#breathe – Presence and Positivity

Letter 9

As we move into the last two days of 2023, we offer for your consideration the final two letters from Thich Nhat Hahn’s Ten Love Letters to the Earth:

IX

Homo Conscius

Dear Mother Earth,

We have given ourselves the name homo sapiens. The precursors of our species began to appear only a few million years ago, in the form of apes such as orrorin tugenensis who could stand, leaving their hands free to do many things. As they learned to use tools and communicate, their brains grew and developed, and over six million years they gradually evolved into homo sapiens. As agriculture and societies emerged, we acquired new capacities unique to our species. We became self-aware and began to question our place in the cosmos. Yet we also developed traits in discord with our true nature. Because of our ignorance and suffering, we have acted with cruelty, meanness, and violence. But we also have the ability, with spiritual practice, to be compassionate and help-ful toward not only our own species but also other species—to become buddhas, saints, and bodhisattvas. All humans, without exception, have this potential to become awakened beings able to protect you, our Mother, and preserve your beauty.

Whether we’re human, animal, plant, or mineral, each of us has the nature of awakening because we are all your offspring. Yet we humans are often proud of our mind consciousness. We are proud of our powerful telescopes and ability to observe distant galaxies. But few of us realize that our consciousness is your own; you are deepening your understanding of the cosmos through us. Proud of our capacity to be aware of ourselves and the cosmos, we overlook the fact that our mind consciousness is limited by our habitual tendency to discriminate and conceptualize. We differentiate between birth and death, being and nonbeing, inside and outside, individual and collective. Nonetheless, there are humans who have looked deeply, cultivated their mind of awareness, and overcome these habitual tendencies, to attain the wisdom of nondiscrimination. They have been able to touch the ultimate dimension within them and around them. They have been able to continue you on the path of evolution, guiding others toward the insight of nonduality, transforming all separation, discrimination, fear, hatred, and despair.

Dear Mother, thanks to the precious gift of awareness, we can recognize our own presence and realize our true place in you and in the cosmos. We humans are no longer naive in thinking ourselves the masters of the universe. We know that in terms of the universe we are tiny and insignificant, and yet our minds are capable of encompassing numberless worlds. We know that our beautiful planet Earth is not the center of the universe, and yet we can still see it as one of the universe’s many wondrous manifestations. We have developed science and technology, and discovered reality’s true nature of no-birth and no-death, of neither being nor nonbeing, neither increasing nor decreasing, neither the same nor different. We realize that the one contains the all, that the greatest is contained within the smallest, and that each particle of dust contains the whole cosmos. We are learning to love you and our Father more, and to love one another in the light of this insight of interbeing. We know that this nondualistic way of seeing things can help us to transcend all discrimination, fear, jealousy, hatred, and despair.

Shakyamuni Buddha was a child of yours who attained full awakening at the foot of the Bodhi tree. After his long journey of seeking, he realized that the Earth is our true and only home, and that heaven, the whole cosmos, and the ultimate dimension can be touched right here with you. Dear Mother, we promise to remain with you throughout countless lifetimes, offering you our talent, strength, and health so that many more bodhisattvas can continue to rise up from your soil.

Letter 6

VI

Our Journey of Eons

Dear Mother Earth,

Do you remember when you and Father Sun first formed from the dust of exploded stars and interstellar gas? You didn’t yet wear the silken cloak of freshness that you do today. At that time, Mother, more than four and half billion years ago, your robe was made of molten rock. Soon it cooled to form a hard crust. Although Father’s light was far less than it is today, your thin atmosphere captured the heat and kept your oceans from freezing. In those first few hundred million years, you overcame many great difficulties to create an environment capable of sustaining life. You released great heat, fires, and gases from your volcanoes. Steam was expelled from your crust to become vapor in your atmosphere and the water in your great oceans. Your gravity helped anchor the life-sustaining sky, and your magnetic field prevented it from being stripped away by solar winds and cosmic rays.

But even before forming the atmosphere, you endured a collision with a great heavenly body, almost the size of Mars. Part of the impacting planet became you; the rest of it, along with some of your mantle and crust, became the moon. Dear Mother, the moon is a part of you, as beautiful as an angel. She is a kind sister to you, always following you, helping you slow down and keep your balance, and creating tidal rhythms on your body.

