In this practice we will learn to use the flashlight of attention.
Choose a stable,
Comfortable position either sitting up or lying down.
Once you are settled,
Shine the flashlight of your attention on sound.
Listen to all the sounds around you.
Play with focusing the beam of your attention on the sounds nearby.
Expanding your attention to include sounds coming from farther away.
And narrowing your attention to sounds from within your own body like swallowing,
Your heartbeat,
Ringing in your ears,
And the flow of the breath.
Whenever you wish,
Shine the flashlight of attention on thoughts.
There is no need to search for thoughts.
Just watch any thoughts that drift through the light.
When you are ready,
Moving the light again and allowing it to move,
You can start to see the light.
When you are ready,
Moving the light again and allowing it to shine on your emotions,
Observing your feelings with the soft light of compassion.
Now shifting the flashlight of awareness and allowing it to shine on the sensations in your body.
Breathing and shining the flashlight of attention on the sensations in the body.
And now experiment with shining the flashlight of attention on a part of your body that seems neutral or boring.
The place where your ear joins your head,
The crease of your elbow,
Your upper eyelid.
Using the flashlight of attention to explore something that initially seems boring.
And now narrowing the beam of attention to the breath and the familiar rising and falling of the breath in the belly.
And now using the light as a searchlight and letting it rest on whatever is most obvious.
Breath,
Sensation,
Emotion,
Thought,
Sound.
And whenever you find that the light of your attention has lost its focus,
Refocus it on the breath in the belly.
Then whenever you're ready,
Let it shine again on what is most obvious.
Being fully aware of where the light of attention is focused.
And now let sound and thought and emotion and sensation and even the breath fade into the background.
And let the light of attention rest in the stillness and quietness of pure awareness.
Thank you.
Remember that in any given moment you can choose where to focus the beam of your attention.
You can expand it to include everything or narrow it to just the breath.
