71: "Why We Practice" - reflection and meditation with Brandon Nappi

Host: Brandon Nappi 

Instagram: @theleadersway.podcast 

berkeleydivinity.yale.edu/podcast

Brandon:    So in these heart-stretching times, I’m often asked by my students or by folks that I work with one-on-one in spiritual guidance or spiritual direction, how we can remain grounded and cultivate some sense of peace and equanimity amid this moment. It sometimes feels like a dumpster fire of political tension and social tension as the very fabric of communities are often torn apart. And I can only share from my own experience that some form of contemplative practice has been essential for me to stay rooted in my own spiritual life.

And by contemplative practice, we mean some form of daily and consistent spiritual discipline that we practice every day, not because it always feels good. Often it stirs up quite a bit of discomfort within us, but because we believe that a daily period of being still, observing all of the thought patterns, the judgments that float through our mind at any given moment, and the daily practice of surrendering to this vast mystery that we name as God or love or spirit is healing, is grounding, and reminds us of our true nature.

So a daily spiritual practice wakes us up to our true nature, and it grounds us, it keeps us connected to the divine, when the winds of division and fragmentation and anxiety and despair are swirling seemingly uncontrollably. 

My favorite story to tell about contemplative practice and why I practice comes from my time of being a relatively new father of little kids. And my oldest daughter Sophia was really, really struggling in the midst of this beautiful butterfly emporium. There were thousands of butterflies flying all over the place. And she decided that she couldn’t be happy with this butterfly experience unless a butterfly came down, landed on her shoulder, began speaking to her, and offered to be her best friend. I don’t know what– she’s six years old at the time. Her younger sister, Ellie, who was four at the time, was absolutely thrilled to be in a room full of butterflies. And just to behold the butterflies was enough. She was delighted. Sophia defined her sense of happiness and fulfillment in that moment in a very narrow way. As the wonderful monk Thich Nhat Hanh used to teach, a wonderful Zen teacher who passed away just a few years ago now, a great mentor to me, used to say, “It’s your idea of happiness that is preventing you from being happy.” It was certainly the case for Sophia on this day with the butterflies. 

So after about 20 minutes running around chasing the butterflies, she was upset. She was crying. She was frantically sprinting, trying to persuade the butterfly to land on her shoulder and be her best friend. And of course, when it didn’t happen, she just exploded in rage. And I felt great compassion for her. I sat her down on a bench and I said, “Honey, you know, you’ve been running around this place for 20 minutes now trying to befriend the butterfly. But they’re shy creatures, you know? So maybe if you just sit here and practice your breathing like I’ve taught you and like we do every single night as we pray and meditate at bedtime, maybe a butterfly will come.” 

And she said, “I’m sick and tired of the breathing, Dad. It’s all you ever talk about. Meditation doesn’t work.”

And then that moment I felt, oh my gosh, such tenderness and compassion. Because any of us who have had some kind of contemplative practice, a yoga practice, centering prayer, lectio divina, Zen meditation, mindfulness, we’ve all had this moment of wondering, “Does any of this matter? Does any of this work? And how would we even know if it was working?”

And so after a moment of considering her options, of which she had very few, she said, “Fine.” And she sat there and she started breathing in this very melodramatic fashion.  

So I said, “Is this how I taught you, honey?” 

She said, “Oh, okay.”

And so she sat and got really quiet. It was astounding to watch her go from absolute drama and fireworks to stillness. And what I saw was incredible. A moment or two into her stillness, this beautiful butterfly came, beautifully blue, iridescent wings, and it landed right on her shoulder. And she was absolutely delighted. And I was horrified because I didn’t want her to think that breath practice or contemplative practice or any form of spiritual practice, prayer, is magic. Or simply a way to get what you want. Just another way for the ego to get what it wants. Of course, we know that life is much more complicated.

