Presence Meditation

"Simply by witnessing your breathing, you can affect healing in the body on three levels, physically, emotionally, and mentally." Join Bassam in this profound guided practice as he guides you through the intricacies of meditation, helping to access deeper states of understanding and healing. Listen to it before going to sleep and experience the deepest, healing sleep EVER!

Transcript

A simple practice in breath awareness it's called Anapanasati Breath Awareness.

I'm Bassem,

Thank you for joining me.

You can do it with your eyes open,

You can do it with your eyes closed,

You can do it while walking,

While sitting,

You can do it while listening,

You can do it at any time.

Begin by becoming aware,

Increasingly aware as we settle into this presence in the here and now.

You might want to check in with yourself to see how you're feeling,

How this moment in space and time finds you.

Don't take it as a given that you know,

Check in.

You might just become aware of your breathing,

The fact of your breathing,

The actual process of your breathing,

The inhale,

Traveling through the nose and the exhale.

Just become aware of that fact,

This miraculous ongoing process that's keeping you alive.

Don't think about it,

Just become aware of it as a way of becoming grounded in the here and now,

Becoming grounded in your being,

The beingness of you,

Also the fact,

Not the name.

In meditation we're not interested in names,

We're not interested in thought forms,

We're not interested in labels,

We're actually interested in connecting with the process of aliveness in the here and now and accompanying it,

The action,

The movement of aliveness as is experienced by me as an individual experiencing the universal.

Within this individual expression of life,

There is the movement of the universal taking place,

And it is this universal movement,

This universal power that is all-pervading,

That is in all living beings taking place.

So I am momentarily interested in this idea,

It begins as an idea that there is this universal power that gives me life taking place in my individual expression.

Within my individuality,

There is this universal power that is behind my consciousness,

And it is this power and this consciousness that I'm interested in.

I'm not interested in its name,

I'm not interested in what people call it,

I'm interested in the connection that I can have with it,

I'm interested in its reality as I can attune to it.

So all of this in short simply means this,

Within this individual expression of myself,

There is universal power that is behind what I call my consciousness,

And my consciousness is the presence of myself.

So I'm interested in this living presence,

Which is the face of consciousness,

Behind which there is this non-personal universal power that is the source of everything.

So presence is the face of consciousness,

It isn't a person,

It is presence that animates this individual form.

So here I am in my room,

Wherever I may be,

Wherever you may be,

You're sitting there,

You're trying to become increasingly aware of the fact of you,

Which is the fact of your presence,

Not the fact of your form.

Presence is the light of aliveness,

Of consciousness,

That permeates your form.

You're doing your best,

You're trying,

The mind is active,

It has been on for 24-7,

For years,

It doesn't know how to stop,

That's the reality,

That's the condition,

Meditation finds you in,

That's the normal condition.

So what you do,

Wherever you are,

As you are,

You simply become aware of your breathing first,

You are not the breathing,

You're just becoming aware of your breathing,

The fact,

The process,

The action,

The movement of breathing.

You experience it travelling through the nostrils,

Up to the north,

And then you experience it falling,

Not once,

But continuously.

You don't try to control your breathing,

You just notice,

You watch,

You become a witnessing reality,

Observing the inhale,

Feeling it as you observe it,

And the exhale,

And that's all you do.

And as you're sitting there,

Observing your inhale and exhale without control,

Your body naturally begins to unwind,

It naturally begins to open,

Sitting,

Watching the breathing happen,

And in so doing,

Your body is opening,

Is softening,

And as it opens and softens,

It starts to release,

Releasing naturally happens,

You don't release anything,

Releasing happens as a by-product of your opening,

Softening,

Which is also a by-product of your witnessing,

All you do is witness,

You don't control your breathing,

You don't breathe,

You don't relax,

You don't open,

You don't unwind,

You don't relax,

You don't do anything,

All of these things happen,

All of these things are by-products of simple witnessing.

In this case,

You're witnessing your breathing,

Coming,

Going,

Experiencing,

Breathing,

Coming,

Breathing,

Going,

Sensing,

And the body on its own takes this wonderful opportunity of presence,

Of witnessing,

That you are committing yourself to in this practice,

To open and unpack,

Unwind,

And as a result of this unpacking and unwinding,

This releasing of tension,

The body reorganizes itself,

Rebalances itself,

Detoxes,

Clears out,

And all of that,

What we call healing,

And this healing happens not only physically,

It also happens emotionally,

And it happens mentally.

So,

Simply by witnessing your breathing,

As it happens,

You don't do anything,

Your body begins to organize itself and to heal on all three levels,

Physically,

Emotionally,

And mentally,

And whenever you find that your mind has drifted away with your attention,

The only thing you have to do is to notice and then reorient your attention back to your breathing,

Noticing the inflow of air coming,

It's not good,

It's not bad,

It's not long,

It's not short,

And the outflow of air leaving,

It's not pleasant,

It's not unpleasant,

These are words.

We are interested in the experience,

In the witnessing to the experience,

Not in the name,

Not in the judgment,

Not in the perfection of the breath,

Not in the imperfection of the breath.

We're not interested in breathing right or wrong,

We're simply interested in witnessing.

