Welcome,
Welcome to our guided meditation.
Taking time as always to readjust to find a comfortable seat.
If it's your first time meditating,
It's important to be comfortable.
You can be just seated nice and comfortably in a chair,
Feet flat on the ground.
With the eyes you can be looking if you'd like,
More distraction perhaps that way.
So the recommendation is to soften the gaze a bit,
Perhaps focusing on an object a few feet or meters in front of you.
And it might actually be skillful in the beginning to have the eyes a little bit open.
There's a tendency when the eyes close the mind can become quite active and take us into all sorts of places.
That can happen of course with the eyes open,
But that's another story.
But as always,
Adjusting and making this practice your own.
What we're going to be exploring today is paying attention to our body,
Paying attention to the breath,
And then paying attention to sounds.
And throughout this practice,
I encourage you to have an attitude of being curious,
Of being open,
Of being open,
Paying attention as if for the first time.
And you will be paying attention to this moment for the first time.
And what else will happen is you will get distracted either by happenings in or around you,
Or your mind will just latch on to the future or the past.
As we practice meditation,
We can become more familiar with the nature of the mind.
How we're either bored and trying to make the situation more interesting by thoughts,
Or we really like what's happening and we're trying to think about how to make it more.
Or we really don't like what's happening and we're trying to be somewhere else with the mind.
So taking all that I said and just letting it go,
Let's begin by shifting the attention to where our bodies are coming into contact with the floor,
The cushion,
Or the chair.
Noticing perhaps pressure,
Degree of comfort.
Shifting the attention to how the clothes feel on the skin.
Areas that are more loose,
More spacious.
Areas that are more tight and constricted.
Shifting the attention to how the temperature feels on the body.
Noticing the temperature in the feet versus the belly.
Temperature in the hands.
Versus the face.
Widening the attention to the body as a whole.
Taking this time to explore sensations in the body.
Neutral sensations,
Pleasant ones,
Unpleasant ones.
And maybe there's no particular sensations you're noticing.
That's okay.
Just paying attention to the absence of sensations.
Noticing where your attention is now.
Is it still on the body?
If it's elsewhere,
Just acknowledging that.
Hey mind,
What's up thoughts?
And then bringing the attention back to the body.
Taking some time just to be with the raw,
Visceral sensations in the body.
Being with this live and breathing chunk of meat.
And there's no need to think about the body,
Judge the body,
Take action,
Change anything.
As best we can,
Just directly experiencing.
And if it's supportive,
You can move the body or touch the body.
Exploring the difference between thinking and feeling.
Now inviting you to move your attention to the sensations of breathing.
Wherever you feel them most strongly in the body.
Maybe it's in the belly.
Maybe it's in the throat.
Maybe it's somewhere else.
No two breaths are ever the same.
Practicing being really curious with each one.
Noticing when you start thinking,
Ah,
Thinking again.
And letting the thinking be,
Directing more of the attention back to just sensing the breath.
Inviting you now to move the attention to sound.
Noticing how quick thinking comes in.
As we hear a sound.
How quick we label,
We name.
Ah,
That's Patrick's voice.
That's the neighbor.
That's this.
That's that.
As best we can.
Not focusing so much on the thinking.
Rather just on the sound itself.
You may even notice how we can react so quickly to certain sounds.
How some sounds we like and others not so much.
As best we can.
Not focusing so much on the judgments.
And more on just experiencing.
And more on just experiencing.
As if for the first time.
Beginning now to let the sounds be.
Let the breath be.
Let the body be.
Allowing yourself these final moments just to be.
And with that,
We end our time together in this capacity and form.
In this capacity and form.
Taking as much or as little from the body,
Breath,
And sound meditation.
Wishing you a mindful rest of the day.
