Finding yourself a comfortable seated posture or if you prefer you can lie flat on the floor or even stand up.
If you are sitting,
Seeing if you can have a nice grounded base of the body,
Both feet on the floor and having the upper body rise out of the base in a nice dignified manner rather than relaxing back and leaning into the chair or sitting up rigidly.
Taking your attention now to the breath,
Just noticing the breath coming in and out of the nostrils or perhaps you might notice it more in your chest or your abdomen,
The rise and fall.
No need to analyse the breath or visualise it or imagine it.
Really seeing if you can sense the breath.
Notice the felt sense of the breath in the body.
The breath that comes and goes,
Ebbs and flows.
Marking out our present moments.
Connecting us with the outside world.
Riding the waves of the breath.
And if you've got a bit of extra time today,
You might like to pause the meditation and meditate for a little bit longer.
Just being aware of the breath.
But otherwise now sending that spoke of attention from the hub of knowing of awareness to the rim of the wheel.
The first segment of the wheel.
So noticing sounds.
No need to label or analyse.
Just being with sounds as they feel your awareness.
The texture of the sounds,
The soundscape.
And letting that go and bringing the spoke of attention to the sense of sight.
If you have your eyes closed,
Just noticing the play of light and shadows behind the closed eyelids.
Allowing a sense of sight to feel your awareness.
Moving on to the sense of smell.
Noticing any smells in the nostrils.
And taste.
Noticing tastes in the mouth.
And moving that spoke of attention now to the sense of touch.
Noticing hair,
Jewellery,
Clothing,
Shoes touching the body.
The air temperature as it touches.
Body parts touching other body parts.
And the furniture.
Taking a bit of a deeper breath now.
Moving that spoke of attention to the second quadrant of the wheel.
A sense of interoception.
What we can feel in our body.
So starting off by noticing bones and muscles and joints in the skull,
Face,
Scalp,
Forehead,
Jaw,
Neck,
Shoulders.
Streaming the attention right down into the hands.
Noticing sensations in the tips of the fingers.
Noticing sensations in muscles and bones and the torso.
Chest wall,
The belly,
Upper back,
The lower back.
The pelvic bowl.
The pelvic floor muscles,
The buttocks.
And right down the legs into the tips of the toes.
And moving now to the organs.
So noticing what you can sense in the genitals.
And moving to the digestive system.
Noticing what you can feel in the intestines.
They swirl around the belly.
The stomach at the top of the belly.
Having that sense of being in touch with the gut covered in that neural net.
Moving the attention up the esophagus through the throat.
Into the mouth.
And now noticing the respiratory system.
So noticing the breath coming in and out of the nostrils.
And the sinuses.
Travelling down the throat.
And the sense of the lungs expanding and contracting.
Moving attention now to the heart.
So perhaps you can notice the heart actually beating.
Perhaps you can just notice the heart's space.
So many of our emotions come from this space.
A sense of something being heartfelt.
And now just noticing any internal sensations in the whole body.
No need to go searching.
Just receiving any sensations that come into awareness.
Follow that spoke of attention into the hub of awareness.
Taking a deeper breath now.
Moving attention to mental activities.
So sending that spoke of attention out but making it quite broad here.
And that sense of broad awareness.
Receiving mental events.
Mental activities.
This will be thoughts and the mental component of emotions.
And any of our other mental activities.
Beliefs,
Intentions,
Longings,
Daydreams.
Doing our best to avoid becoming lost in the rim.
Lost in a train of thought.
Seeing if we can notice the thoughts as they arise.
Perhaps visual images.
Perhaps audios.
Perhaps something quite different.
Noticing now as best you can the real architecture of these mental activities.
So noticing how the mental activities arise.
They come as a flash or do they bubble up?
How do they arise and how do they stay?
What's the sort of texture and substance of them?
Can you notice how they disappear?
And whether immediately another takes its place or whether there's perhaps a little space or gap.
Letting that go now,
Having a bit of a deeper breath.
And moving to the fourth quadrant of the wheel,
The sense of interconnectedness.
Starting by noticing a sense of connection to anyone in your house,
Pets or other people.
And then moving to your loved ones,
A sense of connection with friends and loved ones.
Perhaps noticing the sense of connection with people at work,
People in community groups,
People in your suburb,
Your city,
The whole state,
The whole of Australia.
Perhaps having a sense of the connection with the whole of humanity.
That sense that we're all here on the planet,
All drinking the same water and breathing the same air.
Perhaps even extending that sense of connection to the planet itself and all living beings on it,
Plants and animals.
And letting that go,
Knowing that the meditation is coming to an end.
Very gently moving the body,
Opening the eyes,
Having a little pause and just noticing the effect of the meditation before you go on with your day.
