Inspiration from Yoga - Day 5 - Loving Kindness

Tonight's yoga practice was a series of Sun Salutations designed as a moving meditation. For each movement in the Sun Salutation sequence you inhale and send out the phrases to the focus of that individual meditation.

As the instructor explained, it is a Buddhist Metta meditation, "Loving Kindness".

Here's how it works: with each in breath comes a thought and a movement,  each exhale the completion of that movement and the thought being projected out to the Universe.

It starts with yourself:

May I be filled with loving kindness 
 (Inhale with both arms stretching upward to the sky & exhale into forward bend, palms to the floor)
May I be well. 
(Inhale and lift chest, straighten back halfway, looking outward, then exhale back to Chaturanga/pushup position)
May I be peaceful and at ease.  
(Inhale into Upward Dog, then exhale pressing back to Downward Dog, holding Down Dog for several long counts and sending loving kindness outward from your heart with conscious breath)
May I be happy. 
(Inhale and jump or walk feet forward to hands, then exhale into deep forward bend, releasing all tension.)

Om.
(Inhale while coming up to standing position with hands in prayer pose at heart center, exhale "Om" either internally or externally voicing it on the out breath.)

When you breath in you are breathing that thought in, and when you exhale you are sending that thought, that positivity, that loving kindness out to the world, you are creating the ripples of positivity .

For each of the persons targeted in today's practice one cycle of a Sun Salutation:
First, for our own self (as above)
moving to send love to a loved one (Second cycle - I repeat their name... "May Fred be well", etc.)
a friend or family member
a neutral person that you have met, but may not even know their name
a person that you are in confrontation with (oooh... a hard one! Must let it alllllll go.)
all beings and all life

May you be filled with loving kindness (Arms stretching upward to the sky & exhale, bending forward, palms to the floor)
May you be well. (Lift chest, straighten back halfway, looking outward, lengthening spine)
May you be peaceful and at ease.  (back to Chaturanga/Pushup Position and upward dog)
May you be happy. (Step forward & exhale into deep forward bend)
Om. (Coming up to standing with hands in prayer pose at heart center.)
So doing this exercise tonight you breathe in and out moving through the sun salutations and focusing your intentions for first yourself, then each person and then finally to all life.

To find the yoga challenge that I am doing, and this wonderful moving meditation: www.blissology.com/


And finally, a closing quote from Blissology Project (Facebook) September 27

"without meditation, where is peace,
without peace, where is happiness?"
the bhagavad-gita

MAY YOU BE WELL!