Guided Meditation 2: Earth Breathing

This is a guided Earth Descent practice, led by Dr. Reggie Ray, Spiritual Director of the Dharma Ocean Foundation. In this practice, we connect with body and open to the space and energy of the earth beneath us.

This practice is done in a lying down posture, lying flat on our back on a carpet, mat, or cushion. Our knees are up and tied together, with a yoga strap or belt to reduce pressure on our lower back and psoas muscle.

Our head should be in a comfortable positon, either flat on our mat or on a small pillow to provide ultimate comfort and calm. Our elbows are on our mat, and our hands, resting gently on our lower belly—right over left if they overlap.

Note: This session builds on the 10 point practice that Reggie offers in a separate guided meditation in this series for Insight Timer.

Transcript

This is a guided Earth descent practice,

Led by Dr.

Reginald Ray,

Spiritual Director of the Dharma Ocean Foundation.

In this practice,

We connect with the space and energy of the Earth beneath us.

It builds on the 10 points practice that Regi offers in a separate guided meditation in this series for Insight Timer.

This practice is done in a lying down posture.

We lie flat on our back on a carpet,

Mat or cushion,

Knees up and tied together with a yoga strap or belt to reduce pressure on our lower back and psoas muscle.

Feet are flat on the floor at least hips width apart to provide stability.

Head in a comfortable position,

Either flat on our mat or on a small pillow.

Elbows on our mat and hands resting gently on our lower belly,

Right over left if they cross.

So if everybody would lie down.

So again,

Take a posture that's comfortable for you.

And check and see if your pelvis is stabilized,

That your knee strap is tied close enough that the feet are spread far enough apart.

And then just briefly put your mind into your whole body.

Feel the Earth under you and the body itself is so attuned to the Earth that when we lie down in this way,

There's a very natural process of relaxation that starts unfolding.

Usually when we lie down,

We're on the way to going to sleep when we relax in this way.

And it's quite a different process if we actually stay alert and stay awake and feel the body completely relaxing without particularly losing our wakefulness.

The closer to the Earth we can stay,

The more nourished we feel.

And a great deal of the bodywork involves developing an open,

Free-flowing relationship,

Not only with the body but with the Earth.

So we've already been through the Ten Points practice twice now,

Once with me and then once by yourself.

So this time we'll do it much more briefly and we'll just start with the feet as a whole.

So just put your attention into the feet.

And right away we notice where we might be hanging on in a kind of strange way.

You can relax.

Just release.

It's okay to change your posture a little bit.

Sometimes when you are doing the Ten Points practice,

You suddenly realize something is misaligned.

Something is sort of off at an odd angle and you can make those adjustments.

And ankles,

Lower leg.

So we're doing knees,

Lower leg,

Ankles,

Feet into the Earth.

And then we'll do buttocks.

Whether you do a long practice or short practice,

It's always going in the same direction.

When we use the Ten Points practice as a gateway to other practices,

We just do it for a few minutes.

On the other hand,

Periodically it's good to come back and do it for 30 or 40 minutes.

So feeling the hip cavity,

The hip girdle,

The inside of the upper thighs.

And just working to soften the whole pelvic region and let it melt and dissolve downward.

And then we come to the mid-back.

And really it's kind of permission to completely let go.

And there's something in us that does indeed want to do that.

So we are following that call.

It's almost as if it's a call from the other side.

It's a call from our deeper nature,

This desire we have to let go and really relax.

Much as we may fear it,

We also feel very called to it.

So just let your body dissolve.

Shoulder blades.

Interior of the shoulder blades,

Upper chest,

Shoulders.

Relaxing,

Releasing,

Dissolving downward.

Elbows.

Fingers,

Hands,

Wrists,

Forearm,

Elbows down.

Shoulders,

Upper arm,

Elbows down.

And finally the head.

So now we have the whole body completely relaxing and letting go and letting the tension just dissolve downward into the earth.

So now we're going to use the breath a little bit with this as we did this morning.

On the in-breath,

Be in the body,

Feel the tension.

On the out-breath,

Completely relax.

Only this time at the end of the out-breath,

Don't breathe for three or four seconds.

And during that time,

Put your awareness very strongly back into your body and feel how you may be able to let go even further during this three or four seconds at the end of the out-breath when you're not breathing.

So we're going to breathe in,

We're going to breathe out.

At the end of the out-breath,

We're going to stop breathing for a couple of seconds.

And during that time,

Go through your body with your awareness and see if you can release further.

And then breathe in again.

Now when you're not breathing at the end of the out-breath,

Take a look at your mind and see what's happening.

Leave it like that.

At the end of the out-breath,

We're not breathing for a few seconds,

We're looking at the body,

And then we're looking at who's looking at the body.

Look at the body,

What do you feel,

Where can you release,

And then take a quick look at who's looking and see what you find.

