Hello and welcome to the short meditation on presence and stillness.
Start by finding your cushion,
Chair,
Or however you do your meditation.
Find your center,
Giving yourself a second to sway,
Wiggle,
And wobble,
Whoever you need to adjust.
Once you've found your center,
Come back to the breath.
Let your awareness scan through your body,
Starting at the top of the head and slowly working your way down to the soles of your feet,
Scanning slowly,
Noticing if there are any areas of tightness,
Any areas of tension,
Or any areas of stress.
When you encounter stress,
Tension,
Or tightness,
Sit with it for a moment,
Feeling exactly where it is,
Considering the possibility of softening it,
Letting it go little by little,
Breath by breath,
Working our way toward it.
You might start with your eyes,
Relaxing the area around them,
Releasing the inner ocular tension that so many people hold,
Relaxing the brow,
The cheeks,
The nose,
The jaw,
Feeling it drop,
Noticing your whole face,
And feeling it let go just a little,
Letting a short smile fall over your face even,
Letting the shoulders fall away from the neck,
Using the fullness of our awareness,
Loosening the shoulders,
Letting them relax,
Letting them drop a little from where they connect on our neck to where they connect to our arm.
Letting the hands rest in an easy and effortless way,
Relaxing any tension that we hold in them,
And feeling their aliveness as a tool and an aspect of the body inside and out.
Sense and openness in the chest,
Letting it expand as easily as it can with the breath,
And with the next breath feeling our belly,
Our abdomen,
And letting the breath soften and touch with each in and out,
In and out,
Letting the breath be just as it is,
Not constraining it or constricting it with our will,
Allowing it to rest as naturally as it may.
Very consciously lengthen the in-breath without hearing air come in your nose,
And when you have lengthened it to the point where you'd like,
Touch the fullness of the breath and the fullness of the moment just for a second,
And let it out as slowly as you can,
Again where you cannot even hear the air leaving your nose.
Continue doing this long deep in-breath,
Notice the fullness,
And soften slowly into a gentle out-breath.
To help focus on the breath and lengthen it,
You might count while you breathe in and while you breathe out,
Counting one,
Two,
Three,
Four,
In,
Pause,
And one,
Two,
Three,
Four,
Or however long,
For out.
If you find your mind drifting just gently and with understanding,
Knowing that this drifting and coming back is the practice of meditation itself,
Bring your attention back to the full in-breath and the long slow out-breath.
Now,
Let's take a moment to let the breath return to its natural rhythm,
Not counting and not lengthening it,
Just letting the breath rest in its own natural in-and-out,
Whatever that is for you today.
It doesn't have to be anything long and it doesn't have to be anything short,
Just wherever it finds itself.
Be aware of the quality of presence in this moment,
Letting the awareness of breath be foremost in your mindfulness,
Allowing yourself the time and presence to just be aware of the sensations of the inflow and the outflow,
Yet not ignoring anything that reality is presenting you through your senses,
Touching the senses with that same stillness and presence of awareness as they arise,
Stick around for some time,
And then pass away.
If something strong and persistent arises in your sense field of reality and is calling for your attention,
Whether it's a physical sensation,
Emotion,
Sound,
Mind state or anything,
Stay with the breath,
But allow whatever it is to be at the center of your mindfulness,
That you are breathing with it,
That you are touching it with that same stillness and that same presence of awareness that you have been giving to the breath and to the body.
It might be an ache in the back,
It might be a sorrowful memory,
It might be thoughts trying to pull you this way and that away from your focus,
It might be a frustration of wanting to get up off the cushion and go do something else.
Whatever it is,
Strong and at the center,
Let it rest in your awareness until you notice that it passes.
Notice when it has gone,
When it is no longer compelling,
And gently rest again in the feeling and the movement of the breath,
Like a flower leaning one way,
Then the next with a gentle breeze,
Resting where you are,
Not concerned about the in or the out,
Just with it.
Relaxing back with the movement of the breath,
Resting in the moment-to-moment changing sensations,
Touching them with the same gentleness of presence and of stillness,
Whatever arises.
Letting go of any notion of doing,
Of stress,
Of hurry,
Relaxing back and being in the moment-to-moment as the presence of awareness,
Letting everything happen,
Sounds,
Sensations,
Moods,
Thoughts,
Mind states,
Worries,
Sorrows,
Joys,
Staying alertly with the breath and inner presence that touches the awakeness of our awareness in the moment.
Being that presence and finding stillness,
The meditation will end in three minutes,
But you may sit with this for as long as you like.
Thank you for sitting with me today.
You you you you you you
