First of all,
Let's just notice how we're sitting,
And feel that contact with the ground through our feet,
And then bringing our attention to that position on the chair.
And if you can,
If the seat allows,
Seeing if you can just tilt your pelvis forward,
So the bottom of the spine is straight.
So how do we know without looking in a mirror whether it's straight or not?
What you can do is just move this pelvis,
This tilt in the pelvis back and forth,
Exploring the position that feels the most upright.
And during this whole practice,
I invite you,
Whenever you feel yourself dropping off,
Losing focus,
To come back to this tilt of the pelvis,
Exploring,
Finding the center there,
Coming to a point of stillness when you feel that you've found it.
And often when you,
How you know you've found it is,
You feel it up your spine,
You feel it in your neck,
This nerve called the polyvagal nerve that goes down from the center of the brain all the way down.
In Chinese medicine it's called the central channel.
On an energetic level,
It feels straight,
And energy flows easier between the mind and the body.
And establishing that still,
Upright position,
Feeling the feet on the floor,
Feeling the spine flexible but upright,
Opens the channel for the mind to drop down into the body,
Letting the attention rest on this breath.
And we're going to control the breath just a little bit,
Because this is our other way of accessing and changing our physiology,
Is through lengthening our breath.
So letting our attention rest on the out-breath,
Extending that out-breath as well,
Longer than you might usually.
Letting the in-breath follow naturally,
And resting our attention on this out-breath.
And even with this,
The doors of this channel wide open for the mind to drop into the body,
Sometimes there's some resistance,
The mind preoccupied.
And if that's the case,
Just noticing that too.
There's no right or wrong here.
So that restlessness,
When we react to it,
Perpetuates the restlessness.
So what's the alternative?
Well,
Simply to acknowledge it and return the attention,
Letting it rest on this outer breath.
Every time there's a distraction,
Either from sounds outside or the inner workings,
Noticing that and simply coming back to this out-breath,
Lengthening this out-breath,
Letting the in-breath come in naturally.
And so the breath can be felt in several different places.
Let's focus on the breath as we experience it in our belly.
You might like to imagine that there's a triangle formed by your hips and the belly button.
And in that triangle there's a balloon that fills and empties with each breath.
The belly button is the top of the triangle,
The peak,
And then the base,
Two bottom corners of the triangle are your hips,
Your hip joints.
And in the center of the triangle,
There's a balloon that fills with each in-breath and then empties with each out-breath.
And again,
As this balloon inflates and deflates,
Really experimenting,
Checking that this movement of the pelvis,
You still have this strong base,
That it feels open.
And this balloon in this triangle is like a furnace.
It's like where infinite energy arises,
Where all our actions to come from this place we would never tire.
So when we do this practice,
It's like stoking the fire.
And during the day,
Whenever we have recourse to,
We can always come back to this point,
This triangle,
This balloon,
This adjustment in the hips.
And as we come to the end of the practice,
Let's drop all this visualization,
All this control of the breath,
And just simply rest in this awareness,
Just sitting.
Whatever arises,
Let it arise,
Mind,
Body,
Impulse,
Simply resting in awareness of whatever's happening,
Taking a few deeper breaths and stretching if need be,
Before opening our eyes.