If you feel disoriented,

It's okay,

That's an important discovery,

To feel what it's like when we don't maintain our particular ego map of reality,

Our Rand McNally Atlas of our world.

There are moments when we descend into our own body and mind when we are in unfamiliar territory and it feels disorienting,

So you might notice that.

At the end of the out-breath,

When you're not breathing,

Take a look,

See what you see.

So now we're going to do the same thing,

In-breath,

In-the-body,

Out-breath,

Letting go,

And at the end of the out-breath,

Just open your awareness downward,

As if you're looking down into the earth.

You could be looking,

You could think of it as feeling the earth under you,

You could think of it as sensing the earth,

But direct your awareness downward at the end of the out-breath.

And then we're going to move to a second practice,

So all this is sort of transitional,

We're going to move from the ten points practice to the earth descent,

Or sometimes I call it earth breathing.

In-breath,

You're in the body,

And then the out-breath,

You extend your awareness downward,

And we'll go down in stages,

Opening to the earth and beginning to see experientially what it feels like when we look down.

So we're not thinking about the scientifically described earth,

We're not thinking about this planet in space,

We're thinking about the earth as the experiential reality we discover when we look down under us with our awareness.

So in-breath,

Be in the body,

Out-breath,

Let your awareness drop down about ten feet.

In-breath,

Be in the body,

Out-breath,

Drop down about ten feet under you.

In-breath,

Be in the body,

Out-breath,

Drop down about fifty feet,

And stay there if you can,

And then drop down a hundred feet.

It's really a matter of projecting your awareness downward to the level that seems called for.

Two hundred feet,

Five hundred feet.

On each out-breath,

You can descend further a thousand feet,

Or opening downward.

You can notice a kind of holding back,

Wanting to stay on the surface,

You can just let that go,

And let your awareness open in a very natural and simple way,

Downward.

And a mile.

So it's a matter of dropping as far as you can,

Realizing that you sort of come to the end of it,

And then opening and dropping further,

And you just keep doing that over and over.

Down,

Down.

And five miles.

And then you can go down a hundred miles,

Two hundred miles,

Just down,

Down.

So we're seeing where we hold back,

And we're opening and dropping.

Just let the awareness open in a very natural way,

Downward.

And then you can just let your awareness fall downward,

Kind of free-fall through space,

Down,

Down,

Down.

Extend,

Open,

Let go,

Fall.

Fall,

Fall,

Extend,

Open,

Down.

So you're really working every section of the way.

And so it's a process of continually opening and letting the awareness drop deeper.

When you do this,

What does the earth under you feel like,

Experientially?

What is that like?

What is that like?

What is that like?

What is that like?

And notice that there's some kind of reflection in the body itself,

That when we get stuck,

There's a kind of tension in the body that becomes evident.

When we go down and we can't go any further,

We feel tense.

When we open and drop further,

The body relaxes further.

So somehow,

Our dropping our awareness down has something to do with deeper and deeper relaxation of our physical body.

So you can explore that.

As you do this,

You can accommodate your feelings,

Whatever they are.

There's no problem with however you may be feeling.

You can still open and drop,

Feel anxious or content or whatever.

It doesn't really have any particular impact.

You can just keep dropping down into the empty,

Open space of awareness beneath you.

If you feel yourself stalled out,

Even on the surface,

Just work with that boundary.

Wherever your boundary is,

As far as you can go,

That's what you're working to see and open and then drop beyond,

Downward.

This is a good start.

Now what we're going to do is take a minute or two and then sit back up and try to leave your sense of the earth under you intact as much as you can.

Even though you're sitting up,

You're also very,

Very aware of the earth under you as you sit up.

It's almost like you're sitting up and you're going to be sitting on space,

This open,

Very peaceful earth energy under us.

Just try to stay in touch with it.

We've been doing mindfulness of the earth,

Believe it or not.

That's what this basically comes down to.

By putting our attention down into the earth,

We begin to sense its vastness,

Its silence,

Its peace,

Its stillness.

That begins to be part of our system,

Part of our body.

People don't become peaceful.

The earth is peaceful and when we open ourselves to the peace of the earth,

Then that peace becomes our peace.

But it's not really fundamentally ours ever.

But then it is ours when we're really truly open to it.

So we're going to extend this practice now.

All the meditating with the body practices are done sometimes lying down and sometimes sitting up.

We do them both ways.

The lying down part enables us to experience a kind of complete openness and relaxation over time.

And then,

Of course,

What we're really looking for is not only to experience it but to bring it into our active lives so that even when we're sitting up or even walking around,

There is the same kind of depth and profundity that we discover when we're lying down.

So we're going to do the earth practice now,

Sitting up.

And we're going to begin by breathing into the perineum,

Bringing the breath up through the perineum from underneath.

You may say,

Well,

We're not really bringing the physical breath in,

But actually we are.

