Mairti/Metta (Loving-Kindness) To Find Ease

Welcome to this short meditation on loving-kindness or Maitri from the Buddhist tradition.

We'll begin seated.

Elevate your buns so your hips can relax and bring your palms down on your thighs.

Feel the sitting bones root to the front of your prop.

Eyes wide and you can always sit in a chair.

If you sit in a chair,

You just want to make sure that your feet are rooted to the ground and your spine isn't leaning on the back of the chair.

Okay.

Exhale out of the mouth here,

Tongue soft.

Feel your bones ground.

Inhale,

Rise the breath from toe tips,

Fingertips to crown,

Slight tuck of chin.

Exhale out the mouth and feel your mind begin to drop into the body.

All thoughts travel with the breath downward.

Do it again.

Exhale gather from toe tips,

Fingertips,

Top of head,

Sit up a little taller,

Slight tuck of chin.

Exhale out the mouth,

And feel an emptying,

A downward pull to the earth.

Last one.

Breathe in.

Exhale.

Exhale,

Feel any tension,

Any holding like it could exit to the earth out of feet and hands.

And bring your hands to your heart,

Please.

So chanting is the heart practice of yoga.

It's one of my favorites.

And so we'll chant a few sounds just to connect to the vibration of the heart.

Whenever we come into the space of the heart,

The mind softens and the body becomes a little more relaxed.

So first,

We'll chant each syllable of the sacred sound OM,

Which is said to be the sound that emerged out of the universe,

Like the first sound that emerged out of the universe.

And so we'll chant AH,

OOH,

MM,

Pronouncing each syllable same length.

Exhale.

Breathe in.

And then feel the sound in your heart.

And now the AH and the OOH come together and create the O sound.

So now we do OOH,

And you want to seal the lips in MM.

Okay,

Breathe in.

Good.

And our final sound is like the Arabic equivalent of OM.

It's H-U,

So it's who.

Breathe in.

Feeling the sensation in your body and following the sensation,

The sound inward until just a tiny moment of stillness arises or you arrive to a moment of stillness and take a full breath in.

Good.

And exhale,

Release your hands down.

Excellent.

So you can adjust your seat and know that you can move at any time and we choose not to.

We do our best to be as still as possible and relaxed in the body as possible.

However,

In meditation,

You know,

Distractions and agitation happens.

And so if you find that you need to move or you need to react to that,

It's totally okay.

So with your palms down,

We'll begin with a little breathing and then we'll go into our meditation technique of Maitri.

So if you'd like to place your hands on your body,

So one hand on navel,

One hand on chest,

Elbows soft into the side body.

This is called wave breathing in Qigong practice.

In yoga,

We call it a complete breath or Dhirga breath.

So fill the belly like a balloon,

The tailbone drops and then see if you can watch the breath arise ribs expanding.

The top of the breath is into the upper hand,

The chest,

And then exhale out of the mouth,

Jaw soft.

Watch the breath exit from the top,

Middle to bottom,

Gentle tone of the navel as if pressing the air out of the lower hand or belly.

That's it.

Inhale,

Fill the belly,

Ribs,

Chest,

Sit up taller,

Exhale out the mouth.

Feel the breath and tension exit from top to bottom and continue.

Continue slow the breath and smooth the breath.

And try easy,

Meaning that there's no force,

There's no need to perfect this breath or the capacity of breath.

If you find that this breath is difficult,

It's totally normal.

It could be that you breathe with your chest first instead your belly.

And so it's a great way to retrain the body over time,

Maybe not getting it quote unquote getting it today.

But how to take a deeper breath into the navel.

It's called diaphragmatic breathing.

There's lots of names.

Okay.

Now as you're watching the breath arise,

Is it possible to fill the body in three dimensions?

So not only bottom to top,

But side to side and front to back.

Then exhale,

Holding on to nothing.

Two more breaths.

Just said in many Eastern traditions that the mind,

The quality of the mind's attention,

It mirrors the breath.

So notice what happens when you when you slow down.

And instead of this idea of controlling the breath,

Right?

What if you followed it?

See if that shifts anything,

That ease.

Just a few more little aspects to refine.

So make sure when you go to the top of your inhale that your shoulders aren't shrugging.

And notice if there's any breaks in the breath.

So how could you smooth it?

And now finally try this for the last few breaths.

When you get to the top of the inhale,

Can there just be a very gentle pause without forcing before you exhale?

And then when you get to the bottom of the exhale,

Can you rest in a sense of emptiness before you inhale?

So another pause at the bottom.

And again,

It's just following the natural pause rather than forcing it.

Okay,

A few more breaths.

And in that pause,

Just sense,

Imagine,

Like a wholeness,

Right?

Like that you're complete in that just momentary brief pause at the top of the inhale and at the bottom of the exhale.

About two to three more.

Good.

The next time you exhale completely,

Release the breath.

