Welcome to day 13.
Today we will practice as we learn.
So our Dharma talk will be engaging and I will ask for you to experience each posture as I speak to the shape.
We are in the waxing gibbous phase still and we're getting brighter and brighter in the sky.
And as we get brighter,
We start to be able to expose ourselves to different ways of sitting,
Standing,
Walking,
And laying down in our meditation practice.
So we'll be practicing those different ways to hold our bodies while we're in this practice.
So let's begin with a few deep breaths.
I'll ring the bell to begin and the bell to close.
And we will be changing and shifting postures throughout the meditation today.
Enjoy this different format.
We will start with a seated meditation and I'll talk you through that posture.
So if being able to sit is available to you,
I invite you to sit on the ground or on a cushion.
Not on a chair or a couch.
Sit on the ground.
And if you can be outside on the earth,
That's even better.
So set yourself up.
Spine nice and tall.
Breathing in and breathing out.
I like to sit cross-legged and I take my hands to my knees and I make sure that my ears are over my shoulders,
Which are over my hips.
Some in one line.
I bring a slight tuck of my chin so that my gaze can just lay on the ground.
You can also soften your eyes closed completely if that feels good to you.
And we breathe in and we breathe out as we sit.
Noticing what it's like to sit on the earth and breathing with the way your body feels today.
In this moment,
If your mind wanders,
You can bring your attention back to how your body feels sitting in this posture.
Perhaps you can feel your sit bones on the earth and you can notice where your body is.
And then when you can feel where your body is,
You can also feel where your body ends and where the space around exists.
Following your breath,
Staying with yourself connected,
Seated on this earth.
Take a few more slow deep breaths in the seated position and when you're ready,
Perhaps you would like to keep your eyes closed and just practice what it's like to move into a standing position.
So uncross your legs or however you're sitting,
Place your feet on the earth,
Spread out your toes and slowly,
Slowly,
Slowly start to stand.
Notice what happens as you move your body,
As you shift from seated to standing.
See if you can stand straight up with your feet shoulder width apart and parallel to one another.
As you breathe,
Pay close attention to the bottoms of your feet.
Can you make good contact with the earth beneath your feet?
Spreading out those toes,
Making sure that your weight is evenly distributed across your entire foot.
You're not standing on the sides of your feet or on the inner edges.
You're not tipping forward onto the balls and you're not leaning back into the heels.
Your weight is evenly spread across the bottoms of your feet to create that physical and mental sensation of being centered.
Breathe here.
Tune into your spine.
What's happening with your spine?
You would like your spine to be straight but not so much that you feel discomfort.
And notice if there's an opportunity to slightly tuck your tailbone under to create more length across the back body.
Bend your knees slightly and notice that tailbone just curling underneath of you.
Now tune into your head.
Perhaps you'd like to tuck your chin slightly so that the crown of your head,
The top of your head,
Raises towards the sky.
Your gaze can be forward and down about six feet in front of you.
With your eyes closed or a soft,
Unfocused gaze,
You can gently place the tip of your tongue against the roof of your mouth to soften your jaw.
Hold your hands in a comfortable position either by your side or behind your back.
Just resting your arms,
Noticing the physical sensations that arise in your body as you stand.
Noticing where your attention is and knowing that if physical sensations in your body are not accessible to you,
You can always switch back to your mindfulness practice.
Just feeling the sensations of the breath or whatever anchor works best for you.
And if strong emotions come up,
Then you can always return to the sensations of standing,
The sensations of your body.
You can label the thoughts that come through as thinking and then come right back to feeling your feet on the ground.
Noticing the little micro movements that happen in your body as you stand still and bringing kindness to your experience,
Whatever's arising.
And now when you feel ready,
You can take a few more deep breaths standing.
Now you can shift your energy,
Perhaps slowly,
Slowly,
Slowly blinking your eyes open and looking around the room and noticing where you could take a few steps forward for a walking meditation.
So you don't need to have much space.
If you have space that works just fine.
But you can just take a couple of steps and then you can turn around and then you can take a few more steps back in the other direction.
So as you do this walking meditation,
You can hold your hands clasped in front of you.
If you'd like,
You can keep your arms down by your side and you're just going to feel your foot lift off the ground,
Feel your foot suspended in midair,
And then feel your toes hit first and then down to your heel.
And then you do the other leg,
Stepping gently,
Noticing every single part of how it feels to walk on the earth.
Feel free to practice this at your own pace.
And if there's a propensity for you to walk quickly,
I invite you to tune into what it might be like to slow down.
And perhaps if you walk very slowly,
Maybe there's an opportunity for you to find a bit more speed.
Let yourself play here.
Let yourself play.
How much can you be aware of movement in your body?
Movement meditation.
Noticing what it's like to feel your feet leave the earth and then reconnect with the earth.
Taking a few more mindful steps,
Connected with your breath,
Connected with yourself right here in this moment.
With kindness and gentleness,
Perhaps now you would like to transition into the final meditation practice and posture for today,
Which is laying meditation,
Laying down on the earth.
Again,
If you can be outside,
Maybe go on out,
Even if it's raining or cold.
And especially if you're feeling the call to be in nature,
Go,
Go ahead and go.
You have my permission.
And then lay your body down on the earth.
And even if you are inside,
Lay yourself down.
And with each exhale,
See if you can release tension in your body.
As you're lying down,
Perhaps you'd like to just tune in to what it's like to be held up by the earth.
And to feel this spinning cycle that we are a part of in the solar system.
This subtle movement in the stillness.
Sometimes in laying down meditations,
We get sleepy.
It's very common.
And so Jack Kornfield reminds us of two different things that we can do.
If we get sleepy in a laying down meditation,
You can raise your arms up straight up from your body so that they are 90 degrees with the floor.
Right,
So your arms are just basically up straight in the air.
And then if you fall asleep,
Your arms will fall down on your face,
And you'll probably wake up.
And then you just can straighten your arms back up and then just hold them like that.
That's such a funny one to try.
Feel free to practice.
We'll take a few breaths with that option.
Another option for laying down meditation if you find that you fall asleep is you can always bring your knees hugging into your chest,
And then let go of your knees.
And then if your knees fall down,
Then maybe you're falling asleep.
And that movement will wake you up.
You can practice with that as well for the last several rounds of breath here.
Can you stay present with yourself?
No matter what posture your body is in.
Be very gentle with yourself as you slowly bring your awareness back to the space around you.
I encourage you to play with these different postures that your body can be in during meditation and allow for your body to speak what it needs for these practices that we're doing.
Some days we might want to lay down.
Some days we might want to walk.
Some days we might just want to sit up straight in stillness.
Happy exploring.
See you tomorrow.
