So,
Hara literally connects us to the root of the earth.
It's the earth's center of the subtle,
Vital body.
And I like to think of it also as our center of gravity.
It anchors us,
It binds us to the ground that we stand upon,
So it literally keeps us from falling off of the planet.
Unites us to an inner ground of being that's completely unperturbed by any turbulence in the external environment.
There's a source of inner stability,
Inner serenity that's accessible at any time,
Anywhere.
The ultimate mobile device.
So when we regularly orient at the Hara,
Rather than having an everyday orientation of meeting the world in all of its varied stimulus through the head,
Through the intelligence of the head,
There's a way in which we can more stably meet what's unstable around us.
Because again,
The head is equipped to shift with conditions.
It navigates change.
The brain maps an environment around us where we can pinpoint where along our kind of personal globe we can go to get our needs met.
That's what the brain does.
Charting what I need and where I can go to get those needs met.
I'm hungry,
I'm cold,
I need to be touched,
I need to be loved.
How do I operate in this increasingly complex world?
As we age it gets increasingly complex.
How do I operate to make sure my needs are being met externally?
How do I manipulate conditions around me so that I can feel safe,
So that I can survive?
Because the brain's primary mechanism is to ensure our survival.
The hara,
The belly brain,
That's the intuitive center.
We could say the head is the center of the intellect or of insight.
The belly is the center of intuitive intelligence.
What I already have ingrained within me,
The embodiment that's already perfect and whole.
The you who was you time before time before time.
The primordial essence.
Unconcerned with the contingencies of life.
Deep nature.
So the head brain and the belly brain are two areas of wisdom,
Knowing,
Significance,
Understanding and I'm interested in operating through my own agency,
Through my own choice in different regions.
So I will tap into head knowing when I need to plan,
When I need to produce,
When I need to be pragmatic in my activity.
So I have no problem orienting in the head and I'm not suggesting that we don't use the faculties that are available to us.
But I'm just suggesting that if that's the only way we have of experimenting and experiencing the world around us,
Then we're missing a whole deeper bandwidth,
A whole vibrational undertone of the world as it unfolds around us.
That's felt by the belly.
So the confluence of both sides of knowing,
The integration of both sides and being able to gracefully traverse between the two.
There are things my head doesn't understand that my belly has known since before I was born.
Hara spirit.
So I'll need to go there to access deeper truths that the brain just can't really wrap its head around.
So knowing what areas of the body to operate from for different aspects,
Different components of daily life.
So Hara is like on that map of surviving and thriving.
Hara is like the body coordinate to check in with to see how fully am I living in awareness?
Have I been hanging out above the collarbones?
Or am I practicing yoga,
Union,
Integration with the full organism?
One of the purposes of conscious breath pranayama is to gather and then distribute chi.
So to gather our resources and then have a site to store them so that we kind of envelope the prana body.
It's like we're guarding our sacred treasure.
We can integrate the resources of prana at the low belly and then use particular poses and inner methods of directing the chi force to distribute that prana to regions that need it.
Regions that we have perhaps neglected.
Now that encompasses the physicality of the architecture.
So healing on a visceral level ruptures in the tissues.
Misalignments in the skeleton,
Aches,
Pains,
Fatigues.
But we can also direct that in a more interpersonal way to heal outside of self ruptured bonds,
Sticky cords of attachment.
The vital life force that we have available to us,
We can use pranayama to lengthen and lubricate those lines of attachment to the fascial planes,
The like energetic connective tissue that links us in a webbing to our tribe.
But to do that,
We have to have a storage center where we can gather and feel resource so we can navigate trauma,
Conflict,
Obstacles.
We have to have a site that feels safe and rich so that we're capacitated so we can deal with what's in store,
Whatever that may be.
So we'll use a hara cultivation practice to gather chi to the vital center,
The body coordinate of the Buddha site,
The inner altar.
And then from there distribute it so that the intelligence of the whole body draws from the intelligence of the hara.
So that all aspects of my body and all aspects of my life,
My family,
My friends,
The projects I'm committing to,
All have a pathway that is resourced by my vital center.
I'm at the center of my universe and I can equip whatever is in that world I've built with the cultivation of the most precious resource I have available,
My chi source,
My finite,
Ephemeral,
Radiant chi body,
How to invigorate it,
Replenish it,
And conserve it.
So one of the ways that that's so interesting to work with is in the asana,
In the poses,
To be able to inhale into the hara and then exhale and draw it out.
I want to work with that today and I want to just take a couple poses,
Maybe one or two where we feel the breath and the breathing into a hara and then the distribution from there.
We can do that or in yin or yang poses.
So let's take downward facing dog.
