So now I want to move on to the Dharma talk.
And I want to share a quote with you that wonderfully segues us into a discussion of the breath and of stillness.
So this quote is by Sumi Lowndin Kim.
And it goes like this.
"'In our times,
It is radical to choose to sit still and be silent,
To resist an identity of busyness,
Ceaseless motion,
And noise,
And to reclaim our sanity and humanity by coming home to ourselves.
" By coming home to ourselves.
So let's come home to ourselves before we begin this Dharma talk.
Wherever you are,
Just find a nice comfortable posture.
To the best of your ability,
You want to have your spine nice and tall,
But you don't want to be too rigid.
If it's comfortable for you,
You can have your palms placed flat down on your lap,
Or you can have them upright and open.
I like to keep them this way in a circle motion.
This way it keeps my shoulders back and I'm not leaning forward too much,
But whatever's comfortable for you.
And I invite you to slowly close your eyes,
But if that's not really available to you right now,
Then just lower your gaze to just about the tip of your nose.
And we're not looking at anything in particular.
We're just relaxing.
Slowly relaxing our gaze.
We're slowly shutting our eyes.
And taking a moment to settle in to your seat,
To your body,
To your body,
To the cushion or the chair beneath you.
And just notice,
Notice what comes up for you when you've chosen stillness.
Notice what sensations are flowing about within your body.
Notice the quality of your breath right now.
Is it long and smooth?
Is it short and choppy?
Are you breathing out of your nose or out of your mouth?
Is it a little bit more of a stretchy feel?
Is it a little bit more of a stretchy feel?
Do you feel it in your mouth?
Do you feel it in your nostrils,
In your chest or in your stomach?
And we're just noticing.
We're noticing what the stillness is offering us right now.
And in this stillness,
What do you notice?
Maybe you're pulled to be busy.
Maybe it's not very comfortable to be still.
Maybe it's not very comfortable to be with yourself,
With your thoughts,
With any uncomfortable feelings or sensations coming to the surface for you.
I invite you to notice that too.
Keeping your attention on the body,
It is these potential exercises that can hold us into the inside,
Again Try to remember.
I invite you to notice that too Keeping your attention on the body.
See if you can locate your heart.
We're not taking our hands and moving them.
We're only taking our attention and shifting it from wherever it is to the center of our chest and seeing if we can locate that feeling.
And if you can't,
That's all right.
Just by you being able to hear this,
Your heart is doing everything it can to keep you alive and healthy.
But we tune into the heartbeat,
The rhythm in our chest because it reminds us of the complexities of this body.
It reminds us that we can still the muddy water if we still ourselves.
We can calm the mind if we calm the body.
Keeping your gaze low or your eyes closed.
I want you to relax and just listen to me for the next few moments as I elaborate a little bit deeper on the quote that I shared with you.
Busyness excuses us from having to be with ourselves.
But stillness,
Stillness invites us to be with ourselves.
What's important to know is that it is only an invitation.
Stillness can't be forced upon you,
But it's always waiting for you.
You must be willing to be still,
To be here now.
If being busy is something that you identify with,
Then know that that's okay.
Know that that's a part of who you are and what you do.
And there can be balance found in that.
But it's also important to know that if you do identify with being busy and it is part of who you are and what you do,
Then if you choose to be still,
That sense of busyness may lurk around and ask you to choose it and demand your attention and push and pull you,
Remind you of your responsibilities,
Remind you of the to-do lists.
And this goes back to remembering that the nature of the mind is to wander,
Is to think.
So as you sit with yourself and as you feel whatever is showing up for you in your body and in your mind and maybe even in your heart,
If you choose to sit with what's coming up for you,
You're also choosing to send love and kindness to that sense of busyness that's within you because it's a part of you.
We can choose stillness over and over again.
We can choose to come back to the breath over and over again.
And it's in these moments,
It's in these choices that we begin to cultivate inner peace and a life that can sustain that inner peace for you.
And a simple remedy for a busy mind,
For a mind that continues to pull you in a multitude of directions is instead of being in the mind,
To choose to be in the body,
To take your focus and your attention off of your thoughts and into the physical sensations that are surfacing and that are showing up for you right now.
Something like locating your heart,
The beat of your heart in the center of your chest,
Or maybe you can feel it pulsating on some other muscle in your body.
But noticing the cycles and the movements of the heart and the breath,
You can allow these rhythms to bring you back to the present moment because the busy mind will ruminate or anticipate moments in time,
But the breath can only be now.
It is in the present moment that the breath is waiting for you to come home to yourself.
It is in the present moment that the breath is waiting for you to come home to yourself.
It is in the present moment that the breath is waiting for you to come home to yourself.
