Mindfulness of breathing.
Begin by paying attention to your posture.
Allow your weight to settle on the cushion or the chair.
Let gravity do its work.
Allow the weight of your arms and shoulders to drop towards the floor.
Notice the sensation of the touch of the fabric and cloth of your clothes against the body.
The temperature of the air against the skin.
The sounds that surround you.
The sounds of your own body.
Your sense of smell.
Begin by bringing your awareness down to the belly.
Noticing how the belly rises and expands as you breathe in.
And how it falls and reduces when you breathe out.
Pay attention to the rhythm and depth of your breathing as you find it.
No need to change or modify the pattern of your breathing.
When the attention wanders,
Don't worry.
Just bring your attention back to the breath again.
Back to the rise and fall of the belly with the in-breath and the out-breath.
And then from the belly,
Taking awareness to the chest.
The rise and fall of the chest as you breathe in and breathe out.
Bringing your attention to that part of the body as you breathe in.
Letting go and softening on the out-breath.
When your mind drifts off,
Don't worry.
That's what minds do.
Gently bring it back to the sensations in your chest again.
Gentle rise and fall of the chest with the in-breath and the out-breath.
And then from the chest to the tip of the nose,
Edge of the nostrils and the tip of the upper lip of the mouth.
This is where the air first enters the body when we breathe in.
Last leaves the body when we breathe out.
Gentle sensations,
Sometimes very slight.
When your attention wanders,
Come back to those sensations again.
Now bring your attention to the whole of the breath.
The sensations in the belly,
The chest,
Around the tip of the nose,
Edge of the nostrils,
Tip of the upper lip of the mouth.
And that flow of experience as the in-breath moves to the out-breath,
Moves back to the in-breath.
Perhaps imagining now that the whole body is breathing.
A flow of air from the mouth and nose all the way down to the toes of the feet.
A sense of energy coursing through the body.
And noticing how we breathe with the whole body.
And the whole of our being,
Enervated by the breath.
We're beginning to widen your attention now to include your surroundings,
The sounds,
The temperature of the air against the skin,
Clothes against the body.
And as the third chime,
The bell fades away.
Open your eyes and sitting at ease.
