Namaste,
Good morning and welcome.
My name is Samantha from Zayoca.
And before we start,
Stretch a little bit.
It helps when you come into your seat.
The body's usually a little stiff.
So when you sit,
You wanna be able to feel not so tight around the shoulders and back.
Then make sure that the seat is comfortable,
That you're either sitting on a chair,
A bolster,
Or with your back against the wall.
So let's begin.
Let's close our eyes.
Take a nice deep breath in.
And exhale it out.
So the breath allows us to just center.
Now we all breathe,
We know that,
As we're not alive,
But we don't always focus on how we breathe.
So the practice,
When we come to our seat to begin with,
Is to just first sit down and settle in.
And how we settle in is by just focusing on our breath.
And allow your mind and voice to guide your breath and to guide your mind out of the everyday.
So we have the present moment,
What is happening at the moment.
And then we have the moment of the present moment.
What is happening at this moment,
Right now.
And then we have the everyday,
Where we think about what we gotta get done,
What needs to happen,
How we function.
And then we have the past,
How we calculate and recalculate and reanalyze what already happened,
And that we can't change.
And then we have the future,
Where we dwell and worry about what can we do different,
What can we do to succeed.
And then somehow between the everyday,
The past and the future,
We forget right now,
This moment,
This present moment.
And that happens because we're so much into what needs to happen next.
And that happens because we're so much into what's happening next,
That we're not seeing what's happening now.
So we look back at the past,
Angry about what has happened to us and what we want to do to change that.
When the only reason you have memory of the past,
Is so that you can learn.
Learn the lesson and then let it go.
The past cannot serve you anymore.
It is a memory so that you can make changes,
Not to dwell on how you would have done it different then or what you didn't like.
We all have a history.
And I want to say that again,
We all have a history.
And in that history,
Not every moment was present.
That we cannot change.
But just like you learned a language,
Just like you learned how to walk,
How to talk,
How to move,
That was your past history that brought you to this moment where you function.
We don't go back and say,
Oh,
The many times that I fell and when I was learning how to walk,
I need to go back to that,
That was so painful,
How I fell.
I stumbled my words,
How I moved so awkwardly,
We don't.
So why do we go back in time and live in that time when we were hurt?
When something or someone might have hurt our feelings.
It does not exist.
It no longer exists.
But you could learn from that,
You can change.
You could learn from that,
You can change.
And the future is wide open.
No matter how much planning you do,
Changing you do,
The future will be,
The future will happen.
And yes,
You want to plan.
Yes,
You want to come up with ideas of how you want to see your future and set that out there.
But that's what you do.
You set up a plan and you set it out there into the world.
Then you come back to this moment.
You come back to this moment.
And you allow yourself to be present.
You've learned your lessons from the past.
You set a plan for the future and you allow yourself to do it here in the present.
Those are some simple foundations we have to create so that the mind is not constantly going,
Going,
Going without you having any control.
Somehow we get stuck in the past or too wrapped up in the future.
That we don't really even focus on this moment.
Balance comes when we balance what was,
What is,
What will be.
That should be a balance.
And that balance should not be too emotional one in or the other.
Detach from that for a moment.
And focus on this moment.
Every time you come to your seat and you quiet your breath,
Slowing it down,
Allowing yourself to just be here with no to-do list,
With no yesterday and no tomorrow,
You recenter and bring yourself to this present moment to allow yourself to just be steady,
Calm,
Knowing that your lessons will learn,
Reflecting on how you plan your future,
And then bringing yourself to a place in your heart where all is still.
If it's just only a few seconds,
Come into your breath,
Steady in your mind.
That's what this practice is about.
And in the beginning,
It might just be a few seconds.
Then it might move on to minutes,
And then it might move on to hours,
And it might just be how you live your life,
Fully present,
Noticing every moment,
Balancing the past,
Balancing the future with the present moment.
Maybe we don't get to that walking every day as if you're walking in a meditation of constant awareness.
But even a few minutes a day will change your whole life and bring some center and some balance into it.
So allow yourself to stay here a little longer if you can,
Focusing on your breath,
Focusing on your sounds that you hear without any real attachment.
When you're ready,
Take a nice deep breath in,
Release it out,
And remember that this place that we created is always here.
It's within you.
So stay safe,
Wear a mask,
Keep your distance,
And namaste.
