Allowing the body to be upright.
And stable.
Letting the breath be natural.
Softening the shoulders.
The jaw.
Eyelids,
Anywhere you feel tension.
Let's try to release it.
Turning the awareness to the whole body sitting.
Whatever arises.
When you turn towards that.
As we consider mindfulness.
Sati and the Pali.
Non-judgmental.
Present time.
Kind or compassionate awareness.
Remembering.
The instructions,
Recollections.
It isn't simply awareness.
We turn towards our breathing.
Mindful of.
The body inhaling.
Mindful of the exhale.
And as we pay attention,
As we're aware of this present moment of the body breathing,
In that process,
We're recollecting,
We're remembering.
What the breath is.
You have.
Knowledge of past practice and knowing where to turn to.
This is the knowing.
Knowing the instructions.
As we're mindful of this body breathing.
We become aware of the sensation of the breath,
The sound of the breath,
Maybe counting the breath.
Noticing the rise and fall of the abdomen.
Lots of different markers.
That we can be aware of.
I can reflect back to us.
This is the breath.
But we breathe every day.
All day long.
All night long.
And we've done this for our entire lives.
And while we have awareness,
Moment to moment,
Most of the time,
Our breath.
Is never or rarely an object.
We don't notice it unless there's a problem with it.
Or as in What we're doing now,
We intentionally turn towards it.
So,
When you were driving here tonight,
There's a good chance that you weren't mindful of your breath.
And you are breathing.
So there's a big difference.
And our perception.
And even what shows up in that perception when we've.
.
.
Intentionally.
Put the spotlight on something,
The mindful spotlight.
Harder the practice.
And developing the skill.
Of what we call mindfulness.
Is developing it moment to moment.
And the one way that we can do that.
As once we've settled in to our posture.
We've turned toward an object,
The breath or the body.
Or the sound of the cars driving by.
And we're aware of each breath,
Each sound.
From this moment and then that moment.
We can put down.
This attachment to a particular object.
Or anchor as it's sometimes called.
And we can just turn this mindful spotlight on this moment.
And for one of us,
This moment might be the sound of that vehicle.
Another might be the sensation of sitting.
Now there might be the temperature in the room.
What it is,
Is not important.
It's that we've turned towards this moment.
And were.
Paying fairly close attention to what's present.
And that close attention on one object.
Will surely change.
Maybe a thought arises.
And we just pay attention that this is what is now.
Right now it's like this.
I'm mindful of the thought.
Some objects.
Will stay with us for a little while.
Some will be there and depart quickly.
But if we have leaned in,
We're using right effort.
To keep our.
.
.
Mind.
With the present moment.
Or just see it.
Go from here to there and to somewhere else.
As we move from object to object.
Being with whatever has arisen.
It's important to not judge.
Or it shows up.
To not attach.
To what shows up.
To not have aversion.
To meet each moment with acceptance.
And now it's like this.
I guess the law of impermanence.
In the future moment,
It will be different.
Let's practice some mindfulness.
Just allowing.
Whatever shows up to be there,
Whatever leaves to go.
Can feel in the beginning like a tightrope.
TerraBlocker.
Or walking with one foot in front of the other close together,
And that can be hard to keep your balance.
But that's because we're not relaxed enough.
We haven't eased into.
.
.
As being with this present moment,
Or whatever.
That entails.
As a poem.
About a duck.
Sitting in the Atlantic.
Just riding the waves up.
And down.
Just in the Atlantic.
Part of the waves.
Of the rise and the fall.
And that's what we're trying to do.
To just ride.
Without holding on too tight.
To each moment.
Sometimes we'll find ourselves getting caught up in something that has arisen.
And kind of pulled out of mindfulness into thinking,
Grasping.
Aversive.
Feelings.
There's tension.
And any of those.
And then we become aware.
To become mindful of what the mind is doing.
We remember the instructions.
And we change.
.
.
What we're doing in the moment,
We set down the aversion or the grasping.
Are needing to know the answer in the moment.
And we gain a sense of ease.
In that moment,
We'll notice.
Some tension release when we go back to just being with.
Whatever is present.
And you're riding the waves again.
