Meditation: Breathing 9 Beneficial Energies Into Embodiment

In this meditation (recorded live), we worked with breath to embody the beneficial energies of: smiling; our most relaxed experience; gratitude; forgiveness; service; loving-kindness; compassion; (vicarious) joy; and equanimity. Plus dropping in a related list of words to further the effects.

Transcript

Okay,

So let's just tune into our breath,

Since it's fairly pronounced after the five cheap breathing exercises.

Let's just notice where we notice it in our body.

And let's do a brief body scan with our breath.

So let's breathe into the head area,

Hair,

Scalp,

Skull,

Brain,

Nasal passages,

Roof of the mouth,

Tongue,

Lips,

Teeth,

Gums,

Eyeballs,

Muscles around the eyes,

Face,

Ears,

Chin,

Neck,

Front and back,

Top of the shoulders,

Through the lower arms,

First the upper arms,

The hands,

Back up to the shoulders,

Breathing in and out,

The upper torso,

All sides,

Lower torso,

All sides,

Hip and pelvic region,

Upper legs,

Lower legs,

Feet,

Relax,

Then sweeping up to the body,

Feet,

Legs,

Hips,

Abdomen,

Shoulders,

Arms,

Neck,

Head,

Relax.

So we're going to tune into some of these heart qualities and we're going to see if we can incorporate it with the breathing.

Sometimes we might leave the breath or maybe not.

So let's bring to mind the energy of a smile.

So if this doesn't feel authentic right now,

That's okay.

We can potentially remember a time in the past or maybe someone smiled at us or we smiled at someone or maybe who we'd like to smile at or who we'd like to receive a smile from in the future.

Or even better just right now,

Feel the energy and smile and we can breathe that into our eyes.

So the physical eyes,

Can you imagine a smile there and how that feels smiling into the eyes.

So with the breath we would breathe into the eyes with the energy of a smile.

If it's too complicated you can just choose what feels natural.

And then just a slight smile at the mouth if that's possible.

Breathe in and out of that and into the throat from the inside out,

A smile from the inside out of the throat.

Breathing in and feeling a smile in the throat.

Then into our heart,

Center of the chest from the inside out.

Feel free to use any imagery,

Memories or imagination you'd like here.

And then into the tummy,

Into the hips,

Pelvis.

Okay,

So the next one is,

Imagine probably the most relaxed we've ever been.

Maybe it was on vacation or maybe we just had a good massage.

Or maybe we have just,

Or we can imagine where we would be the most relaxed in the future somewhere.

Or even just tuning into relaxation now.

Tuning into that energy and then breathing that energy and suffusing the entire body with it.

It's the best we're able now.

Inviting that energy.

And now read the list that I mentioned earlier.

Open,

Allow,

Permit,

Embrace,

Inhabit,

Be with,

Accompany,

Free,

Melt,

Soften,

Smooth,

Safe,

Surrender,

Sweetness,

Gentleness,

Care,

Yes,

Tenderness,

Ease,

Expand,

Expansion,

Relax,

Release,

Include,

Trust.

It's okay?

This too.

This belongs.

It is like this.

So a few more moments with breathing in.

Great relaxation.

And then we can remember or imagine,

Or even now.

On to the next one,

Gratitude.

So it could be anything that comes to mind with gratitude.

What we're grateful for,

What we'd like to be grateful for,

Gratitude that others have shown us,

What it may feel like when we receive gratitude and give gratitude.

Tuning into that energy and breathing it deeper into the body and releasing throughout the body.

Gratitude.

Next one is forgiveness.

Now this can be a tricky one sometimes.

It can be very powerful so feel free to skip this if you'd like.

Otherwise,

There's three ways forgiveness.

Forgiveness that we receive from others,

Forgiveness that we offer others,

And forgiveness we can forgive ourselves with.

So any of those that we've received in the past,

Maybe we've relieved burdens this way.

Focus on our benefit if possible.

We can also consider maybe sometime in the future we can think about possibly forgiving or getting forgiveness or offering ourselves forgiveness.

And if this is available right now,

We can breathe in to the relief that this offers.

Some action may come to mind.

It doesn't mean we're approving of any actions involved in anything to do with forgiveness.

It's simply knowing that carrying this burden or carrying the burden that we carry can be a relief benefit to forgiveness.

Or even just considering this is a possibility maybe sometime way down the line.

Okay.

