Welcome to Between Breath and Sea and Kimberly O'Brien.
I'm Kimberly Escamilla and I'm glad you're here.
In Japanese culture,
Architecture,
Art,
And poetry,
There is a concept called Ma.
It approximately translates into the space and time needed for life to grow.
It can be seen as taking a step back,
A pause,
Crafting physical space around an object so its essence can be understood.
In our bodies,
Ma can be experienced with the space between our breath and our body,
And our breath and our mind.
These three elements,
Breath,
Body,
And mind,
Are directly connected.
So when we give time and space between a thought,
A memory,
And a response,
We allow room for growth.
We allow Ma.
We allow space for our bodies to relax and remember our reactions,
Our choices.
So let's take a few minutes,
And for this meditation,
It's likely better if you lie down,
If that's available to you.
Okay,
We're going to do what's called a box breath,
Where we're going to take an equal amount of time for a breath in,
For a hold,
And then an exhale,
And a hold.
And for each of those,
We're going to hold for three seconds.
Okay,
So let's inhale for three.
Hold for three.
Exhale for three.
Hold for three.
Inhale for three.
Hold for three.
Exhale for three.
Hold for three.
Inhale for three.
Hold for three.
Exhale for three.
Hold for three.
You should be feeling settled now.
So just return to regular breathing.
With your eyes closed and your body settled,
I want you to ask yourself a simple question.
How am I doing now?
What is my main concern right now?
And sense this within your body.
Let the answers come slowly from this sensing.
See if you can identify that concern.
Whatever comes up,
Do not go inside that concern.
Stand back and say,
Yes,
That's there.
I can feel that concern there.
Let there be a little space between you and that feeling.
With your hand,
Lightly touch maybe the spot on your body where you're feeling that.
It could be your stomach,
Feels a little tight,
Or your heart,
Or a tightness or a feeling in your neck or your forehead.
Wherever it is,
Lightly touch that spot and reflect on that concern.
And ask yourself,
What is the quality of this feeling in my body?
Let a word,
A phrase,
Or an image come up from the felt sense itself.
It might be a quality word like tight,
Sticky,
Scary,
Stuck.
Could be heavy or jumpy.
Or a phrase might come up like I want.
Or an image like fire or the ocean or an animal.
Stay with the quality of the felt sense till something fits just right between that felt sense and your concern.
In your mind's eye,
Look at the sensation and that word or phrase or image.
Check how they resonate with each other.
See if there's a little bodily signal that lets you know there's a fit.
To do it,
You have to have the felt sense there again,
As well as the word.
Let the felt sense change.
If it does,
And also let the word or picture until it feels just right in capturing the quality of the felt sense in your body.
Take a breath.
Look at that concern.
Notice your body where you're feeling it and whatever word or image describes it in your mind.
Now ask,
What is it about this whole concern that makes this quality,
Which you've just named,
What makes the whole problem or concern so tight or heavy or whatever it is?
What is in this sensation?
And take a breath and feel that.
Be with that felt sense till something comes along with a shift or slight give or release.
Receive whatever comes with the shift in a friendly way.
Stay with it a while,
Even if it's only very slight.
Now let's take one minute and just let your breathing and mind float along with the music,
Knowing that you were experiencing MA,
Creating space between your body and your thoughts and your breath.
I'd like to seal our practice today with a poem by Jack Gilbert.
The title is Music is in the Piano Only When It is Played.
We are not one with this world.
We are not the complexity our body is nor the summer air idling in the big maple without purpose.
We are a shape the wind makes in these leaves as it passes through.
We are not the wood any more than the fire,
But the heat which is a marriage between the two.
We are certainly not the lake nor the fish in it,
But the something that is pleased by them.
We are the stillness when a mighty Mediterranean noon subtracts even the voices of insects by the broken farmhouse.
We are evident when the orchestra plays and yet are not part of the strings or the brass.
But the song that exists only in the singing and is not the singer.
God does not live among the church bells,
But is briefly resident there.
We are occasional like that,
A lifetime of easy happiness mixed with pain and loss,
Trying always to name and hold onto the enterprise underway in our chest.
Reality is not what we marry as a feeling.
It is what walks up the dirt path through the excessive heat and giant sky,
The sea stretching away.
He continues past the nunnery to the old villa where he will sit on the terrace with her,
Their sides touching.
In the quiet that is the music of that place,
Which is the difference between silence and winlessness.
Thank you and be well.
