Spaciousness With Feeling & Emotion

In this meditation, I unfold an embodied spaciousness where we tap and expand our capacity to be with arising feelings and emotions. We practice the simultaneity of fully consenting to feel and the open freedom of awareness.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to this meditation and training on embracing feeling and emotion with spaciousness.

And I say a training because as we practice something like this,

Our capacity expands.

Perhaps in the beginning,

Holding a little bit of irritation or a little bit of anxiety in spaciousness is quite a relief and is an empowerment.

And yet as we continue the training over time,

We may find that more and more emotion we can inhabit and embrace with a quality of openness and dignity.

So I'll strike the bell and we will begin.

So I'm going to start with the bell.

We're beginning to touch down into this present moment.

Using some aspect of your physical experience to root you in this unfolding,

To root you in this moment's experience.

And could be the feeling of your feet on the floor and the feeling of your hands.

Perhaps you rest in the rhythm of the heartbeat or the rise and fall of the belly.

Touching down into the present,

Make it a conscious disconnection,

A conscious disengagement from the past and from the future.

Tuning into these sensations and beginning to arrive.

I'm going to begin with the whole body as a spacious container for feeling and emotion.

So I invite you to now expand awareness to encompass the whole body.

Now we could say that the body,

The experienced body is a presencing.

It is awareness.

It presents itself.

Body and awareness are a unity.

Yet our mind tends to focus and partialize.

It tends to grasp onto one aspect of the body over another.

For example,

We might zoom in on what doesn't feel well and exclude the rest of the bodily field.

So to support whole body awareness,

Invite these four points to be present at the same time.

The presence of the place where your bottom is contacting the cushion,

The chair or whatever.

The crown of the head and whatever sensations are arising in that area.

And then the left and the right hand or the left and the right knee.

Allowing these four points to be present.

The sensations of these four areas,

Bottom,

Crown and left and right knee or hands.

And those are like anchor points.

As if we are pinning a piece of fabric spread open.

Or spreading the fabric of awareness open.

And so with these four points in presence,

Sustaining that as an intention.

Also including whatever sensation of the whole body is present.

And it's important that we don't look for it to feel a particular way.

We're inviting the body's presence.

We're inviting the whole field,

The whole arena of the body as presence.

So making whatever quality of effort to stay with this ongoing texturing,

Ongoing presencing of the body.

And at the same time it's receptive.

We're receiving the ongoing feeling,

The texturing of the body.

As we continue,

You may find it helpful to return to these four points to reestablish the open arena of the bodily field.

And of course it's natural that we will wander,

That attention will close onto one point or another.

And so we just patiently renew these four points,

Returning to openness.

So receiving the presence of the whole body.

Become aware of the quality of feeling or emotion that is unfolding here and now.

And it may be a very subtle feeling of wellbeing or maybe of melancholy,

Perhaps irritation,

Perhaps stronger emotion,

Maybe grief,

Maybe anger.

Becoming aware of this feeling or emotion as a texturing,

As a presencing within this larger field.

So you're holding this bodily space for this feeling to unfold in.

It's a little bit like fishes swimming in an aquarium.

But the difference is we're feeling this swimming of feeling.

We're feeling this emotion as it swims through this larger bodily space.

Being a sensitive container.

And we notice,

Especially with stronger feelings and emotions,

The way the mind would like to label,

The way we might have a tendency to contract or to not want to feel.

Yet we are practicing fully consenting to whatever feeling is presencing.

Fully consenting to whatever feeling is presencing within this larger body space.

You may notice in that moment of fully consenting,

There's a particular kind of peace of not being in conflict and not being in avoidance.

Sustaining the four points,

The bodily field as a container for whatever feelings are presencing.

And if there's no feelings that you are aware of,

You might want to bring in a memory of some minor irritation.

And let that memory spark a quality of irritation.

And practice holding that in this larger field.

Fully consenting to feeling,

Fully allowing it to presence.

This fully allowing has a quality of remaining soft with the feeling.

Fully allowing is a relinquishing of control over what we're feeling.

Bodily space in this quality of openness as a tender yet powerful container for being with feeling.

And see if you might like to take the edges of the body,

The felt contour of the body as the walls of the bodily container.

And within that bodily container,

Embracing whatever feelings,

Whatever sensations are presencing.

Perhaps dialing up the quality of stability with the body so that the container for this feeling has a little bit more firmness.

And developing this skill of soft firmness,

Firm softness.

And now we will shift the field of awareness to the space of the room.

The intention itself to expand awareness to the space of the room is often quite sufficient.

And you don't need to try and feel anything in particular.

Invite awareness to fill the room.

The eyes open can be a support for this.

And now taking the space of the room,

The openness of the room as the container,

Become aware of bodily sensations including feelings and emotions,

Presencing now within this larger space.

Now the space of the room is the larger body.

And whatever textures of the body are arising are arising within this expanded space.

And note if you feel a different quality of spaciousness or ease as you now embrace bodily presencing within this larger field.

Staying in that consent to feel whatever is arising simultaneous with this spaciousness.

Kind of seeming paradox.

Fully feeling yet totally free with that feeling.

Feelings of the body,

Feelings,

Emotions,

Presencing within this space of the room.

This is more a relaxation than an effort.

Yet exerting enough effort that you maintain this room space.

You keep a bead on this space of the room.

Body sensations presencing within the space of the room.

And if you are an intermediate or advanced meditator,

Or if you have no palpable feeling or emotion you can work with,

Invite a memory of a minor irritation or even some stronger emotion.

Let that memory spark,

Let's say a wave of anxiety in the body.

And let that wave of anxiety presence in this larger space of the room.

Fully feeling that anxiety yet totally free with it.

Bodily sensation arising within the space of the room.

Fully sensation arising within the space of the room.

And one final nuance to bring into this meditation.

Feel the edges of the body once more,

The contour or the border or the place where the skin ends and the space of the body and the space of the room begins.

And let feeling flow over that border,

Over that edge of the skin.

Feeling how the bodily sensations and the space of the room bleed into each other,

Permeate each other.

The body presencing within the space of the room.

Yet totally commingled like a drop of dye in a bowl of water.

Letting feeling expand beyond the edges of the body.

And once again fully consenting to feeling whatever the body presencing is,

Whatever textures are here.

At the same time,

It's all arising in this openness,

All arising in the space of the room.

Feel the aliveness of this,

The vibrancy and the freedom.

Letting feeling expand beyond the edges of the room.

Letting feeling expand beyond the edges of the room.

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From the spacious wonder ThankyouandBless…we listen again…🧸🧸