Hello,
Hello and welcome.
My name is Lou Redman and I thank you for joining me for this practice.
I want to share the inspiration for today and before I do that I just want to note that I don't share this intention to make you feel bad in some ways.
It's kind of a difficult story to share but what happened is in the community that I live in there was a tragedy that took place.
And what that tragedy was is there was a fire in a two-family apartment and it was upstairs and the mother and the daughter that was in the apartment upstairs,
They passed away.
They died in the fire and it was a really tragic experience.
I actually knew the mother from my past and it was something that I was actually asked from that to lead a meditation at a local studio in honor of this experience.
What I wanted to note here is that in these times of tragedy what I find,
If we can find some sort of silver lining in it,
It is that it often brings us together.
It often opens us this sense of compassion,
Right?
There's this huge compassionate outpouring that happens.
We saw this in 9-11.
We saw this as I'm currently recording this possibly with the current coronavirus.
And it's just this idea of understanding people are going through difficulties and having compassion as one human from another human that could understand or can't understand what that might be like but could feel on an emotional level that grief and that sadness.
And so that's one thing I wanted to note on this.
And then the other aspect of what we can show during these times are this real sense of gratitude for our lives.
Gratitude for being alive,
Gratitude for our health,
Gratitude that although we have so many anxieties and worries that at the end of the day if something really tragic were to happen,
All of those things wouldn't matter.
And that's what our practice I think is really ultimately asking us to come to.
Come to this place that really sees what is most meaningful in our life,
That really acknowledges our ultimate truth and helps us to connect us to that ultimate truth.
So let's go ahead and move into the practice.
So go ahead and close your eyes if they were open.
Allow your body to just settle.
Settling into your seat or to your cushion.
Let your legs to fall heavy.
On the shoulders to relax and inviting a sense of ease throughout the body.
Beginning to allow the awareness to come to your breath.
Noting each breath in and each breath out.
Maybe even offering a light count to harness the attention.
Maybe noting one,
Two.
One,
Two.
Or if it feels right maybe it's breathing in and breathing out.
Let's see if you can just find your rhythm feeling your breath in your body as you allow yourself to settle here for a few more moments.
And letting that go.
I'd like you to bring your attention to your mind.
And the practice of meditation is really about understanding our mind,
How it functions,
Its habits.
The mind has been grooved by thought patterns.
And meditation kind of fills in those grooves and creates new thought patterns,
New pathways to open.
So imagine that your mind is as wide as the sky.
Let's see if you can just feel and know the expansive nature of that.
Continuing to breathe in that lightness,
That expansive quality.
And our practice is also about connecting the mind to the heart.
So I'd like you to find some gratitude for what the mind has allowed you to do.
The degree it allowed you to pursue or all the little things that it helps you to do each and every day.
Driving to work or caring for other people.
And as you do that,
Feel,
You find that gratitude that the sky begins to widen and brighten.
The mind is the reason that we've survived this long.
So finding all of that gratitude for how it helps you.
And widening and brightening your mind sky.
And I'd like you to keep that expansive feeling of your mind.
And imagine that you're dropping it down into your heart.
Now bringing your awareness at your heart and feeling that same expansive quality.
Moving our gratitude into our hearts.
And finding gratitude for its presence,
For its beating.
And the fact that it has always been working for us as we were born.
Keeping us alive.
It's always there for you.
As you breathe,
Feel that expansive quality and nature of the heart.
Feeling any gratitude that you have for it.
And then together let's take a full breath in and a full breath out.
And you're welcome to let go of that mind sky or the heart sky.
And what this practice really gives us is this deeper ability to feel.
To feel our thoughts,
To feel our emotions,
To feel all the ups and downs that life has for us.
And we can start out feeling the whole range.
Because if we didn't feel pain,
If we didn't know what that felt like,
We could never understand what joy is.
To quote the Lumineers,
It's better to feel pain than nothing at all.
Because the opposite of love is indifference.
And you can find thanks for just that ability to feel.
And connecting this,
Still connecting this at our hearts.
At our hearts we possess a quiet power to develop and to increase our compassion.
And one way we do that is through generating these feelings of compassion,
Understanding.
Towards our self and towards others and especially in times of struggle.
Bring your awareness to your heart,
To your center.
And sharing some of these words with yourself if they feel supportive.
May I find happiness through my heart.
May I find strength through my struggle.
May I find love through my lows.
May I find peace through my pain.
May I be happy.
May I be strong.
May I be loved.
And may I be at peace.
And bringing yourself here in that compassion,
Honoring all the ups and the downs that you've been through.
And honoring the strength and the love that it's taken to move through.
And then letting that go.
And I'd like you to think of someone that you care for and may be going through a time of struggle.
Someone that you could send these words of compassion towards.
Take a moment to see if you can find someone and bringing them into your awareness.
Bringing them into your heart.
And sharing with them those same words and intentions.
May you find happiness through your hurt.
May you find strength through your struggle.
May you find love through your lows.
May you find peace through your pain.
May you be happy.
May you be strong.
May you be loved.
May you be at peace.
Any other ways and feelings that you would like to care for this person,
Sending them to that,
Thinking of them now.
And then letting that go and bringing all of us in this world to mind who have struggled,
Who are struggling.
Which is all of us in some way.
Be imagining your heart and mind to expand to the entire world,
Feeling all of the energy and the love of your compassion.
And sharing these words to all.
May we find happiness through our hurt.
May we find strength through our struggle.
May we find love through our lows.
May we find peace in our pain.
May we be happy.
May we be strong.
May we be loved.
May we be at peace.
We'll stay here a few more moments,
Feeling the rays of your compassion expand outwards.
And gently,
Slowly coming back.
And back to your body,
When you're ready,
Open your eyes and come back to your room.
And it's always a joy to guide you through all of these practices and I hope that in whatever way that you might be struggling,
You might be finding lows,
That you do find that love and that strength.
And I deeply wish that for you.
So see you soon.
Namaste.
