So today I'm going to be encouraging you to play around with four phrases,
Which are ways of helping to direct your attention toward your actual physical sensory experience,
So that you're less likely to get caught up in the world of the imagination where you're thinking about the past and the future and daydreaming.
And those four phrases are soft eyes,
Body alive,
Kind eyes,
Meeting everything with tenderness.
So two pairs of phrases,
Each of them corresponding to a different experience.
Soft eyes helps remind us to relax the muscles around the eyes and let the focus within the eyes be soft,
Which makes it easier for us to be aware of the entire body.
And when we're aware of the whole body at one time,
We can be aware of all of the aliveness,
The movements,
The tingling,
The sensations of the breathing that are taking place all over the body.
So if we can stay with that experience,
It can be very absorbing.
And the point of these two phrases is to help us to do that.
And then kind eyes reminds us to regard ourselves with kindness,
Even those aspects of ourselves that are unpleasant,
Such as physical pain.
And that reminds us to meet everything with tenderness,
Which is the fourth phrase.
So we can play around with the pacing of these phrases.
We can tighten the pacing using the breathing.
You can use one of these phrases just before each out-breath with every breath.
And you can do this with me.
So that you say,
For example,
Soft eyes,
Allowing the muscles around the eyes to be soft.
And then maybe on the next breath,
Saying body alive.
And for the next breath cycle or two,
Simply observing the body before dropping in kind eyes.
And then on the next breath,
Meeting everything with tenderness.
Meeting everything with tenderness.
And then again,
Maybe two,
Three full breath cycles,
Silently just observing.
So let's just try that together.
You can just practice dropping these phrases in.
And letting the words serve as a way of directing your attention.
Directing your attention to the eyes and softening them and letting them be kind.
Directing your attention into the body,
To sense its aliveness and to be aware of its presence.
Its aliveness and to be aware of everything with tenderness and kindness.
And try to find a balance between breaths where you're saying these words and breaths where you're simply observing.
What I call silent breaths.
If you find that the mind is quite quiet,
Then you can have more silent breaths.
If you find that you're tending to get caught up in thinking,
You're daydreaming,
You can tighten up the phrases so you're leaving fewer silent breaths between them.
And you can practice with just dropping in the first phrase of each pair,
Soft eyes,
Kind eyes,
So that you're sensing the body's aliveness and tenderness.
And meeting everything with tenderness,
Silently.
Always making adjustments to help you stay on track.
And it might even be appropriate for you to drop the phrases altogether.
Just letting the eyes be soft,
Letting the eyes be kind,
Sensing aliveness throughout the entire body,
And meeting everything that arises with tenderness.
So for the next few minutes until you hear the bell,
And maybe even beyond,
If you want,
Just using these phrases in an intelligent,
Adaptive way.
Being aware of what you need to do in order to keep the mind directed toward and mindful of the body.
Thank you.
