Rewiring The Nervous System & Tending To The Heart

A full practice including Shamatha, Vipassana, Loving Kindness & Forgiveness followed by some yin postures. In this meditation we explore he Divine Abodes and cultivate a precious prayer from Shantideva.

Transcript

And so we begin by exhaling our way down to the belly realm.

That vital vortex.

Anchoring at the hara.

Really landing in your true home.

And so for the method of focused attention to create the neuron firing and then the wiring of these states of inner ease.

Will exclude all experience.

And all sensation.

Save for the breath at the belly.

So dooming any sensory stimulus sounds.

Taste colors.

Even the temperature on your skin.

Fly in the room.

Just choosing to.

Mount.

The meeting of experience.

Move into the exclusive practice.

Hara shamatha.

So you let all other stimulus just kind of drone and down.

Let the breath at the belly.

So lying here with some sense of dignity and presence.

Continue to come back to yourself.

Belly soft.

Natural breath,

You can let it be as unrhythmic and shallow as it likes.

And notice three more breaths at the belly.

Now recognize that this is the anchor and will consciously choose to depart from the anchor.

So when your inspiration things are you become fragmented,

Make a conscious choice to return to Hara shamatha the peaceful endurance or abidance at the belly and the breath that arises there.

And we'll begin to widen the lens of attention from singular exclusive focus to the inclusive practice.

Vibhana Vipassana said to be the form of meditation practice by the Buddha himself.

So from this stillness.

Opening into wonder.

How to become mindful of your feelings.

Right now.

So let's let experience be the teacher.

There's the belly breath to return to and then you wander depart from there to scan the emotional landscape.

How am I feeling.

And then,

Bringing in the processes of senses.

Observing naming sound.

These words.

Naming other sounds in the room,

Not as a distraction but actually part of the fabric of presence.

This is occurring now.

As you track sensations.

Recall the undertone of practice life is acceptance.

So whatever occurs.

Let's allow in and bring it with us on the path.

Notice the waves of experience.

How everything appears for a moment of breath.

Now for our last little piece of this meditation.

Turn your mindful attention to notice,

And then count your thoughts.

Words or pictures.

Noticing thoughts.

Almost like you're sitting like a cat at the mouse hole.

And just notice.

They're tricky those mice.

You can sneak up from behind so perched here.

Is this a thought.

With presence and quiet to just simply number the thoughts like mice that come through the hole.

Five more rounds of breath.

Now.

Slowly make your way here in the supine position onto your side.

Bring the left side onto the floor.

Release of the right rib cage off of the ilium off the top of the pelvis so the waistline on the right side elongates and will breathe up and through the right lung.

From Shamatha to the passion will now circulate on the divine abode,

The cultivation of certain traits and attitudes will want to revisit and dwell in the heart space continuously.

So they become natural in their expression.

The first is Karuna compassion,

Which is wishing others free from suffering.

The Buddhist scripture it said that it's compassion that removes the heavy bar opens the door to freedom,

Makes the narrow heart as wide as the world.

Compassion takes away from the heart the weight,

The paralyzing heaviness.

It gives wings to those who have clung to the lowlands of self.

So we'll draw the belly down towards the proper the floor and take a twist.

If you're on the bolster you'll just frame the prop with either hand and drag right kidney forward.

Try to drape the belly on the bolster and you'll bring the left cheek down,

Unless you want to find rotation through the cervical spine and flip the gaze with the right cheek down.

Karuna practice.

Any now any part of self that's in pain,

Any burden you're bringing any aspect of difficulty that's present now and landed in the heart field.

As you meet it.

This mantra.

May I be soft and tender with my pain.

Remembering into your heart somebody,

You know,

Who's suffering.

Feel for a moment the weight,

The inertia,

The paralyzing heaviness of the burden they're being asked to move through.

And see their Buddha nature beneath.

May you have the inner space that clarity and calmness and courage that soft and tender to meet your pain.

