Natural gratitude.
We're going to practice a meditation that allows us to notice things in our everyday environment.
So first of all I just want you to have gratitude or at least at this point notice your toes.
See if you can notice the sensation of wiggling your big toe.
Really simple.
Wiggling your big toe.
Secondly we'll start to notice the fact that we can just open our mouth and we have control over the ability to just open our mouth.
Parting the lips.
Opening the mouth.
Then notice the eyes.
Having gratitude for the eyes that help us to see and have eye consciousness as the Buddhists refer to.
And we just open and close the eyes and we feel the moisture of the eyes and the eyelashes which protect the eyes.
And just having gratitude for the ability to see.
To have consciousness.
Eye consciousness.
And to perceive.
And to see clearly.
And just noticing the eyes.
Just notice five different things about the eyes.
You've got a new sensations to you.
This act of noticing can sometimes bring up natural gratitude.
Perhaps you are feeling very grateful for the ability to see and the eyes themselves and to see clearly.
Let's move back to the big toe.
See if you can notice different sensations about the big toe.
Five different sensations that you've never felt before.
And having gratitude or an awareness of each sensation.
Having gratitude for the big toe and the way it helps you to balance.
Walk.
Move.
Stand tall.
Then we'll come back to the mouth.
Just noticing the mouth.
The ability to open and close the mouth.
Having gratitude for the ability to just exert this simple act.
Opening and closing the mouth.
Perhaps you can even increase the amount of saliva in the mouth to make you feel more relaxed and at ease.
And to just acknowledge that you have that ability to at will try and increase saliva in the mouth.
You could even visualize yourself biting into a lemon.
And then noticing how that saliva increases in the mouth with your ability to just exert that control with your mind.
Just acknowledging that mind-body interaction and having gratitude for the ability to exert some locus of control over your body and your actions.
We'll come back to the eyes and just again having gratitude for the ability to see.
To see clearly and to see through our misperceptions.
Which are a faculty of the mind and the overthinking mind.
So when we have good the ability to really rest in eye consciousness it means that we see things clearly without mental judgments over the top that skew our ability to just see what is happening in the moment.
Moving along now and we're going to focus on the ears.
And so when we come to the ears just really hearing all the most distant sounds available to you.
This is ear consciousness.
And as you notice just see if a sense of natural gratitude arises for these beautiful sounds.
Or if the sounds aren't so beautiful just hear them as they are without judgment.
So you're just hearing the sound,
Acknowledging the sound.
See if you can hear the sound not only with your ears,
Widening the ears,
Expanding the ears but also with your whole body.
Noticing that your whole body is a vibration,
A movement of energy and has its own sound vibration.
And the sound is moving through you.
The sound of my voice is moving through you without resistance.
I'll leave you in silence while you notice and have gratitude for sound.
We'll be here for a minute.
Moving now to the nose and just having gratitude for the breath.
Just the most simplest thing.
Observing the breath moving in and out of the nostrils.
Moving past the fine silk hair of the nostrils called cilia which cleans the breath or filter the air to make it clean for us to breathe.
And as you breathe in just observing the temperature and having gratitude for a breath that keeps us alive.
Just acknowledging each breath and the simplicity of it and the beauty of it and allowing natural gratitude to arise as you notice five different things about your breath that you have perhaps never noticed before.
Notice how many parts of your body you can feel the breath in.
So sometimes when I'm very conscious I can even feel the breath affecting my hands expanding them on the in-breath and contracting them on the out-breath or increasing the temperature of the hands on the in-breath and decreasing the temperature on the out-breath or the blood flow to the hands on the in-breath.
And just having gratitude for that ability to again have that locus of control of your body.
So as you breathe in there's a change and as you breathe out there's a change and to some degree you're able to manage and care for this change.
Okay this time coming back and allowing yourself to fully feel the breath just at the tip of the nostrils.
And we're going to start to expand our awareness into the skin.
So I want you to feel the skin maybe start with the hands and this just feel as much as you can the skin of the hands.
So you're really observing feeling sensation,
Touch and consciousness of the skin.
And then from there moving your attention down into the feet and feeling the skin consciousness of the feet.
Feel the limbs and feel as deeply as you can so go beyond the skin even into the limbs themselves and see if you can feel the energy or the consciousness of the body.
Observe the face and having natural gratitude for the ability to feel and to notice new sensations with a sense of awe perhaps or gratitude.
Just observing that sense of natural gratitude towards the sensation,
The ability to feel.
And we'll repeat the cycle of those last three conscious awareness practices.
So we're coming firstly back to ear consciousness and just hearing sound and noticing,
Observing.
And then to breath and coming back and just observing the breath and noticing with a sense of natural gratitude for the breath.
Its ability to help keep you alive in every single moment.
And the ability to cleanse and filter air and to fill your lungs.
And then coming back now to the sense of touch,
The skin and having gratitude for the ability to feel,
To sense,
To be.
Now to complete our gratitude meditation see if you can notice or feel grateful for five different sensations in your body.
Different from what we've just practiced,
Five different and new sensations in your body.
Having gratitude for five different and new sensations in your body.
And then gratitude for five different people in your life who you love and care for.
And then finally having gratitude for five difficult situations that you've overcome in your life.
That have made you stronger or resilient or have taught you something,
Showed you something that you haven't seen before.
So I thank you and I hope that your day,
Your week,
Your year is filled with natural gratitude.
Noticing present moment awareness,
Natural gratitude.
