Learning To Be With & Being Kind To What Arises In Your Field Of Awareness

My name is Enrique and I'm one of the IBME teachers.

I've been hanging with IBME for a minute now.

And it's just like,

I'm having this really touching,

Heartwarming moment,

Just seeing all of your faces pop up.

And I work with young people in schools and no school,

No challenge day.

And I'm just missing young people and working with young people.

So yeah,

Feeling super grateful.

Because of the format,

I had a lot of time to chat.

So we're gonna sit for about 15 to 20 minutes and then maybe we'll have,

If there's any more time left,

Any reflections or maybe a little checkout.

I will say this briefly before we go into this,

Two things.

I'll give some instructions.

If the instructions don't work for you for whatever reason,

Whether I ask you to,

I invite you to pay attention to the breath,

If the breath isn't feeling grounding for you for whatever reason,

Just know that take care of yourself.

This is on the umbrella of take care of yourself.

If body doesn't feel good,

If breath doesn't feel good,

Just the invitation is to find something that feels good to you or neutral in the sense of what you're paying attention to.

And a big part of practice is learning how to be with what's happening.

So that's gonna be the invitation.

Can I be with what's happening?

Can I notice what's happening?

And if what's happening is unpleasant,

If I'm not liking it,

Feeling it,

Digging it,

Like can I extend some compassion or kindness or patience to this thing called being human?

Yeah,

So,

All right.

So finding a way to sit that feels good to you.

And when I say feels good,

I mean,

Feels grounded.

So finding a posture that's,

Yeah.

Classical instructions,

If you're sitting in a chair,

Couch to be in an upright position,

Kind of balancing,

Awakeness and relaxation,

But you can be sitting,

Lying,

Standing,

Whatever works for you.

And the invitation is to gently allow your eyes to close.

And again,

If that doesn't feel right,

You can leave your eyes open.

And take a deep breath in through the nose,

Filling the whole body and exhale.

Good job,

And do that again,

In through the nose,

Deep inhale,

Filling the whole body,

And exhaling,

And again,

Inhale through the nose,

And exhaling,

And just keep doing that forever.

Learning how to breathe in this way,

Maybe the very thing that sets us free.

So just keep riding the waves of your breath,

Feeling the contact of the breath into the body.

So maybe you feel it at the tip of your nostrils,

Maybe it's the rising and falling in the belly.

And you know,

We took some time to get through this,

But now just allowing the breath to find its own natural rhythm,

You don't have to breathe any certain way.

This is our old friend,

It can be a place of refuge.

It's the mind,

That's the time traveler,

Right?

The breath in the body,

Always here.

And as we do our best to sustain our attention on the breath,

I think that's really helpful for me,

Because the mind is not really used to like doing this,

And it's got a mind of its own,

And it's helpful for me is to bring a sense of curiosity to what I'm paying attention to.

So in this case,

Maybe it's the breath,

Because it's not interesting if you're not interested.

So just seeing how curious you can get about your breath.

Can you notice all the sensations that make up the experience of breathing in your body?

The rising of the diaphragm,

The filling of the lungs,

The rising of the shoulders,

As the air enters the body.

The softening,

The releasing,

Letting go,

The air exits the body.

Paying attention to the beginning of the breath,

The middle,

The passing,

The falling away,

And the ending.

And just riding the waves of your breath.

If the mind gets pulled away into thinking,

Planning,

What you're going to do after this,

What's going on in the world,

Whatever,

Just doing your best,

Not a big deal if the mind got lost,

It's just what it does.

It's doing your best to bring the attention back.

It takes effort,

The right kind of effort,

And bring the attention back to your object of meditation.

So the breath,

An anchor to the present moment,

A potential place of refuge,

Right when the mind starts to race and worry and plan and fear and think and worst case scenario,

Usually induces anxiety and stress in the body.

And when I remember when that mind moment,

Mindfulness bell,

It's like,

Oh,

Breath,

Take three deep breaths.

I'm back.

And what's happening in this moment,

And can I respond with the appropriate tool in this moment?

Another anchor can be our body,

So I'm going to invite you to,

You can totally welcome to keep hanging out with your breath.

It's kind of opening the awareness if it feels right to you and to the whole body.

I want to see if you can notice is gravity,

The experience of gravity in your body.

You feel the weight,

The solidity,

The pressure.

Feeling like the being rooted into the earth.

I like to think and just acknowledge really just the truth that the earth has got me.

Always.

In the body where we hold a lot,

Emotion,

Stress,

Fear,

Craving in the body.

I'm just inviting you to do a little body scan.

So I like to imagine it's kind of like a sheet,

Like a laser,

Like a sheet of light,

Scanning from the crown of the head down to my toes slowly.

And as I'm scanning,

I like to look out for and attune to any places of holding or tension and seeing if I can soften and relax.

Checking out the forehead and your brow.

Can the muscles around the eyes be a little softer?

Any places in the face,

The jaw,

The tongue?

Can gravity pull my shoulders down even further?

You can walk through life really braced and not even notice it.

Continuing to scan through the arms,

Your hands,

Your hands relaxed.

How about your belly?

Another place where we hold so much.

At least I do.

I can be really braced and tight and protecting myself,

The vulnerable self from this intense world of softening the belly if I feel safe.

Just continuing to scan through and softening where you can and accepting where you can.

Okay.

Mindfulness of the body,

A non-intellectual,

Cerebral,

Non-judgmental awareness.

And the body can be an anchor,

A home base,

A refuge.

Again,

When the mind generates fear and anxiety,

I like to say,

Ask myself,

Where are my feet at?

Where are my feet at?

And can I respond appropriately?

Okay.

This moment,

This breath,

This practice really reminding me that all we have are moments.

To live.

So we bring our attention into this mind-body process,

This thing we call being human.

And we move towards learning to accept and dare I say love all the parts of ourself.

To train our mind to stay so we have a full life.

The last few minutes,

Kind of staying with this intention around loving oneself and all of oneself and just really seeing if you can hold yourself with a sense of appreciation and gratitude.

And choosing into this what I really see as an act of self-love or taking the time for answering the call to service.

And this may be showing up for yourself,

But in doing that,

You provide a service,

You provide community.

And seeing if you can appreciate,

Acknowledge that.

Acknowledge your courage and.

.

.

Acknowledge.

.

.

Yeah,

Just getting up every single day and trying and celebrating even that.

Ring the bell in a few moments and the invitation is to,

If your eyes are closed,

Just to keep the eyes closed until the sound of the last bell completely fades away.

And just in this invitation to hold the sense of practice,

Even when the bell rings,

It doesn't mean the practice is over.

Now we're just transitioning into a different form of practice.

Ring the bell.

Thank you everyone for your attention and getting to practice with you.