This will be a breathing meditation,
A moment of stillness surrender as you settle in.
Just settle into this moment exactly as it is.
There's no need to struggle or strife at this moment.
There's no need to struggle to make the mind still.
Rather discover the inherent stillness therein.
The one is effortless,
The other manipulative.
To go far one begins near,
What is closer than your own sense of self.
This conscious life energy is not a mere conceptual construct.
This conscious life energy is palpable.
It's the feeling of your very aliveness,
It's the knowing of your very being,
It is the experience of experiencing.
The two repetitive words I am serves as a constant reminder of it.
You know you are,
This is obvious.
A new which knows you are is less obvious and allow your attention to just easily transition into your felt experience of being.
In this sense the body and the breath is very useful as the breath breathes you,
The feeling of your body as it relaxes.
There are immediate and concrete sensations,
Climbing down from the ladder to feeling the body.
I invite you to notice that everything is allowed,
Even resistance.
The only thing in opposition is a thought,
But even that is allowed to arise or not.
The alkalized breath in through the nose and out through the mouth.
Every breath is breathed fully,
Deeply,
Completely.
Inhale,
Exhale.
Inhale,
Exhale.
Inhale,
Exhale.
Inhale,
Exhale.
Inhale,
Exhale.
Deep breath in here,
Drinking in infinity.
Suspend for a moment beyond time and then letting the air fall out.
Surrender here dear,
Into the softness,
Into the gracefulness.
Hold on your empty,
Relax the shoulders,
The belly.
Allowing the thrill of life to enter through your nostrils into the center of your chest.
Completely relaxing,
Being filled with a song of breath.
Letting it all go.
Next round,
Breath of fire or Kapalabhati breathing.
Short,
Sharp exhales,
Allowing the inhale to snap back naturally,
Losing the diaphragm.
Find the rhythm.
Filling,
Filling all the way full.
Pause.
Soften,
Surrender and allow this breath to flow out.
As you rest into the quietude of the mind,
Settling and blooming open like a sky full of stars.
Finding a profound breath in.
Feel the belly sink and expand.
Pause.
Release the retention and just let the air flow out.
The next round is an energizing breath.
Breathing in and out of the mouth,
Creating an O shape with your lips.
Breathing deep down,
Anchor the breath into your lower belly.
If you feel your chest and your shoulders are moving a lot,
Place hands onto your belly to direct attention and awareness there.
Sink the mind,
Sink the chi,
The breath.
Drinking in infinity all the way to the top.
Fully expanded lungs and just letting the air flow out without resistance.
In full and deep severance and acceptance,
We surrender and suspend here.
Soften the jaw.
Relax the shoulders a little bit more.
Soften the muscles leading from the heart into the spine.
Let the diaphragm drop.
Rest in your divine.
As relaxed as you can,
Take a deep full breath in.
Holding the breath like you're holding and embracing a lover.
Imploding attention into your first eye.
Surrendering and relaxing.
Same breath in and out through the mouth at a higher speed.
Still directing this breath to anchor deep down into the belly.
The only thing changing here is the power of invitation is now stronger.
Inhale and exhale.
Inhale and exhale.
Inhale and exhale.
Inhale and exhale.
Inhale and exhale.
Keep the awareness inside the breath as you just allow this breath to flow in this rhythm.
Deep full breath in.
Pause.
And as you exhale,
Feeling how any unnecessary tension or resistance and friction leaves with the exhale.
Feel how naturally and deeply your body surrenders into relaxation.
Allow this to happen.
Relaxation.
Nothing to do.
Just simply being in the interlude of the breath.
Where the two polarities meet and merge.
Letting go of the exhale retention and just allowing the air to fill your lungs.
For a moment we pause.
Releasing this inhale retention.
Next round.
Breath of fire or kapalabhati breath.
Let out sharp exhales and the inhales snap back automatically.
Using the diaphragm,
The belly pushes in on the exhale.
Find the rhythm.
Surrender to the harmony of this rhythm.
And allow the breath to breathe you and do the work.
Full deep breath in.
Pause.
Suspend the breath here.
Allowing the energy to inquire upward.
And surrendering into our bhaya kumbhaka.
Breath hold on empty.
Completely and deeply relax into the safety of your being.
Hold here and surrender for as long as possible.
And as you allow yourself to settle in the act of breathing.
Notice the breath gravitate down into the lower part of the body.
No need to try to control or manipulate the breath at all.
Just let it be as it is.
A light and easy attention to this part of the breath.
Instead of attention being focused on the next thought.
We allow attention to rest in something very prominent and concrete.
The breath.
There is nothing abstract about the breath.
By just allowing the breath to settle in a natural and easy way.
It has a way to also cool down the nervous system.
Open up awareness.
Simply by attending to the breath.
Open hands being receptive to be moved by life.
It doesn't really matter if the mind is quiet or busy.
Prioritizing the breath above all else.
Remembering the breath is always here.
And can be an anchor to return to.
It is not a thought.
Distortion can occur when noticing the breath.
Meditation is a pre-phase of discovery.
It is not a goal orientated activity with a destination to be reached.
We are not trying to attain any goal.
All of that is free to be let go of.
Meditation is a process of discovery.
You are noticing in this moment what is happening.
What happens in my being.
What happens in my body.
What happens in the nervous system.
As I just attend to the breath.
There are always fundamentally two things occurring.
The first is the constantly changing content of experience.
Anything you hear,
See,
Feel,
Think.
Experience through the senses.
Is content.
Information gathered,
Filtered,
Interpreted.
And digested by the sense organs.
Secondly,
The other thing is the context.
In the context for all experience.
Is the simple and bare fact of awareness.
Everything,
Even silence and stillness is naturally illuminated.
Or noticed by awareness.
All arises in awareness.
We are not trying to do anything with awareness.
Simply noticing it.
Not trying to understand it,
Grasp it or change it.
Notice.
It cannot be grasped or defined.
It is a context of all experience.
Just like the sky is the context of all weather.
Notice how effortless it is to notice the context of awareness.
Awareness is simply everywhere in general.
It is what makes the hearing of my voice possible.
It is what makes every feeling,
Thought,
Sensation possible.
You cannot grasp.
You can grasp at the content of experience but not the context of awareness.
It is like trying to grasp the space in the room.
Be mindful of a moment of the mind.
Trying to turn this into a competition or a goal.
There is no competition between content and context of experience.
It is merely a mental tendency.
Even though awareness is not a particular feeling,
It does resonate in the body.
And so,
There is a subtle sense like there is a presence of awareness.
It is not in opposition to anything.
It is not in opposition to a feeling or a thought.
The only thing that is in opposition to what is is a thought.
But is it possible to notice how awareness is not even in opposition to the opposing thought?
Thoughts just occur.
Or they don't.
It makes no distinctions.
The natural state of awareness is not in opposition to anything.
And we are just noticing it.
That's all.
No interference needed.
So,
Allowing yourself to feel and sense into this non-opposing quality of awareness.
It is what makes sense.
It is what makes our entire experience of being and existing possible.
Where thoughts are heavy and clunky,
Awareness is very,
Very subtle.
We sense into it our intuitive capacity.
In essence,
The simplicity of meditation is simply resting as awareness.
Resting into the context into which all experience happens.
It is when we rest as awareness that we can see how often we are obsessed with the content of experience.
And we grasp at the content with a direct proportion to how identified we are to it.
Awareness is not struggling with a moment.
The mind may or may not struggle.
And the content may or may not go into opposition to other content.
But dear one,
Notice how awareness isn't even in opposition to this happening.
Awareness is simply the consciousness of whatever is happening.
We are simply noticing the quality of awareness that is already here.
