Soft Eyes, Body Alive

This meditation opens with an attitude of soft eyes, which helps trigger a more open and receptive field of inner attention. If you haven't tried one of my soft eyes meditations, you might find that helpful to do first, but it's not essential. The main part of the practice involves using two thoughts to help keep the mind settled on our immediate sensory experience. These are thoughts that help to prevent distracting thoughts from taking over the mind.

Transcript

So,

Softening the eyes as we arrive,

Letting our attention be easy and restful,

And in this easy,

Restful state,

Just noticing the many sensations arising from the body,

From all over the body,

The body's aliveness making itself known to you in the form of sensations of pressure,

Touch,

Movement,

Temperature,

And the indefinable tingling aliveness of skin and muscles and other tissues in the body.

And today I'm going to invite you to maintain this state of awareness by dropping words into the mind.

So,

On an out-breath,

Saying to yourself,

Soft eyes,

And those words acting as a reminder to connect with the eyes,

To let them be soft,

And a few breaths later,

Dropping into the mind,

The words,

Body alive,

Also on an out-breath,

And those words acting as an invitation to notice and appreciate all the sensations of aliveness in the body.

And just keep repeating these phrases,

Soft eyes and body alive,

Spacing them out with several breaths where you notice what it is that the words have been pointing to,

And you can play around with the pacing of these phrases,

Leaving fewer breaths between them when the mind seems distractible,

Leaving more breaths for observation when the mind seems more settled,

Calmer,

More stable.

Remembering that the words don't in themselves do anything,

They're just reminders to help you direct your attention toward your present moment experience,

And so you can just continue with this practice for the next couple of minutes until you hear the bell.

Reviews

Soft eyes. Body alive . Good mantras . Namaste Bodhipaksa

Excellent spacing of instruction and silence. When I was done, I felt much more in my body and relaxed. Thank you!