Reclaiming Stillness: A Guided Journey Beyond The Mind

All right,

So let's begin.

If you want to find yourself a comfortable position,

Ideally seated,

It can be on the floor or in a chair is fine also,

As long as your ideal is to have your spine straight.

And so we make this next time that we have here together important,

So we set an intention that this is the most important thing that we can be doing for the next 40 minutes or so.

And we do that because the mind in and of itself just wants to run free,

Run loose.

And what we've come to understand is that the mind,

Our over-identification with the mind,

The untrained mind is the lead cause to most of the dysfunction in our own individual lives,

But then also on the planet.

And so it's really important work that we do,

That we take the time each day to sit.

And really what we're learning to do here is take control of our attention,

Which is like our power,

Our attention goes,

Energy flows.

To take our attention away from the conditioned stories,

The conditioned responses,

The habits that don't support us.

And so we'll move through a few phases.

The initial phases are to prepare us for meditation,

And so we'll move through releasing emotion,

We call it meeting the moment,

Then into releasing tension,

Right breathing,

And then observing the mind.

And when we move to observe the mind,

The invitation is to hold your attention on your third eye,

A place just between the eyebrows and up in the middle of the forehead.

And we're going to hold our attention there with all our focused attention,

And ideally then let go of the practice,

Let go of the techniques and dwell in the space outside the mind.

And this is the true intention of meditation,

Is to move beyond the mind.

And so if at any point you find your attention has wandered,

Just gently bring it back.

The mind will always give up if we sit for long enough and with the right level of intention.

So the invitation now is to bring your attention inwards.

If you haven't already,

Close down your eyes and just tune into what you're feeling in this moment.

And we focus in on the emotion,

Energy in motion.

What is the emotion that's most alive for you in this moment?

And we acknowledge it,

And we just allow it,

We feel it without going into a story around why it's there,

We just meet it and allow it.

And then we meet this next moment and tuning in again,

What are you feeling in this moment?

We acknowledge it and just feel it without going into a story.

The story perpetuates the emotion,

Perpetuates the thinking,

The thought,

The feeling,

The behavior.

What we're learning to do here is just acknowledge the emotion,

The feeling without going into a story and then in on that,

The energy moves.

And then in this moment,

What are you feeling now?

We acknowledge it and allow it,

Feel it.

And quite often,

As we do this,

We move from what was contracted in the head and busy to a feeling that's more expansive in the heart and still.

And if that's not you,

That's okay.

We meet this moment,

What are you feeling now?

We just acknowledge it and allow it.

And here we're learning to collapse the mental patterns of the mind,

The thinking that fuel unconscious thought and unconscious activity.

So moving to the next phase now,

Releasing tension,

I want to invite you to bring a subtle tension to the body,

The whole body all at the same time.

So from the tip of your head to the bottom of your toes,

We're just bringing a subtle activation throughout the body.

So the toes will curl,

Pulling on the pelvic floor muscle,

The hands will curl,

So a gentle pulling on of the skin.

I'm going to hold this for about 30 seconds or so.

We do this to over-accentuate the tension that we have in the body,

Bringing our awareness to it.

And in about 10 seconds,

We're going to slowly release that,

Release it consciously.

And this enables us to break through natural tension barriers that we have so that we can let go,

Release,

Relax,

Even more deeply.

So now the whole body all at the same time,

Over the course of about 30 seconds,

We want to just slowly let go.

It's like a slow unfolding,

A little bit by a little bit.

It's like the world waking up to greet the sun on a new day,

Just letting go even more completely now.

Meditation is so much about letting go,

And see if you can let go even more deeply,

Really letting go.

As you bring your attention now up to the muscles around your eyes,

And so we're going to,

From here,

Scan down through the body.

Just consciously release as we move down through,

So starting at the muscles around the eyes,

Just release,

Relax,

Let go,

And allow that sense of relaxation to flow down through into the jaw,

And then up through the face,

Through the forehead,

Up through the scalp,

Down through the back of the neck,

Down through into the shoulders.

See it like a wave of relaxation flowing through the shoulders,

Down through the arms and into the hands.

Flowing back up through the arms,

Into the backs of the shoulders and chest,

Down through the stomach and lower back,

Down through the glutes,

The quadriceps and hamstrings,

The shins and calves,

Down through the feet,

Pushing any tension,

Any anxiousness,

Any need for this moment to be any different than it is,

Out through the feet and into whatever is connecting you to the earth.

Really letting go.

Becoming aware of the space that we're creating in our bodies and in our cognition,

The stillness.

As we bring our attention now back to the muscles around the eyes,

And just looking down through the body for any remaining tension or tight spots,

And taking your attention into it,

And just seeing it,

Visualizing it moving,

Releasing,

Stretching.

As we then move to the final phase of releasing tension,

Which we call melting chocolate.

So imagining yourself as if like a piece of chocolate in the sun,

Melting.

We keep a subtle activation in the spine,

But allowing everything else to let go so completely,

As if like a piece of chocolate melting in the sun.

It's almost as if you become like goop,

Unable to move,

Unable to think,

Letting go even more completely.

And what we learn is the more we let go of the little I,

The little concept of who we think we are,

Who we've been conditioned to believe we are,

It creates the space to tune into the deeper intelligence that moves through all things.

We tap into a broader wisdom.

