Returning Home: Teshuvah

This is a meditation about coming home.

It's especially powerful leading up to the Jewish High Holidays and it can also be used anytime you want to come back to Source and yourself.

So sit in a comfortable position,

Arrange yourself so you feel supported.

Your shoulders back,

Your feet on the floor are tucked underneath you.

Notice your body in space.

Feel where your body touches the chair or floor and arrange yourself so that you feel the support.

Find your breath,

Your own natural rhythm,

Not forcing your breath in any way.

But notice the rising and the falling,

Breathing in and breathing out.

Begin to notice in between the rising and the falling.

There's a space,

That space in which the in-breath turns and becomes the out-breath and then that space where the out-breath turns and becomes the in-breath without any conscious intention.

We read about the prophet Samuel in the Hebrew Bible that as a prophet in Israel each year he left his home in Ramah and made a circuit to visit the communities in Israel.

Rav Soloveitchek,

A commentator,

Taught that every time Samuel ventured out he was one step closer to returning.

It says in Samuel everywhere he went he was headed for home.

Each step on the journey was one step toward home.

The Hebrew for he returned is teshuvah tov.

Teshuvah is a Hebrew word that means turn,

Return.

Embodied in that word is a coming home,

A return to self,

A return to oneness,

A return to God,

Return to community,

Return to center.

The paradox is that when you return home it's never the same place.

You are different.

It is different and yet it is the same.

Teshuvah is the turn toward home,

The turn toward center,

That moment of awareness that you realize that you've gotten off track and you need to come back.

Whether it's a recognition of the fact that you've spent six months or one month asleep on automatic or that you hurt someone either intentionally or unintentionally and want to make it right.

The moment of consciousness,

That flicker,

Is also the moment of turning.

We always have the possibility of turning.

Once you have the awareness that you have strayed,

You are already headed for home.

Meditation and our very breath itself is the perfect practice for this awareness.

When we sit quietly with a focus we naturally get off track.

Our minds wander and always when we become aware that we have wandered,

The moment we have gotten off track,

That moment where a pinprick of light enters our consciousness,

The light of awareness,

We begin to return.

The moment you realize that you are disconnected,

The moment you realize that you've been asleep in exile or separate,

Separate from yourself,

Separate from God,

Separate from community,

You can begin to return.

Just like Samuel,

Every time he left home he was already returning no matter how far he went.

He kept in his consciousness home.

That is why when we become aware of the distractions,

We gently and with compassion bring ourselves back,

Not with judgment,

Because judgment interferes with the movement toward returning home.

Each one of our breaths is like the circuit of Samuel.

We start at home,

We leave on the trip,

And we return.

On the inhale we are aware that we are home and on the exhale we leave,

We journey.

And each time we realize that we have forgotten that we're on a journey,

We bring ourselves back to the path.

Our practice is that home is our very breath.

Being aware of our own aliveness,

Our own connection,

And gently calling ourselves back home.

In our practice,

Which will be a focus on breathing,

I'd like to suggest that you hold this image of leaving and returning home and that you pay special attention to that moment of making the turn.

When you breathe in,

You arrive home.

And notice the pause,

The pause between the in-breath and the out-breath.

When you breathe in,

You're home,

You're aware that you're home,

And notice that pause when the in-breath becomes the out-breath,

And then the pause when the out-breath becomes the in-breath.

So in the in-breath,

We are home.

We pause and with the out-breath,

You journey.

So the Kavana,

The intention in this meditation,

Is that breathing in,

You are home.

Breathing out,

You journey.

When you inhale,

You are home.

When you exhale,

You set out on the journey.

So you can sit with this intention for however long you'd like.

To Shuva,

The movement toward home is always possible.