31-Day Meditation Challenge: Day 5

Welcome! This is the fifth lesson to a 31-Day Meditation Challenge recently recorded in July of 2020 entitled "Seek and Find Within." The audio recording is divided into an opening discourse and a guided meditation. In this practice, we introduce dynamic breathing. There are 6 key directions and one subtle direction (introduced in the next video) that when studied and practiced empower our ability to focus within our practice.

Enjoy.

Transcript

This is day five.

And so,

You know,

When we commit daily and regularly to a practice,

The momentum builds up so quickly.

So as always,

Kudos,

Congratulations.

I hope you're as proud and animated about this commitment as I am for you.

We're getting into the second lesson today.

So the second lesson is directional breathing.

And before we get into what that is and how exactly to do that and implement it into our practice,

I wanted to talk about the effects of stillness.

And so what I imagine arose in that last session where you were exploring and experimenting with your stillness on your own was that the body is relatively simple to manage.

For sure,

There's little bouts of discomfort,

Little moments where you probably needed to move or thought you needed to move,

But the task itself is basic.

What is less basic is the complexity and tenacity of the mind and how incessant and wild the movements of the mind are.

And so it's through this observation that you experienced firsthand,

But all meditators sort of encounter at the onset of their practice once they take it seriously,

It's from this observation that the definition of yoga as a system of meditation emerges.

Yoga is chitta vritti narod.

Chitta vritti are like thought waves,

Thoughts,

And narod is restraint,

Which is,

We've defined this a couple of times.

And so meditation actually,

According to the yogis,

Is the stilling,

Not of the body,

That's just a stepping stone,

But the authentic stilling of the mind.

And that proves to be miraculously difficult.

So with that,

Directional breathing becomes yet another skill and stepping stone to push us further forward into this goal,

Into achieving this goal of narod,

Mental restraint.

And before,

Again,

We get into the details of that,

I'd like to sort of redefine or build upon the definition of meditation for us for this next lesson.

Meditation is simultaneously a practice,

It's a process,

Or a set of exercises that we can perform,

But it's also an experience.

And so that can be confusing because the word represents two distinct things,

But it's the truth.

Meditation is what you're attempting to do,

And then the experience that your actions will hopefully one day lead you to.

Okay,

And so that's all I wanted to share for now.

Let's talk about directional breathing.

And so the first step in directional breathing is learning how to breathe through the diaphragm.

This is gonna optimize the physiology and the effects of respiration,

And pretty much what that effect is is relaxation.

When we learn to breathe deeply,

We give our bodies and specifically ourselves the chance to respiration,

And that's gonna sort of energize and bring wakefulness into our flesh,

Which is going to echo into the wakefulness of our minds.

It's also going to empower our parasympathetic nervous system,

Which by design is repressed by our sympathetic nervous system.

And so our sympathetic nervous system is the part of our autonomic nervous system that is responsible for the fight or flight response.

We're always a little bit on edge.

Again,

By design,

That fight or flight response overpowers our biological capacity to be at peace and to be calm and to be tranquil and to be present.

And so by breathing deeply,

Which isn't necessarily that natural,

We can provoke an unnatural sense of tranquility and placidness.

Cool,

So that's sort of the biological reasoning behind this.

The mental or psychological reasoning is a bit more interesting.

If we appreciate the purpose of the mind,

The existential reasoning or drive of thought,

Our minds are attempting to understand a world,

A universe,

A reality that is chaotic and surprising,

Reality that can be dangerous and shocking.

And so our minds are attempting to find patterns and to find order in a world that is disorganized and wild.

And so if we give our brains the opportunity to impose order into the breathing,

It satiates the mind's need to think and ponder about the future,

To worry about problems,

To theorize about who we are or who other people are.

And so when we specify and build the technique of our breath,

We placate the mind and in that we allow ourselves the opportunity to really touch a unique experience of focus.

Cool,

So how are we gonna do this?

There are six directions in which our lungs expand and deflate and by taking the time to study these six directions and sort of work with them and optimize them,

Our respiration improves dramatically and the consequences of peace and mental focus increase with it.

So that's pretty much all we're gonna do today.

I'm gonna guide you through them until they become deeply familiar and then I'm gonna let you coast into this directional breathing exercise and hopefully what you experience by the end is an increased sense of calm,

An increased sense of sensitivity or sensation to the body and an increased experience of focus.

Cool,

So let's get into this comfortable seated position.

Day five already here.

And as quickly as you can,

Build your posture as you see fit.

And so your posture's all about power.

And so the detail is I can generate emotional confidence.

I can conjure qualities like courage,

Security,

And will by manipulating my body.

And so it's more important than just listening to these words,

Is appreciating that these words describe truths,

Personal,

Physiological,

And psychological truths.

Tilt your hips a little further forward.

Again,

Feel the spine lengthen.

Drag your shoulder blades away from the skull and straighten your arms in a way that seems unnatural.

Bring a random finger to each thumb.

Shut your jaw,

Press your tongue into the back of your two front teeth,

Tucking your chin in just enough to decompress the base of the skull.