The next one is service.

So we can even include service that we've received from someone else.

It can be as simple as just having a good service at a restaurant.

It can be something we've done,

A benefit for a friend,

A loved one,

Maybe even a total stranger.

Tapping into the energy of service.

So when we help others,

We help ourselves.

When we help ourselves,

We help others.

When we receive help from others,

We're not only getting help,

We're allowing others to help as well.

So breathing in this energy of service throughout the whole body.

Okay.

The next one,

Loving kindness.

So I usually use some phrases I like for loving kindness.

I'm going to use it in the I sense.

You're welcome to use it for yourself,

Loved ones,

Strangers or not strangers,

But neutral ones,

People that you don't know,

Where there's no emotional charge,

You're feeling brave,

We can use it for a challenging person,

Are the most expansive all beings everywhere.

May I be safe inside and out.

May I be happy and joyful.

May I be healthy and strong.

May I live knowing ease,

Peace.

May I realize awakening and be free.

You can breathe kindness,

Loving kindness in and out of our heart and invite it to radiate throughout the whole body.

And just know with some of these practices,

The exact opposite can come up and that's actually good if that happens too because it's a purification so things may arise to be released.

So know that that's very common.

Okay.

The next one is compassion and I'll just say the phrases.

There's four phrases for compassion.

We can keep breathing in now the heart and I'll use it in the first person again here.

Welcome to use it for ourselves or others.

Maybe there's a time and place in a person that's not too challenging but someone where we feel we'd like to offer more compassion for them and ourselves.

The biggest thing is acknowledging the pain that's there so I acknowledge this pain and I care about this pain to the best of my ability now.

May this pain release and may I know peace.

The energy of compassion,

Acknowledgement of this precious human life.

Acknowledge pain involved.

It's a choice to let it get to suffering.

So we acknowledge pain and have a sincere wish to do whatever we can to alleviate it.

Okay the next one,

Something in the script here is sympathetic or empathetic or vicarious joy.

So being happy for the happiness of others.

We can also just tune into joy for ourselves as well.

There's billions of people on this planet so that's we have billions of chances to be happy.

We can be happy for another person's happiness.

So the traditional phrases are,

May your happiness increase,

May your happiness never stop,

May your happiness continue and increase,

May it never stop.

Breathing this in and out,

The heart center throughout the whole body.

Again feel free to use memories,

Imagination,

Rejoice occasions somewhere it's easy to connect or the joy just flows naturally.

May your joy continue and increase,

May it never stop.

The last one is equanimity.

So this is like the wise grandparent wisdom of,

Okay I care deeply about you and sometimes I realize that I just have to step back and let you live your own life,

Make your own decisions and the vice versa of someone who's really loving and wise we admire and we know that and we're grateful and respect that they're choosing to keep an even keel and balance and let us make our own choices and be responsible for our own behavior.

So this wise and loving grandparently wisdom,

Balance,

Equipoise of mind and heart.

Breathing this in and out,

Chest,

Heart,

Putting it suffused throughout the whole body.

Let's just take a moment to scan through our bodies and see if there's any areas that are crying out for extra attention or just calling our attention and we can use kind of the some of the good energy we've cultivated throughout this and can start to direct it towards there but not in the forceful way we can invite it.

We can also envelop that area with this energy so that way we're not forcing it we're just wrapping it in this beneficial energy,

Focusing on the beneficial energy.

Maybe if we were to take like a sack and as maybe a wild animal has gotten loose inside the city and we've got the wild animal inside the sack and of course they don't know what's going on but we're going to relocate that wild animal back in the wild.

So why we're doing this,

Why we're wrapping it in beneficial energy,

It can be doing its own thing in the body.

Knowing that in time this would be beneficial.

So let's just take a few moments to whatever calls to us for practice right now.

Spend some moments in silence.

Continue with any of the things we just did.

Feel free to do whatever is calling you right now,

Whatever practice is calling you.

So a few moments in the meditation.

And I will just share and please join me with your intent if you'd like of sharing whatever merit we've earned or accumulated today with all beings everywhere.

And realize that we're also one of those beings as well.

So may we share just as equally in this merit if you choose to share.

So may all beings everywhere be safe inside and out.

May all beings everywhere be happy and joyful.

May all beings everywhere be healthy and strong.

May all beings everywhere live knowing ease and peace.

May all beings everywhere realize awakening and be free.