Embodying The Senses

It's common for mind and body to be disconnected and to find yourself in a dysregulated state. Luckily, becoming regulated (calm, centered and at ease) is possible by simply tuning into the senses. In this guided practice, you'll first slow down by tuning into the texture, depth and temperature of the breath. You'll then enjoy a journey through all of the senses. By tuning into the senses, you can allow the thinking mind to settle and enjoy being.

Transcript

Well,

Welcome to this meditation practice.

Today we're going to work with the five senses and really tuning into each sense because what happens is when we get stuck in thought,

A really great place to come back to is the five senses of our bodies.

So that's what we're going to do today.

And first we're going to just do some breathing and really calm down and become embodied.

And then we'll kind of use that as our home base,

That place to come back to as we tune into each sense.

So we'll start with breathing,

That'll become home base,

And then we'll move through the five senses and in between each of the five senses we'll always come to our home base with a few rounds of noticing the breath.

So let's just jump in with getting embodied first.

It's totally normal for our thoughts and our body to be in two different places a lot of the times,

Especially with our busy lifestyles that many of us tend to have.

So first let's just find a comfortable posture.

And the main thing is to have a straight spine.

You could tuck the chin.

The tongue rests on the roof of your mouth.

This is where it rests naturally.

Lips are slightly parted.

Shoulders are not too far forward,

Not too far back.

And you want a little bit of space under your armpits just so you can take nice full deep breaths into the lungs.

Some people like to rest their hands on their thighs,

Or you could rest the right palm and the left palm with thumbs touching.

But mainly whatever feels comfortable for your hands.

You can imagine your spine as a stack of golden coins,

Or perhaps there's a golden thread that's up through the middle of your spine and really pulling you up nice and straight with that chin nice and tucked a little bit.

And let's start with a nice calming breath.

And all we're going to do for the first few rounds of breath is just breathe in through the nose,

Nice and deep,

Really expand the shoulders up and out,

And then exhale through the mouth just like you're blowing out birthday candles.

So let's just do that together.

Let's do a few more rounds just like that,

Breathing in through our nose and then out through the mouth.

And it's okay to make a little noise on the exhale.

And then when you're ready,

Just allow a few regular breaths,

No longer controlling the breath.

Really start to unite the mind and the body.

Just noticing the texture of the breath,

The length,

The temperature.

We're already starting into the process of the thoughts,

The kind of volume knob on the thought starts to get turned down.

And the awareness of the texture and shape and temperature of the breath and its length all come to the forefront.

Just getting used to our new home base,

Awareness of the breath.

And the thoughts naturally,

They're not really a problem at all.

They just kind of calm down though as we get more and more interested in the breath.

And to really settle into this practice,

We're going to engage some four,

Three,

Five breathing.

And how we do this is breathe in through the nose for a count of four,

Hold the top for three,

And then gently exhale for five.

And for the first few,

I'm going to do the counting for you.

And you can just follow along.

And unless you have a cold,

It's nice to do it all through the nose.

So here we go.

We're going to breathe in together normal,

Exhale,

And then slowly breathe in for a count of four,

Three,

Two,

One,

Hold for three,

Two,

One,

Exhale slowly for five,

Four,

Three,

Two,

One,

Inhale for four,

Three,

Two,

One,

Hold for three,

Two,

One,

Exhale slowly five,

Four,

Three,

Two,

Inhale for three,

Two,

One,

Hold for three,

Two,

One,

And then exhale out the nose if possible,

Nice and slow,

Five,

Four,

Three,

Two,

One.

Just continuing that on your own for a few rounds of four,

Three,

Five breathing.

You're inou be,

Shareef.

Coefficient of five.

You're in.

And Catholicism.

And you're doing great.

Couple more rounds on your own,

Four,

Three,

Five,

Breathing.

If you get pulled away by thoughts,

Just come on back and remember the instruction.

We're just counting the breath.

And then when you're ready,

We're just coming back to a regular breath.

No more control or what the yogis call pranayama.

Just letting the breath return to normal.

And this will be home base for the rest of the practice as we alternate to the awareness of each sense.

Just a reminder,

There's a few things that you can notice about the breath.

Its texture,

If it's choppy or smooth,

Its length,

If it's going down just to the top of the chest,

The middle or the belly,

That would be a short,

Medium,

A long breath.

