Sit,Walk,Work (SW^2)
Letting Go: A Meditation on Breath and Compassion
Ladies and gentlemen, may I have your attention please? Today's practice was centered around letting go and the aspects of letting go that show up in our meditation practice and there's a lot of those from watching the breath, which is the obvious in and out of the breath. Breath comes in, you let it go, breath goes out, but also your distractions, there's distractions present in your practice and every time one of those comes up, it's a new opportunity to learn to build that muscle to letting go. And so we worked through the breath first, very general, just kind of let it be there, wanted you to feel what your breath was feeling like, and you moved into combining the breath and the imagination. So we did some alternate nostril breathing, just kind of imagining breathing in one nostril and out the other and feeling your body, kind of shifting your attention from side to side and space to space. And then we moved from the breath to just the kind of feeling tone that was present and the thinking mind, what was coming up in the mind in this moment, I offered you an opportunity to kind of notice how our thoughts are a stream that change and shift and move even the thoughts that keep coming back. You might have one thought reoccur multiple times in just different flavors of it, and then we moved from the thinking mind into the space of what we call awareness, the container for the practice, and we focused on those elements, and then finished it off by offering some kindness and well-wishing out to the world to folks being affected through tragic things, you may not feel like much as we sit here in our practice, but to be able to put that kind of energy out, I think there are some subtle impacts that we may never see for that, but it's easy for us to do from here. Welcome to the Sit Walk Work Podcast, a show about paying attention. My name is Dominic and I'm your host, and today is a guided meditation. If you find today's episode valuable, please share with your friends and family, and feel free to leave a review wherever you listen to the podcast. You get started seated or lying down, either version is fine by me, which everyone's going to help you be alert and help you be still because that's kind of the big thing, right? If you move a lot, fidget a lot, we want to try to rein it in as best as we can because it can affect the practice or it could become the practice depending on what your attention needs today. So with that, make sure you have a comfortable seat. If your hands are resting in your lap, that's perfectly fine to place them there, or they could be on a desk or something in front of you. If you're lying down, your hands can rest by your side. I want you to take a good breath in because breathing is an important part of this practice. Being able to breathe and being able to kind of feel your breath move through you. So take a good breath in, see if you're constricted with that breath, and if you are, make some minor adjustments to kind of rearrange that. And then lastly, is your gaze or your focus. Close your eyes. That is the common place we go. If it's not safe to close your eyes, that's okay too. You can look at a spot out in front of you that is not moving and rest your gaze on that spot. And then that kind of begins the, let's call it the initial, the formal kickoff from meditation. And as you start to settle into your breaths, settle into your practice, and arrive here. Most of us are arriving here from a busy day, right, later in the day for most of us are getting there. And so we've probably done some things before you got to practice. I'm calling us out, it's kind of the theme for where we're going to be moving through class today. Because oftentimes when we are immersed in an activity, say work, for example, or some other task you had before you arrived here to practice. Like the residual effects of that can carry out. It can be difficult for us to leave things where they are. We kind of pick up things and attach to them and get so involved with them that it can be hard to let them go and kind of take a step back from them. So whether that's work or a hobby or whatever the thing is, we all have something like that that kind of can grab and hold us a bit. And so today's practice is going to move us through this concept of working with letting go. We're going to explore that even further in our meditation. And so I'd like for you to bring your attention into feeling your breath, observing your breath as if you were just taking a step back and being a witness to how you're breathing in this moment. So you might feel where the breath is showing up in your body. That's where the in-breath begins and where it ends, whether that's breathing through the nose or breathing out through the mouth. Now let yourself just naturally sense and feel the rhythm. and feel the rhythm. And your breath is a really good. In upfront way to notice this idea of letting go because it's a natural part of your breathing cycle. You don't really have to do anything to let go of your breath. It's going to happen on its own. On the speed of the breath, the depth of it. The thing is when you're observing the breath, you're seeing it come, you're seeing it go, you're feeling it move through you. The breath isn't alone in your experience, your experience is comprised of a multitude of other inputs, sounds and feelings and smells and sensations and mental chatter. All of it is present. And I want you to soften your attitude towards the other parts of your experience, especially when focusing on one thing like you're doing with your breath in this moment. It can be easy to want all the other stuff to stop, make it go away. But can you just bring your focus back to the task of monitoring your breath and as you kind of sit in this very open space of what we call your awareness. Thank you very much for watching. I hope you enjoyed this video. Thanks for watching. We'll see you in the next video. