So you can close your eyes if you want to,
Or if you wanna keep your eyes open,
That's okay too.
If you wanna keep your eyes open,
Just find one point and gaze at that one point.
So eyes opened or closed.
Just.
.
.
Bring yourself to this present moment.
And the way that you do that is by first noticing the surface your body is resting on.
You can just notice the positioning of your legs and your torso and your arms and your head.
You don't have to change anything about it.
You're just noticing.
Your body here.
Resting on this surface in this positioning.
And then you can notice the sounds happening around you.
You can notice if your mind goes immediately toward trying to control those sounds.
Maybe the brain wants to stop a sound or start to sound or you know that control that we can fall into.
Just let the sounds be as they are.
It is what it is,
These sounds.
They are what they are.
And just notice them.
Notice that you're hearing something or not hearing anything.
And then become aware of your body breathing.
Notice that you're inhaling.
And notice that you're exhaling.
You're breathing in and breathing out.
You don't have to change anything about the breath.
But choose one part of it to focus on.
So you might focus on the feeling of your torso,
Your chest moving,
Maybe your belly moving as you breathe in and as you breathe out.
Maybe you notice the air,
The feeling of the air as you breathe in through the nostrils and out.
Or maybe when you breathe in,
You think the word in.
And when you breathe out,
You think the word out.
So just choose one of those,
Focusing on the feeling of your torso,
The feeling of the air on your nostrils.
Or thinking the word in when you breathe in,
Word out as you breathe out,
Just choose one of those.
And just continue to focus on that.
And then what you'll notice is that a thought will pop up.
It's going to happen.
So when a thought pops up.
Imagine that it's like a leaf floating down a river.
You notice and acknowledge the leaf,
The thought,
The fact that it's there.
But you just let it float on by.
Not judging it at all.
And then you bring your attention back to your breathing.
And you just focus in on your breath until another thought pops up.
And it probably will.
That's what happens.
Maybe five or 10 thoughts will come at the same time or more.
Just notice that you're thinking these thoughts and let them float on by like a leaf would float by on a river.
Without judgment that you're thinking the thoughts.
There's a full acceptance that they're there.
Let them float past,
And then bring your attention back to your breathing.
I'm going to be silent here just for a couple of moments.
Continue to notice the thoughts.
Let them float by without judgment and always come back to your breath over and over again.
Now before bringing the practice to a close,
Knowing that it's wrapping up here in just a moment,
Notice if the thoughts go to judgment,
Judging this practice.
Oh,
I was really good at it today.
I was really bad at it today.
This was easy.
This was hard.
These are all judgments.
And you might say to yourself,
This practice was the way it was.
It couldn't be any other way because.
It just happened the way it happened.
No judgments at all.
You showed up,
You were willing to try something maybe new.
And that's really all that's needed to do this practice.
You can't be bad at it.
So to bring the practice to a close,
You might take one more intentional inhale and exhale.
Noticing the sounds happening around you.
Noticing your body here.
And then as you're ready,
You can start to blink your eyes open.
