Okay,
So settling your body into a comfortable seated meditation position.
And as always,
Just take a moment to focus on the lower body,
Making sure you feel grounded and secure and stable.
Allowing everything from the hara downwards to sink,
To connect to the ground,
To feel gravity.
And then allowing everything from the hara upwards to feel light and upright,
Aligned and balanced,
Extending into the crown of your head.
And as if you're holding an orange in towards your chest,
Just tucking your chin down and in slightly.
The back of the neck is long,
Eyes are soft,
Lowered.
Maybe they're slightly open,
Maybe they're closed.
And then softening the shoulders,
Letting the hands rest somewhere comfortable.
Softening the belly.
So here the posture is supported by the spine,
So we don't really need to be holding any extra tension in the belly.
We're just going to be really focusing on relaxing,
Softening each time you breathe out a real kind of in the belly.
So we drop the attention down into the belly,
Into the hara,
And towards the point in the centre of the hara,
The tandon,
The place of our digestive fire.
What in traditional hatha yoga they call our inner sun,
Shurya,
Meaning sun,
The seat of our fire.
And maybe for you,
It feels like it has a colour,
An intensity.
Maybe it's a heat.
Maybe it's the sound of a fire roaring in your belly.
Just allowing that fire,
That point of intensity,
The energy to gather,
To brighten,
To intensify.
Bringing attention into your chest and towards your heart.
The heart nestling between your two lungs,
Just a little bit on the left side.
The traditional colour associated with this organ system is red,
So you can visualise your heart as a bright,
Crisp,
Clean,
Clear,
Vibrant red colour.
Maybe you can have a sense of your heartbeat.
Sometimes we can feel it without moving or doing anything.
Maybe it's a little pulse somewhere in the body.
Maybe you need to move your fingers and touch somewhere so that you can feel the pulse.
Sometimes in the wrist or in the neck is most clear.
So just do what you can to see if you can find your pulse.
You're feeling the effect of your heart beating,
Pumping the blood around your body.
The pulsing of the heart,
The beating of the heart coordinated by these pacemaker neurons.
Just the most exquisite dance to create that coherent pulse,
The heart beating,
Beating,
Beating continuously from before we were even born.
And every time those neurons send their signals for the muscle to contract,
It creates an electrical pulse,
Which then emanates a field,
An electromagnetic field.
So perhaps you're still able to feel the pulse.
Knowing that every time the heart beats,
We're creating an electrical field which extends throughout the whole body and also beyond the body into the space around you.
Not just into the space around you,
But actually off to infinity.
Your heart producing an electrical field which permeates the entire universe.
So we talked about the heart being the emperor and the pericardium being like the soldiers guarding the heart.
What would it be like to just say to those soldiers,
Hey,
You know,
It's safe right now.
We're safe.
And you can just sit down,
Relax for a moment and allow the energy of your heart to begin to radiate outwards.
Having an open heart.
And I really like the visual sort of representation of this,
Is that sometimes we meet people and there's a kind of leaning away from them,
Like there's a kind of slight aversion or kind of like resistance.
And sometimes we meet people and there's a leaning in,
That is a wanting or as an intention to want to relate or interact.
So with this pericardium relaxing,
It's like we're leaning into life.
There's a curiosity,
A kind of saying hello,
A reaching out and allowing of our heart energy to be seen and to be felt.
And I don't know,
Maybe it's helpful to visualize this in terms of a bubble,
A bubble of expanding intention,
An intention to relate,
To connect.
And maybe along with that,
An intention for whatever that heart energy encounters,
To feel well and safe and happy.
So just allowing the energy of your heart to radiate outwards for the bubble of intention to grow.
Intention to connect,
Interact,
To relate.
An intention for whatever that encounters to feel well and safe,
To feel content.
Maybe we can bring to mind one or two members of our close family,
Maybe people in your house right now or people close to you.
Allow them to be part of this bubble,
To be inside your bubble.
For them to feel safe,
Well,
Content.
Then maybe there are some other people in your life who just need a little bit extra right now,
They need a bit of care and attention.
Bringing them to mind,
Maybe it's one or few people.
I know that there are one or two people on this course who are not feeling so great today and are unable to join us,
So perhaps we can also include them in our bubble and just sending out directly towards them that intention,
That leaning in,
Leaning towards,
That reaching out your heart energy towards them with an intention for them to feel safe,
Well,
Content.
Okay.
And allowing that bubble to grow even bigger.
We know that our heart energy field,
The electromagnetic field,
Doesn't have an edge.
It decreases in strength as further we get from our heart,
But there is no edge.
So we can just allow this to permeate out through our neighbourhood.
Out across the country.
And to the whole of the planet.
Perhaps there's a wish there for all living beings to feel safe and well.
Content,
Happy.
And it doesn't stop there.
It doesn't have to stop there.
One of the things that we encounter many times in our Buddhist teaching is that our world is just one amongst many,
Many,
Many.
And the electromagnetic field of your heart extends throughout the entire universe.
So how would it be or what would it feel like?
To send out that intention along with your heart's energy,
That intention for all beings in the entire universe.
For the entire universe itself.
And we can do this safely.
Because the fire in the belly is low.
Because we are grounded.
Because we are secure.
On the ground,
On the earth.
We are,
If you like,
Tethered.
And not just floating.
So I'm going to be quiet for a little bit.
Just maintaining your attention in your belly,
Down at your tanden.
Breathing from this place,
The belly expanding and releasing into the centre of your belly.
Yes?
.
So as we now approach the end of this practice together,
I'm just going to bring a little bit of movement back to the body,
Maybe start by deepening the breath.
Maybe just swaying a bit side to side.
And then just when you feel ready,
Allowing your eyes to lift.