The body naturally knows what to do as it begins to detox the clutter,

The tensions,

The build-up of stresses of your living experience on all three levels,

Physically,

Emotionally,

Mentally.

The other reason we are interested in the witnessing is because meditation is about the witnessing,

It's not about stopping our thoughts,

It's not about improving our thoughts,

Meditation is about cultivating our awareness,

Our witnessing.

And the reason meditation is interested exclusively with our witnessing is because witnessing,

Awareness is our self.

So meditation is interested in showing us to our self as the witnessing reality.

Simply sitting there,

Your eyes closed or open,

Your body is breathing you and you are witnessing.

When your thoughts run away with you,

Perhaps a memory,

Perhaps imagination,

You don't stop your thinking,

You simply notice,

Then recover your awareness,

Reoriented back to your breathing.

By now,

Your attention is deepening,

Your focus is strengthening,

So you start to localize it at the area of your nostrils,

You focus it.

At first,

Our attention,

Our witnessing is just open,

But now we are centering our witnessing,

We are zooming in on our nostrils,

The area where the nostrils join the upper lip,

Where a man has a mustache,

That area,

Tip of the nose,

Sides of the upper mouth,

That triangle,

We zoom in there and just noticing the breath coming into our awareness,

Inhale,

Exhale,

Simultaneously feeling,

Simultaneously sensing that area.

There may be tingling,

There may be moisture,

There may be vibrations,

There may be itching,

Whatever it is,

You don't do anything about it,

You simply notice it.

All the while,

As you cultivate your witnessing,

Your body takes this wonderful opportunity to do what it knows how to do,

Spring clean,

Detox the past on three levels,

Physically,

Emotionally,

And mentally,

Releasing,

Releasing that which is creating fractures in my body,

In other words,

Accumulated experience.

When I notice that my attention,

Which I am working to center at the area of my nostrils,

When I notice it has drifted away with a thought,

Which can either be a memory of the past or imagination of the future,

I don't stop my thinking,

I just notice that I am thinking,

And I redirect my attention quickly to my breathing.

So,

Meditation is from thinking to breathing,

Again and again and again and again.

My mind will steal my attention a thousand and one times,

And my job is to bring my attention back a thousand and two times,

From thinking to breathing,

Openly noticing,

The inhale,

The exhale,

Inhale,

Sensing,

Exhale,

Sensing,

And at some point my witnessing becomes apparent,

And it's obvious that my breathing is happening in my awareness.

My breathing,

My sensing,

The heat,

The tingling,

The tightness at the area of my nostrils,

All of this is activity happening in my unchanging witnessing awareness.

My body itself appears as an image in my witnessing awareness.

When I notice that my attention has been stolen by an idea,

A curiosity,

An insight,

A revelation,

Color,

Any of these things that are disturbances to the realization of myself,

I don't get angry,

I don't get upset,

I don't judge it,

I simply notice,

And I recover,

Bringing my attention back to the area of my nostrils.

And within this process of unwinding,

Within my witnessing awareness,

The reality of myself as the witnessing awareness becomes increasingly more and more obvious.

I am not the experience,

Which may be very pleasant or very painful,

I am the awareness.

I'm not interested in what I'm experiencing,

I'm interested in coming back home to myself.

I'm not interested in the changing experience,

I am interested in the fact of myself as awareness.

Thoughts come and go in my awareness,

My breathing comes and goes in my awareness,

My sensations,

All of these are experiences.

The body is an experience in awareness,

The body itself is the experience I have of it within my awareness.

Without my awareness,

I could not know the experience of my body,

I could not know the experience of my thoughts,

I could not know the experience of my living.

Therefore,

My primary reality is the unchanging witnessing awareness.

Everything changes,

Everything exists in time.

Awareness is the only reality that is not under the influence of time,

Because awareness is the universal,

Expressing in the personal.

It is timeless,

Constant,

Unchanging.

The body,

Which is subject to time,

Exists in awareness,

Which is timeless.

Whenever I notice that my mind,

My attention has drifted away with a thought,

I don't stop it,

I simply reorient my attention back to my breathing.

So,

My breathing is my anchor,

That's the place that I come back to when my attention has drifted.

I bring it back and begin to witness the breathing,

Coming,

Going within the field of the unchanging witnessing reality.

And as this witnessing reality opens in time and through practice,

Becomes the only reality,

Becomes the only real,

Stabilized in it,

Anchored and centered in it,

I have come home.

And that's it,

My friends,

This is our meditation for today,

A simple practice in breath awareness,

It's called Anapanasati,

Breath awareness.

Reviews

Love, love, loved 🥰 I learned that I am at home in the breath of Awareness and also a confirmation that the Universe flows in and around me. That has been one of those deep knowing’s I have always felt. Thank you so much. 😊🙏🏻🕊️❣️

Thank you a thousand times
I haven't felt so much calm and peace ever.....I cannot thank you enough for.your teaching today.....looking forward to witness my brwathing more regularly. Thank you Bassam

Excellent you are such a good teacher… probably one of the best on here and I’ve been using this app for 9 + years so I know… I think. So thank you very much for your assistance. If only everyone meditated… 🙏🏼❤️