Three Energy Centers Meditation

This meditation guides us to three centers of bodily energy. It connects us with resources of wise knowing, loving strength, and stable stillness. Our points of aliveness remind us of the body's power to learn, to grow, and to rest.

Transcript

Welcome to this meditation which will connect us with the areas that we call chakras,

Or energy centers,

In the body.

We don't need to worry about what a chakra is in conceptual,

Material terms.

We need only feel what's directly available in our bodily experience just now.

Let's begin.

Feel yourself settle into a comfortable posture,

Supported,

Relaxed,

Also alert.

Invite your attention to gather around the skin below the nostrils and the delicate tissues just within.

This dear body is breathing just now,

And the breath can be felt flowing out of the nostrils,

Warm and soft,

And into them,

Cool and fresh.

Following the breath,

Warm,

Soft out-breath,

Cool,

Fresh in-breath,

Breath by breath,

By breath.

With the next in-breath,

Let your attention move up to the space between your eyes.

The nasal passages rise high above the nostrils,

And you can follow the breath all the way up,

Like you were sniffing a beautiful flower or a fine glass of your favorite beverage.

High in the nasal passages,

Between and maybe even a little above the eyes,

Your attention can accumulate behind the forehead,

Above and between the eyes.

In this deep space,

Near what we call the prefrontal cortex,

You might notice a quality of silent knowing all around our thoughts,

Images,

Memories.

Even the ones that aren't immediate to consciousness right now can be found so quickly.

We can imagine a high school we attended and picture it,

The face of someone we love,

Our own front door.

Easy to bring these images to mind with just the intention.

All around,

Too,

Is everything we've ever learned,

Informal education or practical experience,

A whole body of information,

Knowledge,

That we could also bring to mind if we chose,

Piece by piece.

In all of our hopes and plans and concerns about the future,

They're also around this quiet spot,

The center of silent knowing,

Sometimes called the third eye,

The place that goes beyond and could be called pure wisdom.

So feeling this space above and between the eyes,

Behind the forehead,

And noticing for all the activity all around it,

That it might be possible to find a very quiet place right here,

Right now.

If your attention drifts away to one of those thoughts or plans or memories,

Bring it back to the center of all knowing,

Quiet and wise,

Above,

Between the eyes,

Behind the forehead.

I find this a very peaceful place to rest my attention as everything that makes up my life and my concerns swirls around.

Attention can rest just here,

In silent,

Wise knowing,

Wise and silent knowing,

Just here,

Just now,

Available whenever we want or need a safe harbor for the mind.

Another safe harbor can be visited by following the breath down into the chest.

As we breathe in and out,

The chest fills and empties.

You can follow the breath into the chest and let it rest here in the area we think of as our heart,

A tender spot we can touch on the front of our chest.

And we can feel it deeper within,

Further back,

Behind,

Letting attention in the chest move to the back of the chest,

Letting it float around back there until it finds a place somewhere between the shoulder blades,

Somewhere in the strength of the spine.

I think of it as right between where,

If I had the wings of an angel,

Right between where they would arise,

Feeling those imaginary angelic wings and finding that spot between them in the strength of the spine,

Behind the sensitive,

Emotional heart.

This is what John Prendergast,

A teacher of mine,

Refers to as the deep heart.

Letting attention gather in the deep heart.

So for all the hurts and traumas and wounds that have caused us pain in the course of our lives,

We have endured,

We are here now,

Moving forward,

There's something in us that is strong and capable that can ride the storms of emotion and grief,

Fear and anger,

Injustice,

Call this courage.

There is this deep and ancient courage in this very body just now,

Feeling this place of compassion and loving strength.

So helpful to remember that as tender and easily wounded as one part of the heart can be,

There is this deeper,

More ancient,

More collective power,

The courage of life itself,

The compassion,

The strength.

Feeling this point of compassionate power right at the origin of those angelic wings that we can imagine.

There really is this place of fortitude available to explore and inhabit in your body just now and now.

The breath moves,

Emotions may swirl,

But life endures right here,

Right now.

And if attention wanders away from this point of loving strength,

Strong love,

Just guide it back like a nestling bird back into the warmth and safety.

And we can always return to this place of compassionate empowerment in times of turmoil or distress,

But just now we'll go further down following the next inhalation down into the lower belly,

Deep in the lower belly,

Below the belly button,

Above the pubic bone,

And back to the base of the spine.

We can find a point there of utter quiet and stability,

The root of life,

The source of reproduction,

The power of flow,

All gather into one point of stillness,

The very stability of the center of the earth.

This point is the center of our body's gravity and thus is directly connected by gravitational force to the center of the earth,

Its center of gravity.

If it were possible to place a room in the very,

Very center of the earth,

It would be so deep and still and weightless,

In the middle of all that pressure there'd be a point of floating,

Effortless being.

Likewise in the pressure of our lives,

We can bring attention to a point of effortless being,

Quiet and stable,

Here in the lower belly,

Sometimes called the hara or the dantian,

A combination of some of the lower chakras from the yoga system.

All it takes is letting attention gather in that point,

There might be back pain behind it,

Tummy pain above it,

Pelvic pain below it,

Could be all sorts of sensations and discomforts because life does provide us with such experiences.

Letting whatever discomfort your body might feel or fear,

Letting it simply be and finding this quiet point in the middle of the lower belly might be quite small,

But it's effortless and painless and free.

I work with this point a lot with my own bodily discomforts of various types,

The ones I now named and others,

For me it's not theoretical and it need not be for you either,

There is indeed a point of effortless stability that attention can find.

There's lots of life around this point in the body,

Powerful spine and spinal muscles behind,

Pelvic organs,

Reproductive,

Bladder,

Rectum,

In front and below,

Kidneys,

Spleen and liver and stomach,

Above and behind,

And the intestines and the microbiome in front and all around,

All that life,

Trillions of friendly bacterial cells,

Trillions of wise mammalian cells,

In this point of stillness,

In this moment,

Just now,

Connecting us to the earth and all its immense and ancient continuity,

For all the traumas,

Uproar that have occurred,

The center just is,

Effortless and stable.

Whenever attention wanders,

Just letting it settle back and down to this very point.

In daily life,

We can use these points of strength and wisdom and stability as resources.

Whenever we feel a little off balance,

A little frightened,

A little confused,

We can move from point to point with the breath.

On the next exhale,

Rising to the deep heart,

And then the third eye.

And on the inhale,

Moving back down through the heart to the stable point in the lower belly.

Exhaling,

Moving up,

Heart,

Third eye.

Inhaling,

Moving down,

Heart,

Lower belly.

Moving up through the heart and its compassionate strength,

The third eye,

With its silent wisdom,

Its knowing.

Back down through the deep heart to the lower belly point,

With its effortless stability.

Moving with the breath through the whole energetic body of experience.

Point by point,

Living and moving within a body is a creative process.

Fluid and electric,

Creative and alive.

We can choose our points of attention according to the moment.

Sometimes we need silent,

Wise knowing.

Sometimes the situation calls for loving,

Compassionate power.

And sometimes we need the easeful grounding of the center,

The earth.

This capacity to move as needed from strength to strength,

Point to point,

Can be brought into our more active day.

As this meditation comes to an end,

We can breathe a little more quickly and deeply,

Wiggle our fingers and toes,

And return to our activities,

Whatever they are,

More in touch with the inner resources our body provides.