Breathing in love, breathing out peace
any moment not spent in love is a waste of time.
live your love and pour your wilderness upon all things. mindfulness is the touch of loving-kindness communicated through the moving breath into our words and movement, facilitating an infinite compassionate state. this is the wilderness we call home.
“If we look at the world with a love of life, the world will reveal it’s beauty to us.”
-Daisaku Ikeda
A Hafiz favorite
The Happy Virus
I caught the happy virus last night.
When I was out singing beneath the stars.
It is remarkably contagious –
So kiss me.
“Music melts all the separate parts of our bodies together.”
-Anais Nin
“We must each lead a way of life with self-awareness and compassion, to do as much as we can. Then, whatever happens we will have no regrets.”
-Dalai Lama
“To be creative means to be in love with life. You can be creative only if you love life enough that you want to enhance its beauty, you want to bring a little more music to it, a little more poetry to it, a little more dance to it.”
-Osho
.
Love is snow falling
for winters death. Silent grows,
Nature’s heart flowers
“This is a process of continually stepping into unknown territory. You become willing to step into the unknown territory of your own being. Then you realize that this particular adventure is not only taking you into your own being, it’s also taking you out into the whole universe. You can only go into the unknown when you have made friends with yourself. You can only step into those areas “out there” by beginning to explore and have curiosity about this unknown “in here,” in yourself.
Dogen Zen-ji said, “To know yourself is to forget yourself.” We might think that knowing ourselves is a very ego-centered thing, but by beginning to look so clearly and so honestly at ourselves—at our emotions, at our thoughts, at who we really are—we begin to dissolve the walls that separate us from others. Somehow all of these walls, these ways of feeling separate from everything else and everyone else, are made up of opinions. They are made up of dogma; they are made of prejudice. These walls come from our fear of knowing parts of ourselves.” -from Pema Chodron
Slowing down your breath is a new experience every time. By breathing slower and deeper, the body is given time to process it’s own vibrating being. Think about the basic physiology and dialogue that is occurring during pranayama, the science of the breath is gorgeous. Breathing at a rate you choose is rhythmic mindfulness. Space lies within active listening creating space at all tempos, pranayama doesn’t have to be slow. Drawing attention to pranayama, the art of breathing control, is alignment in action.
A natural practice, pranayama can be joyful when attuned to your natural mindful practice. Listening to music, cooking, shopping, reading, etc., each time an uplifting and balancing experience.
From Osho, The Book of Secrets
“After breath comes in – that is, down – and just before turning out – that is, going up – the beneficence. Be aware between these two points, and the happening. When your breath comes in, observe. For a single moment, or a thousandth part of a moment, there is no breathing – before it turns up, before it turns outward. One breath comes in; then there is a certain point and breathing stops. Then the breathing goes out. When the breath goes out, then again for a single moment, or a part of a moment, breathing stops. Then breathing comes in.
Before the breath is turning in or turning out, there is a moment when you are not breathing. In that moment the happening is possible, because when you are not breathing you are not in the world. Understand this: when you are not breathing you are dead; you are still, but dead. But the moment is of such a short duration that you never observe it.
Experiencing life and death in two breaths
For Tantra, each outgoing breath is a death and each new breath is a rebirth. Breath coming in is rebirth; breath going out is death. The outgoing breath is synonymous with death; the incoming breath is synonymous with life. So with each breath you are dying and being reborn. The gap between the two is of a very short duration, but keen, sincere observation and attention will make you feel the gap. If you can feel the gap, Shiva says, the beneficence. Then nothing else is needed. You are blessed, you have known; the thing has happened.
You are not to train the breath. Leave it just as it is. Why such a simple technique? It looks so simple. Such a simple technique to know the truth? To know the truth means to know that which is neither born nor dies, to know that eternal element which is always. You can know the breath going out, you can know the breath coming in, but you never know the gap between the two.
First become aware of the breathing coming in
Try it. Suddenly you will get the point – and you can get it; it is already there. Nothing is to be added to you or to your structure, it is already there. Everything is already there except a certain awareness. So how to do this? First, become aware of the breath coming in. Watch it. Forget everything, just watch breath coming in – the very passage.