She’s 21 years old now, so we’ve had this conversation, I’m thrilled to say. And she’s come to understand why we practice. We practice because if you can make peace with this moment, you can make peace with any moment. We practice some form of contemplation to learn to be tender with ourselves. We practice some form of mindfulness to learn how to greet each moment with curiosity instead of a kind of harsh judgment. We learn to practice a kind of non-attachment, so we’re not swept away every time something isn’t going our way. We practice to ground ourselves in the divine, to root ourselves in our truest nature, which I believe is that we’re children of God. We’re temples of spirit. We have infinite worth. We’re connected to God at every moment. We are what happens when love gets a body.

And when you can know that that’s who you are, your infinite worth, then you can begin honoring that in other people. And you can have a kind of graciousness for yourself and for others that the world sorely needs right now. This is a way, these contemplative practices, of learning how to respond with wisdom and skillfulness rather than just react.

And that’s why I practice. 

Of course, I couldn’t teach that to my seven-year-old. But it was enough that day that she got her butterfly. I’m glad she did. And I’m thankful for my own practice that in all the many, many moments when I don’t get the butterfly, when things don’t go my way, when the world seems to be on fire, that a contemplative practice like mindful breathing, like centering prayer, along with so many others, can keep me grounded.

Welcome to Within, a contemplative segment within the Leaders Way podcast that explores the convergence of mental health, art, and spirituality through authentic conversations across wisdom traditions about personal and collective transformation.

We welcome artists, musicians, spiritual teachers, and healers to reflect on the sacred wisdom needed to heal the world’s deepest wounds. Within examines the inner path to wholeness, not through quick fixes or spiritual bypassing, but through courageous engagement with life’s profound challenges.

Hello friends, my name is Dr. Brandon Nappi, host of the Leaders Way podcast, lecturer here at Yale Divinity School, spiritual teacher and spiritual guide. And today I’ll be leading a 12-minute guided meditation for grounding in the divine amid these chaotic times.

And I welcome you to simply get comfortable in your chair. You may wish to lay down as well, any posture really that feels comfortable for you in this moment. I invite you to close your eyes if that’s available to you. Some of you may wish to just lower the gaze.

If the eyes remain open, letting the gaze be soft and unfocused and perhaps pointed downward toward the ground. And bringing awareness to the soles of the feet.

And just feeling all of the sensations that are available to you at the soles of the feet. If your feet are coming into contact with the floor, just noticing the way the earth rises up to meet your feet. And feeling sensation through the toes, through the balls of the feet, the arches and the heels. 

And then bringing awareness to the breath of the belly. In our contemplative practice we often work with the breath as a kind of anchor, because the breath cannot unfold at any other moment other than the present. And of course the present moment is the only moment that we have to discover our life, to know ourselves, to love and be loved by others, to engage with this amazing world of ours, and to meet this mystery that we name as God. So the first dimension of any contemplative practice is the practice of presence. And in today’s practice we’ll work with the breath as a way of anchoring us in the present moment. So just noticing all of those sensations that surround and support the breath at the belly.

So breathing in, feeling the belly rise, and breathing out, feeling the belly fall. And letting the breath unfold completely organically. We’re not trying to manipulate the breath, we’re not trying to choreograph our breathing in any sort of way. The breath should be relaxed and completely organic. So letting go of the need to control the breath in any way, just letting it do what it’s been doing for years and decades.

And you might even imagine a kind of balloon whose inflation upon the in-breath and whose deflation upon the out-breath are unfolding with great ease. Just noticing sensation and movement that surround and support the breath with great care.

Letting your curiosity be imbued with great care and affection and even love. There’s a kind of tenderness to this kind of awareness practice. So as we watch the breath, let there be a kind of tenderness in your observing. As you notice inhalation and then exhalation, also noticing this slice of stillness that exists between inhale and exhale.

This beautiful sort of wisdom teaching right here within the breath that both the stillness and the movement are in this synergy, that are in this rhythmic interplay, that these are not enemies of one another, that they’re actually companions on the journey. That movement and stillness are both sacred and needed.

And so often in life, especially in contemporary life, we tend to privilege movement and not give sufficient time and space to stillness. Of course, one isn’t better than the other, we need both. And so the breath beautifully embodies and holds this paradox of movement and stillness. So just notice this in your breathing. That movement of air and then stillness between movement.

