31-Day Meditation Challenge: Day 7

Welcome! This is the seventh 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. This practice is largely unguided and serves as a chance to interact with and refine directional breathing on your own.

Enjoy.

Transcript

Cool,

So day seven.

This is the third day that we've been discussing and studying and practicing what I call directional breathing.

So just to summarize the lessons,

The last two lessons,

There are seven directions that you can experience fairly easily inside every inhale and inside every exhale.

As we breathe in,

These seven directions are the torso and the abdomen inflate from front to back,

One and two,

From left to right,

Three and four,

And then from top to bottom,

Right?

So the torso and the spine increase vertically,

Five and six.

And then the seventh direction is specific to the inhale.

As you breathe in,

The internal physiology of breath and air and tissue runs from the face,

Right?

You inhale through your nose or through your mouth,

But you should all be breathing through your nose.

It runs in and then down.

And so these are the seven directions.

That downward movement of the inhale is associated to the descent of consciousness to yogis and meditators.

And so the beauty of a meditative mind,

Which is something I really encourage you to get into and to thread into at least your practice,

These ideas really do change the way you interact with the world.

Ideas,

The mind,

Is just as real as the physiology or the matter or the experience or the environment.

That,

To most modern people,

For whatever reason,

Instinctually feels more real.

And so when we can appreciate the mental dimension and the conceptual dimension of our practice as much as the physiology,

It's a stepping stone to,

In time,

Appreciating that inner experience of quiet or peace as equally real,

As equally true compared to,

You know,

The things that we all agree upon of as real.

And so that's just sort of like a way to lean into spirituality.

Exhales,

Similar but different.

As you exhale,

The torso shrinks from front to back.

It shrinks from left to right.

And instead of naturally shrinking from top to bottom,

We slump as we exhale.

I want you to maintain that vertical.

And then that seventh direction,

Again,

Is opposite compared to the inhale.

The internal physiology,

The breath and the air,

Runs or moves from the bottom of the torso and the abdomen up through the chest,

Out the throat,

And out the face.

And so inhales run down,

Exhales run up.

The idea associated to this,

The exhale is called the nether life breath.

Consciousness rises back to wherever it came from.

And yogis is mystics,

Yogis is sort of,

You know,

Religiously oriented.

They believe consciousness returns to something like heaven or something like the divine.

And a way to anchor that into like a really,

You know,

Practical and realistic sense.

Exhaling is the last thing we're all gonna do on this planet,

Is like living mortal creatures.

And,

You know,

The idea that this is the nether life breath is appropriate.

Cool.

So third day integration,

You're gonna do about 20 minutes of this directional breathing on your own without my guidance to recover your own understandings and to overcome your own obstacles.

I've gotten a few questions,

Specific questions about,

You know,

How to conduct yourself when you're in your practice.

And I just want to go over these very quickly in case,

You know,

These difficulties or these little lapses of confusion are present for you.

One,

If saliva is building up in your mouth because I've told you to be still and not move and you're taking that very,

You know,

Very literally so you don't want to swallow,

Take the time to swallow.

But if saliva is building up,

That's a good sign.

It suggests that you are actually relaxing your body in a profound way that the parasympathetic nervous system is firing,

Which is responsible for digestion.

And saliva is,

You know,

One of the preemptive biological mechanisms to generate digestion.

So if saliva is building up,

It means your body's actually very,

Very relaxed.

But do just take the time to swallow mindfully.

Second thing is,

If you start to like slump through your posture,

The elbows are found to have bent,

The spine has been found all of a sudden to have collapsed,

Mindfully readjust.

But what this means is,

As present as you thought you were,

Somewhere along the way you lost contact with your body,

With your arms,

With your spine.

And unbeknownst to you,

The intention of posture dissolved.

And so while it's not necessary,

It's,

You know,

Don't take it too intensely to maintain this tall spine and these straight arms,

But do commit to it and consider that one day you will retain your presence so much so that the only way that your body will move while you're in your practice is because you yourself have moved it.

And I think that's about it.

With all of that,

You know,

Swallow your saliva if it builds up,

Adjust your posture if it's wilted,

Feel these seven directions and let's get into this today.

Again,

Good work.

This is day seven.

We're moving right along.

And so in a couple breaths,

For sure close your eyes and build that posture.

Tilt your hips forward,

Feel the torso lift.

If you're seated on the floor,

Tighten the cross of your legs,

Meaning pull your feet deeper into the groin and inner thighs.

And that contraction should create buoyancy inside the belly.

Arms are very,

Very straight,

Straighter today than they've ever been.

Spread your fingers wide for a moment and then bring a random finger to each thumb.

Again,

Remember the grain of sand.

Shut your jaw,

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

Chin tucks in,

Decompress the base of the skull.

Now slow down your breath.

For the beginning portion of your solo practice,

Your integration day,

Take the time to fine-tune your sensitivity.

Really feel these seven directions.

Track them one at a time.

Can I feel my torso as I breathe in?

Inflate forwards.

And once you can,

Check.

I can feel that.

