In Life, Made Of Life: A Meditation With Belly & Breath

As humans, we are not what we think we are. Letting the body be on the ground. Letting waves of breath wash through you, is there somewhere it feels good? The moving shape of your breathing, like a sea creature, moving in or through the sea, heavy and floating. In life, made of life, like a jellyfish in the water and made of water. Really being in your breath, in your breathing, being moved by life.

Transcript

A big welcome,

Please be comfortable.

Maybe let your body decide what comfortable is like today.

What gives a sense of freshness and contact with the ground that is supportive and spacious?

As if you were preparing seeds to sprout.

A chance of going into stillness in a way that would feel like seeds could sprout,

Could open out of their shell and go deeper into the ground.

If you find as you are settling in or trying to settle in physically,

That stillness is bringing more agitation than considering the possibility of movement.

If that could be a better way of connecting with life for this half an hour.

And just double checking that you're plugged in enough.

Seeing the friendliness of taking that moment of care with the posture,

With where you are.

Windows open,

Closed.

Knees supported.

And as we continue to settle in like a small rock slowly falling towards the bottom of a lake,

A big lake of life.

A slow motion but natural falling.

As we start to fall into place,

Perhaps just considering the subject of judgment or blame and forgiveness.

So if there is some kind of subject for you with yourself or with another person,

Something that hurts,

You wish you had behaved differently or you wish another person had behaved differently.

Just for some brief moments,

If you wish not to wake up a bunch of drama or thinking but as settling down towards the bottom of the lake of life,

How natural that we get hurt,

That we deliberately or unintentionally hurt each other and get hurt.

And just considering really briefly and simply towards understanding what are the factors that go into that,

Hurting each other and getting hurt.

Being in a hurry,

Being afraid,

Feeling so small that some reaction comes out that's big or not realizing how much space we take up or not realizing our power.

And when we hurt ourselves.

When we don't let ourselves have that friendliness of taking care with how am I going to sit or lie down,

Where am I going to sit or lie down?

Could I support the knees better,

For example?

Could I unplug or stop listening so much to that critical voice inside?

What are the factors that go into that?

Self hurt.

Where do we feel it in the body?

When we feel self blame or criticism that's got an emotional charge to it.

Or when we have blame of another person with an emotional charge to it.

What is,

What's the theme and where do we feel that in the body?

So meditation is not going to be an escape from intentionally and also unintentionally,

Accidentally hurting each other and getting hurt.

We're not trying to dig ourselves under the ground out of life or under a carpet somewhere.

But to be wisely in the world.

Just feeling in the body what it's like when we feel we're in too much of a hurry to bother with finding a good place or a good cushion for the meditation.

Covering up so we won't be too cold later on or turning off the devices to give ourselves a break or whatever.

It's not so much that we can always control our programming,

We can't always turn it off.

But we can start to understand the factors that more easily lead towards hurting and getting hurt and what that feels like in the body.

Being in a hurry,

Being afraid,

Not realizing how much influence we have on each other.

So,

If it comes to mind something that someone else does that bothers you.

Or something that you do that bothers you.

And if it's possible without it becoming an overwhelming mind state,

Just feeling in the body what's happening.

The way the mind keeps turning to that page of the book,

So to speak,

Of how that person does that thing that bothers you or how you do that thing that bothers you.

What does that feeling bothered feel like in your body?

If possible.

And if we're not trying to justify anything,

We're not bringing in a sense of right or wrong.

Maybe you're right to be bothered or maybe you're wrong depending on how you look at it.

But just feeling bothered,

How do you feel that in your body?

If it's not possible to tune into this now or not interesting,

So just the contact with the ground can be a really good place to start to rest into and feel.

Or to feel the contact with the ground and that place that gets activated when you're feeling bothered by yourself or someone else.

So we're just noticing what that emotional charge feels like.

And kind of secondarily we're noticing what is the theme that has the emotional charge.

Is it around my space or my boundaries?

Is it around the word respect?

Around the word failure or success?

Caring or not caring?

Is it around the word stupid or ignorant?

Is it tied somewhere to a sense of enoughness or not enoughness?

So the feeling bothered and then what is the theme?

The feeling of an emotional charge around a certain theme and how you feel that in your body and the ground.

