So we're going to do this handshake practice.
I love the label handshake practice because it really conveys a very visceral sense of what it is that we're doing in this practice.
And it's a welcoming practice.
Many of you are very familiar with this practice,
But what I'd like to emphasize for all of us is that this is a practice to be done anytime,
Not just on the cushion.
I mean,
Certainly we can cultivate it on the cushion.
We can work with it on the cushion.
And it can be very,
Very helpful on the cushion,
Especially if you sit down to meditate right after being stirred up with something that's happened.
But it is an on-the-spot practice that you can do whenever you find yourself reactive,
Whenever you find yourself hooked by an emotional energy that has come up within you in relation to some trigger,
Some seemingly outer trigger.
Just stop.
Just stop,
Pause,
And immediately turn towards the feeling.
So for those of you who have not done this practice,
I'm going to guide the practice.
But it is a practice of turning towards a difficult feeling.
You can also do this practice,
Of course,
With pleasant feelings,
But we don't really need to be compassionately present to our pleasurable feelings.
We're already pretty inviting to those feelings.
But it's the difficult feelings where we get stuck and that hold us back,
And actually where a lot of our basic energy gets all tied up and locked down.
So that's why the practice focuses on the seemingly difficult feelings or challenging feelings.
So during the practice,
Just to let you know,
I'm going to ask you to bring to mind some feeling that you may have been struggling with recently or that is a steady pattern in your life.
And we're going to turn towards these feelings.
We're going to come alongside them and hold them present with us.
So just simply to say that if you have never done this practice before,
You don't have to begin with the most difficult or challenging emotional feeling that you work with.
You can start with something slightly less charged.
Although if you want,
You can also dive in.
But this is a profound practice in self-compassion.
Developing care,
Kindness,
And compassion towards who we are in all of our manifestations so that we can allow who we really are to come forward,
To flow out into the world.
Even if you feel like,
Oh,
I've done this practice a million times,
Approach it with a fresh gaze and with a beginner's mind.
It is an adaptation of a traditional Vajrayana practice and beautifully adapted to fit into this current world situation.
Okay,
So again,
We just begin by relaxing into a comfortable position,
But keeping the back upright and your eyes just gazing gently into the space in front of you.
Or they can be resting on the floor in front of you.
And if you like,
You can even close your eyes for this practice.
And I invite you to take a few deep breaths in your own time and really use that exhale as a way to just relax down into the feeling of the body.
But this time you just do that in your own time.
So go ahead and take a few deep cleansing breaths.
Congratulations.
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You are this open,
Caring,
Spaciousness.
Relax as judicious,
As open,
As spacious as care.
Relax as open,
Spacious care.
And from deep within,
Smile into that open spaciousness.
In the space of your own awareness,
Your own love.
Just smile from the depth of your being into that space.
Just smiling,
An inner smile.
Just smiling,
An inner smile.
