Close your eyes and settle into a comfortable seated or reclined position.
Roll your shoulders back and down.
Soften the expression on your face.
Relax your abdomen and find a way to lengthen your spine.
Let your awareness move up and down your spine.
All 33 vertebrae beginning at the tailbone and moving all the way up to the back of the neck,
Your spinal cord.
Not so different from an electric cord with energy,
Electricity moving up and down,
Receiving and transmitting information.
Settle into your breath.
There's nothing forceful or demanding about that cue.
It's really quite simple and sweet.
Remember your breath remember that you're breathing alive here now Notice how your noticing influences the field creates a shift in and of itself.
Your willingness to pay attention carries power.
The act of noticing yourself all the parts and places more subtle that can get overlooked in the cadence of the day.
Anyone or anything that's acknowledged kindly,
Patiently.
Spaciously has the tendency to drop defenses down shifts.
Become more at ease.
It's an art form really,
The art of noticing,
The lifelong creative act of taking exquisite care of yourself.
The ongoing tending and tuning this relationship you hold with you.
And your breath responds,
It expands gently,
Subtly.
Feel it deepen and widen on the inhale.
Follow it as it slows down and stretches out on the exhale.
Then give even more direction and dimension to your breath.
Breathe in and out through your nose.
Layer in your imagination,
Activate your inner vision and see your breath moving,
Traveling to different parts of your body.
Begin to guide your breath on a visual pathway between your head and your heart.
From your heart,
Breathe in and draw the breath up through the channel of your throat into your mind.
Pause,
Hold the breath and fill your mind with presence,
Prana,
Energy,
Through your nose,
Breathe out,
Down from your head to your heart,
Offering anything that's been looping or limiting in the landscape of the mind.
Down to the sanctuary of the heart.
Pause,
Hold your breath out and really inhabit your heart.
Keep going just like this.
Find your own cadence and feel your own rhythm within this four-part Let it be simple and steady.
Through the nose,
Breathe in from the heart up to the head.
Pause.
Through the nose,
Breathe out.
From the head down to the heart,
Pause.
Give your attention not just to the inhales and exhales,
But to the space between them.
The pause at the top as you linger in your fullness,
Your capacity,
Interact with your edges.
And the space at the bottom,
Your willingness to.
Get to know emptiness.
The liminal space before something new emerges.
Keep calling yourself back from distractions,
Boredom,
Irritation.
Keep seeing these patterns for what they are,
Part of every person's practice.
Part of our human experience of learning how to contain the mind,
Hold boundary with the mind.
Boundary is not battle.
Meditation is not about changing,
Certainly not about controlling,
Definitely not about condemning your inner world.
Quite the opposite really,
Meditation is a doorway into the ever-deepening relationship you have and hold with yourself.
Listen,
Sense,
Touch,
Feel,
Notice all that goes unnoticed.
Not just any kind of listening,
But reverent listening.
Listening with a willingness to be changed by what you hear.
The art of paying attention,
Getting to know intimately and intricately.
All these different layers of your existence,
Of our existence.
Meditation as a journey inward.
The outer world we share,
It's bright and shiny,
Beautiful,
Connective,
It's intense and dense and easy to become so transfixed by,
So immersed in,
That we forget all about this sanctuary within.
And we all forget sometimes.
Me too.
Sometimes a lot of times.
Being human seems to be this ongoing,
Endless process of forgetting and then remembering.
But it's never too late to remember no matter how long you forgot.
And it's the remembering that we want to put at the center of our awareness,
Not the propensity to forget.
It's ongoing,
Not something any of us do just once,
A forever practice.
A continual recalibration.
And an ongoing question.
How do I find my way home from here?
Home to the heart,
This eternal pilgrimage,
Invisible pilgrimage from the head to the heart.
And when you're trapped inside the cage of your mind,
The antidote,
It's so simple that it's easy to miss.
Exit the mind leave the mind go to your heart feel your breath land in your body It's no use really to try to battle the mind.
The thoughts and beliefs are so rigid,
So fixed by fear,
It's not generally recommended to try to change the mind,
Not directly anyways.
Instead of trying to manage the mind or even master the mind,
We can also exit the mind.
