So let's find a comfortable position for our body.
Our limbs are in a neutral position,
Feet planted if that's possible,
Knees at a neutral angle and our hands resting in our lap.
We're going to take a few breaths,
Inhaling will let our spine grow a little bit,
Make more room for our chest to open.
Neck is long and exhaling we can soften muscles of our face,
Soften our shoulders.
So there's lots of room for the breath but we're not tense.
Allowing our body to be still for a little while,
Making sure it's all at ease.
But we're mentally focused and to start with we can focus on the breath.
Just watching the breath as best we can as we become quiet and still.
And feeling how it feels to do that.
So let's use a centering breath as someone of our you.
So bringing our attention to our navel,
Inhaling we can imagine energy,
Prana,
Flowing in to our centre from all around us.
Energy spiralling in to our centre and exhaling we can imagine that energy flowing outwards from the centre all around our body all the way to our fingers and our toes.
Inhaling energy falling into the centre of us by a navel,
Exhaling that energy flowing nourishing our whole body.
The breath is still comfortable.
Keep that focus as best we can but if our mind wanders it's okay.
Let's see if we can do it,
Come back without criticism.
Samana Vayu is a direction of energy of prana and by the navel it helps us digest,
Assimilate and absorb both our food,
Our physical food but also our mental diet,
Our experiences because we need to digest and assimilate those as well.
So you can imagine this breath as we work with this breath and encourage this movement.
We can imagine that power of digestion growing stronger and nourishing our body,
Our physical body,
Our subtle bodies both with food,
Properly digested food and digesting our feelings and experiences so that they nourish us rather than give us metaphorical indigestion.
So we release that practice.
Rest for a moment.
And we will consider the views that Tantra invites us to consider.
So our outermost view,
Our outermost item in our experience is our stuff.
The physical items of the world,
Our belongings,
A home,
A place where we live,
Our physical environment.
So let's take a moment to consider how we interact with our stuff.
We won't do it from a place of blame or shame.
We'll do it from a point of view that offers an opportunity to grow if we find something we don't like.
So it's okay to have and to enjoy stuff,
Our car,
Our home,
Our garden,
Our personal belongings.
But they can cause suffering.
And the Tantra view offers that when we identify with these belongings too much it can cause us suffering.
So that might be I'm rich or I'm poor and that might cause us pain.
Maybe the type of car you drive or your status in the world may be satisfactory in some way.
Noticing where that dissatisfaction,
Where that suffering suggests we might be misaligned with our true feelings.
Or to put that another way the suffering shows us where our view could be adjusted.
Where we are misaligned with our peaceful loving self.
So just noticing how we feel about our belongings and our interactions with the world in general.
A lot of cause for for suffering and pain.
If we are very attached to a particular outcome,
To a particular condition it may cause us suffering,
Really really wanting and just noticing if that's the case for us.
Or I should say in what way that is the case for us.
Noticing it all.
And moving slightly inward on our journey to the centre.
So you can imagine that as the outermost ring of concentric rings we're moving further inwards to our body.
So as we consider our body many of us,
Most of us may be very attached to our body which is okay.
We might love bits of our body,
Be grateful for bits of our body.
But are there parts of it that cause us distress and suffering?
And if you are seriously ill and have a lot of pain I don't wish to negate that at all.
But we can just notice how it causes us suffering.
Are we very identified with or believe in,
Very attached to thinking that our body is old or young,
Healthy or ill and noticing where that causes us to stress?
And seeing how it feels if we can put that aside for a moment.
And preserve we might do that,
Judge our body and see if we can release that judgment.
Or just notice that it's a thought,
That judgment is a thought.
Someone else might feel quite differently about that particular quality.
So moving further towards our centre and considering now our thoughts and our feelings.
Most of us are very attached to our thoughts and our feelings.
Okay it's not a problem until it's a problem.
Most of us believe every thought that passes through our head in that moment,
Even if tomorrow we might be thinking something different.
So we could contemplate how our thoughts and our belief that our thoughts are true rather than just thoughts passing like clouds and opinions and that can cause us difficulty.
So same with our emotions.
Sometimes we enjoy them,
Sometimes they can be very difficult to live with.
For a moment can we allow ourselves to know they're passing like clouds like the weather.
To be a little less attached,
A little less identifying with our thoughts and our feelings and how it feels to do that.
So as we move towards our centre it can be harder to grasp some of the concepts as they become rather subtle and rarefied.
But we could imagine our energy,
Our prana,
Whether we have lots of energy,
Not necessarily in the sense of physical energy but purpose,
Drive to achieve something,
A strong direction in life.
If we can feel connected with this life force flowing through us,
Just noticing whatever comes up.
If we tend to judge ourselves we can notice that.
Does this energy flow through us randomly or is it something we are learning to shape and influence?
Something as simple as with the breath and a meditation practice can connect us more with our prana,
With our life force energy.
So now we arrive in our centre and let's bring our attention to our navel centre.
Let's see if we can keep our attention there.
And if any of those other items pop up,
The stuff,
The body,
The thoughts,
The feelings,
Can we notice and put them down?
What's it like in the centre?
In the yoga and tantra traditions our very fundamental centre is our awareness.
And it can be hard to be aware of our awareness so we can just rest in our centre.
We now observe a seat that observes all those other dimensions of our life.
Here there is no good and bad.
There is merely awareness.
Experiences good and bad are observed equally.
Our consciousness has no preference.
The tantra philosophy speaks of the joy of being.
Are you able to get a sense,
A glimpse,
Of a subtle joy here?
Doesn't mean sort of singing and dancing joy.
It means a small smile of awareness,
Subtle calm,
Complete confidence in itself.
And maybe just the idea that there is the joy of being in your centre can make a difference.
So let's allow the breath once more to gently stimulate our centre.
Breathing in towards our centre,
Out from our centre into our whole experience,
Not even our whole body.
Energy flowing into our centre,
Outwards to the whole world.
Let the breath be relaxed,
Just imagining how all these spheres of our existence are intimately connected.
So allowing the breath to remind us of our body.
Those out breaths stimulate the body,
Our extremities are starting to move as we start to return to our regular waking state of consciousness into our outer worlds.
And we'll gently move and have a stretch if that's for us.
We can return to our centre and our joy of being at any time.
Thank you for practicing with me.
