Welcome to day 20.
Today's meditation is to recognize the infinite awareness of your mind.
When you are ready,
Please find a comfortable seated position.
Let your spine be upright and tall,
Your shoulders relaxed.
Let your palms rest lightly in your lap,
Allowing the shoulders to relax.
Your hands are open with your eyes closed or your gaze low at the ground ahead of you.
Begin to breathe slowly,
Quietly,
In and out through your nose.
Guide your attention to your breath.
Allow each exhalation to be as long as the inhalation.
Moving towards a breath that reflects all the qualities you'd like to see in your mind.
Patience.
Steadiness.
Spaciousness.
Ease.
Continue to focus on your breath with about a quarter of the effort of your mind.
Zero in on the breath,
But with an attention that is not too tight,
Too loose,
Just right.
With another quarter of your mind,
Notice whether or not you are still paying attention to the breath.
Each time you find your mind has wandered,
Shift your focus back to the breath.
The second part of the mind acts as the noticer,
The witness.
It too,
Not too active,
Not too dull,
But just right.
It's the awareness that tells you when mindfulness has dropped.
It's the awareness that tells you to bring yourself back to mindfulness.
Continue in this way,
Watching the breath,
Noticing when your attention has waned.
And return as many times as you need to.
Eventually we begin to notice that even the watcher needs a little part of the mind to watch it too.
So with that third part of our mind,
Notice whether or not you are still aware of your mindfulness on the breath.
Is the witness part of the mind doing its job?
There's a third part of the mind that notices that.
And what about the third part of the mind?
Is it too doing its job?
There's a fourth part of the mind further back that watches the watcher who's watching the watcher and so on.
And back and back and back it goes.
Follow for a moment this sensation of moving further back,
Deeper into the origins of awareness.
Where is or who is the original witness?
If the mind gets lost,
Confused,
Or overwhelmed as it may do,
Simply rest.
Rest in the spaciousness of awareness.
It is limitless without beginning,
Without end.
That spacious,
Infinite,
Expansive awareness is you.
Infinite in its ability to notice,
Infinite in its ability to see,
To feel,
To listen.
Keep resting in the sensation of spaciousness,
Open awareness.
Simply be here now.
When you feel like the mind has gotten small again,
You find yourself closing in on one train of thought,
One distraction.
Simply pause,
Return the mind to the breath.
Repeat the process.
First part of the mind on the breath.
Second part of the mind witnessing the job of mindfulness on the breath.
The third part witnesses the witness.
The fourth part witnessing the witness of the witness.
And so on and so forth.
Until you reach the sensation of open spaciousness again.
In there,
You rest,
You remain until you find the mind wandering once more.
You come back,
Notice the breath,
Witness the mindfulness of the breath,
Witness the witness.
And then noticing you're observing the witness,
Observing the witness,
So on and so on.
Spend as much time as you'd like in this state of infinite potential,
Limitless awareness,
Limitless,
Wide open space.
See if you can hold this sensation of spaciousness,
And as you are ready,
Slowly begin to open the eyes,
Returning to the space around you,
Feeling the inflow,
The outflow of your breath,
Taking as much time as you need to come back to the waking world.
I thank you so much for sitting with me this morning,
This evening,
Or afternoon,
Reminding yourself of how important it is to take this time to simply breathe,
To observe the thoughts as they arise.
And as quickly,
As easily as they come up,
We let them go.
I look forward to our sit in our final day tomorrow.
Just easy,
My friends.
