Your Daily Shamatha Ritual

Sit with me for a guided daily Shamatha ritual. If you loved my 21-Day Shamatha Challenge, this video was made for you. Sit, get tuned in, move through a short, seated energy practice, breath-work and finally a 10-minute focused Shamatha session. This video is great for daily, consistent use to strengthen your meditation discipline.

Transcript

Hello, My friends, And welcome to a daily shamatha ritual. Many of you know this ritual from doing my 21-day shamatha challenges that I like to do throughout the year. And so this video is for you on demand when you want to sit and have that morning ritual with me. You can turn it on and do it now. I'll go through what it's going to be structured like, And then we'll go ahead and dive in. So we're going to start with a little energy tune-in for a couple minutes. Bit of qigong through the body to open the gates of the body and get the energy moving then a little bit of breath work to down regulate your system then we will spend 10 minutes sitting in focused shamatha meditation so i would invite you to make sure you have candle burning or a stick of incense burning or anything you can rest your focus on as we will be sitting in meditation with our eyes open. I also recommend that you sit on something, Whether it's a folded blanket, A pillow, A cushion, Or a chair. Okay, So we're about a minute in. Let's go ahead and get started. Getting comfortable in your seat, Finding that meditative posture, Closing the eyes and taking a breath in. Exhaling out. Breathing in again. And out. One more breath in. And exhaling to arrive into your full presence, Into awareness, Into your existence. You woke up today. You're alive and breathing. What a blessing. What is it like to be you this morning? What is it like to be you? What is it like to exist today? Just observe as you breathe. Starting to bring awareness into your physical body, Maybe hands touching skin, Maybe some organic gentle movement, Saying hello to the body for the first time today. What is your body needing? How is your physical form feeling? Breathing into the physical form. And exhaling into stillness. Bringing your awareness now to the energy body. Your feelings. Your emotions, The sensations that are present. Reminding yourself that we welcome all feelings to be here with us. All emotions are allowed to sit with us just for this short session. And we remind our bodies that they're perfectly capable of processing any feeling. That are with us today. So acknowledging how you're feeling and allowing it to be. Breathing into the energy body. Ah. And dropping into the mind, Where is your mind? What happens when you look towards your thinking mind, The thoughts, The images? The words, The narration. All the noise that's been running through your head today. Can you just observe? Breathing in. And out. Breathing into the mind space. And dropping down into the heart. Maybe a hand comes to the heart to connect. How is your heart today? How is your heart? And as we breathe into that heart, Can we start to visualize a beautiful lotus flower blossoming open in that heart chakra, Petal by petal by petal? Arousing bodhicitta, That innate desire to do good, To be good, To benefit, To practice for the benefit of all beings. Feeling that heart opening. From that open heart, You can set your intention for the day. What do you need? What is your intention to carry through this day? Seeing that word arising for you. And breathing into it. Exhaling to feel the energy of that word filling your body Good, Breaking off and coming on back, Opening the eyes. How are we? We are just getting a little bit warmed up. Moving now into warming up the body, Taking that intention that you just set and bringing that energy into the palms of the hands, Calling that energy into the heat we're building in the palms. And we'll start by bringing it to the knees, Warming the knees, Connecting with the knees. And pulling that energy up the thighs. Hooking those hands into the hip flexors. Inhale to elongate the spine, Straighten the arms. Breathing in, Stretching out those subtle channels. Good. Exhale. Hands come to belly. Big circles. Fronts of fists come to lower back, Big circles. Hands come to heart, Big circles. Giving the throat a little cold. Giving the ears a little tug. And taking the knuckles of the thumbs to the third eye and we can trace them around the eyes. Around the nose, Around the mouth, Down the chin, Up the jaw, Over the ears. Two more times around the eyes. Around the nose. Around the mouth. Down the chin. Up the jaw. Over the ears. Once more. Around the eyes. The nose. The mouth. Down the chin. Up the ears. Good. And with really gentle fists, We're going to tap, Tap, Tap. Down the central channels of the skull, Tap, Tap, Tap down the back of the neck and back up. And again, Down the back of the neck. And back up, Right hand comes to left trap. Tapping