Inhabit the heart.
Feel for your breath.
Go with it as it guides you on this journey,
This pilgrimage up and down,
Back and forth.
Remembering and forgetting.
Only to remember again.
Follow your next exhale all the way down to your heart.
Reacquaint yourself with the space your heart has to feel it all,
Allow it all.
This and that to get to be here,
Nothing to push away.
Through the eyes of the heart,
It's easy.
To include everything in our immense spectrum of humanity and divinity.
Nothing to run from,
Hide from,
Numb out,
Erase.
With your next breath in.
Rise up into the landscape of your mind.
The world of thoughts,
Stories,
Beliefs,
Identities.
Get to know the lower mind,
The egoic mind,
Fearful,
Self-referential,
Self-protecting mind.
Study the way the mind experiences reality,
Processes and organizes reality through what's different.
Recognize the pattern,
The way the mind divides eternity into fragments,
Separate categories,
Separate selves.
And if the self is separate,
It's vulnerable,
Threatened,
Requires protection,
Defense,
Sometimes attack.
Go with your next exhale down to your heart.
The place it's easy to remember yourself by other names,
Truer names.
Easy because your heart experiences reality for what it is,
Interconnected,
Interwoven,
Inextricably intertwined,
The heart not only sees but sews the thread that weaves us all together.
The heart pays attention not to the apparent differences,
But to the essence,
The part that's the same beneath the surface.
The essence that resides not just within all humans,
But to all of everything.
Plants,
Animals,
Insects,
Elements,
And this earth,
This realm we share them with.
A couple more times,
Keep breathing between these inner spaces.
Bring the breath from the heart,
The light from the heart up to the mind.
Let the light of the heart orient you to the often disorienting terrain of the mind.
Watch how effortless it is for the heart to lift the veils of mental separation.
And reacquaint us with our eternal belonging in the symphony of everything.
The all of everything and everyone welcome aloud,
All here including you,
All parts of you.
Even the parts you've been taught are not okay,
Faulty,
Wrong,
Somehow in error.
Even though there's no air when we open our eyes and look all around us.
It's all cycles and seasons,
Rhythms and phases.
Infinite,
Different expressions of what it is to be alive,
What it is to be here now.
Notice how it's not hard for the heart.
It's actually the only way that the heart that love can see.
Keep letting your exhales take with them down from your mind into your heart anything that's been heavy to hold along.
Everything that's been looping and limiting.
Keep listening to your exhales,
Watching as they show you the exit door,
Remind you that the mind is not the only room you need to live in.
Deeper breaths in that move to the back of the body,
The sides,
The front,
Up,
Up.
From the heart to the head.
Slower more complete exhales that guide you down,
Down from the mind.
Reminding you,
You leave the mind not by thinking,
But through feeling.
See how the mind is a well-fortified fortress.
This is why it's not generally recommended to try to think your way out.
Because the mind will always set another trap.
Play another trick,
Always one,
Two,
Ten steps ahead.
But the cage of the mind is by our own design.
And it's invisible.
So anytime we remember this,
We can step out of the bars that aren't really there.
And when the cage appears really solid,
The stories seem really true.
You can remember that you're holding the key because you created the lock and the door and the entire prison of mental thoughts.
And you can go to your heart.
Return home no ticket for your admission no prerequisite for your belonging always and always all parts home in the heart Let your next inhale fill you all the way to full.
Hold your breath.
A little longer this time a little longer than is preferable a little longer than is comfortable And when you think you're full,
Fact check that thought.
Often we can receive even more than we believe.
Breathe in a little more to your heart.
Energize your heart,
Activate your heart,
Inhabit your heart.
And enclosing.
Anything,
Conscious or unconscious,
Yours or not yours.
That no longer deserves to reside within you,
Anything you've been holding.
That is no longer yours to hold was perhaps never yours to hold is maybe not even asking to be held.
Put it on your closing exhale out your mouth,
Quiet or audible.
Clean and clear your inner space over and over.
You can bring your hands into a position,
A shape that represents completion,
Seal your practice,
Drop your chin to your chest.
A quiet moment of acknowledgement,
Your willingness to try to begin again to be here now.
