Welcome to day 10.
We are still in the waxing crescent phase,
The last day of that phase,
And you might start noticing how you're expanding and becoming more aware of your thoughts and your body and the emotions that arise.
And we'll be talking about emotions today and learning to bring mindfulness to our emotions.
Let's take a few deep breaths just to notice the emotions that are present as you begin the session today.
And perhaps you'd like to keep your eyes closed,
Dropped in for this Dharma talk today.
See if you can be with yourself enough to notice the emotions that arise as I speak about emotion and about where we are in our world.
There are,
Give or take,
3,
000 words to describe human emotions.
I imagine there are more.
3,
000 of them,
However,
Are common and we all have emotions.
I remember in college there was a woman who was in my dorm room and she said,
I don't have emotions.
They don't exist for me.
And I just thought,
What?
That doesn't make any sense to me.
That doesn't compute in my brain.
And some people feel way more than others.
And at the end of the day,
All beings feel emotions,
From my understanding.
We can tell when a dog or a cat is feeling afraid or threatened.
We can tell the same with the water creatures.
We can tell with each other.
There's some research coming out about emotional responses in the body and it's said that 80% of our emotions,
80% of what we're experiencing is actually visible somatically,
Visible within our bodies.
Somatic comes from the Greek word soma,
Which means body.
So these expressions that we hold on our face,
The tension that we feel in our bodies,
They're felt somatically in the body.
A powerful book,
The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk is a powerful reminder of what comes in our bodies and what we store in our bodies.
And we can be aware of what arises with kindness,
Especially when trauma and fear can lodge its way in,
Even transgenerationally,
From one generation to the next.
And so in this Mindfulness with the Moon journey we are on,
It is critical for us to start to notice what's happening in our bodies,
To notice the messages that are coming through because the conflicts that we face in the world,
The kind of injustice that we see and the way people are caring for one another,
Nation to nation,
Country to country,
Are all driven by emotion.
They're driven by feelings and by delusional ignorance and fear and confusion.
And so the work of awakening and understanding the possibility of freedom with emotions is absolutely critical at this time.
In this work,
The invitation I am going to offer is for you to get as close to your emotions as possible.
We aren't trying to work with our emotions or change them in any way,
Let me be clear.
We must simply let our emotions,
Let the vibration that we feel in our bodies,
Our pounding heart,
Our clenching fists,
Our sweating,
Simply be there and observe them as they morph and change moment to moment in our awareness.
Because they will change,
They do change.
Neuroscience is telling us these days that emotions actually only last between 30 to 90 seconds.
Everything beyond 90 seconds typically is story.
We're stuck in story.
We're not actually present with what's going on in our bodies.
So for example,
If we're sitting with the feeling of anger,
Anger may present itself in a specific way in our bodies,
Which then can shift and morph into confusion,
Which changes into hurt,
Which changes into sadness,
And then it might go back to anger again.
But if we can hold these emotions in a kind and loving way,
It allows for us to observe our experience and for that experience to be infused with kindness.
Even the numbness,
Even the inability to feel can be held with love and acknowledged with awareness.
Oh nobly born,
Began the Buddhist texts,
Remember who you are,
Remember your inherent dignity and value,
And you as a lifelong student and teacher will learn through your life and through this course how to see with clear eyes and a more open heart,
How to honor the beauty and the dignity of one another,
And to see through all of the programming and the fear.
We have to learn to hold the suffering of the world,
The individual suffering that the people will bring and share with us in our lives,
The profound ocean of tears in the way that people have treated one another in this world so poorly,
The immense suffering that comes from race,
The caste system,
The discrimination,
And all kinds of other ways it has played out.
This training right now,
This meditation training,
Is really the foundation of mindfulness to come alive in our time of compassion and how we meet every single person as the Buddha might,
As Jesus might,
Or as some great sage met every being.
Dipa Ma,
A teacher of Jack Kornfield,
Talked about the importance of seeing the beauty in every single being,
And that's really what we're learning to do.
It will open our minds and it will give us our hearts greater strength and understanding to let us become more wise and more compassionate.
You know,
The secret of all that we're practicing here is learning love,
And Jack Kornfield reminds us that love is not for the faint-hearted.
It's demanding and deep,
And that loving awareness that we're practicing,
The compassion that we're practicing,
Those pieces come together like a bird in mindfulness and love.
We cannot separate them.
I invite you to find a comfortable posture,
And this time we're gonna be working with grounding.
So perhaps you'd like to place your feet on the floor or you'd like to sit on the floor,
Putting yourself grounded on the earth,
Allowing your eyes to close gently if that feels comfortable to you,
Or you can just soften your gaze.
And as you let your breath just flow naturally,
Bringing your attention to the areas of contact that you feel with the earth.
I invite you to rest on the earth,
Noticing the solidity of the earth.
Feel how solid she holds you,
Noticing if there are any emotions that are present,
And without forcing or trying to change anything,
Seeing if you can step closer,
Step towards whatever is arising with tenderness and with care towards yourself,
Towards this experience right now.
Letting your breath breathe itself,
Noticing how your body breathes,
Noticing how the earth supports you as you breathe.
And as different sensations and emotions arise,
The invitation is for you to breathe in the emotion and then exhaling space for that emotion to be just as it is,
Just cycling like this.
If you're ready to go one step further,
Pama Chodron talks about a practice that I will dive into more in this course called Tong Len,
And that is to breathe in the suffering we're feeling now,
Exhaling space and room for that to be there.
And then we breathe in this pain and suffering that the whole world is feeling in this moment that's the same as yours,
And then we exhale space and compassion for them to feel.
We rotate like this,
Breathing in,
Exhaling room,
Breathing in the suffering for all feeling this way,
And exhaling spaciousness for them to feel this.
Simply noticing what happens as you sit and as you breathe space for these emotions to be present,
Not just for you but for all beings everywhere.
See if you can bring some compassion to whatever is arising for you.
It's the practice.
It might be interesting to you to try breathing into any areas of constriction,
Seeing if you can bring just a little bit more space,
And noticing any emotions that arise,
And being with those kindly and gently as well.
Where is your attention now?
Where do you go in the quiet moments?
Each time your mind wanders,
Simply practicing bringing yourself back,
Sensing with each breath how the chest will rise and fall,
Following your internal rhythm.
Oh nobly born,
Begin the Buddhist texts.
Remember who you are.
Remember your inherent dignity and value.
Remember your ability and to see thy neighbor as thyself.
Thank you for bringing your awareness to yourself and to your emotions today.
I invite us to feel all that arises in our lives,
To feel the pain and to feel the suffering and to feel the love and to feel the interconnectedness so that we can truly honor each other as humans,
And so that we may really become the carriers of the great medicine that the world needs.
See you tomorrow.
