying down?

I don't know.

That's harder.

However,

If you have pain in your body,

Please take the next two minutes to figure out how you can be really comfortable.

I will be right back.

I'm about to reach you.

I'll be sharing some sounds to the computer.

It's really variable how they affect each computer,

So I keep them pretty low,

But if you hear stuff,

It's not you.

Some ohms,

Some waves,

So be prepared for that.

Unless it's uncomfortable for you,

Let your eyes close.

Begin to take some long,

Slow deep breaths.

When we take long,

Slow deep breaths,

We do them in a way that causes no stress in the body.

Ideally,

The abdomen expands on the inhale and contracts on the exhale.

The breath is as deep as we can make it without it becoming any kind of burden for you.

Again,

If it's comfortable,

Bring the right hand over your heart and the left hand over your right.

As you continue to breathe,

Feel your whole system soften.

That might come really easily,

Or you can simply implant that idea by asking yourself to soften on the inhale or asking yourself to soften on the exhale.

Again,

Whichever is easier for you to do.

Throughout this meditation,

You can have your hands on your lap or you can return your hands to your heart if you feel like that is helpful in terms of getting yourself to soften.

Soft and receptive.

For the next little while,

We're going to chant and you have a few options.

You can chant externally with me.

Eventually,

We're going to stop chanting externally and just chant to ourselves.

If for any reason chanting is not something that resonates with you or is available to you,

You can simply listen and cultivate the state of receptivity.

You can return to this position and just stay with I am receptive.

Otherwise,

We'll chant together externally and then I'll cue us to move internal.

When we move internal,

We use that vibration and that chant to keep our attention moving towards that receptivity and moving towards the present.

If at any time,

Since you're in your own space,

You feel like this meditation gets away from you and you're distracted,

You can start chanting externally again.

You can do that for a little while and then move it back internal.

In this way,

We cue our system to move into this receptive state that encourages tranquility and encourages connection.

I'll begin chanting and you can chant with me at any time.

She was Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya And now we'll continue chanting internally at any time you continue or return to the external chanting if you feel like that's better for you right now.

Stay as receptive and relaxed as possible.

Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Om Nama Shivaya Bring our hands over our hearts.

Repeat after me.

Great respect and love.

I honor my heart.

My inner teacher.

Namaste.

Great respect and love.

I honor my heart.

My inner teacher.

Namaste.

Allowing to your own heart.

Reviews

Very nice, simple and calming