We had the Sunday Introduction to Meditation Class at Yoga Bliss yesterday: a formal sitting meditation and a period of mindful walking and a Metta Meditation or loving kindness practice.  We began with the first foundation of mindfulness:  awareness of the body.  I drew the guidance from Anne Cushman‘s new book, Moving Into Meditation.

I think if you can pause a few moments right now and try this you would experience some changes in how you’re feeling:

Notice: Where in your body are you living right now?  If your body were a house, would you be up in the attic of your head, perhaps pressed up against the window of your eyes straining to look out?  Are you huddled around a pain or injury in some cramped corner?  Melt your attention down out of your head & throughout your body, as if draining your brain.  Along the way, sense & soften around any obvious areas that might be holding pain or tension: the muscles around the eyes, the hinge of your jaw, the root of your tongue, your belly, your pelvic floor.  Relax any gripping that pulls your body away from the support of the earth.  Notice whether your breath changes as you take up residence lower & lower in your body.  If it helps you descend, place one hand on your heart & the other on your belly & let the contact of your hands magnetize your attention.  Can you feel your way all the way into your pelvic floor?  How about the soles of your feet?

The meditation continues with inquiry:  How is your body feeling today?  This query is a gateway into feeling:  pure, unadulterated, feeling.  How often do we give ourselves this kind attention?

Meditation and yoga are about liberation.  This kind of inquiry frees me from the tyranny of doing and from the habitual ways I perceive the world.  What is the fruit you had for the first time whose taste you can remember?  What did this taste evoke in your whole body/mind experience?  It’s that kind of body/mind/feeling awareness we cultivate by sitting down to practice as if for the first time, again and again.

We often get stuck in struggle – on the cushion, on the mat in relationship with ourselves and others.  In a fascinating interview, Seane Corne, National Yoga Ambassador for YouthAIDS and cofounder of “Off the Mat, Into the World” describes her years long struggle with obsessive compulsive disorder and abuse.  She tells of hearing this pithy instruction in one of her very first yoga classes:   Breathe, and everything changes.  That seemed to ring in her heart like a bell.  It was enough to keep her coming back to her mat and to share yoga’s healing potential with many whose struggles are often life threatening.

Give yourself the time and space you need to really get a full, nourishing breath – maybe more than one and see what happens.

Sunday Introduction to Meditation Class 55 Homework