Hello and welcome to day six of seven days of guided meditation to ring in 2019.
This is Salima speaking.
I'm so happy that you're with me today.
I thought that we would practice a little bit of a rest and relaxation for today's session and in particular to address something that a lot of us deal with increasingly so which is visual strain and stress around our eyes.
So for this session I'd recommend having either a cushion that you can put on your knees,
A very large cushion,
So that you can rest your elbows on that cushion and have your upper arms parallel to the floor.
Or if you're sitting at a desk or a table,
Have a few books that you can put on the surface of the desk or the table so that they reach about chest height.
So feel free to pause if you need to go get your materials together and we'll get started as soon as you're back.
Okay so we've got our table or our desk and or we've got our cushion on our lap.
I'd like for us to just take a few moments to settle in so as we normally do feel the support of the seat against whatever surface we're sitting on.
And if we are sitting at a desk or a table feeling the support of the floor underneath the feet and feeling free to take a deeper breath.
So feeling free to lengthen the spine on the in-breath,
Reaching the crown all the way up to the sky,
Feeling free to bring the shoulders up to and on the exhale releasing the spine and the shoulders back and down.
So this practice is something that will help to relieve visual strain but will also bring a relaxation into the entire body.
So it can be a very short or longer type of practice but the more that we do it the more we'll derive the benefits of it quickly.
So you want to make sure you're not wearing any glasses for this.
To begin we're going to take our hands and just rub them very quickly.
And then when you start to feel heat on the palms of your hands bring them a couple of inches apart and you may feel a sort of a vibration in the palms of the hands,
Maybe even throughout the fingers.
So you want to make sure that you have that kind of energy.
So give the hands a good rub again and what we're going to do is take the palms of the hands over the eyes,
The closed eyes,
And feel free to rest your elbows on either the surface of the table or the books or a cushion that you have on your knees.
Feel free to sit as straight as you can so that you're not hunched over.
You want your hands just cupped over your eyes,
Very lightly not pressing against the eyes.
So the centers of the palms of the hands would be over,
Right over the eyes and you would be resting your fingers perhaps on one another,
Touching the forehead.
Feel free to take a deep breath here,
Breathing in,
Feeling free to lengthen the spine if you wish and exhale and release.
So as we're sitting and practicing this activity which is actually called palming,
We're going to become aware of how this body is feeling.
We're going to become aware of the mind and how the mind is feeling,
Whether the mind is busy or not busy.
You might notice the breath coming and going,
Sensing also in the visual system a relative darkness now.
There's a sense that the eyes are in a very gentle protective space and that space is like a cocoon.
It's dark.
It's protected.
You may notice any strain,
Any stress around the visual system.
Just take a moment to notice how the eyes,
How the muscles around the eyes feel,
How it feels in the forehead.
And if there's any strain in the shoulders,
We want to make sure that we are sitting up as straight as we can,
So giving the shoulders a little shrug if we need to every once in a while,
Feeling the body supported,
Feeling that the eyes themselves are supported inside the eye sockets,
Noticing this body breathing,
Noticing if the mind goes off to think.
Noticing what feeling or feelings come up.
This activity is important for us if we're often in front of screens or devices or books,
If we're doing close work throughout the day.
It helps to restore a feeling of relaxation around the eyes.
It helps to bring a relaxation to the muscles around the eyes that pull the eyes in different directions in order to focus close or far.
The more relaxed these muscles are,
The better they function.
And so this activity is also very helpful if we are working on improving our eyesight.
It's one of the fundamental activities in improving our eyesight.
Going back to the body,
Just noticing if the mind was busy thinking.
Just noticing if the mind was busy thinking after all that discussion.
Maybe there was a curiosity.
Perhaps there was disbelieving.
Perhaps there was another thought that came in or another story.
Bring our awareness back to the body,
Noticing the breath,
The body sitting,
The posture of the body,
And sensing a feeling of relaxation around not only the eyes,
Also the muscles around the eyes,
The muscles in the face,
The muscles in the neck and shoulders.
Seeing the softening here.
Feeling the support of whatever surface we're sitting against,
The support of whatever surface our elbows are resting on,
And the support of the hands against the face.
Let us practice quietly for just a few moments.
The idea here is to become aware of the internal landscape,
To become aware of this body,
The movements of the body,
For the purposes of also sensing the movements of the mind,
The activity of the mind.
Just paying attention lightly,
And if we notice the mind going to do different things,
Just know each time we are able to become aware,
And if we need to come back to something,
Come back to the body.
Good.
Just noticing what the mind is doing now.
We'll go for another 30 seconds or so.
Just notice what the mind is doing now.
Just knowing it.
Feeling free to take a deeper breath,
Lengthening the spine,
Giving the shoulders a good release by bringing them up and on the exhale back and down a little.
Keeping the hands where they are and taking another couple of breaths,
Just natural ordinary breaths.
Keeping the eyes closed.
Feel free to remove the hands.
Just letting them come to rest either on the cushion in your lap.
Just noticing that behind the closed eyelids there's a little more light coming in.
There might be a coolness or a sensation of coolness on the face.
Taking a couple of breaths just like this,
Ordinary breaths,
Observing.
And gently just gazing down,
Gently blink your eyes open.
Allow whatever is just in front of you to come into view without any strain or trying.
Feeling free to take another couple of ordinary breaths,
Whatever that is for you.
It could be a sigh or it could be a regular breath.
And one deeper one,
Lengthening the spine,
Bringing the shoulders all the way up towards the ears and on the exhale releasing them back and down.
So you can practice this for however long you wish or however short you wish.
The more frequently you do it,
The more readily that the visual system will be able to come into a more relaxed place.
The eyes,
The muscles around the eyes,
The muscles in the face,
The neck,
The shoulders will all become accustomed to the feeling of knowing that it's time to relax a little bit more.
And so I encourage you to practice this if you found it beneficial to continue to practice today or in the future.
And for now feel free to bring your hands,
Palms together,
Thumbs up to the chest.
May we all be happy.
May we all be peaceful.
May we all be free from suffering.
May all beings be happy.
May all beings be peaceful.
May all beings be free from suffering.
And may all beings,
Each and every last being,
Near or far,
Big or small,
Seen or unseen,
Known or unknown,
May all beings share in and benefit from the merits of our practice together.
Thank you again for joining and I look forward to our final session tomorrow.
Namaste.