Then the breath touches your nostrils, feel it there. Then let the breath move in. Move with the breath fully consciously. When you are going down, down, down with the breath, do not miss the breath. Do not go ahead and do not follow behind, just go with it. Remember this: do not go ahead, do not follow it like a shadow; be simultaneous with it.
Breath and consciousness should become one. The breath goes in – you go in. Only then will it be possible to get the point which is between two breaths. It will not be easy. Move in with the breath, then move out with the breath: in-out, in-out.
(…)
With breath consciousness – suddenly the gap!
If you go on practicing breath consciousness, breath awareness, suddenly, one day, without knowing, you will come to the interval. Because as your awareness will become keen and deep and intense, as your awareness will become bracketed – the whole world is bracketed out; only your breath coming in or going out is your world, the whole arena for your consciousness – suddenly you are bound to feel the gap in which there is no breath.
When you are moving with breath minutely, when there is no breath, how can you remain unaware? You will suddenly become aware that there is no breath, and the moment will come when you will feel that the breath is neither going out nor coming in. The breath has stopped completely. In that stopping, the beneficence.”
“In the house of lovers, the music never stops, the walls are made of songs and the floor dances.” -Rumi
Metta-Meditation is a chant translating into loving-kindness. It is a practice of opening the heart through blessings or affirmations. It can be practiced in silence or spoken, always with the breath. I like to think of it as a song, where each blessing flows my heart with my breath. Metta-Meditation is musical because it begins with offering ourselves a series a blessings and each following series repeats and extends the same blessings to others. It is a dance of opening our own hearts to all hearts embodying the indefinite vehicle of compassion.
The Kripalu blog, Thrive, has welcoming guides on how to practice this beautiful art.
Recommended steps to begin your practice and more.
“When you begin to touch your heart or let your heart be touched, you begin to discover that it’s bottomless, that it doesn’t have any resolution, that this heart is huge, vast, and limitless.” -Pema Chodron
Why I LOVE Metta-Meditation
1. Like other chants, Metta-Meditation can be practiced whenever we choose. I sing it riding my bike, at the end of yoga practice in shavasana or corpse pose, sitting meditation or on a hammock drinking tea,.
2. It helps me feel connected. Most of the time, my closest friends and family and I are rarely in the same area. With Metta-Meditation I can wholeheartedly unite with loved ones anywhere.
3. It extends beyond ourselves. Along with yoking Metta-Meditation with loved ones, it also transcends beyond our personal interactions. With each collection of blessings, we choose where to open. For example, “May I” repeats to “My family” to “My friends” to “all persons” to “persons suffering” to “existence”, etc.
4. It can be applied when we encounter others in distress. Whether driving by a car accident or noticing someone is having a rough day. The options are limitless.
5. The tranquility after sharing a genuine practice is beautiful. Each time. Like other mantras and chants, Metta-Meditation is extremely powerful before sleep.
6. There are many variations on the affirmations. To start, I recommend keeping it simple, short, and sweet. Find blessings that resonate with your own heart. Over time let your heart write its own Metta-Meditation blessings.
My Metta-Meditation streams combinations of these blessings:
May I / You be strong and healthy
May I / You be safe and free from harm
May I / You be free from suffering and the root of suffering
May I / You be kind and loving
May I / You walk in peace
May I / You be our Dharma
May I / You be free
May I / You be
weaved compassion
through time and space
now Kannon
http://www.tricycle.com/feature/hidden-lamp
Is it a little problem or a big problem? Whichever it may be, what ever is in your way is on your way. Funny things happen on the way to enlightenment. Enlightenment is each day, each breath; your own definition.
You define your own dharma.
Either way, enter a full circle of breath
Some call it compassion, loving-kindness, seizing the day, etc. It’s entirely your own expression and alive inside of all of us. We all have those things that set us free. And it changes, but please embrace it.
Today a cup of tea did it for me, last July a bike saved my life, right now it’s music. What connects all of this? I’m inquiring about the things that, depending our our attention or perception, set us free or keep us living. The language of compassion has no words and exits in our breath. Music, tea, biking, smiling, breathing breathing breathing.
It is the least we can do. Mindfulness.
Is it a little breath or a big breath?
Don’t think about it, just live it.
pura vida healing arts 