Maybe temperature.

A lot of times you can notice right on the upper lip if the breath on the exhale is cool,

Medium,

Warm.

And if helpful,

You can even note to yourself,

Pick one of those and breathing in a smooth breath,

Breathing out a maybe choppy breath,

Whatever it is.

We'll just establish our home base for the next couple of rounds of breath.

Totally normal to have lots of thoughts come up.

Just remember,

Don't make them an enemy.

Just allow the volume knob to turn down a bit.

Moving to the front of your awareness,

The awareness of those aspects of breath.

Just being very loving,

Kind and gentle with yourself as you build this new habit of embodiment.

So first we'll tune into the sense of having skin,

The felt sense.

Let's just breathe in and out and start by noticing the sensation of having feet.

The feet are so important.

They get us through our day.

But how rarely do we notice them?

Just tune in to the feeling of having toes,

Maybe a little wiggle of the toes.

Bottom of the feet.

Top of the feet.

Notice any tingling or sensations there,

Temperatures.

With each breath we're just going to move up the body.

Notice the caps and the shins.

Notice the thighs and the skin on the back of the legs.

Notice your bottom and the pressure of just being held by gravity on your cushion or chair.

Knowing how it feels to be solid like a mountain.

Don't worry about anything that doesn't feel stable.

Just tune into what does feel stable and grounded.

Down through your sitz bones.

All the sensations of your bottom being held by the cushion or chair.

Moving up,

Becoming aware of your genitals and all the sensation there.

Move up to your belly.

This is a juicy place to hang out for a few rounds of breath.

Notice as you breathe in your belly rises and as you breathe out your belly falls.

Sometimes in our culture we want to hold our belly in.

For this practice just let it hang down and relax.

Notice as you breathe in your belly rises and as you breathe out your belly falls.

Starting to notice the sensation of having a body.

Notice the back body.

Notice how it expands and contracts with each breath.

Moving up the body,

Notice how there is the chest rising and falling with each breath.

A lot of times we just think of the breath as rising and falling in the chest.

Maybe the belly if you are having a nice deep breath.

For a little while let's explore the 360 dimensionality of the breath.

Notice how much there is to notice.

The chest moves up and out.

Notice how the side of the chest moves out and it actually flexes the arms in and out a little bit.

Notice how the back body is expanding,

Pushing against your clothing and then relaxing.

Tune into how the breath seems to move up and down into the diaphragm.

For a few rounds I will be nice and quiet and just really enjoy the 360 dimension of the breath and how it moves within the felt sense of the body.

Continue our sensual journey up towards the top of the body.

Notice your shoulders,

Your trapezoids in the back upper body.

Notice your arms,

Hands.

Notice any tingling.

Notice how it feels as your clothing moves with each breath in your arms,

Shoulders,

Trapezoid.

Moving up,

Breathing with the throat.

Any tightness you may find there is totally fine and normal.

Notice the space in the jaw,

Eyes.

Not uncommon to find some tension there.

Instead of normal life when you are not practicing,

Don't try to make it go away.

Just send loving awareness to any tightness you feel in shoulders,

Face,

Cheeks,

Jaw.

I see you.

I accept you.

You're welcome.

I send you my complete loving awareness.

Moving up to the crown of the head,

Back of the head,

How it feels to have skin wrapped around our skull,

Forehead.

On an exhale,

Release anything that is not necessary in this practice.

Maybe there is some holding on that has been there the whole time so far.

Inhale.

Exhale and let that clinging go.

Now a full body awareness from head to toe.

Notice how much tingling there is on the skin.

Notice two inches out from your skin.

Notice what it is like to have a body and to be embodied.

For breath to be moving your body internally,

Now go internal.

A couple inches.

It is like an internal massage as you breathe in,

The muscles expand against the inside of your skin.

Expanding and then relaxing.

For a few rounds of breath,

Just really tune into the breath within the body and all the sensations.

Allowing the thoughts to just fade deeper into the background to get more and more quiet as you increase the volume of all this sensual experience,

Felt sense of the body.

Next,

We return to our home base of simplicity of just breathing,

Awareness of breath.

We can remain embodied but now most of our focus is going back into the breath.

Textures,

Shape,

Depth.

Just the juiciness of being here and noticing.

Next let's tune into the sense of hearing.

