Blissful Practice Of Metta Prayer & Calming Breath
Welcome to a blissful practice of metta prayer and calming breath. The most heart-full start to the week. In this practice, we repeat the Metta Prayer. Don't get tangled up in accuracy or perfection, let the words roll out in any way they want to show up. Find a quiet space, sit, relax, and enjoy.
Transcript
The following practice is led by Sonia Lockyer,
Host of the Wellbeing Ritual Club.
So take your time to settle in,
Have a little look around at your surroundings.
If you need a glass of water,
If you need a tissue,
All that stuff.
As you nestle in to our cozy space this morning.
And really the only requirement physically is that you have a straight spine.
So sitting up nice and tall,
Let the shoulders drop away from the ears.
So taking all the time that we need to settle.
And then noticing the breath.
So we're going to keep our eyes open for a bit,
But just cast your gaze down towards the floor.
If you'd rather have your eyes closed,
Of course you can do that.
How does the breath feel this morning?
The start of a week,
The start of a season,
The start of a chapter.
Where are you at this starting point?
And we're working with the theme of letting go this month.
So the exhale really comes into its own at this point in the calendar.
You might find your eyes just naturally want to close,
That's fine.
Circling the head,
Taking the right ear gently across to the right shoulder.
And the chin gently down to the chest.
And left ear to left shoulder.
Chin coming up and over as you inhale.
And then switching directions.
Left ear to left shoulder.
Coming to chest.
Right ear to right shoulder and up and over.
Noticing how your breath feels as you adapt to those circles.
Then circling shoulders.
In the way that feels good for you,
So for some people the elbows get involved,
Big circles through the elbows.
For some people,
Big arm extensions.
And for others,
Just nice little circles in the shoulders.
Sometimes it invokes a little bit of a wriggle in the spine.
And almost always there's quite the symphony of clumps and clicks.
Placing your hands on your knees.
So if you're on a tower of pillows to get your hips higher than your knees,
Then circling can be hard.
If that's true for you,
Then you could just move forwards and back with your breath to the heart,
Moves forwards and back.
If you feel steady and stable,
Then you can circle your heart.
Inhaling as you come forwards,
Exhaling as you come back.
So we're really letting go of any idea that there's an agenda.
We've already met our agenda,
We showed up.
So we've created this space.
Now we move within that space in the way that our body directs us to.
And even the word directs is not a correct word.
The body moves us to,
We receive an impulse and we act on that impulse,
Changing direction if you're circling.
So it's a gentle listening,
Feeling and responding.
You don't need to think about the timeline because I'm here doing that.
So you really get to be present.
Okay,
And then coming to sit upright.
And if you can bring your hands to your knees,
Let's rock the pelvis forwards and back.
So as you inhale,
The pubic bone moves forwards towards the floor and a little arch in the lower back.
And as you exhale,
The tailbone drops down,
Chin moves towards chest.
This can be subtle or as big as you like this movement.
Just rocking the pelvic bowl.
It can be quite easy to accidentally get into a bit of a nodding donkey situation.
But try to keep your awareness in the pelvis if you can.
We're inviting her energy to wake up.
Okay,
And then coming back to center,
Crossing the left hand across to right knee,
Right hand behind.
Inhale as you sit up and exhale as you rotate.
And then coming back around to center and switching sides.
So right hand comes to left knee,
Left hand behind.
Inhale as you sit up and exhale as you rotate.
And then coming back to center.
You can wriggle as much as you need to wriggle.
You don't need to be perfectly still in your practice.
We're moving towards what feels comfortable,
But a stillness will slowly drop in.
You can feel the weight of your sitting bones,
Your pelvic bowl as you start to connect with the Earth's energy.
There's a lightness in the heart.
The heart rises.
We're going to begin our breath practice with a circular breath.
So we're just visualizing a beautiful circle.
Then I visualize the circumference of the moon,
The circle of light.
And you begin at the top.
As you exhale,
Taking that circle of light round to the side and down.
And then as you inhale,
Letting that light travel out to the side and up.
So it becomes a circular breath when we're only doing two stages of breath.
We're not pausing between the breaths at all.
We're moving directly from inhale to exhale.
Um.
As we let the breath remain in this beautiful circular motion,
Let's bring in the metaprair.
Do you might repeat it silently to yourself or you might just hear the words.
May I be happy.
May I be healthy.
May I be free of suffering.
May I be free of mental anxiety.
May I live in peace.
May my life be blessed with ease.
May you be happy.
May you be healthy.
May you be free of suffering.
May you be free of mental anxiety.
May you live in peace and may your life be blessed with ease.
May we be happy.
May we be healthy.
May we be free of suffering.
May we be free of mental anxiety.
May we live in peace and may our lives be blessed with ease.
May we live in peace and may our lives be blessed with ease.
So let's take our hands to our heart center in prayer,
And as you inhale,
You're going to take your arms and reach up overhead.