out, The tension in that shoulder, Switch sides. We are just breaking up the energy, Waking up the chi in the body. Good, Come down that left arm. And back up two times. Switch sides, Down right arm. Good, Take out left leg, Down the sides of the leg and back up. Switch sides, Down the right leg. And back up. Beautiful, Crisscrossing the legs again, Coming back to your seat, Close the eyes, Take a breath in. Notice the effect. Notice how you're feeling now. We're going to go ahead and smooth down that energy now by clapping the hands together. And smoothing it down. As if we're taking a little shower getting rid of any energy. That you wanna let go of, Any foreign energies, Anything you don't need today, We are just wiping it off. And now it's all in the hands, We're gonna. . . Flick it right out the fingertips. Flick, Flick, Flick. Shake out the wrist. Palms come forward, Take a breath in and repeat after me. Ah ah ah letting the hands rest on the thighs Getting comfortable in your seated posture, Making any adjustments you need to. We're going to dive right into our breath work, Starting with a breath in. Exhaling all the way out with control out the nose. Empty empty empty push all the air out holding the breath at the bottom. And beginning to breathe in, Filling the belly. Filling the lungs. Filling the chest. Sipping in more air. Stretching those bronchioles. Breathing in, Breathing in. Good, Let's do that four more times. Exhaling nice and slow out the nose with control. Empty empty empty slowly breathing in through the belly. The lungs. The chest. Sipping in more air. Stretching those lungs hovering at the top. Good. Exhale with control. Out the nose. Nice and slow and long. Empty empty empty empty holding the breath at the bottom for a count or two. And when you're ready, Breathing in through the belly. Through the ribs. Through the chest. Sipping in more air. Hovering at the top. Exhaling nice and slow with control empty, Empty, Empty, Empty, Empty, Push all the air out of the body. Filling up in the belly. The lungs. The chest. Sipping in more air, Feeling that fullness hovering in the top. One last final slow exhale with control out the nose. Make it as long and controlled as you can, Pushing all of the oxygen out of the body at the bottom. Holding the breath for one. Four. Good, Big breath in. Sigh it out. Relax into your body, Relax into your breath. Notice how you're feeling now. We've got the body all warmed up, The energy all warmed up. And now we can settle on the mind for 10 minutes. So resetting your posture, Making sure you're comfortable. There should be no pain. Legs are comfortable on the ground. Bottoms of feet are comfortable on the ground. Tilt the pelvis forward. Let the spine get tall. Roll shoulders back. Rest hands on thighs. Tilting chin ever so slightly forward. Gazing at the burning candle or the incense stick in front of you a breath in to begin. And exhaling. To rest your gaze on the space in front of you. And follow the breath in and out. Resting your gaze. Resting your mind. And allowing the breath to settle into an easy pace of in and out. Noticing if any thoughts are arising, If you're wandering off with your mind, Just bring it back, Breathing in. Resting your gaze on the space in front of you. Focusing on nothing but the breath. And softening where you can. Releasing any tension, Gripping or grasping wherever you can, Breathing in. And exhaling to soften, Resting the gaze. Effortlessly breathing. Okay, If the mind wanders off again, We just notice, Where is it wandering to? And how quickly can we bring it back to gazing at this candle? Breathing in and out. Giving your mind a rest from all the other distractions and just focusing on this single pointed object. My breath in brings me focus. And my exhale lets me relax. Focusing as I'm breathing in. And relaxing as I'm breathing out. Rest your mind. Rest your breath. But stay aware. Soften in your body. Find stillness. Relax into your breath. Soften in your mind. We're almost there. Stay with yourself. Keep breathing. Stay focused. Full awareness, You can hear everything. You can feel everything that's touching you. You can smell, You can taste. You can see the color. And the shadow and the light coming in. Fully aware of the breath. The body. The energy in the mind. Fully lit up, Activated, Tuned in, Turned on, Awake. Deepening the breath. Ah, Deepening the breath. One last big breath in. Exhaling to break off. Look around your space. Complete your meditation, Have a little stretch. And notice how you're feeling now. Thank you so much for joining me for this practice today. If you have a little bit of extra time, I'd recommend that you open up your journal and write down everything that came up today. Leave me a review, Give me a follow, And come back anytime you need this daily ritual. It's here for you every day. Thank you so much. Have a beautiful day ahead of you.