Just for a few moments longer if you wish.

Knowing that everyone you know has things that bother them.

There are certain themes that have an emotional charge that's not our wish or in our control.

We all have our programming.

We all have buttons that get pushed and then that comes on.

That's our human situation.

Making it as not right or wrong but just feeling in the body for a moment.

And then unless it's really interesting to you and you're in a good flow with it,

Maybe letting a longer out-breath kind of wash through.

Acknowledging that our human situation,

It's not what we thought.

It's not what we think we are.

We're not sitting at a dashboard that we can just make everything be how we want it to be and yet here we are.

And here's the ground,

Letting the body be on the ground as if kind of in a nest.

Cozy and maybe not going anywhere for a little bit.

Gravity and another breath happening by itself.

Perhaps feeling for a while the whole tides of the breath wherever you feel it.

Just now where is it more noticeable?

Where is it more subtle?

As if letting the waves of breath wash through you.

Perhaps there's somewhere that it feels really good or subtly good.

Perhaps getting a sense of the moving shape of your breathing,

Like a sea creature perhaps.

Moving in or through the sea.

Heavy and floating.

More heavy and moving.

Is there somewhere in your body that you feel more good feeling your breath or more possible to feel your breath?

To kind of stay still and let the breath move you.

To let your mind open and fall and gather in with the physical movements.

To accommodate that life movement.

To be responsive with it.

Like a jellyfish bringing water in and flaring out like a sail full of wind.

And then whooshing out the breath.

Just changing shape.

Is there somewhere where it's easier to hang out and feel the movements of breathing?

The flavor in your mind of breathing.

Somewhere where it's easier to let your breath go on being itself rather than trying to change the breath from somewhere in your head or trying to watch the breath from somewhere in your upper body.

But really being in your body,

In your breathing.

Being moved by life.

As if we really don't know what movement comes next.

And being in the whole breath as if the breath is like a jellyfish.

Realizing how the different stages of the breath feel in your mind.

Is there a lightening and brightening with the in-breath at all?

Is there a kind of darkening with the out-breath at all?

What is the very beginning of the in-breath like?

Where does it feel like it begins?

Maybe more than one place.

As for the thinking mind.

Isn't it like being in a kind of curious game or world?

That part of our mind can be feeling our breath and part of our mind can be in a movie about yesterday seven years ago,

Seven years from now.

A rose garden,

An argument.

What is a thought made of?

Where does it come from?

Where does it go?

And if we're allowed just to be curious rather than to think that we've got something wrong if the mind started thinking before we asked it to.

If we could let that help us find ourselves in the midst of a curious game or a curious world where I find myself thinking and yet start discovering that some other part of my mind is still with the breathing or can now also feel the breathing.

So just again feeling that kind of as if the breathing shape shapes and movements is almost like an organism that we can embody,

Inhabit,

Enjoy.

We can let it be so subtle and so simple and enjoy letting it be sensual and more and more subtle,

More and more simple.

As if we were something like a jellyfish in the sea that is really enjoying being made of water and in water,

Really enjoying that what's inside and what's outside are almost the same,

Are so close,

Almost continuous through our skin,

Through our sense of a membrane of what we are.

And if breathing is difficult for you,

Is there somewhere maybe lower down in your body that you feel some movements of the breath,

A rocking in the pelvis or the underside of the diaphragm or the expanding of the skin somewhere?

Letting it take care of itself.

Not looking at the breath as if we're looking at ourselves in the mirror,

Looking for what's wrong,

Looking for pimples,

Looking for whatever we don't want to see,

But almost as if we're in a,

Maybe a sunny sea that's almost blindingly bright.

We can't really see much,

But it feels good.

And we can spread out a little bit and enjoy being met by our environment,

By the ground and the air,

The breath pouring in and pouring out.

Unsacνe.

May all beings be at peace.

This awakening to what is towards awakening for all.

This awakening to what is towards awakening for all.

Reviews

Jaya is always illuminating. Her style and descriptions are organic and non schematic. You’re often caught by surprise which allows for sudden insights.

Once again, your imagery resonates perfectly with me right now. It seems rather miraculous that I found you amongst the thousands of meditations here.

Really helpful, thank you.

Thank you Jaya. Wonderful imagery.