The practice for this session will be one mode of mindfulness of breathing.
In this practice,
I invite you first of all to let your awareness,
In a manner of speaking,
Descend into the field of tactile sensations from the soles of your feet,
Through your legs,
Your torso,
Arms,
Through the neck,
To the top of the head.
Be mindfully present throughout the entire field of the body.
Rest your awareness in a purely witnessing mode,
Quiet and attentive.
And simply be aware of the tactile sensations arising within this field.
And with such mindful awareness of the body,
You may note certain areas of the body that feel a bit tight or constricted,
Such as the shoulders for many people,
The base of the neck.
As you breathe in,
Imagine breathing into these areas,
And as you breathe out,
Surrender these muscles to gravity.
Let them melt,
As it were.
Soften.
With each out-breath,
Release the excess tension in the body.
Bring your awareness,
Especially to the face,
To the mouth,
The muscles around the mouth and the chin.
Soften.
Loosen up.
Soften the muscles of the jaws.
Bring your awareness to the forehead,
And let there be a sense of spaciousness there,
Of openness,
The opposite of contraction.
Open the areas between the eyebrows.
Soften the eyes.
And let your whole face,
All the muscles of the face,
Rest in an expression as soft and relaxed as the face of a sleeping baby without a care in the world.
In this way,
Set your body at ease,
In comfort,
Relaxed.
And when you do feel such ease,
It should be relatively easy to keep the body still with no unnecessary movement or fidgeting.
This will support you in maintaining the composure of your awareness,
The focus and continuity of your attention.
Be still apart from the movement of the breath.
If you're lying in the supine position,
Simply see that your body is straight,
That your belly,
Your chest,
Your diaphragm can expand and contract unimpededly.
If you're sitting,
Assume a posture of vigilance by just slightly raising your sternum,
Keeping your spine straight,
Your abdominal muscles loose,
So that when you breathe in even a shallow breath,
You feel the sensations of the breath going right down to the abdomen and you feel it expand with each inhalation and contract as you breathe out.
In this way,
We settle the body in its natural state,
Imbued with the three qualities of relaxation,
Stillness and vigilance.
And we may round off this initial settling of the body by taking three slow,
Deep breaths,
Breathing through the nostrils,
Gradually,
Deeply breathing down into the abdomen.
As the breath flows in,
Then you feel the diaphragm expand.
As you deep breathe in fully,
Finally the chest expands.
When you've inhaled almost to full capacity,
Then again breathing out through the nostrils,
Effortlessly release the breath.
Do this three times,
Mindfully attentive to the sensations throughout the body,
Correlated with the respiration.
Three deep breaths.
Settling the body in this way can already be by itself.
A fine facilitator for getting a good night's sleep.
But we can do more.
Having settled the body in its natural state and now settle your respiration in its natural rhythm.
And by this,
I mean not some preconceived notion of how the breath should go,
That it should be rhythmic,
It should be deep or shallow,
Fast or slow.
On the contrary,
Let the breath or the respiration flow unimpededly,
As effortlessly as you can.
Let the body breathe of its own accord.
If it's a short breath,
Let it be short.
A long breath,
Let it be long.
Or perhaps the inhalation will be short and the out breath will be long,
Or vice versa.
There may be pauses now and again.
Observe the sensations of the breath closely,
But passively relinquish all control over the breath,
All preference.
Let the body breathe.
Breathe as effortlessly as if you were already deep asleep,
Allowing the body to find its own rhythm by way of the in and out breath.
Breathe as forcefully as you can.
Breathe as forcefully as you can.
With each out breath,
Continue to release any excess tension of the body.
Let the tightness of the body melt away with every out breath.
And with every out breath,
As if it were a gentle gust of breeze blowing away dry leaves,
With each out breath,
Simply release any involuntary thoughts,
Mental images,
Activities of the mind.
Just let them go.
Breathe out as if with a sigh of relief.
I don't have to think all the time.
Sometimes it's okay to be quiet and just to be present,
Mindfully attentive to the tactile sensations arising throughout the body,
Especially those correlated with the in and out breath.
A time for quiescence rather than stimulation.
A time for being simply present rather than active or reactive.
Breathe as forcefully as you can.
Breathe as forcefully as you can.
Breathe as forcefully as you can.
Breathe as forcefully as you can.
With each out breath,
Deeply let go in body and mind.
Continue releasing and relaxing all the way through the end of the out breath.
Continue relaxing until the in breath flows in as effortlessly,
As spontaneously,
As a wave washing up on shore.
And whether it's deep or shallow,
Fast or slow,
Just let it be without intervention.
The attention is like a wild horse that is accustomed to roaming freely from one field to another.
In this practice,
Without tightly constricting your attention,
Contain this wild steed of your attention within the field of the body,
Within this corral.
Let the attention go where it will within this field,
Attend to whatever sensations arise within this domain of experience.
But without getting caught up in thoughts pertaining to the past or the future or the present,
Without slipping off to other sensory fields,
See if you can contain with continuity clear attentiveness within this one domain of experience,
Tactile experience,
On the interior and right out to the periphery of the body.
Quietly observe whatever arises.
Now and again check up on the face.
See that it's soft,
Relaxed.
The forehead open.
The forehead open.
The forehead open.