See if you can just breathe in,

Breathe out.

That happens totally naturally.

Allow the breath to just happen.

Place your awareness right on the sense gate of hearing.

What that means is there's airwaves just coming in and vibrating the parts of your ear.

Just leave your awareness right there.

Try not to go out into the world and make up any stories about hearing.

If helpful,

You can even note to yourself hearing,

Hearing.

See if you can hear something that seems far away.

Breathing in,

Breathing out.

See if you can hear something that seems close to you.

Breathing is center stage.

It's not good hearing or bad hearing.

Just hearing,

Hearing.

Then just come on back to a few rounds of breath,

Our home base.

Next we'll tune into the sense of taste.

You may think,

Oh,

I'm not consuming anything or tasting something specific right now.

I'm sure there's a taste of maybe toothpaste or coffee or just some kind of taste from some food you've eaten previously.

It's not about good taste or bad taste.

Just really tuning into what it feels like to taste.

Just resting the awareness right on the sense gate.

You can even note to yourself if helpful,

Tasting,

Tasting as you breathe in and out.

Good work.

Just a little time update.

You're doing so well.

Just about five minutes left.

Come on to your home base of the breath,

Breathing in and out.

Thoughts settling and fading more deeply into the background.

Any physical sensations are being accepted,

Acknowledged,

And allowed to just be there,

Perhaps settle on their own behalf if they want to.

Nowhere to go,

Nothing else to do.

Feeling of gratitude for carving out this time.

The feeling of safety for being in your own secure,

Safe spot with hopefully all your needs met.

Next we bring our awareness to the sense of smell.

It's normal to not notice the smells in the space you're in.

We just get used to them.

Let's see if you can increase your awareness and rest your awareness on the sense gate of smell.

Maybe you burned some incense previously or just all the different scents and they're not good scents or bad scents.

Just breathing in,

Breathing out.

Have helpful noting to yourself gently,

Just smelling,

Smelling.

And return to the awareness of the breath.

Our home base.

And in the west it's taught that there's five senses,

But in the east it's taught that there are six senses.

And the mind is the sixth sense in eastern philosophy.

And I think you'll agree in your own experience this is another sense.

We don't care about the content of the mind as far as thoughts go.

What we care about is the felt sense of the mind.

Just like you felt the sensations of your skin,

You felt what it was like to hear.

Just go ahead and take a moment to check in with what your mind feels like right now.

Not the content of the thoughts.

Maybe it's shaky or calm.

Go ahead and take a few rounds of breath to tune into what it feels like.

Between your ears we'll pretend that that's where mind is.

What's it feel like to have a mind?

And then come on back to the breath.

And then finally we'll come to the sense of seeing.

Even if your eyes are closed,

There's still some light coming through usually.

Just see what it feels like and looks like to see the colors with your closed eyes if they're closed.

Maybe there's certain colors you can see.

Some specks of moving light.

Finally we'll start to gently open our eyes.

Keep your gaze down.

Just take in any colors and shapes that you see in your space.

It's not good color or bad color or shape.

Just seeing,

Seeing.

So breathing out.

Breathing in.

Seeing,

Seeing.

Come on back to the breath.

In a moment you'll hear three sounds of the bell.

And just see if you can note to yourself hearing,

Hearing with each sound of the bell.

Or just simply hear.

Finally we can place our hands in front of our chest.

And there's this beautiful gem in between your palms.

So leave a little space between your palms.

This is symbolic of your Buddha nature,

Your limitless perfect nature that's always okay underneath all of the daily confusion.

And when you're ready we gently bow forward and just hope that our practice benefits us and beings everywhere.

Thank you for being part of this meditation.

Reviews

Nice meditation..but the ending bell is MUCH too loud. I was abruptly taken out of any calmness I was experiencing.

I have found this and your other meditations on Insight to gently guide my monkey mind to a beautiful space of loving awareness. Thank you. 🕉

Wonderful amazing meditation!!

This is one of the best meditations I have listened to. The pace was just right and the voice was natural. I don’t like listening to a voice that is dramatic as some can be: too sing song if you know what I mean. I really enjoyed this and will bookmark it.
🙏

Wonderful , thank you 🙏

That's a wonderful instruction, both a reminder and new way of looking. THANK YOU so much🌷🙏❤️🕉

Excellent . Thank you so much!