Can I feel my torso as I breathe in?

Inflate backwards.

Once you can,

Check.

Left to right,

Check.

Top to bottom,

Check.

And as you breathe in,

Can you really feel the air moving down into your lungs?

Your lungs and diaphragm contracting and expanding down into your belly and pressure build into your belly.

Downward movement.

Can I feel that?

Check.

The same is true with the exhale.

The idea is this.

The greater your ability to focus,

The less you will think about yourself.

This is biologically true.

You are activating something called the task-oriented network,

A system inside the brain.

The more active this system is,

The less your brain considers self.

The less your brain thinks about other people.

And what this proves is that our stress,

Our struggle,

Our suffering,

It's tethered to the expectations,

Tethered to the insecurities that we hold against our own being.

The more you can feel these seven directions,

The less you will exist.

And that,

For whatever reason,

Is liberating.

All right,

Good work.

One last instruction.

Breathe a little bit more slowly.

Give everything to your focus.

I'm gonna chime back in in 20 minutes.

You you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you slow down the breath and so one acknowledge that you are within yourself it feels like that you're intero septum meaning you're attempting to feel in greater degrees of lucidity the experience of your inner body and that internalizes awareness you're looking away from the world and into yourself so again acknowledge in this moment you are within and that's valuable now the game is focus and the obvious challenge to focus is distraction but what is distracting I'd like you to consider that you are distracting yourself the entertainment value of your thoughts of your worries of your plans of your hopes of your fantasies the entertainment value of your opinions of what you feel and what you hear and what you think you are the distraction and so the game of focus is a game of sacrifice you have to sacrifice the entertainment of thought but more deeply than that you have to sacrifice yourself and again in the spirit of balance all we do is think about ourselves and learning how to not creates equanimity and harmony within our lives and so let the glory of that effort let me sacrifice myself but the glory of that effort boosts your willingness to focus now focus on what the seven directions of your inhales the seven directions of your exhales you you you you you the door to the mind is the body and by controlling the body we eventually gain control over the mind notice that your stillness and your posturing wakes you up so take a second very gradually to straighten out the spine straighten out the arms and broaden the chest and so as you internalize your mind through this practice you are internalizing into an environment that is awake versus numb is illuminated versus dark now your breathing calms you down these seven directions optimize your breath as a tool that generates tranquility so you need to feel that not as an idea but as sensation and so as you internalize your mind into your body through this practice you are also internalizing into a world an environment and an experience that is peaceful the last ingredient the last step is this focus which involves sacrificing the self honoring these seven directions making a technique out of breath making an art form out of breathing gives a mind that is intrigued by complexity and captivated by patterns it gives a mind something to do something to sink its teeth into something to perfect something to build and so now as you internalize the mind into a body a world a reality a cocoon of sensations that is at once awake and tranquil through this focus you disappear and all that remains is this enlivened peace nirvana the extinguishing of self the illumination of balance beautiful beautiful stuff take three more breaths a lot slower than you've been breathing and work to feel these three gears moving in unison wakefulness tranquility and the absence of self through focus you now mindfully bring your hands to heart center palms pressing in front of your chest something like a prayer but at the same time lengthen the spine drag the shoulder blades down and immediately boost your sincerity consider that at this point with all the work behind you now your body is primed to meditate powerfully this is the climax and so embrace your humanity right now meaning you are mortal you are born and you will pass meaning the experience of your existence won't last forever that makes most of us very grateful for the time that we have the next thing to appreciate is that as a mortal creature that is born and dies as all creatures do you love life and you fear its end and inside that there is the imminence of suffering and stress this is the Buddha's first noble truth and it's here right now impatience is suffering doubt is suffering confusion is suffering but to acknowledge it is a momentous act you third key idea to appreciate is that this thing that I am this thing that you are is still mystery it still has to be opened and explored and meditation is how we directly tackle that mystery now we're adding to the closing ritual a bit more esoteric a bit more symbolic so notice that there is resistance or embarrassment even if you're by yourself lift your thumb knuckles to the center of your forehead and again lengthen the spine so you're pressing your thumbs into the skin of your forehead so this represents Agnath chakra third eye what is the third eye it is your consciousness and your sentience your awareness literally exists in the tissue behind your skull right here the center of the forehead prefrontal cortex and so this closing moment we're just getting into the technicality of what meditation is as an exercise that boosts this focus feel the pressure of your thumb knuckles on the skin of your forehead and try to differentiate between the left thumb knuckle and the right thumb knuckle become specific now feel yourself trying to clench into that focus like lifting something that's too heavy you can sort of do it but not entirely let's take one more breath in focusing focusing focusing one more breath out feel the seven directions release your wrist back to your knees try to retain this amplified sense of focus and presence and with your next inhale as the eyes open I'm no longer meditating hold your stillness for a second and with open eyes take a breath in feel those seven directions and as you exhale seven directions

Reviews

Sweet practice. Little guidance then lots of quiet time to sink deeper. Loving the focus on directional breathing. Great way to focus. Thanks again. ☮️💖🙏