May you be free of your suffering.

And will widen the heart sphere that spacious sky realm for Karuna practice for all beings.

So let's just bring in first the pain and suffering of everyone in this room and make a space in your heart for the difficulties we've endured.

And widen from there.

Everyone.

At true nature.

In Carbondale.

And all beings in Colorado.

And then the country.

Our challengers our enemies are strangers are friends.

And the whole world like that bring the difficulty of Dukkha the fact that suffering exists.

That truth into the heart.

May all beings have the resources to meet their pain with tenderness.

May we all be free of suffering.

To make our way out of the twist and just elongate laterally side.

Deep cleansing in breath to out.

And then we'll make our way all the way on to the other side where we'll visit a second divine abode another heart practice.

In a moment we'll move into Kshama practice which is forgiveness.

And just so you know ahead of time.

Forgiveness asks of us to accept that which is beyond acceptable.

So it's very nature as a practice is difficult.

And as we move through this practice.

Don't be concerned if no overwhelming emotions of forgiveness and release arise.

Remember that this is a neuro plastic practice so we're practicing the traits of forgiveness.

Eventually,

It becomes an embedded state.

We just lean into the attitudes we hope to embody someday.

Again cultivation.

Moving into the twist on the side when you're ready.

Three part practice for Kshama the first as we land again and that really subtle moist almost vibrational space of the heart.

That lush green field of Anahata.

We dwell in the divine abode of Kshama forgiveness.

Part one.

Asking forgiveness from those whom you have harmed.

If I have hurt or harmed anyone knowingly or unknowingly,

I ask their forgiveness now.

So as images or scenes or beings come through just asking for their forgiveness,

Any ways you've fallen short when you didn't have the resources you weren't as equipped to meet complexity.

Please forgive me.

Please forgive me.

And as you ask that just consciously choosing to release the burden of guilt story.

Please forgive me.

Part two,

We offer forgiveness to those who have harmed us.

Those who acting through distorted parts had forgotten their own Buddha nature and caused us pain and suffering.

If anyone has hurt or harmed me.

Knowingly or unknowingly,

I forgive them now.

I forgive you.

Don't worry if no great rush of love comes just practicing what it would feel like to forgive them.

What would that be like?

I forgive you.

Last and final step of kashama allowing forgiveness of yourself.

When you forgot who you truly are.

For all of the ways I have hurt or harmed myself.

Knowingly or unknowingly.

Forgive yourself now.

Slowly we'll make our way out of the twist when that feels complete for now.

Through the side bend.

Back onto the spine.

Mm hmm.

Just use this as a repose here to find neutrality and when you're ready will come to see it.

You can stay facing the direction as you are,

And we'll move into a forward band of your choice of butterfly fold or straddle legs or pashimo to nasa now with the legs together.

Finding on your own time.

A forward band.

Mm hmm.

Now as we re emerge a new in each pose will come back to the anchor so first just reestablishing a strong intention to find yourself at the horror.

As you notice the breath.

So re anchoring.

It's soft and gentle and it's coaxing so the parts that want to be authoritative and the disciplinary and soften and allow just a natural opening into the chi field,

Where all of our parts can neutralize balance and be healed.

There's one more divine abode will journey through today.

And it's called moodita,

Which means selfless joy.

So I want you to just imagine here.

You can recall a recent time where you felt truly joyful.

Recall a recent or ancient time when you felt that expansive emotion of joy it's energizing rejuvenating.

And let that well up and flower in the heart space.

And notice the ego list mess of joy moodita where you lose your sense of self,

And you merge with universal consciousness.

Joy,

Pushes us past the boundary of our own skin,

The bliss body.

Let's just soak in that expansive emotion that divine abode of joy.

About five more rounds of breath.

Letting the breath melt any last edges.

As you feel the expansion of bliss,

Beyond the me and mine.

Let's just soak in that expansive emotion that divine abode of joy.