And this week we're looking at soaking up the good,
Appreciation and gratitude.
And what was coming up for me around this,
Because I know there are so many lovely gratitude meditations that you can Google and get on YouTube.
I just had to share,
I guess,
My take on this because it's easy to do a superficial practice.
I think the art form here is to be able to be amidst the normal everyday situations of life and be able to flip from the illusion of this is all about me,
I'm a victim of this situation,
I'm having to do this,
To be able to flip into finding appreciation in those moments,
To be able to what essentially the Buddhists call,
And I love this book,
Shambhala,
The sacred way of the warrior,
Talk about the dawn of the great Eastern sun.
And this is the concept of the basic goodness that exists.
We touched on this yesterday that the sun will always rise,
Nature will do this incredible dance,
The sun sets every day,
The tides roll in,
The weather happens all without us needing to do anything.
And I love that,
I don't know if you heard this story,
But there are so many little stories of nature regenerating itself as we're all in lockdown.
And there were two really rare,
Thin whales that were spotted off the coast of Wales,
And this is just incredible,
They haven't been seen and not expected to be seen there.
And so the concept of the great Eastern sun is just that if we let go of the illusion,
We can rediscover this basic goodness that is always there.
They talk about having your teeth cleaned,
You don't get new teeth,
But you can discover the basic goodness of clean teeth when you just clean them.
And so I thought I'd share a really short story to just explain how we can do this.
So yesterday,
I had to get something done for today.
It's for a client that we're spending all day with.
And actually,
We've had time to prepare,
But circumstances have just rolled in the way that I didn't get what I needed until about half past five.
So there I am,
Like this on my computer,
Until basically 10 o'clock last night.
And I noticed the dance that was happening in my mind.
So I was doing this all day,
In fact,
Flipping in and out of this illusion and appreciation.
Because I know I create my reality.
It's so easy to fall into this illusion.
I'm forced to do this.
Who's forcing me to do this?
I choose to do this because I want to do a great job.
And I'm having to do this at this time.
Well yeah,
And it's hard for me because I'm trying to do it in a new tool that I don't know how to do,
So it's not easy.
But if I pause from the intensity of getting caught up in the hard,
I can just relax.
Ah,
I'm doing it in a new tool.
Of course it's going to be hard.
But by doing this,
I'm learning it.
And how great that actually,
By tomorrow,
I know how to use this tool.
So I hope that gives you kind of like a sense of these concepts of liberation and of being able to discover this basic goodness is not conceptual and it's not something that's romanticized in Eastern culture in the past.
It's the invitation that we can discover this experientially for us in the moment,
Every moment as we flip through life,
As we do this dance of ah,
Relax into presence.
Oh,
Caught up again in the ah,
And then ah,
Relax into presence.
And in the beginning,
Like the ah,
Can last for a long time.
We could be there for months.
Some people are there for almost a whole lifetime.
But with practice,
Ah,
This can come so much more often.
So don't fall into the illusion that you can be ah,
Like this all the time.
Maybe you can.
Maybe we can achieve enlightenment.
But still there is this dance of being human.
So it's this being able to moment to moment choose,
Realize the basic goodness that is available.
And I'll just share with you this quote.
It's just so good.
We covered it Monday,
But from Hamin Sunim.
To be happy,
It's not necessary to expend great effort.
So we get somewhere else.
Instead,
Relax into the present moment,
While finding humor in your life.
With humor,
Life becomes light and leisurely.
And laughter always brings people to experience openness and joy.
So that's the frame for our meditation today.
Let's begin.
Always with the breath in and out.
In through the nose.
Pause at the top.
Like you're blowing out a balloon.
We breathe in through the nose,
Because it powers air right down into the base of our lungs.
We pause at the top to give our body time to absorb and exchange.
And we breathe out through lips like this to control our exhalation.
Better than sometimes.
We're using this practice in the morning to build energy in our body.
Two more breaths.
And then letting that breath practice go.
And with each out breath,
Just letting your body settle into a more comfortable position.
Feel the places that your body is supported.
And allow yourself to soften and receive that support.
Allow a wave of physical relaxation to flow through your body.
We get caught up in our heads,
We become so disconnected from our body.
Scan and see if you can feel all of your body.
The skin.
Fascia.
Blood.
Lymph.
Nerves.
Muscles.
Bone.
Organs.
Feel into this ecosystem of our body.
And allow a sense of balance to arise.
There is basic goodness here in our body.
We don't need to seek health.
We just need to allow health to arise.
Each in breath soaking up anything that you need to release.
Breathing out balance.
Just noticing the places that you can feel yourself holding tension.
Feel into those sensations.
The back of your neck perhaps.
The front of the chest maybe.
The upper,
Middle or lower back.
Just uncover the basic comfort there.
Breathe in appreciation.
Let go of the fear of the future.
There only is the now.
Let go of being afraid of yourself.
You are enough.
Breathe in appreciation.
Radiate appreciation through every cell in your body.
Let go of the fear.
We give our minds this easy task of focusing on appreciation.
Breathing in the energy of appreciation,
Feeling that sensation of appreciation in your body.
Radiating it out as you exhale.
As you allow your awareness to drop deeper and deeper.
You are training your power of focus to let go of focusing on your thoughts.
To focus on breathing appreciation.
Let go of your mind.
To help us in this practice we can allow to bubble up into our mind something that brings us joy.
The giggle of a child,
The affection of a pet,
A friend who makes us laugh.
Whatever it is for you allow this to bubble up into your awareness and allow yourself to really feel that joy.
And allow this to help connect you to your basic joyful nature that's always there.
Allow yourself to relax into the joy.
And begin to feel yourself radiating appreciation,
Gratitude and joy.
The golden light filling and radiating out through your body.
With each breath radiate out appreciation and joy into your world.
Starting with the ones closest to you.
Breathing in appreciation and joy,
Radiating it out over them.
Each breath this golden light intensifying,
Radiating further.
All the people around you.
To everyone in your neighbourhood.
To all the people in the communities that we're part of.
To everyone,
All beings,
Everywhere.
For the next few minutes just breathe into this practice and allow yourself to feel the connection between you.
The broader part of you,
Pure conscious awareness.
This connection to all things,
All beings,
Everywhere.
Resting in this basic goodness.
This Debt chips disagreed.
You you you you you you because no matter how complex the situation how messed up difficult or dirty it is that's just layers of stuff on top underneath basic goodness so just breathe a little more deeply as we connect with our anchoring thought I can always relax into the now I can always relax into the now and find the good I can always relax into the now choose the good choose to live in the glow of the dawn of the great eastern sun knowing you create your reality and you choose abundance that you access simply by relaxing into the now wiggle your toes wiggle your fingers blink your eyes open oh take a nice big stretch oh and I feel like a yawn it's usually Alex yawning that makes me want to yawn and I just want to radiate out a wave of appreciation to all of you for joining me so many of you so consistently for practice well done and I really appreciate all the interactions with you and how much happiness and joy you bring me if you've got any questions let me know otherwise let's go and smash this hump day happy hump day it's wednesday a quick question what is the difference between appreciation and gratitude well I wonder for each of us we might have a different answer for me it's the same to appreciate something is to really have gratitude for it and the only reason I tend to use the word appreciate rather than gratitude is that some people struggle with the word gratitude because there's this sense of like I don't know there's almost like a western connotation of like gratefulness like oh like I should be grateful you know so instead there is no difference but I use appreciation instead that's good thank you good question thank you instagrammers and thank you zoomers you
