Track 8,
Rain.
So coming to sit in an upright position,
Closing your eyes or lowering your gaze.
And just noticing the breath for the next few moments.
Perhaps noticing where you feel the breath most in the body.
That might be in the nostrils,
Or the chest,
Or down in the abdomen.
You might like to bring awareness to the outbreath.
Noticing how the body just effortlessly lets go of each outbreath.
And now expanding your awareness into the body.
Checking in with your feet.
Perhaps exploring any sense of pressure where the body meets the chair.
Checking in with the shoulders or any strong physical sensations you might be feeling.
And seeing if it's possible to go right up close to any strong physical sensations.
Seeing if it's possible to allow them and let them be just as they are.
And now expanding your awareness to include the whole body.
So letting go of any particular part of the body or any strong physical sensations as best you can.
Sitting on the chair and breathing.
And expanding this awareness still further to include anything and everything that might come up for us.
Noticing the sounds around us.
Noticing any thoughts or feelings or emotions that might arise.
And just resting in awareness.
Nothing to do and nowhere to go.
And as you sit here resting in awareness you might find that some small difficulty or worry comes to your mind.
And if that's happened for you you're invited now to just make that the focus of your meditation.
And if nothing particular has come up you might like to choose just a very small difficulty or discomfort that you're experiencing right now.
That you're happy to investigate for the next few moments.
So once we have something to work with allowing it to just rest on the workbench of the mind.
We can begin the RAIN practice.
First of all we recognize,
Recognize what's there.
So just recognizing whatever you've brought to your mind.
And now if it feels right for you you're invited to allow whatever it is that you've brought or whatever's come up for you.
Just allowing this even though it's uncomfortable or it's a challenge just really allowing this to be here.
And now we're going to investigate how this feels.
So dropping your awareness into the body noticing any strong bodily sensations you might have as a result of having brought this thing to the workbench of your mind.
There might be strong bodily sensations there might just be subtle bodily sensations and if there's nothing that's fine too just notice that.
That's your experience in this moment.
And coming away from the body now you might also like to investigate any feelings or thoughts that are here now.
Just noticing whatever feelings and thoughts you might be having perhaps noticing any judgment for having these feelings and thoughts.
Just seeing whatever's there for you.
Doing this in a kind and gentle way.
And if this part of our practice becomes difficult we might like to say some some reassuring phrases just thinking some reassuring phrases to ourselves.
It's okay not to like this.
It's okay to find this difficult.
It's okay not to want this.
And then the last stage of this practice we see if we can non-identify with our emotions and our feelings whatever difficulty it was that we brought to our mind.
So for example if it was something that made you angry you might like to think anger is here rather than I'm angry.
So non-identifying with whatever's here can help us to take it less personally.
Anger is here,
Loneliness is here,
Sadness is here,
Whatever it is you were working with these last few moments.
Seeing if we can just view our emotions and our feelings like the weather.
Sometimes it rains and we don't want it to rain but we don't take it personally and we know it will pass.
And when you're ready now letting go of whatever it was that you were working with maybe taking a moment to just congratulate yourself for being so brave to just sit with whatever it was.
It's not easy to sit with discomfort or difficulty so just really congratulating yourself for giving it a go.
And as always we come back to the breath allowing the breath to just settle us connecting us to this moment.
Just following the breath as it goes in and as it comes out from the body.
And now letting go of awareness of the breath and very kindly and gently escorting your awareness back into the room.
Perhaps becoming aware of the sounds inside or outside the room.
Opening your eyes,
Raising your gaze whenever you're ready and bringing our rain practice to a close.