And it's not for us to need to figure it out,

It's taking the time to create the space to tune in,

And that's what we're doing here.

Breathing in,

Letting go,

And tuning in.

As we bring our attention now to the breath,

And just take a moment or two to follow the flow of breath,

To bring your attention to the breath and become aware of the inhalation and the exhalation.

And ideally breathing through the nose,

We begin following the flow of air in,

All the way in,

Deep down into the bottom of the lungs,

To the point where the diaphragm or the tummy will expand.

And at the top of the inhalation,

Just pausing for a moment,

And then contracting,

And as you contract,

You feel the tummy pull in,

And then at the bottom of the exhalation,

Pausing once again,

Before catching the next wave of air in,

And then pausing at the top,

And the flow of air out.

And so here we take control of the breath,

And then see if you can put a count on the inhalation,

Maybe four seconds in,

One second pause,

Four seconds out,

One second pause.

Just holding your attention on the breath.

If at any point you find your attention has wandered,

Just gently bring it back,

Recommit,

Refocus.

And here we start using the breath as a focal point.

The breath is a really powerful way to down-regulate our central nervous system,

Slow our brain waves,

And with a 10 second or 12 second cycle,

We bring our brain and our heart into coherence.

And so now just extending the breath out to five seconds,

One second pause,

Five second exhalation,

One second pause,

And we hold our attention on the breath.

You might begin to see the mind skipping into stories,

Trying to think,

Drag your attention away.

And if you find yourself lost in one of those stories,

Just gently bring it back,

Recommit,

Here we're taking back our power,

Holding your attention on the breath,

That slow rhythmic breath holding your attention.

So we keep that slow rhythmic breath in the background,

And with the subtle activation in the spine,

Bringing your full attention now to our focal point,

The third eye,

And we hold our attention there,

And with a quiet determination,

We bring our full attention to our focal point now,

The concentration point,

Nothing is more important than holding your attention on your third eye,

And we hold it.

Bringing back our power,

Away from the stories of the mind,

We hold our attention still.

So visualize it,

See it,

Hold your attention,

Whatever you need to do,

Like a cat at a mouse hole waiting with anticipation.

There's nothing to fix,

There's nothing to solve,

There's nothing to think about,

Except holding your attention still on your focal point,

Watching it,

Can feel like sometimes your reality starts to shake a little as you hold it,

You might see the mind trying to take it into a story,

See the story arise,

But you watch it and you hold,

Let go of the story and continue to hold,

And here we begin observing the mind,

And when we are able to observe the mind,

It creates the space to question,

Are we the mind,

The stories,

Or are we that which can observe the mind,

And what is that,

We continue to hold,

As if our life depends upon it,

That level of intensity,

Focused attention,

Like a rock climber climbing a wall,

Looking for his next hold,

Holding the attention on the focal point.

For me,

I feel,

I become aware of an increased ringing in my ears like a sensation,

And there's often an energy that wants to move up the spine,

And I find pulling on the pelvic floor and encouraging it up through the spine feels right,

And if that's not you,

That's okay,

Just continue to hold your attention,

It's like we're pinning our attention,

Holding our attention there and at the same time becoming aware of a broader awareness,

It's like the thinking mind,

We hold still,

And we begin to perceive and just be aware of things,

Sensations,

And we continue to hold our attention still,

The little separate sense of who we are,

The noise in our heads,

Here,

We learn to pin it,

Move beyond it,

And in that,

Reconnect to the aliveness that's all around us,

That's in us,

That is us,

It's just that noise in our heads makes us feel separate,

Alone,

Broken,

Trying to figure things out,

Under threat,

But none of it is real,

It's all just the mind,

And here we are learning to transcend it,

And in doing that,

We tap into the supreme intelligence,

The deep sophistication that flows through all things,

And the next time in nature,

The invitation is to just look into that and see the deep interweaving of the intelligence that flows through,

That activates,

That brings to life all things including us,

We are that,

And here we reconnect to that,

As often as you feel to just hold your attention on your focal point,

Also at the same time being aware of the energy that flows through all things,

That exists when the mind is still,

Our ability to be able to perceive it and feel it,

And the pathway to it is holding your attention still,

The mind will always give up if you sit for long enough,

I want to invite you now to take a few moments for yourself to set an intention for the day,

And it might be that you want to send some of this loving energy to the people you care about,

The people in your life,

Praying for the best for all of them,

That they may find their way to the connection to the energy outside the mind,

Because it is in this we find wholeness,

Love,

Expansiveness,

Abundance,

Joy,

So the invitation is to do your practice as often as you can,

To move beyond the mind,

To move beyond the limitations of that separate,

Limited self,

That limited sense of self,

And commune with the supreme intelligence of which you are a part,

Holding your attention still,

We pin it,

And then we become aware,

And then it's up to you how you want to use that awareness,

So the practice is to learn to hold your attention still,

As you sit on your mat now,

And as you move throughout the day,

And then one task at a time,

Full attention,

Bring all of your genius to that moment,

So for now we begin to move through the completion process,

Tell ourselves that we're about to complete,

Stretching out slowly into the fingers and toes,

The arms and legs,

Stretching out as if like a cat in the Sun,

Moving slowly so as not to spill the calm that you've created,

And we take this stillness into our day,

Namaste.