Developing Interiority

Here is a short meditation to help you light up your emotional life.

Transcript

Turn your attention to your breath and fill up the lungs with your breath. Consciously take a deep breath and fill up the front of your lungs and also and as importantly, Maybe even more importantly, The back of your lungs with your breath. Really feel the back of your lungs here from your kidneys all the way up to your shoulder blades. You see if on every inhale you can allow your attention, Your awareness to ride the breath all the way from the beginning of the inhale all the way to when the lungs are full. And as you exhale, See if you can allow your attention, See if you can allow your awareness to ride the sensations that tell you that the breath is leaving the body all the way from the top of the inhale all the way down to the end of the exhale. Really wake up your back here. With our meditation, With our practice, What we're doing is we are developing interiority. We're developing an awareness of the internal processes of the mind. We're developing an awareness of the internal processes of both our cognitive life and also our emotional life, Our energetic life. We're bringing some awareness to these aspects of our life that are really shaping our experience, Shaping how we see the world. So take the breath a little deeper. Even deeper now. Take three more deep in and out breaths and then hold on the fourth deep inhale. Deepest inhale yet. Hold the breath for a few seconds. Hold. Settle in a little more air. A little more air. Relax the whole body. Relax your shoulders, Your arms and your hands. Relax your legs and your feet. Imagine here now that you have a light. This light is right in the middle of your heart. Go ahead and turn this light on. Turn it on and allow it to illuminate everything in the body. This requires a gentle touch. So just allow it to illuminate everything that you see. Allow it to illuminate. Notice how it illuminates the heart. Notice how it's kind of like when you were a kid maybe and you were in a tent and you put your hand over a flashlight. You could see all the veins in the hand with the flashlight on. Allow this light to shine in your heart in the same way. Allow the heart to do what it does as it is exposed to this light. Allow it to ache. That ache is the ache of healing. That takes, I would say, True bravery to allow the heart to ache like that. So we turn this inner light on. We develop interiority. We develop a sense of emotional and cognitive awareness, Awareness of our emotional life, Awareness of our thinking life, Awareness of our thoughts and our concepts. There aren't really many places that this is taught. You're kind of on your own when it comes to this. Allow this light to shine. Allow it to shine out the back of the heart as well. Feel how it illuminates the back of your heart. Have you ever noticed the difference between the front of your heart and the back of your heart? How about now? Notice. There's a big difference. Allow this light to shine out the front of your heart. Allow this light to shine out the top of your heart. Have you ever noticed the difference between the top of your heart and the bottom of your heart? Look now. Look here in as non-dramatic a fashion as you can. In other words, We're not here to go on another trip. We're not here to manufacture another story. We're actually here to illuminate all the stories that we're manufacturing. To illuminate all of the trips that were on, All the trips that were going on. Because if you're anything like most people who have embarked on this path, You've gone on a few trips before. Maybe you've been convinced that, Wow, This is the trip. This is the one. This is. . . Yeah, I think this is the end of all trips. I think I've got this one. Well, You do that a few times. Watch this trip peter out, That trip fizzle out. And then you come to a practice like this. And a practice like this is not. . . You have to be careful you're folded into your story. But the work that we're doing here isn't about folding another trip into your story. It's about going through another phase. It's about lighting up the inside of your mind, Lighting up the inside of your body. Lighting up your thoughts and your emotions. This is always relevant. So allow this light to light up the bottom of your heart. Allow it to shine down through into the stomach. Take three deep in and out breaths with me and then hold on the fourth, Deep inhale. Deep inhale, Hold. Hold, Sip in a little more air. Relax the whole body, Arms and legs, Hands and feet. Allow this light to shine throughout your entire body. Allow this light to shine as long as you'd like here seated in meditation. And as you get up, Allow it to illuminate all of your reactions, All the movements of your mind as you go throughout your day. And I'll talk to you soon.

Reviews

Love the observation of both thre front and back of the heart and lungs. Fascinating! Great meditation.

wow that was cool...

Nice, short, energizing meditation. I really enjoy the breath & visualization elements!

Very productive thanks Bill.

Nice to see my inner light. Thank you again for a guilded meditation that fills a need. (Put a smiley face here!)