So thanks for joining.
You know how to make yourself comfortable.
So go ahead and do that.
Let your breath settle.
Watch your breath settle.
Like if you have a bowl of water and you stir it up and it's moving,
You know,
Stir it circularly and then you stop stirring,
The water will eventually settle on its own,
Not because you did anything to it.
So let your breath be like that.
Let it settle into its own rhythm.
But watch it.
Watch it happen.
Your breath is a point of interface between,
Obviously between you and the outside world,
But also between your conscious and your unconscious self.
Your breath does its own thing whether you're doing it or not,
But you can totally change it and you can stop it.
You can't stop your heart.
And if you don't move your arm,
Generally it doesn't move on its own.
So the breath is in between those different functions.
And so it can be a doorway to connect them,
Your conscious self and your unconscious self.
By watching the quality of your breathing,
You can have an experience of what's going on,
What's happening on the unconscious layers of yourself.
So just do that for a few moments.
Watch your breath with some amount of curiosity like it's telling you a story.
And don't try to put it into words or even try to understand it intellectually,
Just like a child listening to a story told by someone you love,
But the words maybe are so big that you can't actually understand them.
So it's more about the cadence of the voice,
The sound of the voice,
The warmth in the voice.
You're listening for qualities and you're watching for qualities more than articulate concepts.
So just observe your breath in that way.
Okay.
Thank you.
You you you you you you you you you you pay special attention to the transitions between exhale and inhale and inhale and exhale you you you you you you you you you you physiologically it's a very major shift you it's happening many times per minute and so you can take it for granted but really investigate observe with awe the transitions between inhale and exhale and also look at the edge between watching and influencing and you watch your breath without changing it to question you you you you you you you you you this question can I observe my breath without changing it naturally expand into the question who am I who is the one who is influencing and what is being influenced who is the observer and what is the observed is your breath different from you who is it that is watching the breath and who is it that is considering the question who is watching the breath and who is the container that contains the whole phenomenon can you experience yourself as even the backdrop of awareness the backdrop of the thoughts and the observing and the attention vast like the sky clouds of thought are passing through the sky but the clouds are not the sky sky is why the breeze is flowing through the sky but the sky is not the breeze the sky is not the birds the clouds the breeze can you experience yourself as that pass and steady stable you you you you and the sky never ends because the sky is seamlessly integrated into the cosmos there's phenomena that mark areas of transition but there's no glass bubble around there and so the sky gives way to the cosmos it's not different than the cosmos can you experience yourself your own awareness of that big because most you you you you you you you and what does the cosmos give way to what encompasses all existence the spiritual traditions of the world have told us that it's radiance and what is good they've told us that that which embraces the universe cares you so can you allow yourself to experience your consciousness as vast as the cosmos and contained and something that is you and is also loving you it's not different from your central being when it holds you like a mother holds a child and the natural simple organic response of the child is adoration reverence and I can say those words better yet be that child gazing into the eyes of its mother what does it feel you you we're going to gradually come back to the infinite expanse of the cosmos through the atmosphere of the earth in the vastness of the sky into our own individual being and our breath again let your awareness rest with your breath the rising and falling like the tide sweeping in and sweeping out the phenomenon of nature your breath the phenomenon of nature that's happening inside the container of your body right surrounding your heart the other way your breath your lungs expand and embrace your heart massage your heart you feel how your breath from your lungs penetrate out from your chest all the way to the periphery of your body and legs feet and you breathe in the oxygenated blood pumps,
All the way to the tiniest little capillaries at the end of your fingers and your whole body's breathing feel the breath in your toes you you you you you you you you you and just take the next half a minute to a minute to allow your eyes to open when they're ready and come back to an outer oriented consciousness looking out at the world around you you you
