Namaste and welcome.
This recording will guide you through a spine-based meditation where we'll be breathing up and down the front of our spine to find our central channel and then allow our minds to stay with that sensation as our breathing becomes more subtle.
So find a comfortable position for this.
It's really best to be sitting upright in a chair or cross-legged.
If that's not possible,
Then of course lying down is always okay.
If you're lying down,
Have your knees bent and your feet on the floor.
With your hands in a comfortable position on your lap or belly,
Let's close our eyes and find the interior part of our spine,
So the front part of our spine that's more towards the front of our body.
And inhaling through the nose if that's comfortable and watch the breath move down down the front part of your spine.
So it goes in your nose,
Inhaling all the way down the front part of your spine,
Down in front of your sacrum and down towards your pelvic floor.
And then as you exhale right from your pelvic floor,
Back up the sacrum,
Up the spine,
All the way up the front of your spine that's in your neck and then sort of curves around a little bit your skull.
We imagine that breath going all the way to the top of our head or a little bit above it.
So we'll continue like this,
Inhaling down,
Exhaling all the way up to the top of the head.
The breath can be a little deeper than it would normally be,
So inhaling a slightly deepened breath all the way down to the base of your body,
Down the front of the spine.
And then exhale all the way up to the ground or just above the ground.
And please continue doing this on your own for a couple minutes.
Breathing up and down the spine,
Up and down the central channel.
And you could stay breathing like this and binding your attention there.
Or if you think you're ready,
You can allow the breath to become more natural.
A nice subtle breath in and out,
But still watching the energy move down the spine,
Down towards your pelvic floor and then back up towards the crown of your head on the inhale and exhale.
So if you'd like,
You can try that for a couple minutes.
Inhaling down and then just as you exhale,
However long that is,
All the way up.
As you do this,
You might find your attention being drawn to particular areas along that path on the inhalation and exhalation.
What we're going to do is just allow ourselves to feel those sensations or be attracted to those areas without getting stuck on them.
So the mind and the attention moves up and down with the in-breath and out-breath.
And then maybe we notice certain sensations that are not in the same area,
And maybe we notice certain sensations and we relax as we allow those sensations to come to our attention as we move up and down the channel.
So allow the mind to be open yet still conscious of the movement with the breath.
Now if the mind feels very attracted to a certain spot along the channel and would like to stay there even as you breathe in and breathe out,
That's fine.
Allow the mind to sit anywhere it would like to sit along that channel.
And as soon as it's ready to start moving again,
Allow the mind to move its attention again.
So the feeling is allowing the mind to be attracted or interested in whatever it wants to be interested in along this channel.
So we'll sit with that for a minute.
And letting your attention go,
Letting your breath go,
Allowing your eyes to very slowly open.
So at first just a little crack and allow the light to come in.
Maybe open your eyes a little more,
But have a very soft focus and not really looking at anything.
And then finally,
Allowing yourself to come back into the room,
A little expanded sense of yourself.
Namaste.
