Welcoming ourselves to sitting practice.
Sitting in as comfortable a way as we can.
We meet the changing body,
The aging body.
The body as it is just now in the very moment of taking our seat,
Finding comfort.
Maybe you squirm a little bit,
You find your spot,
You find the balance of the bowl of the hips,
The rise of the spine,
Central column.
You might notice as we turn towards stillness and silence internally,
You might notice the momentum or residue of the business of your day,
The thoughts and stories of your weekend,
Of this time in your life.
Just coming through the Harvest Moon into fall,
You might notice the residue or momentum of the summer.
Summer projects coming to a close,
Fall projects beginning,
The school year beginning.
In whatever way you feel as you stop moving,
The way that life doesn't stop moving keeps rolling,
Keeps rolling through as thought,
As story,
As feeling.
Often,
This rolling through,
You can feel in a way through the mirror of your mood,
Happy or sad,
Busy or calm,
Safe or frightened,
Or in the energy in the body itself,
Awake or sleepy,
Engaged or disengaged,
Bright or dim in the heart or mind.
Feeling comfort and arriving in the present moment.
What does that mean?
You feel this breath coming in and going out.
You feel the mood,
The sensations.
Are those things the present?
Are they happening in the present?
Very often as we begin a sitting,
We have a little bit of settling and then the mind kind of clicks into a groove.
The state of heart mind or body mind that's habitual to us in meditation,
Especially if you've been doing it for a long time,
That groove can be cut very deep in the body mind.
For me,
It was always a little sleepy,
Confused,
And over time it became my practice to get comfortable and then wake myself up a bit.
Because if comfortable means do what's habitual,
Almost certainly there's some aspects of that that are not useful.
If we are not yet liberated,
By definition there are aspects of that that are not useful.
One of the first things to look for in sitting is the brightness of our energy.
Ask yourself,
Is there brightness present?
Is there dullness present?
Dullness is a little bit like focus.
If I turn my attention to the body,
Can I sense it clearly?
Sensations and moods,
Do I know what's happening or is there a kind of fog or sleepiness or dullness?
If you can't sense it clearly,
Like focusing a camera or a microscope or a telescope,
Change the aperture if you can to be able to sense more clearly.
If you need a little more energy,
You might lift the sternum,
Deepen the breath,
Brighten through the upper body.
If you want even a little more,
You might open your eyes,
Take in light.
When we're working with energy in the body-mind,
We come to presence,
But our practice is not simply to accept whatever's here any more than if we were photographers,
Our practice would be to take whatever photograph happened without any adjustment of the camera.
Our task is to focus the camera and to point it in a useful direction.
If the energy is dull,
Uplift.
If energy is bright,
But too bright or scattered,
Often that comes out as racing thoughts.
Body can be like this sometimes.
Restlessness through the body,
Through the heart.
Then the practice is to calm or settle.
If that's what you find necessary,
Then you might emphasize the out-breath,
Relax through the sacrum and tailbone.
Let the heart space open backward,
Settle the shoulders.
Again,
It can be helpful sometimes,
Especially if the mind is wild with thought or the whirlpool of feeling is hard to not get sucked into,
To let the eyes open.
Our practice is to train the mind to be a well-focused,
Stable,
Steady instrument,
For seeing clearly our life,
This planet,
Our relationships,
Our work,
For seeing dissatisfaction and its causes,
For seeing change.
As you begin to find a balance of energy that feels bright,
But calm,
Workable,
The sign that you're finding that is that you can direct the attention to anything you choose,
And attention can stabilize there for a while.
Our classic object is the breath.
Don't fall into a sleepy trance watching the breath.
Really know when the breath is short,
Really know when the breath is long.
Really know when the mind turns toward thought and when it turns back toward the breath.
Really know the beginning of the in-breath,
The full length of the in-breath and the end of the in-breath naturally,
By itself,
The turning around of the breath,
The beginning,
Middle and end of the out-breath.
Attention bright,
Present.
And then the breath will teach us how things change.
And the breath will teach us how experience becomes reaction,
Becomes story,
Becomes self.
To see this process,
We must steady our gaze,
Which we do by becoming still,
By bringing an attitude of care,
Of love,
Of kindness.
The photographer focusing her camera on a flower in precise detail does so because the flower is beautiful,
Because it's worth seeing clearly.
Focus your attention on the breath and the body and the changing aliveness of the body because it's beautiful and meaningful and worth seeing clearly.
We'll practice together in silence.
I invite you to practice with the breath as the primary focus.
And if the mind is wandering a lot,
Really brighten your energy.
Sit up,
Wake up,
Look closely.
The Buddha would say to his meditators,
The moment of death is uncertain but inevitable.
Practice now while you can.
In the mind,
To be a loving,
Stable,
Spacious witness to see this life as it is.
In order to respond with wisdom and wise action,
Free from delusion about who we are and how to be in this world.
