Sensing the earth under my feet, I feel my heart beating to life’s flowing charge, tuning into the Great Mother. Kindling such heartfelt resonance isn’t always easy, especially when desire, ignorance or aversion are at play. As they often are. Yet Buddhism teaches us that when we are brave enough to drop any ego baggage, the mind reconnects with the heart and we will return to our true nature, calm and happy, intuitive and accepting. Aware that we humans are indivisible from our home planet, Earth; 70% water and 30% solid, the human body also shares with the planet a little known secret: that our heart is also tilted - just like Earth’s axis.
So when I heard news announced, in dramatic fatalistic media fashion, how Earth’s axis has tilted as a result of the recent Chile earthquake, my natural reaction was to enter into ‘stabilising meditation’, to focus upon breathing and calm the heart-mind. My understanding is that we, i.e. the earth, have always ‘wobbled’ with a point degree this way or that – so far with no serious misalignment, and therefore nothing to worry about. But in any whirlwind of change, a meditator’s aim is to hold firm focus and relax into the spacious heart-mind.
Where attention goes, energy flows.
The antidote for feeling insecure, fearful or unstable is to rest in love ~ pure unconditional love. To generate the heartfelt state we can share with others, it is primarily important to feel good about oneself. A simple, easy, costs-you-nothing way to create love for self is by breathing. Really. It's as simple as that. By concentrating upon breathing into our lungs the pure and conscious life-force, all goodness, light and positive prana infuse the heart-mind and body, and then exhaling toxic negativity, it naturally opens the heart, clears the mind and calms the spirit. From this tranquil state we can then generate Bodhicitta: which is the aspiration for all beings to achieve enlightenment.
It makes sense, then, if we can establish love and a calm mind with directed breath - and as we are so interconnected to the Earth - by the same intention, motivation and focus we can also calm Earth’s breathing, as Mother Earth also breathes with the tides, as well as inhaling at daybreak and exhaling at nightfall (with greater inhalation during periods when there is less solar activity, or depending upon where we are in the yearly cycle). Russian scientist Lugovenko defines the breathing of the Earth as "the temporary variations of a cosmo-terrestrial field," and refers to both "global" and "local" breathing. He suggests global breathing reacts to sacredness, through meditation and mantra. That we are so connected is not so surprising if we consider the inclusive noosphere. Now, more than ever, with humanity in a constant state of crisis and chaos, knowing the techniques of being able to rest in happy heart makes for a happy life - and a happy earth.
Thanks and blessings to unknown artists.
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