Opening the Belly Center and the Heart Center

Opening and deepening the belly center and the heart center.
For more information about conscious living and conscious dying, please go to www.livingdying.org

Transcript

Begin please by examining your motivation.

Looking honestly and directly at how immediate the experience of your moment to moment life is.

Does the analyzing,

Doubting,

Distracting mind again and again interfere with your ability to be present in your life?

Do you believe that there is a way beyond being lost in the mind,

A way that is immediately available?

With any motivation that arrives from wanting to be free from suffering,

Invoke that quality,

That being,

That which you are,

Which is beyond suffering.

Living spirit,

The beloved.

And if in fact you believe that as I mentioned before,

All suffering contains within it a gift.

Are you willing to even invoke the darker side of the divine,

That which devours the illusion of separation?

Usually we invoke that which protects and nourishes,

That which makes us feel more secure and comforted.

But eventually we have to be able to invoke whatever form the moment requires and that form is sometimes a dark form.

Being that which will devour the place in you that suffers,

That will devour separation from total aliveness.

So as we invoke,

Look at the balance between how deeply you want to be free and how safe and comforted you want to feel along the way.

Letting this invocation bring you more fully into the present moment.

Taking a few grounding breaths into the energetic earth as you breathe out,

Letting your awareness,

Your consciousness sink down into that which grounds and supports beneath you more and more deeply with each breath and as you breathe in the active part of breath,

Actively then receiving this energy that gives the trust,

The sense of support to allow the work of inquiry,

The work of devouring,

That which separates us from our true nature.

Being more and more willing with each breath to drop down deeper into she who supports the womb of the mother.

Imagine that down in your belly there is a balloon and as you breathe in this balloon expands,

Taking a couple of deep breaths just to feel this quality of your lower belly expanding.

What I'd like you to do now is we're going to expand this balloon in the six directions with each breath,

One of the directions.

So on the first breath as you breathe in,

Expand the balloon toward the front of you and as you breathe out surrender into the space that this creates.

And the second in breath,

Breathe so that the balloon expands to the right and then behind you and then to the left of you,

The left side of your belly cavity and then above and below.

So the space in the belly that we often are just focusing on one little area,

We're opening up creating a larger and a larger space.

You may be aware that it feels different when you breathe out.

Then you expand the front as opposed to the back,

The above as opposed to the below.

With each of these six directions on the in breath,

Expanding the belly in that direction and the out breath surrendering,

Dying into the belly itself.

As the breath continues around the six directions,

Letting the space become larger and larger unbounded.

As you breathe in,

Expand in all six directions at the same time.

And as you breathe out surrendering into this area in your belly cavity.

You're not forgetting the quality of surrender dropping down,

Dying into on the out breath.

And then to expand the sense of spaciousness even further,

We'll breathe in three times.

Take an in breath into your belly expanding in all directions.

Pause and without breathing out,

Breathe in again.

Pause and without breathing out,

Breathe in again a third time.

Extending in all those six directions.

And now then simply just breathe in and out of the belly.

Filling.

As you breathe into the belly,

Realize that it's just space.

And as you go more and more deeply into this space,

There's really no one breathing.

And now we're going to do the same thing with the heart.

Imagining that there's a balloon in the center of your chest.

Breathing into that a few times,

Just feeling your chest expand.

As much as possible though retaining the sense of being centered.

The emptiness slash fullness in the belly.

Empty of self,

Empty of doing.

Filled with space,

Filled with chi.

Coming back to our hearts once again with each in breath.

Expand the balloon in the six directions front,

Right,

Back,

Left,

Top and bottom.

Being alert and seeing if you notice that the sensations,

The emotions,

The feeling tone is different as you begin to open different parts of your chest,

Different parts of your spiritual heart that possibly have been not explored for a while.

With each out breath surrendering into the heart,

The sense of loving kindness and compassion.

The space that is created by filling the balloon in these different directions allows the depth of love to increase as we continue the breath.

Is there one or more of these directions that you have a hard time feeling the sensations there?

Are there painful sensations in one part of your chest that you don't feel in another part?

Without making up any stories about what any of this might mean,

Just notice what's going on.

Okay.

And then expanding in all directions as you breathe in.

Creating more and more space,

Openness,

Trust in all directions.

And then expanding in all directions as you breathe in.

And then the three inhalations.

Breathing into the heart,

Expanding in all directions.

Pause without exhale,

Breathe in again.

Pause without exhale,

Breathe in a third time.

Let go of breath,

Let go into the heart.

And continue this three-fold inhalation practice.

Pause without exhale,

Breathe in a third time.

Pause without exhale,

Breathe in a fourth time.

Pause without exhale,

Breathe in a fifth time.

Pause without exhale,

Breathe in a sixth time.

And then coming back simply to breathing in and out of your heart,

Which is now spacious.

Breathing into vast sky of heart,

Breathing out,

Surrendering into heart,

Dying into heart space,

Dying into love.

Taking a couple of breaths into your belly.

And seeing then if you can find a balance between being centered and having your heart wide open.

With each breath,

Solid foundation,

Belly,

Sky-like,

Spacious heart.

The mind,

When it arises and is noticed,

Dissolves back into this space.

And then coming back to the heart,

Breathing in,

Breathing out,

Surrendering into heart,

Givinggate your inner space,

Give space for a 3-to-1 experience.

Exploring with clarity the feeling of having this space inside of your lower belly and your chest.

Is it possible to act,

Speak,

Move from this spaciousness?

Is the mind,

Even though it continues to arise as loud or as disruptive when there is this sense of spaciousness,

Might it be that this spaciousness is exactly what you and I and our neighbor share where we are one?

Why in fact our nature is compassion rather than something we have to do?

Getting out of the way,

Letting there be space where there was confusion.

Our nature is compassion.

Reviews

I loved the feeling of expansion and letting go.

I especially enjoyed not being told to envision light. I appreciate the use of breath and the comment about “full, yet empty”. That struck a beautiful chord with me.

I loved the 3-fold breathing. It really brought my focus in and allowed me to relax even more. Thank you!

Thank U🙏🏻💓 Very nice guidness🧘🏻‍♀️📿👍🏼

Excellent - thank you, expanding breathe

I can’t really explain what just happened and why but it seemed to involve some fundamental shift. Quite extraordinary.

Very grounding, I love the experience of the six direction breathing very expansive. Will listen again 🙏🏻

Wonderful sense of grounding and awakening by way of the spaciousness created through the heart centered awareness. Sensations abound as I breathed into the heart in all directions. I've been meditating a few years and this felt as if a proverbial fire had been lit!

Much need d addition to my overall practice.

Thank you for your work!

🙏☺️

Wow. Just... wow. Quite intriguing. I'd like to understand more about the meaning of breath sensation related to the six directions.

Really instructive practice for improving breath during meditation!

I'm not sure what just happened in this breathing meditation, but a lot of emotions were coming up. Weeping and I don't know why. It was very profound but inexplicable to me. I have been doing shadow work and trying to open up my heart and throat chakras which seem to have some blocks or something. They just are. I will be using this daily for a while.

I loved this. I have been meditating for two years and this is the best experience I have had with really getting in touch with my belly and heart. Thank you!

Thank you for sharing our compassionate frequency

A very relaxing and centering time.

Thank you so much for this exercise in opening ourselves up to our true self.

Great meditation. Very interesting to expand the belly and the heart in 6 directions.

Namaste and meta to all

Very good meditation!