Our entire solar system is one family, revolving around Father Sun in a joyful and harmonious dance. First there is Mercury, metallic and cratered, closest to the sun. Next is Venus with her intense heat, high-pressure atmosphere, and volcanoes. Then there is you, beloved Mother Earth, the most beautiful of all. Beyond us orbits the Red Planet, cold and desolate Mars; and after the asteroid belt there comes the gas giant Jupiter, by far the largest planet of all, attended by an assembly of diverse moons. Beyond Jupiter orbits Saturn, the spectacularly ringed planet, followed by Uranus, tilted on his side after a collision, and, finally, distant blue Neptune with his turbulent storms and high winds.

Contemplating this splendor, I can see that you, Mother Earth, are the most precious flower in our solar system, a true jewel of the cosmos.

It took you a billion years to begin to manifest the first living beings. Complex molecules, perhaps brought to you from outer space, started to come together in self-replicating structures, slowly becoming more and more like living cells. Light particles from distant stars, millions of light years away, came to visit and stay a while. Small cells gradually became larger cells; unicellular organisms evolved into multicellular organisms. Life developed from deep within the oceans, multiplying and prospering, steadily improving the atmosphere. Slowly, the ozone layer could form, preventing harmful radiation from reaching your surface, and allowing life on land to prosper. It was only then, as the miracle of photosynthesis unfurled, that you began to wear the exquisite green mantle you do today.

But all phenomena are impermanent and ever-changing. Life over vast areas of the Earth has already been destroyed more than five times, including sixty-five million years ago, when the impact of a giant asteroid caused the mass extinction of dinosaurs and three quarters of all other species. Dear Mother, I am in awe of your capacity to be patient and creative, despite all the harsh conditions you have endured. I promise to remember our extraordinary journey of eons and to live my days with the awareness that we are all your children, and that we are all made of stars. I promise to do my part, contributing my own energy of joy and harmony to the glorious symphony of life.

Letter 3

Ten Love Letters to the Earth

by Thich Nhat Hahn

III

Walking Tenderly on Mother Earth

Dear Mother Earth,

Every time I step upon the Earth, I will train myself to see that I am walking on you, my Mother. Every time I place my feet on the Earth I have a chance to be in touch with you and with all your wonders. With every step I can touch the fact that you aren’t just beneath me, dear Mother, but you are also within me. Each mindful and gentle step can nourish me, heal me, and bring me into contact with myself and with you in the present moment.

Walking in mindfulness I can express my love, respect, and care for you, our precious Earth. I will touch the truth that mind and body are not two separate entities. I will train myself to look deeply to see your true nature: you are my loving mother, a living being, a great being—an immense, beautiful, and precious wonder. You are not only matter, you are also mind, you are also consciousness. Just as the beautiful pine or tender grain of corn possess an innate sense of knowing, so, too, do you. Within you, dear Mother Earth, there are the elements of Earth, water, air and fire; and there is also time, space, and consciousness. Our nature is your nature, which is also the nature of the cosmos.

I want to walk gently, with steps of love and with great respect. I shall walk with my own body and mind united in oneness. I know I can walk in such a way that every step is a pleasure, every step is nourishing, and every step is healing—not only for my body and mind, but also for you, dear Mother Earth. You are the most beautiful planet in our entire solar system. I do not want to run away from you, dear Mother, nor to hurry. I know I can find happiness right here with you. I do not need to rush to find more conditions for happiness in the future. At every step I can take refuge in you. At every step I can enjoy your beauties, your delicate veil of atmosphere and the miracle of gravity. I can stop my thinking. I can walk relaxingly and effortlessly. Walking in this spirit I can experience awakening. I can awaken to the fact that I am alive, and that life is a precious miracle. I can awaken to the fact that I am never alone and can never die. You are always there within me and around me at every step, nourishing me, embracing me, and carrying me far into the future.

Dear Mother, you wish that we live with more awareness and gratitude, and we can do this by generating the energies of mindfulness, peace, stability, and compassion in our daily lives. Therefore I make the promise today to return your love and fulfill this wish by investing every step I take on you with love and tenderness. I am walking not merely on matter, but on spirit.