In the tradition of Tibetan yoga,

A teacher who teaches aspects of this Trangarambashe invented that people in retreat,

When they achieve a very deep level of stillness,

Don't need to breathe through their mouth or nose.

All the breath that they need is taken in through the pores of the skin.

And this is actually important because as long as you breathe in through the breath or the nose,

You're stirring up the water of mind,

Even if it's very subtle,

When you breathe in only through your pores,

Which you do with the kind of practice we're doing here,

Then the mind can settle into a kind of absolute stillness,

Which is useful in various practices of Tibetan yoga.

In this case,

We're breathing in through the perineum.

We're not going to achieve that level of stillness,

You know,

We wouldn't unless we're in retreat,

But we can use that principle.

So breathing in through the perineum,

Bringing the breath through the pores in the perineum into the body,

Breathing from under us.

As we begin doing this,

You'll begin to notice things about your perineum.

You'll notice that it's maybe a little achy.

You'll notice it might be a little tense in certain places.

You'll notice that there's a kind of general holding on there,

A kind of lack of real connection with the cushion under you.

So keep breathing into the perineum and just see what the body is calling for you to do.

Relaxation,

Descending,

Connecting with the earth more nakedly,

Whatever it might be.

You can slow the in-breath down.

Let the perineum and the sits bones and the anal area all can relax and open.

Relaxation,

Descending,

Connecting with the earth more nakedly,

Whatever it might be.

So,

When we're breathing into the perineum and the surrounding area,

It's really a constant kind of conversation,

A constant process of letting go,

Of feeling all of a sudden a new place where we're hanging on,

Letting go of that.

Relaxation,

Descending,

Connecting with the earth more nakedly,

Whatever it might be.

Try to be very present in the perineum as you breathe in.

And you'll see that as you breathe in,

You're constantly tightening it up,

Tensing up,

And then letting go.

So this is okay.

This is actually how it works.

But there's an unconscious habitual pattern in most modern people in the perineum to begin to tense up.

The minute you lose your awareness of it,

You're tightening it up again.

Tightening up means separating from the earth.

An open perineum means openness to the earth underneath.

So we lose our awareness,

We forget,

We start thinking,

We come back,

We realize that we've tensed up again.

Then we start breathing in again,

Start relaxing.

So that's the journey.

That's the path with the perineum.

And believe it or not,

When you work with your perineum,

You're actually working with your connection with the earth.

That's really what is going on here.

How connected can we be,

Or how connected are we willing to be with the earth under us?

It's quite shocking how quickly we tense up.

We just keep working with it.

And just visualize that it's continually opening,

Continually relaxing,

Continually letting go of its clenching and its tension.

Okay,

Good.

And so now we're just going to sit for a minute or two.

We'll have a short,

Silent break in a minute.

I'm just going to sit now for a minute or two and just feel your body and feel the earth under you.

What is it like to have this awareness that's directed downward?

Thanks for its дум携et.

There's a kind of superstructure in our body and our mind.

You can just let that tumble down into the earth.

It's as if the superstructure just collapses.

Down,

Down,

Down.

You can ask yourself,

How do I feel about the earth under me at this time?

Do I feel it?

Do I sense it?

Do I feel also a kind of shaky,

Wobbly relationship to it?

Do I feel some pulling back at the same time that I feel called?

What is the exact nature of how we're feeling at this moment?

How would you contrast the feeling of the earth itself with your feeling in your body?

Does the earth feel fundamentally peaceful,

Open and still?

Does your body feel kind of shaky and uncertain in relationship to it?

The important point isn't that there's a right way.

The important point is to see what's actually happening.

And that's mindfulness.

And then out of that,

Being present to what's happening and seeing it,

Things open,

Gateways open for us.

So we're just trying to see what's going on.

Please continue this practice as long as you like.

Reviews

Loved this! Exploring the 10 points more too & the connection I felt was amazing

Excellent. Deeply grounding.

Very grounding

Superb +++

Thank you I’m feeling very internally quiet now.

Felt very centered & grounded in stillness. Thank you!

Amazing. Such deep peacefulness and grounding. Thank you so much . Namaste 🙏🤍

🌎🧘‍♀️♥️🙏

Amazing!
At first I wasn't comfortable nlying down but became more relaxes later and then changing to seating position was a wonderful experience esp feeling the connection to the earth.

A most grounding practice

Very fresh and unique! Thankyou I feel more spacious and relaxed!

I feel connected with myself and earth! It feels powerful, strong, steady, peaceful and there is a lot off space... so peaceful and quiet💓 Namaste🙏

Thank you so much, Reggie🙏🐞🌟🔥

Love this connection to the earth feeling, very different way of breathing, great awareness, thankyou! 🙏🏼❤️❤️

Exceptionally good deep meditation.The voice steady and the words builded in such way to deliver the innerpeace

Deeply calming and grounding. Thank you.

Wonderful, thank you

Thank you for sharing