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Chapter 1: What foundational practices support meditation?
If this is your first time here, you're very welcome. This meditation is part of a longer cumulative practice. And these returning to the basic form episodes are here to help us to come back to the foundations of the practice again and again. You're very welcome to join the practice as it is today.
And if you'd like to go deeper, you can begin from the start in the archive, where the full journey is laid out step by step.
Chapter 2: How can I create a stable posture for meditation?
And if you're curious about the tradition that this practice comes from, you can also learn more about the life and work of the Capuchin community. There's more information about that in the show notes. So let's begin. Coming to meditation, we come with intentionality.
an intention to enter stillness, to enter as fully as we can into the present moment, to open our mind, our heart, our body to this experience of stillness, to this graced moment of awareness.
Chapter 3: What techniques help in noticing my breath during meditation?
We begin with a ritual gesture that allows us to mark this as a special time. Gestures such as placing our hands together in prayer form, a bow, lighting a candle, even choosing a particular place or chair or special time of day are all ways of making this time clearly a time of meditation and practice.
For myself, the ritual gesture I use is making the sign of the cross, but use a gesture that's appropriate to you. Once we've our intention in mind and have made our ritual gesture, we can come to sit.
Chapter 4: How do I relax my body and mind during meditation?
We sit so far as we can in a position of stability, but never a position of strain. The feet flat upon the floor, or if we're sitting on a cushion on the floor, we make sure that part of our feet and legs are in contact with the floor. This is a way of grounding us, a way of feeling supported and stable. Once seated, we allow the spine to uncurl, to lengthen.
Sometimes it can be good to visualize a little thread or string emerging from the crown of our head and imagine somebody just pulling it gently so that the head moves back into a neutral position between the shoulders, the spine lengthens comfortably and gently, the ribcage opens and lifts from the diaphragm, and our ability to breathe is clear and deep.
Chapter 5: What should I do when thoughts arise during meditation?
We allow our arms and hands to rest, folded upon our lap in whatever way is comfortable to us. Palms up or palms down doesn't really matter, as long as it's comfortable for you. If at any stage during the practice you feel the need to move or adjust your posture to sneeze or cough or stretch, please feel free to do so. This practice is not a practice of struggle or strain.
It's a practice of relaxing into the present moment, growing in mindful awareness of the present as a place of encounter with love, with peace, with stillness.
Chapter 6: How can I cultivate a sense of peace through breath awareness?
Once the body has moved into this relaxed and stable position, we can begin to notice the breath. To notice the breath as an anchor that holds us secure in connection with the present moment. We don't change the breath in any way. We just simply notice the breath. The very first thing you did when you were born was to breathe in.
Chapter 7: What practices can I use to carry calmness into my day?
The very last thing you'll do before you leave this earthly existence is to breathe out. The breath is the constant background rhythm of our life and our constant connection to the present moment. It is one of the primary tools of the meditator. So greeting our breath like the old friend it is, we take some time to notice it. Notice how we breathe.
watching the ebb and flow of the tide of our breath, watching it rise and fall. As we breathe out, we can breathe out all tension, all stress, all anxiety or pain. Breathing out not just with mouth or nose, but with every pore of our skin.
If it helps you to do so, you can picture your breath just as you would see it on a cold winter's morning, breathing it out like a fog around you that dissolves into the air and disappears. And as you breathe in, again, if it helps, you can picture your breath as clear golden light, breathing in peace, warmth, calm, and healing.
resting in the rhythm of the breath as you breathe in and breathe out. And as you breathe out now, your whole body relaxes and becomes still. The feet relaxed, calf muscles, thighs, hips and pelvis, all loose, relaxed and calm. The pit of the stomach calm and clear, The gut unclenched. The diaphragm moving gently, deeply. The breath falling into the belly. Spine loose, relaxed.
Shoulders loose and hanging from the neck. Arms, elbows, wrists, fingers and thumbs all loose, relaxed and calm. You may feel a gentle heat pulsing in the palms of your hands as your blood circulates around your body. Even the facial muscles are smoothed and calmed. The jaw loose and unclenched. The tongue resting in the mouth. The tip of the tongue against the back of the top teeth.
Totally relaxed. Totally at peace. Totally calm. Breathing in and breathing out. And aware of the body, relaxed and calm, we say inwardly to ourselves, I have a body, but I am more than my body. I have a body, but I am more than my body. all the while just breathing in and breathing out. And as we breathe in, we take a moment to simply notice any movement of the thoughts or the emotions.
We don't grasp them or hold on to them. We don't follow them. We simply notice them arising name them if possible, and let them go. As the thoughts and emotions arise and fall, we remain absolutely anchored in the breath, breathing in and breathing out, simply observing, while inwardly we can say to ourselves, I have thoughts and feelings, but I am more than my thoughts and my feelings.
I have thoughts and feelings, but I am more than my thoughts and my feelings. And drawing our attention back to our breath once again, we follow our breath to find that point at the very center of the breath cycle, A little point of stillness where the in-breath becomes the out-breath, where the out-breath becomes the in-breath. A place of absolute equanimity, stability, and stillness.
A place of encounter with the present moment. A place of encounter with divine love, holding all time in being. And resting in that moment, resting in that point of pure awareness, we can say inwardly, I am I, a center of pure consciousness and will, a human being, created in love and held in being by divine love.
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