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. [end of transcript] There's the rhythm of the breath. Just to shift the tone of the moment, we're going to take the breath and we're going to take our imagination. We're going to begin to use those two kind of injunction together, in conjunction together. And so I want you to imagine that there's a vertical line coming down from the crown of your head right through the center of your body, like a center channel, it's dividing your right and your left sides. And using this imagery, imagine that you're taking a breath in and it's moving up the front of the body or up the front of that center channel. Then as you breathe out, the breath moves down the back of that center channel, creating this kind of circular flow of in and out breath. When you're still feeling the breath move up and you're feeling the breath move down in this part of the practice, the mind slipping away is okay. Even if it's kind of went off in its own tangent, when you're just kind of recognizing, oh, I'm not following my breath, I'm just walking back home to watching the breath again. the back of the body. We're going to start to move the breath through the right side of the body and the left side of the body. So we're going to alternate the breath from side to side, you're breathing up the center channel space. We're going to use that, but then we're going to shift it from right, we're going to shift it to left. We're going to feel subtly the shift of our attention from our right side to our left side of our bodies. So the way this works, should take another breath in and then let that breath go. When you start your next breath, imagine that it's breathing in through your right nostril and feel as the breath comes in through the right nostril, feel the right side of your body. When you reach the top of that breath, you just let an exhale go and the breath moves back down the center channel. And when your attention comes back around, you breathe or your breath comes around, breathe in through your left nostril, feel the left side of your body. And then as you exhale, let the breath move back down the center. So with each inhale, you're just moving the breath and the attention from right to left. And each exhale moves the breath down the center. Sure. [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] Even as you're observing the breath, don't lose sight of the way you're practicing. [BLANK_AUDIO] Is there a bit of demand being put on yourself or just comfort if you lose count or get distracted? Is there important things to observe? [BLANK_AUDIO] Moving the breath, feeling the body. [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] The next time your exhale breath comes back around wherever you are in the cycle of following the right to left center. [BLANK_AUDIO] Let the imagination soften. [BLANK_AUDIO] Release the attention from just observing the breath. [BLANK_AUDIO] And start to notice how you feel right now. [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] And as you get a sense for how you're feeling in this moment. Recognize what the quality and the state of your mind is. [BLANK_AUDIO] One of the ways I like to think about that is the dialogue that's occurring in this moment, supportive or unsupportive. Or is it just neutral? Or maybe it's not even there. And in the same way that you've kind of witnessed your breath and worked with your breath and your imagination and felt it today. That same power of observation can be applied to the way we think. So as you begin to watch your thinking, notice the patterns that might be present in it. If you can observe the parts of your thinking that change that you're able to let go of and how a new cycle begins. Following the thought all the way through to its completion, seeing when the next one rolls around. Just like you felt your body as you were breathing. Notice how your body feels as you're following and observing this flowing change, the stream of thinking that's happening. [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] Even where you are in your practice, it may seem that the stream of thoughts is just continuous. Over time you'll find that. That varies. But can you let go of the part of us that wants this just to stop? Oftentimes we just want the flow of things to quit. And if you just put that down for a moment and witness this with a little more neutrality. [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] Feeling the body, feeling the heartbeat, the breath, the weight of your body. All of these very subtle things that are shifted and affected and impacted by this stream of thoughts that are flowing through. The breath that's moving through all of these things that are passing through. [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] Noticing that even in the midst of the changing breath and the flowing mind and the sounds that are moving around you. There's this sense that there's a steadiness holding it all together. That there's a space from which you can observe all of this happening that is separate from the happening from the things that are occurring. If you can sense and feel that turn your attention towards it, notice kind of that consistency that's present. There is space for all of your experience to coexist. [BLANK_AUDIO] The eyes are closed, you might even be able to feel the space within your visual field. There is openness in the darkness that exists. There's space behind you or below you. [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] Seeing where the mind might get pulled away into the activity of experience. [BLANK_AUDIO] Then let it softly return back to the space. To that feeling of openness. To the willingness to allow yourself to be here in this moment to experience all parts of yourself. [BLANK_AUDIO] You may be one of the most courageous things that you can do for yourself. If you're learning to understand yourself, you change the person that interacts with everyone else around them. So from learning to understand yourself, you have a ripple effect. It moves through you and through others. That's why your practice isn't just for you, but it is also for the well-being of those around you. And in the spirit of community within our practice, I'd like to take this next few minutes of practice and take our attention. Offer our attention, our kindness, our compassion, our well wishes. All of the other beings, the other humans affected by the recent weather events. A reminder that we are all connected in the spirit of humanity. And just like you two are grateful for your safety and your ability to be here in practice. And wish and want the same for others as they navigate the challenges in front of them. [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] And just as I mentioned, the start of practice, that there is a transition that happens as we kind of move out of into each of our experiences. So as we begin to bring practice to a close today, that transition period starts again. As you take a breath in, in your exhale, let the breath go and blink your eyes open. You bring this formal session of meditation to a close. And the work doesn't stop here by any stretch of the imagination, but it does kind of wrap up today's experience. [BLANK_AUDIO] Thank you for listening to today's episode. I invite you to check out my sub stack where we are building a community of like-minded individuals to discuss all topics related to the idea of paying attention. I hope to see you there, but until then, with META, may you be well. Well.