A Day For Love

It’s a new day. Let’s celebrate with one gratitude that first comes to mind: No matter what large subjects may seem looming and overwhelming to us today, think of something that is going to help today be a celebration, instead of a burden.

Begin the day with a deep inhale and equally thorough exhale. Now another.

It’s a new day. 24 hours to be a kind neighbor, supportive friend, spontaneous partner, superb parent, blessing to a stranger. 24 hours to make mistakes and then try again with a smile because YOU are here to try again!

Let us rise, smile and be our best for a life and world that needs our LOVE and attention.

The Journey of a Breath

“Feelings come and go like clouds in a windy sky. Conscious breathing is my anchor.” ~Thích Nhat Hạnh

I was asked today, before one of my yoga classes, to teach them how to breathe. Then they asked, “Why don’t I know how to breathe? Why hasn’t this been taught to me before, what’s the problem with our culture that we don’t know how to breathe?”

As adults, we usually breathe from our chests unconsciously. Our bodies take over and we stay alive every day with most of our attention focused on productivity, earning and spending money, food, and I’m sure you can fill in a few more blanks. This is an act that nourishes our entire bodies, calms our minds, and allows for ‘a say’ in our mood and reactions at any given time. Yet, we leave our breath to a small and quiet rhythm with little notice.

Breathing is the only vital function that we have full and continuous control over.

3 Part Breath: Reclined or seated, place one hand on your lower belly and the other on your chest. Relax your torso and begin to breath naturally, flowing toward long, slow inhales and exhales. Notice which hand rises first or if both are equal. Let your mind divide your inhale into 3 parts: lower belly, middle ribs and chest. As you begin fill your torso with air starting low and pausing in between each of these 3 sections. Retain that breath for a moment before allowing your exhale to flow slowly down and empty your torso 1/3 at a time.

Learning to breathe with purpose is about slowing down and listening, relaxing, and leaking air in slowly. This leak, this Ocean Breath, creates a sound much like the rhythmic, subtle ocean. We then have time to observe and impact the journey of each inhale and each exhale.

“Inhale, and God approaches you. Hold the inhalation, and God remains with you. Exhale, and you approach God. Hold the exhalation, and surrender to God.” ~Krishnamacharya

Peaceful Waking

This week, when waking, try to find a peaceful center before you do anything else. Allow your mind to come into consciousness, breathe into your belly and back, feel the sheets under you, let the breath reach into your toes and your fingers, and be at peace. Do not allow thinking to be present that would hinder your oneness with feeling. You are worth taking the first minutes of your waking day to generate calm and ease about yourself. Bring awareness to your gratitude for the moment in which you find yourself awake. If you have created space in your routine for stretching or exercise you can move into that from here. If your routine involves getting up straight away to hustle, these first moments in the morning can be a grounded beginning to your day of activity. This attention to the manner in which you wake can also serve as a base point for other times in the day that you may feel off balance. Go back to your peaceful center whenever you need.

The Only Moment We Truly Have

“Breathing in, I calm my body. Breathing out, I smile. Dwelling in the present moment, I know this is the only moment.” -Thich Nhat Hanh

We move. We do. We ‘get it done’. There are days when you may not remember much about your day specifically and then other moments that it seems door frames, corners, and furniture jump right out into your way and BAM! Some days flow and some days simply do not.

We breathe and move. Does our breath lead our movement or does our movement lead our breath? Do we breathe in the shallows or into the deep? Science has proven that deep breathing massages the heart, pumping nutrients and fluid into the vascular system while pumping toxins out and away, leading to better cardiac health. When you have the choice…..breathe in the deep. Aim to find the beginning of an inhale down below your navel and the top near your shoulders.

“The men of old breathed clear down to their heels.” -Chuang Tzu

Try this when you find stress overcoming your body and mind.

Stair Step breath:

Exhale fully and let sips of air in with pauses so that your full inhale takes 8-10 sips and then slowly exhale to the count of about 6 seconds. Try this for 2 breaths.

Then stair step or sip your next inhale as well as your exhale for 2 breaths.

Now return to a stair stepping inhale with the long 6 second exhale.

If you find any discomfort or anxiety with this simply breathe as usual or come to an even 3 count breath.

