Our Moving into Meditation class continues to draw inspiration from  Frank Ostaseski’s wonderful book about living with the awareness that we’re going to die.  His book distills what he’s learned into Five Invitations we can answer in living a conscious life.  In today’s class we continued working with the fourth invitation.  Frank invites us to reflect on how meet the many endings in our lives – a powerful teaching about life’s impermanence.

We also drew inspiration from bodymind therapist and poet, Donna Martin.

Guided Relaxation

Welcome . . . to this moment . . . to this breath . . . to this peace . . . Can you sense the breath without having to change it in any way? Can you follow the journey of the incoming breath from the tip of the nose all the way down . . . into the belly? And resting your attention here to observe the subtle moment of transformation when the inhale becomes the exhale. And then following the breath beginning its long journey up and out of the body. . . . At the very end of the exhale, there is a . . . pause.  Frank says it can be a moment of fear or faith: breath has left the body and we don’t know for certain if it will return. Do you trust that the next in-breath will emerge on its own? Can you rest your mind in the pause?

He suggests that here we can begin to look at endings . . . the end of an exhale . . . the end of a walk . . . the end of a an ordinary every day activity . . . the end of something precious and rare . . . We can reflect on how we meet endings in life. Do we remain present or absent ourselves? Dow we feel anxious or sad? Are we indifferent or do we withdraw into a protective cocoon? How do we say goodbye?

What is our relationship to change? The way one experience ends shapes the way the next one arises. Can we let go? Do we cling? Our breath gives us the chance to study our relationship with endings in an intimate, primal way. Breathing is alive and ever changing . . . each breath unique . . . it is born, grows, it fades and dies away . . . . it mirrors the process of life itself. . .

Poet Donna Martin writes:

The Breath is Life’s Teacher

Observe me, says the Breath, and learn to live effortlessly in the Present Moment.
Feel me, says the Breath, and feel the Ebb and Flow of Life.
Allow me, says the Breath, and I’ll sustain and nourish you, filling you with energy and cleansing you of tension and fatigue.

Move with me, says the Breath, and I’ll invite your soul to dance.
Make sounds with me and I shall teach your soul to sing.
Follow me, says the Breath, and I’ll lead you out to the farthest reaches of the Universe, and inward to the deepest parts of your inner world.

Notice, says the Breath, that I am as valuable to you coming or going… that every part of my cycle is as necessary as another… that after I’m released, I return again and again… that even after a long pause – moments when nothing seems to happen – eventually I am there.

Each time I come, says the Breath, I am a gift from Life. And yet you release me without regret… without suffering… without fear.
Notice how you take me in, invites the Breath. Is it with joy… with gratitude…? Do you take me in fully… invite me into all the inner spaces of your home? …Or carefully into just inside the door? What places in you am I not allowed to nourish?

And notice, says the Breath, how you release me. Do you hold me prisoner in closed up places in the body? Is my release resisted… do you let me go reluctantly, or easily?

And are my waves of Breath, of Life, as gentle as a quiet sea, softly smoothing sandy stretches of yourself….? Or anxious, urgent, choppy waves…? Or the crashing tumult of a stormy sea…?”

We can ride the breath to experiences that are deeper than words . . . beyond thought . . . outside form. Frank O. writes:

”. . . Breath comes before thought and words. It is non-conceptual, wordless. It can’t be described; it can only be experienced. We can breathe without speaking but we cannot speak without breathing.

In meditation we use breath to focus our attention on the present. Breathing only happens in real time. it always occurs in the here and now. . . . Often we think of the present moment only as a stepping stone on our way to some future goal. But actually life can only be lived in the present, not in the past or in the future. . . . “

If we are fortunate breath is so freely given. When we walk, we breathe, When we talk we breathe, When we sleep, we breathe. The breath is always there sustaining us . . .

Frank O. writes:

“. . . Every breath takes us to where we belong. As we relinquish command of it, we gradually feel the breath breathing us. This is good training for releasing control of & understanding how to cooperate with life. . . . We can recognize our place in a complex web of interconnection with all life. We can appreciate how everything we think, say, or do ripples through that web, affecting everything else. . . “

Here we rest and restore . . . we come home to ourselves . . . home in this present moment . . . we can allow a sense of ease to emerge . . . we find our quiet center – a sanctuary – in the midst of the ever-changing world.

Donna Martin continues Breath is Life’s Teacher:

Your attitude to me, says the Breath, is your attitude to Life. Welcome me… embrace me fully. Let me nourish you completely, then set me free. Move with me, dance with me, sing with me, sigh with me… Love me. Trust me. Don’t try to control me.

I am the Breath.
Life is the Musician.
You are the flute.
And music – creativity – depends on all of us. You are not the Creator… nor the Creation.
We are all a part of the process of Creativity… You, Life, and me: the Breath.

Breathing in deeply . . . sighing out completely . . .