Now breathe specifically into the rib cage and feel your chest widen and broaden.

There's power there.

Some natural questions arise when we force ourselves to sit this way.

How long can I sit this way?

How long can I hold my body in this shape?

So these sentiments of doubt are the consequence of your sympathetic nervous system.

They're the consequence of subtle physiological fear.

Because the only reason you'd be puffing up like this is to scare off a threat.

And so these are the archaic echoes of our ancestry.

Your stillness generates the same sort of signaling.

Your stillness is a freeze response.

It's a deer recognizing there's a wolf right behind the tree.

And even though it's subtle,

If you take the time to investigate,

It's obvious.

And so as the stress response of your nervous system starts to fire because you're being still and sitting with such bravado,

The mind starts to spiral.

You start to think,

Contemplate,

Analyze,

And ponder.

And even though this might be huge with negativity,

A little doubt,

A little worry,

A little discomfort,

There's this opportunity to actually see the mind in action.

Fully exposed,

Unrestrained.

So let's just spend a couple minutes doing what we have been doing for the last four days.

Hold your stillness,

But notice the whirlwind of thoughts.

In Sanskrit,

Chitta vritti,

Waves of mind.

In Sanskrit,

Chitta vritti,

Waves of mind.

And so this first technique,

Which is critical to the unfolding of a successful meditative practice is stressful,

But we also discussed that the golden rule of reality is balance.

Directional breathing,

The second lesson,

Is pacifying.

As you inhale,

Feel the belly blow up.

And after the belly inflates,

Feel the rib cage expand.

As you inhale,

Breathe all the way into the collarbone in the base of the throat.

Feel your back starts to stretch,

The space between the shoulder blades widening.

And as you exhale,

Feel the entire torso,

Belly and rib cage recede in towards your center line.

And so we're detailing and sophistication the very natural process of breathing,

Making it more than what it naturally is,

Which plays into the mind's purpose to find order,

To find meaning,

And to find patterns in the world.

Now start to gauge your breath.

Every inhale,

Breathe in to maximum capacity,

100%.

Pull air in through the nose until you can't seem to pull any more air in.

And the same for the exhale.

Take the time to feel the belly and the rib cage recede in towards center line.

Feel the breath vacating your body,

But be sure to push out every ounce of air.

This of course slows you down.

And as you slow down,

You become more tranquil.

Balancing the stress that comes from stillness,

Balancing the anxiety that comes from this strong posture.

Okay.

So this is the breathe in rotation.

Balancing the stress that comes from stillness,

Balancing the anxiety that comes from this strong posture.

Okay,

So for the next three minutes,

Not too long,

The game is every inhale is 100% capacity.

Every exhale is 100% deflation.

All the while holds stillness.

All the while sit well.

All the while sits Boy!

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Now the instructions are simple enough.

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Start focusing on the consequence.

As you breathe deeply and fully into these six directions.

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Notice how the body feels supported and enriched.

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So this is the second lesson.

This breath.

What I'd like you to appreciate at the end is that as pleasant as this is,

As intuitively good as this is,

More than likely your mind for whatever reason is still compelled to distract.

Still compelled to quicken.

A fast mind isn't just a sick mind.

A fast mind is a weak mind.

And suffering is the illness of a weak mind.

Doubt is the illness of a weak mind.

Every breath taken in this way strengthens mind.

Strengthens peace.

Strengthens balance.

And strengthens health.

But it does take a certain strength.

A will.

And so I'd just like you to correlate the tranquility of this breath,

The peace of this breath with strength,

Which is counterintuitive.

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Okay,

We're going to take three more breaths.

As you inhale,

Breathe into all six directions.

Forwards,

Backwards,

Left,

Right,

Up and down.

As you exhale,

Feel the entire torso shrink from front to back and left to right,

But stay tall.

Notice as slowly as you are breathing,

Which is excellent,

You can still breathe slower.

And for this last breath,

Work to feel the aliveness in your body.

Feel the tranquility coming out of your literal nerves.

And consider that this physical peace in time is what will affect your psyche.

Following with this closing ritual,

Bring your hands to heart center.

Again,

Something like a prayer.

If this is new to you,

The mind very naturally might reject it,

Might feel awkward.

But prove to yourself how conscious you are by playing along and then increasing sincerity.

To understand what meditation is,

We have to embrace our humanity.

We have to embrace that we all love life,

That we all fear death,

That we seek happiness,

We seek love,

We seek purpose.

And we do our best to escape suffering.

Increase your sincerity.

And feel at the very end of your practice,

Day five,

That you are within yourself.

And that meditation is both an effort,

A practice,

But it's also an experience that right now might feel like it's bubbling underneath the surface.

With your next exhale,

Release your wrist back to your knees.

With this final breath in,

Open your eyes and just repeat,

I'm no longer meditating.

Take a second to sort of savor that transition.

Try to put words to that shift.

Reviews

Nice moving on to breath focus. At first it seemed weird to control the flow of breath but after a while everything slowed down and was calm. Even my monkey mind. Thank you. ☮️💖🙏