Good morning.
Welcome to our practice.
Let's take our time.
Allow ourselves to get settled.
And perhaps we'll begin our practice by finding ground.
Inviting.
A certain awakeness to the practice.
Noticing without changing the breath.
Although often the noticing in itself does.
Change the breath.
But there's nothing deliberate,
There's nothing.
Choreographed about the breath.
Just noticing it.
That's interesting.
To me,
I find it interesting.
The subtlety of practice should be this way or that way.
The decades of Practicing yoga to be a certain way,
To breathe a certain way.
Correct posture and incorrect posture.
The path of self-improvement it's very Sticky.
Be difficult.
To let go of,
Or even to notice.
It can be like the water that we swim in.
So a practice can be an invitation to drop that.
Be with the direct experience of what is.
Without this second layer of the judgment of what it should be.
Having said that,
It can be quite nice.
To bring a visualization to the breath.
Of the exhale dropping down into the air.
Inhale,
Moving up toward.
The sky.
The movement of the breath up and down through the central channel.
Of the primal streak,
The midline.
The space.
In front of the spine.
The vertical axis.
Sometimes we bring a practice into our meditation because it helps us to regulate.
Soothes us.
It's natural to want to be soothed.
Being dysregulated.
Feels horrible.
They can feel horrible.
So we lengthen the breath and we deepen the breath and we maybe bring in some pranayama because it feels.
More comforting.
And that's natural.
To want that.
Maybe let's bring a hand up to the heart space and just gently rub.
The area of the heart space,
If that feels okay to you.
Just feel the comfort of that movement.
Maybe,
Maybe it brings some warmth.
Maybe you just rest your hand there,
Or maybe you rub some circles,
Bring some heat.
May bring.
Touched the practice and it helps us to bring our body into the practice.
So it's not just.
Cognitive Thought The body is here too.
Maybe we bring our awareness down to the heart.
That's where you direct the breath to the heart.
It's natural.
To want to stay with the comfort.
And then.
.
.
Perhaps we start to cling to the comfort.
Afraid of losing it.
And the clinging becomes its own thing.
Ahem.
It brings with it its own source of.
.
.
Suffering.
Is there a space where you can Long for the comfort.
Without clinging.
And I am grasping.
And in longing for comfort.
We're creating a definition.
Between comfort and discomfort.
We're putting our flags in the sand.
This is comfort,
Therefore this is discomfort.
So.
.
.
In a subtle or perhaps not so subtle way we're rejecting.
We're rejecting that which we have assigned to discomfort.
The absence of comfort.
Are rejecting might be pretending it's not there or distracting or pushing it down.
Or getting angry.
Pushing it away.
And the rejecting itself becomes a source of suffering.
Not this.
I don't want this.
It brings another layer.
To the experience.
So either way,
If we're clinging to what we want or we're rejecting what we don't want,
We're adding layers.
Of suffering to our experience.
So if we take it back to just noticing.
If we stay open in this heart space.
To allowance.
Meeting the experience with a yes.
Maybe it becomes just a little bit simpler.
Maybe we can be with the longing.
Of the heart.
And listen.
Without adding the drama.
Of the clinging.
The rejecting.
Simply noticing.
The drama.
Of the clinging and the rejecting.
And smiling.
Ah,
There I am.
Very good.
Doing the thing.
That every human does.
And perhaps we stay here breathing into the heart.
Listening for the longing.
Letting the breath deepen.
Coming back into the space.
Offering the fruits of our practice to ourselves,
To each other and to all beings.
Thank you for so much so much for practicing with me with us today namaste
