So finding yourself a comfortable position for meditation,
Starting to bring the attention to the breath.
No need to change or manipulate the breath in any way.
We're not trying to analyse the breath or imagine it or think about it.
Simply noticing the felt sense of the breath.
Wherever in the body you feel it most easily.
Noticing of course the default mode network will kick in.
That's absolutely fine,
That's what our human brains do.
No need to struggle with it or block it.
Just acknowledging it.
Gently bringing the attention back to the breath.
And if it's helpful for you,
Bringing to mind the image of the wheel,
The hub,
The rim and the spoke of attention.
Just bringing the spoke of attention to the sense of hearing.
No need to go out searching for sounds,
Just allowing sounds to feel your awareness.
The volumes,
The pictures.
The textures of sounds.
Moving that spoke of attention now to the sense of sight.
So either with the eyes softly open or the eyes closed,
Just noticing light and shadows,
Colours.
Perhaps three dimensionality.
Again,
No need to go out searching,
Just allowing sights to feel your awareness.
Moving the spoke of attention to the sense of smell,
Noticing smells in the nostrils.
And to the sense of taste,
Any tastes in the mouth.
And then to the sense of touch,
Just noticing any sense of touch on the skin.
Again,
No need to go out searching,
Just being aware of where perhaps clothing touches the skin,
Furniture,
Hair,
Glasses,
Jewellery.
Body parts touching other body parts.
The eyelids,
The lips,
The arms,
The hands,
The fingers.
Taking a deeper breath now and we're going to move the spoke of attention to the second segment of the wheel,
The sense of interoception or the interior of our body.
So becoming aware of our body's state,
Becoming aware of the energy flow within our body.
So noticing the muscles,
The bones,
The joints going through the head,
The skull,
Eye sockets,
Cheeks,
Jaws,
Jaw joints,
Muscles between the eyebrows and the temples.
Any other muscles in the face,
The scalp,
The base of the scalp,
The neck,
The spine where it travels through the neck,
The joints of the shoulders,
All the muscles and ligaments.
Noticing that even though I'm describing the anatomy,
It's a thought when we start to visualize the anatomy.
Our overarching goal is to really feel it,
The felt sense.
Streaming the attention down our arms,
Bones and muscles and joints right into the tips of the fingers.
And then noticing the torso,
So the muscles in the chest wall,
In the upper back,
The rib cage,
The upper spine,
The shoulder blades,
Muscles in the abdominal wall,
The lower back,
The lower spine,
The pelvic bowl,
The sit bones.
The hips,
The buttocks,
The pelvic floor muscles.
And then streaming awareness right down the legs,
Muscles,
Bones,
Joints,
Right down into the tips of the toes.
Moving attention now to some of the organs of the body.
Starting off with noticing sensations in the genitals.
Moving to the digestive system,
The gut,
The bowels.
Noticing the belly full of the bowels and also full of nerve,
Brain bits.
So valuable to be able to sit with what we notice in our belly.
Moving up to the stomach at the top of the belly and the esophagus traveling through the chest and throat and into the mouth.
Noticing dampness in the mouth,
Noticing the tongue.
And moving to the respiratory system,
So noticing the breath again.
Starting with it in the nostrils.
Moving to the breath in the sinuses.
Noticing the breath traveling down the throat and then dividing into two and noticing the lungs expanding and contracting.
Our breath again can tell us so much about our state of being from moment to moment.
And then noticing the heart,
Perhaps the actual beating of the heart,
Perhaps the heart space.
And again,
The heart's almost got its own little brain.
Such an important place to notice.
You might like to place your hand on your heart to help to support that noticing.
You might like to leave it there as you notice the rest of your body now.
Not going searching for body sensations but just allowing any body sensations to be received into the awareness of the hub.
Taking a deeper breath now and we're going to move that spoke of attention to the third segment of the room.
Noticing the energy flow probably coming from neural nerve firing in the head brain.
This includes thoughts,
Memories,
The mental component of emotions,
Intentions,
Beliefs,
Attitudes.
Perhaps now you can see if you can notice the arising of the mental activity.
How it stays and how it falls away.
By really exploring this architecture of thoughts.
You might notice location,
Whether they're visual thoughts or audios or something different.
Taking a deeper breath.
So far we've been linking or integrating differentiated rim elements with the hub.
Now we're going to move into experiencing that hub in hub awareness.
So without striving,
Perhaps imagining bending that spoke back on itself.
So instead of being directed out to the rim,
It's directed into the hub.
Directing the spoke of attention into awareness itself.
Or perhaps for you,
It might be easier to imagine retracting the spoke into the hub.
Or maybe even that there's no spoke at all.
You're just in the hub.
It might be huge.
No need to try hard here.
It's one of those states that the harder you try,
The less likely it is to happen.
Now taking a deeper breath.
Taking a deeper breath.
And if you have bent the spoke,
You can straighten it out again.
We'll send it out again as we direct it to the fourth and final segment of the wheel.
Interconnection.
Relational connections.
Perhaps noticing the connection between you and me.
Between you and others on the course.
Expanding that circle of connection,
Interconnection gradually.
Perhaps including loved ones.
People in community groups.
Maybe at work.
Maybe in your city.
Your state.
Your country.
Maybe you can expand it to include all people in the world.
No need to force this.
And always just go back to the breath if any part of this is too challenging.
But if it feels okay,
You can widen that circle to include all living creatures.
Plants.
And the planet itself.
Knowing that in a sense we are all interconnected.
We are all on the same planet.
Drinking the same water,
Breathing the same air,
Spinning through space.
And just using a few kindness phrases if that feels appropriate for you today.
May all beings be well and happy.
May all beings thrive and flourish.
May all beings be calm and peaceful.
May I be well and happy.
May I thrive and flourish.
May I have a full,
Rich,
Meaningful life.
With connection to others.
May Mowi,
M-W-E,
May Mowi be well and happy.
May Mowi flourish and thrive.
May Mowi know compassion,
Kindness and joy.
Knowing that you're coming to the end of the meditation now.
Spending a short time noticing the effect of the meditation and whatever your experience has been.
Can you be kind to that?
Can you allow that?
Your very human brain.
And when you're ready,
Slowly starting to externalise the awareness.
Move the body very slowly.
And having a soft gaze as you gently open the eyes.