Thank your body for doing as you ask and breathing in this moment, with purpose. Be thankful for your body and your breath.

Purposeful Rise: a choice to feel better

“The thought manifests as the word; The word as the deed; the deed developes into habit; and the habit hardens into character … as the shadow follows the body – as we think, so we become. ” -Buddha

Post by: Tracy Weaver, Life Coach, EFT Practitioner

All of your emotions, from the best to the worst, are valuable to you. They let you know where you are, what’s going on with you. So, please be easy about them – and you. When you are feeling low, depressed, angry, unappreciated, at least you know what direction you want to head in: feeling better!

Your emotions follow your thoughts. Thoughts always bring in more thoughts of similar kind, feeding the current emotion, making it stronger. When you’re feeling really good, milk your mood! Enjoy it! When your emotional state could stand some improvement, what to do? I mean, just try not thinking about the thing that’s got your attention. Unless you are an accomplished ‘meditator’, your active brain just isn’t going to let you. So what we need is some way to distract that ol’ “monkey mind“.

That’s it! Distraction! Get your brain off one scent and on to another! So okay, you want to feel better, and you want to distract your brain away from its current track of thoughts. Here’s a way. Purposefully turn your attention to gentle, general things you already know make you feel good. Non-challenging things, soothing things. Anything will do for starters. “Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens.” I’m not kidding. If you are free to, go out and treat your physical senses to something that makes you smile and lifts your mood. As you do, you’ll naturally think about it. The first thought will pull in the second thought, the second a third, and as the happier thoughts continue and build, your mood will rise. Milk it, get in the habit of playing the game and celebrate the improvements!

I’m sure it sounds way too simple. But I can tell you from practice and experience that it works, reliably. You won’t leap wildly from dejected apathy to passionate joy. But, you can train your thoughts to move gently upward, a step or two at a time. As your mind gets better at this new skill, you’ll have a great tool to move on that new path upward to where you really want to live. And your thoughts will change.

Our Thanks to Tracy for contributing!

Present Mind Within a Busy Day

“Man sacrifices his health in order to make money. Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health. And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present; the result being that he does not live in the present or the future; he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived.” -Dalai Lama

You have probably heard many versions of this sentiment before. Quietly, you hope you are not living your life this way. We all have very different lives, work and past times with this residing theme in common – we are BUSY. When we are not busy we turn on the TV, read a book, do household chores, and it goes on and on. Remembering to BE in the Present Moment when this is not facilitated by a class may be difficult. The times dedicated to presence may be far and few in between all of the ‘stuff’ that makes up our lives.

Here is an exercise that anyone can do many times a day, every day:

Consider a brilliant part of existence – – –

Every few seconds, 24 hours a day something we take for granted is happening to every person alive. Do you know what this is? They are breathing. The breath, the inhale and exhale, is a small wonder occurring repeatedly in our daily living.

The next time you are unloading the dishwasher, filing papers, writing an email, driving to work, cooking a meal or sitting in a meeting – take note of your breath. Move dishes, papers or laundry with your inhale and exhale. Yes, this does mean slowing down your pace for a few minutes. It also means appreciating the task at hand and perhaps even enjoying activities you before thought of as menial. If in a meeting, be present by noticing how your inhale and exhale can make tiny shifts within your posture and then acknowledge your slow, calm breathing for a few minutes while listening to the meeting’s agenda. Having awareness of your breathing for a few minutes at a time gives your mind a break from its incessant darting between subjects. Presence with breath allows us to tune in to our body and to be aware of the story it is telling us all day. Often, we only hear our bodies when they yell and scream to us in discomfort. Noticing your breath throughout the day in small increments will calm and rest your mind leading to awareness of the mind/body connection. Use the breath to teach your mind and body to become interconnected, feeling what life is giving you in this moment. Many of us spend time immersed in the sorrows of the past and worries of the future. Five minutes from now is the future and the last conversation we had is in the past. Aim to be in the present.

Let us know how easy or difficult you find this and with what part of your day it was possible. For me, I find it possible with driving and dishes 🙂 ~ Jessica

(Valerie’s presence with breath is also in the task of dishes as well as clearing clutter and vacuuming.)