So,
Let's begin by just feeling your seat,
Getting comfortable in your space,
Taking a few deep breaths,
Moving around,
Moving any parts that just need to be moved around before we sit for a few minutes together.
And let's start by closing our eyes and feeling the space around us,
Bringing awareness to your senses.
So today,
With your eyes closed,
Think about what you're seeing with your closed eyes.
Are there colors or shapes,
Any swirly things,
Designs and patterns?
And bring your awareness to your sense of hearing.
Are there noises in the room?
Are there noises outside?
Are there things that you didn't notice before?
Ambient sounds?
This is all about noticing with a little more specificity and intention,
The awareness of our senses.
And do you smell anything or taste anything?
These are the things that make us alive,
Things that make us feel alive,
Our ability to sense our environment.
And now,
Think about what you're touching.
Your legs on the seat,
Your feet on the floor or on the bed,
Feeling where your skin is touching your clothing or the air.
Bring your awareness to your skin as a whole,
This outer covering of your body.
How grateful we should be for our skin.
And when you become aware of your skin that's around your whole body,
Can you feel appreciation for this body that you're in?
And now feeling the skin on your abdomen as it expands to allow some deeper breath.
The flexibility of your belly and your chest to enable you to bring in more air,
More oxygen.
Let's start there with taking some deeper breaths.
Noticing that when the air comes in,
Your skin expands.
And when the air comes out,
It relaxes.
And let's breathe here for a minute or two.
And as always,
When your thoughts start to wander,
You can notice that too.
And then turn back to the breath.
Sometimes naming things help us in the awareness,
In the noticing.
So,
Breathing in,
Naming it,
I'm breathing in.
And I'm breathing out.
And oh,
There's another thought.
I guess I'm thinking,
Okay.
Thank you very much.
I'll deal with you later.
Right now I'm breathing.
So I'd like you to bring some awareness,
Some energy to the middle of your abdomen.
Kind of between your navel and your rib cage.
This is the third chakra.
And for those of you who haven't been with me before,
Every week we work on another chakra,
Bringing energy to that area first.
So if you can imagine a ball of light,
Or a gathering of energy,
Or some warmth being created in that part of your body.
Just focus,
Bringing your focus into that area.
The third chakra is where our ego lives,
Our sense of personal power,
Our self-image.
And before we get into working with that energy,
I just want to say that this week I have been turning a lot to my teachers for guidance.
In particular,
Jack Kornfield and Tara Brock have been really helpful in navigating the ups and downs of this week.
So I thought I would weave some of their words into this practice.
So usually,
When we're talking about the third chakra,
I like to use the image of a mountain.
The mountain is really strong,
A mountain is unflappable,
And confident,
Doesn't really care what other people think of it.
Like we should aspire to being the mountain.
But today,
I wanted to turn that insight out a little bit.
Jack Kornfield says that practice is not just another project of self-improvement.
It's the opposite.
It's about letting go.
So instead of being the mountain,
Imagine that you are on top of a mountain,
And you are you.
And imagine the vista that you are looking at that is spacious and vast.
And maybe there are clouds that are going by.
Clouds below you,
Clouds around you.
Maybe you're sitting at the sea or by a lake.
Maybe you're sitting in a mountain range where you can see other people on other mountains.
So as we sit on our mountaintop,
We breathe in this space,
This spaciousness.
And we keep an open heart.
And in this openness,
In this openness,
There's a balance and a confidence that is not dependent on whether things go our way or not.
Again and again,
We discover that what we are is not the passing content of our lives,
But the open,
Clear capacity to hold it all.
So here we sit,
Each of us on our mountaintop,
Generating energy in our bellies,
The balance and the confidence to hold whatever comes.
And we breathe.
And when your thoughts start to wander,
Come back to your mountaintop and come back to your breath.
Tara Brach says,
Let go of what is past.
Let go of what is ahead.
Let go of what is happening right now.
Don't try to figure anything out.
Relax and rest.
Let go of what is past.
Let go of what is ahead.
Let go of what is happening now.
Don't try to figure anything out.
Relax and rest.
So let's start to deepen our breath a little bit.
Say farewell to your beautiful vista.
You can go there anytime you like.
And we'll magically get down off the mountain without any stress to our knees.
And come back into the room,
Stretch out where you need to stretch.
Thank you all for being with me.
And I'll leave you with this Metta prayer.
May you walk through your day feeling balanced and spacious with the capacity for anything that comes your way.
Amen.