And then as you exhale,
You're going to continue with that circle,
Taking your arms out wide to the side,
Circling them down until they come back to your heart space in prayer.
A slow and gentle movement,
Keeping your neck free and easy.
The exhale is your arms start to circle out to the side and round and down.
It comes about twice the length of the inhale.
We're not going to count it,
We're going to feel it.
It's almost as if you're swimming through the air.
You could always visualize the words of the metal prayer rising up as your arms,
Your hands rise up overhead and then dispersing outwards to all people as you exhale and your arms open wide.
So I will repeat the prayer again as we go.
May I be happy.
May I be healthy.
May I be free of suffering.
May I be free of mental anxiety.
May I live in peace and may my life be blessed with ease.
May you be happy.
May you be healthy.
May you be free of suffering.
May you be free of mental anxiety.
May you live in peace and may your life be blessed with ease.
May we be healthy.
May we be happy.
May we be free of suffering.
May we be free of mental anxiety.
May we live in peace and may our lives be blessed with ease.
Bringing your hands back to your lap,
Resting palm on palm facing upwards.
We will move the breath into a square breath so we get to go into the four stages of the breath.
So visualizing a square on the torso or in front of you.
As you inhale,
Light travels up the right hand side,
Hip to shoulder.
As you hold with the breath in,
Light travels from shoulder to shoulder across the collar.
As you exhale,
Light travels from left shoulder down to left hip.
And as you hold with the lungs empty,
Light travels across the pelvis from left hip to right.
And the length of the breath is equal on all four stages.
I'm going to count but you're welcome to freestyle and do your own length of practice.
I'll start with the breath as a count of four.
So if you're following my lead,
Take an exhale.
Exhaling one,
Two,
Three,
Four.
Hold two,
Three,
Four.
Exhale two,
Three,
Four.
Hold two,
Three,
Four.
Exhale two,
Three,
Four.
Hold two,
Three,
Four.
Exhale two,
Three,
Four.
Hold two,
Three,
Four.
Hold two,
Three,
Four.
Hold two,
Three,
Four.
Hold two,
Three,
Four.
Exhale two,
Three,
Four.
Hold two,
Three,
Four.
Hold two,
Three,
Four.
We can increase the count to five.
Inhale two,
Three,
Four,
Five.
Hold two,
Three,
Four,
Five.
Inhale two,
Three,
Four,
Five.
Hold two,
Three,
Four,
Five.
Exhale two,
Three,
Four,
Five.
Hold two,
Three,
Four,
Five.
For the last three rounds,
I'm going to play with a count of six.
You can just do your own thing anytime.
Two three four trying,
Two three four,
Evaluation!
Hold,
Two,
Three,
Four,
Five,
Six.
Inhale.
Hold.
Exhale.
Inhale.
Hold.
Inhale.
Hold.
Exhale.
Hold.
Hold.
And let your breath return to its easy place.
A count of six is the optimum length of a breath.
So if you found that difficult,
It might be interesting to start playing with trying to nudge the boundary of your breath to expand it a little bit more.
It might be worth a daily check-in with your breath to see if you can start to move it towards a count of six.
It is a muscular thing,
As well as many other things.
And so like muscles,
It can change with practice.
When we release the framework of the breath practice,
Where does your breath go to?
And you keep it in a count of six.
And out of those four stages of breath,
Where's the ease?
Which one is the most appealing to you this morning?
Now,
Are you able to hear the breath if you drop into an ujjayi breath,
Where the muscles of the throat gently drop into the air?
And then you can feel the breath drop into the air.
And then you can feel the breath drop into the air.
And then you can feel the breath drop into the air.
If the muscles of the throat gently contract,
They create an audible breath.
Breathing in and out through the nose.
Can you take your next inhale down into your heart space?
And allow your exhale to emanate from your heart space.
Reaching out in order to let go of the breath.
And then you can feel the breath drop into the air.
And then you can feel the breath drop into the air.
And then you can feel the breath drop into the air.
Reaching out in all directions.
Inviting the wisdom of your heart to allow you to recognize your heart's intention for the week ahead.
Sometimes it comes in words.
Other times a feeling or a sensation.
There's many ways for the heart to recognize the intention for the week ahead.
There's many ways for the heart to speak and not always through the recognition of the mind.
So we just open up the invitation for the heart to let us know in her own way an intention for this week.
And then trust that it's so.
That we will hear it in our own way.
And closing the practice one more time with the metta prayer.
May I be happy.
May I be healthy.
May I be free of suffering.
May I be free of mental anxiety.
May I live in peace and may my life be blessed with ease.
May you be happy.
May you be healthy.
May you be free of suffering.
May you be free of mental anxiety.
May you live in peace.
And may your life be blessed with ease.
And then to all sentient beings.
May we be happy.
May we be healthy.
May we be free of suffering.
May we be free of mental anxiety.
May we live in peace.
And may our lives be blessed with ease.
Namaste.
