Hello,
And welcome to The Daily Insight.
My name is Trish Tettin.
I'm a teacher here on Insight Timer.
And in today's meditation,
We will be focusing on creating a cool head and a warm heart.
May this practice be of benefit.
Take these first few moments to arrive in a position that is comfortable and that allows you to have a long spine.
You might choose to sit on a cushion or in a chair.
Or if it's more comfortable for you,
You could lie down as well.
So start to find yourself arriving and settling.
Allow your body to become still.
And take a few deeper breaths in and out.
Breathing all the way to your peak,
To your fullest capacity.
And exhaling out,
Maybe even with a long sigh.
Let these deeper breaths mark the beginning of your practice.
And then just allow your breath to come back into a natural rhythm.
Let your breath feel unlabored,
Unforced.
Easy.
And if you're sitting,
Start to feel the lower half of your body settling and relaxing.
Feeling anchored and grounded.
Letting the muscles of the legs slowly fall away from the bones.
Cultivating a quality of stability in the lower half of your body.
A steady base.
And with your next inhale,
Let your spine start to express itself a little bit longer,
A little bit taller.
Maybe even feeling a lightness or buoyancy around your heart,
An ability to lift upward and sit tall with dignity.
Slowly releasing any tension from your body here.
We'll take a moment here at the beginning of our practice to set an intention.
Our intention is like planting a seed for the practice.
So what seed do you wish to plant here?
What do you wish to cultivate?
So our intention here might be to cool off the persistent or busy thoughts in our mind to cultivate more warm qualities of the heart.
So you might feel that intention here.
You might add on to it or change it in a way that it speaks to you.
Once you feel settled with your intention for practice,
We can begin.
And the way we'll begin today is by anchoring our attention on the breath right at the nostrils,
Right where it enters the body.
So see if you can feel that place,
That threshold in the body where air turns into breath.
And when you exhale,
Where breath turns back into air.
Can you become laser-focused on that space,
Not in a way that creates tension or rigidity,
But just in a way that's alert?
Our breath is observed really only through contact.
It can't be seen.
It's just felt.
So remain alert and attentive to the breath right at the threshold of the nostrils.
It's almost like you've stationed a guard or an attendant right at that entrance to the body.
And this attendant,
It doesn't go inside,
It doesn't go outside.
It just stands right at that threshold and it observes what's going on right at this region of the body.
And this attendant,
This is like the quality of mindfulness.
It just stays watch.
It's alert.
It's not distracted.
It doesn't get sleepy or tired.
And more importantly,
It's not bribed into distraction by some tempting thoughts.
This quality of mindfulness must actually refuse the offer of more tempting things to give its attention to,
Maybe images or thoughts or its imagination.
So as you attend to the breath at the nostrils,
You can notice different qualities.
You might notice the breath being long or short,
Maybe deep or shallow.
Maybe you notice the temperature of the breath.
Maybe you notice that feeling now just inside the nose,
That feeling of the cool air just on the inside of the nostrils now.
And the more focused we can get on the breath,
The less attention we give to our thoughts.
The less attention we give to our thoughts,
The cooler our head becomes.
See now if you can follow your breath a little bit deeper.
It goes past the nostrils to the inside of the nose and then see if you can feel the breath just behind the nose in the skull,
In the nasal cavity,
This spacious place.
Can you feel the air swirling there?
Just like a cool fall breeze swirling around this space inside the skull.
And as thoughts come up into the mind,
Maybe you can imagine the breath as this cool swirling breeze that takes any unnecessary thoughts and it blows them away.
And you may notice thoughts coming in that are strong and that are intense,
Maybe perspectives or beliefs or opinions.
These can have the tendency to create a hot-headedness,
A heat in the mind,
An intensity.
So again,
Just imagine this cool breath is bringing the temperature down.
This intensity in the mind starts to subside in favor for this cool and calm spaciousness.
So this might be starting to feel pleasant.
A little bit calmer in the mind.
And it's from this place now that we have cooled off any intensity in the mind that we want to complement this more stable-mindedness with the qualities of a warm heart,
Quality of friendliness.
It's important to remember to hear that the qualities of our heart are innate.
So this practice is simply a remembering that we are capable of kindness and friendliness toward ourselves.
So I'll repeat some phrases here for you.
And then while you continue to attend to your breath,
You can just silently repeat these phrases back toward yourself.
May I be at peace.
May I be at peace.
May I be at peace.
The next phrase is may I be at ease.
May I be at ease.
May I be at ease.
May I let go of all anger and aggression.
May I let go of all anger and aggression.
May I let go of all anger and aggression.
May I release that which causes harm.
May I release that which causes harm.
May I release that which causes harm.
And finally,
May I be patient,
Courageous,
And determined to meet and overcome the challenges and difficulties in my life.
May I be patient,
Courageous,
And determined to meet and overcome the challenges and difficulties in my life.
So allowing here your breath to begin to deepen.
And as we slowly come out of this practice,
Take a moment to feel gratitude for your time spent in meditation today.
Maybe gratitude for any clarity or any insight received during this practice.
Noticing as well how you feel now.
Noticing the memory of this feeling to motivate you to continue your practice.
We'll close our practice today by extending the benefits.
So may the benefits of this practice radiate out and be of benefit to all beings.
May all beings be happy.
May all beings know their true nature.
And may this practice be of enormous benefit.
