Dear Friends,
Today we close our exploration of the fire element with a practice that emphasizes balance, settling, and integration.
Over the past days, we have explored fire as warmth, energy, and transformation and noticing how these qualities arise according to conditions, rather than belonging to a fixed self. The reflection yesterday widened the lens, inviting a sense of continuity between the fire that animates the body and the fire that sustains life more broadly. Today’s practice offers a grounded way to experience this directly.
I invite you to listen to a guided meditation by Dawn Neal, recorded as part of a series on the five elements.
Guided Meditation: Warmth and Cool
https://www.audiodharma.org/talks/23282 (30 minutes)
This meditation works gently with the fire element through warmth and coolness. Beginning with grounding in the body and breath, attention is invited toward felt sensations of temperature – the warmth of the body, the coolness of the air, and the subtle shifts that occur moment by moment. Rather than emphasizing effort or intensity, the practice encourages simple sensing and receptivity.
As the meditation unfolds, awareness includes not only physical sensations, but also the tone of the mind and heart. Agitation, if present, is met with kindness, allowing mental activity to cool and settle. Warmth is experienced not as something to generate or maintain, but as a quality that arises and fades on its own.
In this way, the practice supports a direct recognition: warmth and energy are present, changing, and workable.
The practice gradually widens to include the whole field of experience, allowing sensations, thoughts, and moods to arise and pass within awareness. It closes by recognizing moments of goodness or connection and extending care outward, letting the benefits of practice ripple beyond the individual body.
You are welcome to listen in whatever posture feels supportive, and to engage with the practice at a pace that feels manageable today.
A brief alternative practice (3–5 minutes)
If you don’t have time for the full meditation, you might try this:
- Pause and notice sensations of warmth or coolness in the body
- Sense how these qualities change without direction or effort
- If the mind feels agitated, gently bring kindness to that experience and notice any settling
- You might quietly note: This is not me. This is not mine. This is not my self.
Even a few minutes of noticing can support today’s integration.
Let us know what you discover. You can reply to the email or post a comment to share a brief reflection.
With good wishes,
Andrea