The practice starts out with the most support, and moves progressively towards less support and more subtlety. Stage 1: Yoga - deliberate body and breath Stage 2: Pranayama - Natural body and deliberate breath Stage 3: Anapana/Concentration - Natural breath Stage 4: Vipashyana/Insight - Natural body (subtle sensations)

Getting ahead of yourself (see yesterday) is the same as getting present. The hardest and first part of getting present is breaking free of the gravity well of your thoughts and emotional reactions. Once you get some stability of presence, you'll begin to receive the many presents that are just sitting there waiting for you.

We live in our Thinking/monkey mind. In fact , most of us are stuck there, locked in a cage of who we think we are and what we think the world is like. There is no sustainable change possible at this level of mind. Mindfulness practices take us two steps ahead of our thoughts/selves to the experience of our bodies. At this root-level of mind, deep changes to how to you feel and what you think become possible.

An easy and fun way to incorporate a pranayama (deliberate breathing) practice into your life is to do it while listening to songs. Let go of the words (monkey mind), feel the groove and get into your breathing (reptile mind). We start off in a 2/2/2/2 patttern to warm up, and then when the beat drops in, we switch to a 4/4/4/4 pattern for the rest of the song (about 10 mins). Enjoy!

A brief teaching from our daily, morning Online Practice Group. We talk about sacred spaces out in the world, but the only one that really counts is the space in your head, which you have to make. This is what mindfulness is for.

A brief teaching from our daily, morning Online Practice Group. Finding your show-up word/s involves listening to your (more) balanced body. These words describe something about your essential human nature - what's under all the issues.

1. Write - your word 2. Stand - excavate 3. Sit - imbue 4. Be - feel 5. Do - share Finding your show-up word/s involves listening to your (more) balanced body. These words describe something about your essential human nature - what's under all the issues.

In our online practice group this week we're building awareness -- specifically, the resolution in our hands and noticing how much it changes in a week.

In our online practice group, this weeks cushion (meditation) focus is building our acceptance muscle by practicing step of of decoupling from emotions.