Begin by visualizing that the breath is below the soles of the feet.
As you inhale,
Draw the breath in from the soles of the feet.
Come into the center of your body and as you exhale,
Release the breath up and out the top of the head.
And just repeat that a few times at the pace of your own breath,
Drawing breath in from the earth,
Pulling it into your being and then exhaling and releasing the breath up and out the top of the head.
So many report that it's difficult to find time for practice.
Our lives become so complex that adding one more thing,
Something like a meditation practice,
For many can feel overwhelming and like it's the first thing to fall off the to-do list.
What shifts when practice is no longer something on the to-do list?
Instead of trying to bring practice into your life,
A full life,
A rich life,
Perhaps complicated life,
Now play with bringing your whole life into your practice.
So practice isn't something I'm simply doing for 10 minutes on a meditation cushion at the end of a very long day.
And then indulging perhaps that internal voice that beats me up when I haven't done it all week or a month.
When the entirety of our life experience comes into practice,
Everything we do is an expression of what we long for.
We long to be at ease in our own being,
To be happy,
To release the tyranny of striving,
To know that there's nothing wrong with us.
Consider for a moment the way in which a river doesn't try to go in a particular direction.
It doesn't push.
Flowing is its nature.
When everything in our lives is part of the palette of practice,
Then our different experiences are simply different colors from this vast palette.
And the expressions of being from those around you,
More colors.
The true artist surrenders egoic will and listens to life,
Follows the outpouring of color.
And seeing beauty as subject and object fall away,
As separateness dissolves.
The true artist can't force that experience in the same way that a river isn't forcing flowing.
As everything in our lives comes into practice,
What's been blocking flow,
Easeful movement,
Is freed.
Practice isn't a box on our to-do list.
It's a remembrance.
It's a releasing of what's been in the way.
Give yourself permission for everything to be included in this remembrance.
What are we remembering?
Our very being.
The stillness and luminosity of our very being.
In this remembrance,
We surrender the temptation to strive,
To push,
To strain.
And this remembrance is available to us moment by moment by moment.
Always here.
Always now.
I invite you to rest here now for as long as you wish.
And when it's time to move,
To take on a task or activity,
Bring that experience into presence.
See,
Feel,
And know that there's nowhere else for it to be.
Take a moment to feel into what it might be like to experience every part of your life as part of your practice.
All of it,
Practice.
No exceptions,
Nothing left out.
Freeing the mind of judgment.
Letting go of that internal dialogue that categorizes everything in terms of good,
Bad,
Right,
Wrong.
Everything,
An opportunity to be.
