Welcome everyone.
My name is Nanda and this is a brief practice in the importance of just breathing freely.
It's a practice of kindness and was taught by Buddha Shakyamuni and it's called Anapanasati,
Mindfulness of Breathing.
We breathe 24 to 25 thousand times a day and the majority of those moments we don't even know we're breathing.
So we're missing out.
The energy of life,
The energy of prana.
We're missing out the awareness of breathing.
It's only mindful breathing if we let it be,
If we set it free,
If we heal ourselves from judgment,
The same judgment that hurts us all the time we look at ourselves and others and relationships.
When the word should comes to us,
Should have been different,
I should have done this a different way.
I shouldn't have done that.
The recognition is perfect.
The guilt is a poison.
So let's start calling us to be present now in this moment of breathing,
Just observing.
Listen to the call of your breathing.
We'll be covering just the first group,
The body group today.
Maybe sitting in an honorable position with your spine alert but not tense.
Maybe closing your eyes or gazing at a candle flame from a safe distance or just dropping your gaze on the ground around 45 degrees down through the tip of your nose and resting,
Softening all facial muscles,
Relaxing your jaw,
The tongue and the mouth,
Connecting to your nostrils.
Observing the river of energy flowing through them,
Easily,
Freely,
As a gift,
A gift of life.
You start to note saying that some of your breaths are naturally long.
And you know they are long.
Observe how long is the inhalation from the very first moment there enters your nostrils until your lungs are satisfied.
And you acknowledge yourself,
I am breathing in long.
I am breathing in long.
Observe how your exhalations happen naturally and they may feel long.
You just let them be.
Some of them are happening through nostrils,
Some through the mouth.
It's a moment of cleansing,
It's a moment of purification.
And you say to yourself in the silence of your mind,
I am breathing out long.
You observe the exhalations from the very first moment there starts leaving.
Until you find the soft emptiness right before your next free and fresh inhalation.
I am breathing in long.
I am breathing out long.
And because life is a dance of duality,
Some inhalations and exhalations feel short and we let them be.
We appreciate and communicate with them.
We're aware of them the same way they are an instrument of our practice,
The same way.
And you follow the short path of that inhalation letting it be full of acceptance,
Repeating to yourself,
I breathe in short.
I breathe out short.
I breathe in short.
I breathe out short.
And the most important thing is the gift of knowing.
I know when I breathe in and out long.
I know when I breathe in and out short.
And because I'm present I feel my whole body when I breathe in.
I am presenting my whole body when I breathe out.
And being aware of my body calms my body profoundly.
This very breath is calming the whole body now.
I breathe in calming the whole body.
I breathe out calming the whole body.
I breathe in.
I breathe out.
And in your breath you start to noticing the surroundings,
The sounds,
The quenage of light in the air even if your eyes are closed,
Awakening your senses,
Maybe adding movements to your feet,
Your hands.
Opening your eyes when you're ready.
