Hello my friends,
Welcome to Adarha.
My name is Damien Chaparro.
I have a special meditation for you today.
I think you'll find it rich.
It'll be about 15 to 20 minutes and all you need is a comfortable place to sit.
So it's a fairly common theme in Eastern philosophy.
The idea of working with obstacles as our teachers.
In Tibet there is a particular meditation where the practitioner invites more challenge.
In Buddhism one of the common themes is the Buddha's relationship with Mara.
Mara is the god of anger,
Deceit,
Frustration,
You know,
Some of the emotional states that we would associate with as being challenging.
Sometimes we wish that we didn't have some of these emotional states.
And in this particular archetypal story between the Buddha and Mara,
The Buddha invites Mara for tea.
When others around him,
You know,
His trusted assistant Ananda for example,
Is becoming upset because Mara continues to return to the Buddha's sermons and into the Buddha's space.
Buddha instead turns and invites Mara in.
So we're going to do a little something like that in our meditative state today.
So I want you to go ahead and just close your eyes.
And I want you to connect with a topic or a feeling that you find challenging.
Maybe it's a person,
Maybe it's an event,
Maybe it's a feeling about yourself.
Connect with a specific challenge that you have and notice what feeling is there.
See if you can feel that emotion now.
Notice where you feel it.
Is it in the heart or the belly,
The brain or the throat?
It's the whole body.
And what I want to do is then release that topic,
That thought.
And I want you to think about a time when you felt deeply safe and deeply loved.
Just one of these feel-good moments.
Maybe you were with a best friend or your pet and the day was just going swimmingly well.
You know,
Maybe this feeling just came from the kiss of warm sunshine as you laid with nothing on your plate to do for the day so that you could just deeply relax and allow life to be.
There are moments when we are completely open.
There are moments when we are in awe,
Where our energy flows freely.
Connect with that feeling in yourself.
Feel it in all your cells and allow yourself to amplify that feeling so that everything begins to whisper that it's all going to work out perfectly because it always has.
Let your cells tingle with the energy that was there at the very beginning of the universe and that will be there at the very end.
The great mystery,
The great oneness,
The energy that is everything,
Just feel into that open,
Spacious allowing.
See if you can release any unneeded tension behind the eyes,
In the deep tissues of the belly and the shoulders.
As though you were opening your palms up toward the sky,
Just kind of lift your hands up in a gesture of receiving.
It doesn't have to be perfect.
Just turning the palms up and keeping the eyes closed if you can.
You're just going to kind of move the arms out into the sides like you were spreading your wings a bit.
You'll feel a little gentle stretch across the heart and allow that to signal this open quality.
And then as you take a deep breath in,
Start to connect with this challenging emotion,
This challenging topic and just wrap all of your love,
All of your caring,
All of your acceptance around it.
Bringing the hands towards the heart.
Hands might gently touch the heart,
One on top of the other.
And then we're just going to breathe in this way for a little while.
So inhaling just in your own pace,
Opening,
Spreading,
Connecting with that peace that you are.
And exhaling,
Connecting with this aspect of ourselves,
Which of course is serving us and offering something.
Welcome it in.
Exhaling relaxation,
Calmness,
Exhaling,
Inviting difficulty to have tea,
To commune,
To connect.
Just take two or three more breaths like that.
Let every aspect of your being represent this welcoming breath.
The mind.
Next time you take a breath in,
Again,
Just connecting with that wholeness,
That openness,
Letting the arms touch down.
And now furthering our practice,
We're going to bring the mind or the attention to the center of the heart.
And then I want you to notice the space just above the crown of the head,
About four finger widths above the center of your skull.
See if you can feel that space.
So,
Again,
With your attention at the heart and just connect again with this challenging emotion.
And then take your attention just above the crown of the head.
And notice this spacious,
Ethereal,
Expansive quality that may be there for you.
And we're just going to walk between the two with our attention.
So with your next exhale,
Bring the attention down to the heart.
Become anything that you feel there.
And then inhaling,
Draw your attention as though you were walking a road all the way up four fingers above the center of the skull.
Breath moves down,
Center of the heart welcoming all of our humanness,
All of our challenges.
And this particular energy that we're working with today.
And as we breathe in,
Expanding our energy,
Embracing all that is.
And again,
We're just going to take a few breaths together,
Maybe 10 or so.
Exhaling center of the heart.
Exhaling that highest chakra just outside of our physical form.
Bladder up.
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