Breathing in, I know that I’m breathing in and breathing out. I know that I’m breathing out. We can survive many days without food, fewer days without water, but only a few moments without breath. So breath is the fundamental nourishment. It’s our primary nourishment in life. And so as we breathe, just honoring the reality that this is our fundamental way that we’re being fed moment by moment. To not receive this nourishment is to cease to exist for very long.

It’s no wonder that the poet Kabir called God the breath within the breath. If the breath becomes the place where our little lives and the big life of God meet. The place where our little lives are being sustained by the great life itself. So as we breathe, just beginning to honor the way in which our lives are being nourished by something far greater, more vast, deeper, this gracious, mysterious, infinite mystery of life. That some of us name as God. To cease to breathe is to cease to exist. And if God weren’t breathing life into us, we would no longer exist as well. So to breathe is to literally draw life from this great reservoir of life.

And now shifting awareness from the breath of the belly to the breath at its point of entry into the body, the nose or the mouth, and just sensing what there is to sense here. How does this feel perhaps different than breathing from belly? What sensations are available here in the nose or the mouth? And just noticing the texture of the air. Becoming aware of the temperature of the air that we draw into the body. And also becoming aware of the temperature of our exhalation and the differential between the two, the air having been warmed and cradled within the lungs, emerges differently than the air that we draw into the body. So just taking a few cycles of breath slowly, just to notice this.

And now, from time to time, let’s observe the way in which the attention that we hold on the breath wanders away. How our minds become distracted. Our attention, which we’d like to rest in the breath, wanders to thinking and judging and planning in the future and the past. Some research suggests that half of the time, in fact, our attention has wandered away from the present moment. This is not a problem.

The mind behaves a bit like a puppy dog. And so just like we wouldn’t hate or harshly scold a puppy dog for being a puppy, we don’t have to do that for the puppy mind. We can simply bring the wandering attention back to the present moment by bringing the attention back to the breath. And so this is the ancient technology that’s been a part of several wisdom traditions, this ancient technology of returning to the breath. And that’s all the contemplative practice is. It’s a kind of return. 

In this moment, return to the breath as a way of grounding ourselves in the present moment. So let’s just practice this for a moment of silence. And any time the mind wanders away, I’ll close my eyes now at this moment. Any time the attention wanders away from breath, we, with exquisite gentleness, without any need for self-criticism or harshness, we just simply return. Over and over, returning back to the breath. Really trusting that the present moment is the safest place to be, the present moment is the only place to be, and to go beyond the breath for these next few minutes is to go too far.

Each time we become distracted and recognize it, of course we’re no longer distracted. We’re already back. And so we simply return to the breath. Every return to breath is a kind of homecoming. Every distraction in that way represents a homecoming. A homecoming to your life, a homecoming to life itself, and we believe a homecoming to the divine presence.

And so now in these moments, as we breathe, really beginning to trust that the great life of God is flowing through your little life. And despite whatever turmoil you have in your life, in the world, in our politics, across the planet, that we can always come home to this breath as a way of returning to the Holy One. That to breathe is to be nourished by life itself and the vast sacred mystery of God who is love, who is spirit, who is infinite graciousness, and that this is available to us with every breath we take. So as we breathe, literally breathing in the life of God. Really trusting that our lives are in fact being held by this infinite mystery. That there is no separation between you and the Holy One. And as we breathe in, trusting that this infinite self-giving gift of grace and love is happening within you moment by moment and breath by breath. And so taking maybe two minutes together now to breathe in silence and to practice.

I’ll invite three rings of the bell to begin our two minutes of silent practice.

And then three rings of the bell will bring our practice to a close. And letting this silent time of practice be a time when the breath can ground us in the very infinite mystery of a love beyond all knowing. So listen, the sound of this bell calls us to our true home.

We take great care as we open eyes, beginning to bring movement back to the body.

And trusting that we are being held, supported, and empowered by a loving presence throughout all our days. I look forward to practicing with you very soon in the future.

Thank you for listening to Within, the contemplative segment of the Leaders Way podcast. We trust this conversation has provided nourishment for your own growing and healing. Until next time, may you find deep peace and courage in all you do.