TheMatVERal The spatulai It's helpful to think of this idea of routine in regard to meditating and other habits we view as healthy in our life.
For some of us,
Meditation is routine.
For some it's not.
It's new.
We're trying to establish a routine,
Maybe trying to break other habits of the mind to come to what we call meditation.
Lots of ideas about what that is.
And a big one is taking a break from thoughts that lead me away and develop a routine of coming to be here,
And maybe have some small amount of control over where thoughts lead,
Or maybe some control over which trains of thought we follow to completion or repetition or whatever it may be.
Let's come to a place of intention outside of the day-to-day calls to action,
A place where we're not likely to be interrupted,
Perhaps a relatively quiet place.
We do this with intention,
To some degree it's always for well-being so we can feel secure in the action.
We're not doing this frivolously,
We're doing it for well-being.
So with that level of trust and care,
Setting up the posture,
Giving it some attention.
Taking a stable seated posture,
If that's what's comfortable.
Stability in our contact with the ground as it is,
And by extension the earth.
Growing ourselves some roots so we don't fall over.
Feel that contact with the earth below.
And we lift ourselves up through space.
If you're sitting,
Sit upright and feel balanced.
Maybe just slightly reaching up through the center of the top of the head,
With the in-breath reaching and the out-breath settling and allowing the bones to be the framework for the sinew to relax.
Let's make contact with the coming and going of the breath.
The breath sort of takes the place of time.
We follow,
Carefully,
The moments of the rising breath,
The moments of the falling breath.
You can stay with the theme of breath,
Coming and going,
A homecoming and leaving.
A pattern that must be for us to be as we are.
There's no stopping the breath and doing what we're doing.
Temporarily,
Yes,
But it will take over.
The same could be said for some of the other patterns in our life.
Drinking,
Eating,
Some degree of exercise,
Moving about,
Communicating,
All have their varying degrees of pattern and necessity.
The breath is one that's very immediate.
We have the ability to make some adjustments,
Take some deeper breaths,
Refresh ourselves,
Breathe through the nose instead of the mouth,
Experiment with different patterns,
And we can observe the results of this subtle tailoring of the breath.
One of the things we do to make this routine of meditation attractive is to breathe in a way that's comfortable,
To sit in a way that's settled and comfortable.
We pay attention to the breath and breathe in a way that's refreshing,
A way that's good to stay with.
We encourage the mind to be expansive,
Open,
Relaxed,
Generous,
Appreciative,
And we encourage the thoughts that emerge from this being to be in line with those things.
May I be happy.
May my happiness not cause harm in the world.
May I be gracious in success and failure.
May I learn from my mistakes.
So we can,
Just as we can subtly trim the sails of our breath,
Move our awareness subtly,
We can return to the breath and body,
Being with each moment of the coming and going of breath and expanding our awareness to fill the body,
Letting our awareness be spacious enough for that.
We can move it to the realm of tones of feeling,
Feeling refreshing aspects of the breath.
You may notice discomfort in the body and maybe send some breath energy that way the best you can,
In interest of staying with this practice that we set up with the intention for well-being.
We can shift our awareness to the mind states.
We want the mind to be expansive,
But we might notice contraction,
Distractions.
Remember our care.
Remember our friends who we're with in person,
Remotely,
Or in like mind,
Fellow meditators everywhere,
Those who care also.
There are many.
So one of the ideas in this kind of mindfulness practice is when we find some well-being,
Refreshment,
And expansive mind,
We can spread it with some intention.
We can allow it to spread in our body using our imagination,
Which is an important thing.
It's not just fantasy.
It's how this world is put together for us.
So when we come across well-being,
Thoughts of goodwill,
We expand them,
Make them as big as we can conceive of,
Spreading them through the body,
Through the mind,
Share them with our intention.
So when we come to the end of a sitting,
We can use this idea that anything that we've cultivated here,
No matter how small,
Anything we might have an inkling of,
We can cherish,
Protect,
And grow this out into our world.
So the last moments,
With that in mind.
