See Your Suffering

So we begin with ourselves. So snuggle in. Be comfortable. However you need to sit for it to be comfortable. Big deliberate inhale and exhale everything. And just to help that a little bit, this next time, let's do a louder ha on the exhale. So inhale, exhale, ha, and really let your belly drop. Do that again. Inhale, exhale, ha. With the belly dropped, begin to become aware of your breath and the belly. Yes. Stay with your awareness of your breath and your belly as you allow your heart to find a quality of bright generosity. Elbows heavy, palms open. Find the alignment of the skull, little wider at the base of the skull. And let the upper soft palate of the mouth dome. And let your eyes feel kinder. So now with your awareness of the breath, the movement of the breath in the belly region, the lower belly region, with your eyes kind and your hands soft. Begin to bring your self into focus. Like let yourself be your focus. And perhaps you are aware of the part of you that is suffering. Perhaps you're aware of a physical suffering, an emotional suffering, a mental suffering. So perhaps there's something very specific like knee pain or joint pain or heart pain for you to just kind of hold your attention on. And as you continue to be aware of the movement of the breath in the belly, the mantra that can help here and can help hold you steady is simply inhale. And as you exhale, I see your suffering. Inhale. I see your suffering. Now it's a subtle point whether or not you want to speak to yourself as a I see you or I see me. So here you've got to kind of find that for yourself. Like you might play with I see my suffering. And while see is the word to refer to all the sense organs, you might naturally find yourself on the exhale sensing, I feel my suffering. Whichever one you land on, don't spend too much time trying to figure out the right one. Just let yourself be naturally guided. Inhale. And as you exhale, I see your suffering or I see my suffering without trying to change it, make it go away or alter it in some way. The practice here is to simply be willing to accept and be open to, to bring light and awareness as if you were a mother holding a small child. Like there's a quality of nurturing, of unconditional stable nurturing for yourself. Last few moments. More tender in the eyes, softer in the belly, like sense where you've created resistance or tension soften. Beautiful. Relax the mantra and rest here. And so today as you find yourself like experiencing pain, whether again, that's physical, mental or an emotional, the temptation for all of us is to resist, to push away, to avoid. And the practice here is to start to be, increase our capacity to simply be with what is. Okay, so you know, maybe after you stub your toes, the first response is, catch yourself and just I see your suffering. Try it. Love.