And you can release the hands,

Palms down on the legs.

And just take a moment receiving and acknowledging the shift from the breathing.

Great.

You can adjust your legs a little bit if you need to shake them out.

And then reset.

So bottom flush back,

Sitting bones forward.

So I prefer palms down on the thighs.

However,

Palms up is an option.

More receptive rather than grounding.

Interlaced hands,

Thumbs touch is another option as well.

Elbows soft.

So there's many techniques of meditation,

Which is awesome because then you can learn what works for you over time.

And so Maitri meditations are using words of affirmation to cultivate and develop loving kindness in all sorts of different phrases.

And so with your tongue soft,

Feel the legs rooted and your breath is soft.

Just a natural breath.

However,

If you find that your mind starts to move and you get distracted maybe by noises or movements around you,

Then take a bigger breath.

Any one that I've taught you so far.

And that will help you reset and come back to the technique if you get distracted.

It's just part of the process.

We all get distracted.

And feeling a rise of the breastbone,

The sternum,

And it leans back a little bit over the pelvis.

With the spiny long gating and the pelvis grounded,

The legs and feet grounded,

Slight tuck of chin.

Imagine that the base of the skull feel that it's hovering over the back of the breastbone and then the crown,

The top of head could keep extending.

Your arms are soft.

And your hands,

Whatever position they're in and tongue is soft.

There's a slight part to the teeth and lips.

And now the eye gaze is totally preference.

I prefer closing eyes because it helps me turn inward.

When you meditate,

If you become sleepy,

Or if you find that you kind of zone out,

Like you stop listening to my voice,

Then open eyes might benefit you.

And it's like a half closed lid,

Half open lid,

And gazing down on one spot that doesn't move about four to five feet in front of you.

So you can play with your gazing.

And I want you to watch the natural breath at the belly.

So right below the belly button.

Just notice how the natural breath fills the belly,

Like the technique we already did,

Right?

And then the natural breath just softens the belly.

And we're going to use these phrases to travel on the current of the breath.

And maybe at first,

We'll just do it on the current of the inhale,

Let the exhale just be soft and no words.

However,

You can find your own way.

As we go on,

If you find that you like to do the phrase on the inhale and the exhale,

Inhale,

Exhale phrase,

Then you can do that.

Okay,

So repeat silently in your mind on the current of the inhale.

It's just soft at the breath or soft at the belly.

Breath,

Soft at the belly.

May I be at ease.

And then you exhale.

And then on the inhale,

May I breathe peacefully.

And then you exhale.

On the inhale,

May I find freedom in rest.

Exhale.

Good.

The inhale,

May I be at ease.

On the inhale,

May I breathe peacefully.

On the inhale,

May I find freedom in rest.

May I be at ease.

May I breathe peacefully.

May I find freedom in rest.

And I'll repeat it a few more times.

And if you forget any word,

Try not to worry about it.

Just keep going.

May I be at ease.

May I breathe peacefully.

May I find freedom in rest.

May I be at ease.

May I breathe peacefully.

May I find freedom in rest.

May I be at ease.

May I breathe peacefully.

May I find freedom in rest.

And if you find that it doesn't feel natural for it to move on the breath,

It's okay.

Just keep repeating the phrases.

I'll say it one more time,

Then we'll go into a little bit of silence as you keep repeating.

May I be at ease.

May I breathe peacefully.

May I find freedom in rest.

And I'll repeat it a few more times.

May I be at ease.

May I breathe peacefully.

And if you've forgotten,

May I be at ease.

May I breathe peacefully.

May I find freedom in rest.

Natural breath at the navel.

Whole body soft.

Continue just a few more rounds.

Silence.

And now,

See that Wonderland's still there.

And now start to feel it in your body,

Right?

And so feeling the ease,

Feeling the breathing peacefully,

And feeling the freedom and rest.

Okay.

And let's inhale together.

Exhale out the mouth.

Yeah,

And inhale,

Circle the arms.

And this is called pull down the sky.

This is a Chu Gong technique.

And so with the palms down,

Exhale,

Slow descent.

Just clearing mind,

Heart,

And body.

Good.

And then inhale,

Arms overhead again.

Exhale,

Hands to the heart.

Just honoring.

Feeling the space shared together and within yourself.

Let's close the practice with the sound of Om.

Exhale.

Breathe in.

Let's go.

Pull the sound into silence in the eyebrow center.

And we honor the tradition of yoga and the sacred space shared by saying Namaste.

And then lift the head and we always end with Eagle Mudra.

So right hand to the heart,

Left hand on top,

And then you cross the right thumb on top.

And Jai is a Sanskrit word.

It means praise or like Hallelujah.

And praise,

Follow,

The flow that guides you,

Your heart,

Your spirit,

The flow of your life.

And so we end by saying Jaya flow.

Great.

Oh,

Thank you.

Thank you.