Hi,
This is Consuela and I welcome you to this 30 minutes sitting meditation,
Turning towards,
Allowing,
Opening.
The intention of kindness runs throughout our formal mindfulness practices.
This sitting meditation calls our attention to specifically asking us to become aware of the neutral,
Pleasant and the unpleasant aspects of our moment-to-moment experience.
In this way,
We consciously and systematically practice working with our own stress,
Anxiety,
Pain,
Illness and the challenges and demands of everyday life.
We practice mindfulness to soften our resistance to our actual experience as this is one of the key ways to accept primary experiences and reduce and overcome secondary experience.
So we learn to practice moving through these stages,
Awareness of the breath and body,
Gently turning towards our experience and then broadening into the whole of our experience.
The intention is practicing awareness of the whole of our experience,
Cultivating equanimity.
We practice bringing our attention to both the neutral,
Pleasant and the unpleasant aspects of our actual moment-to-moment experience and we will have an attitude of curiosity,
Openness,
Acceptance and kindness.
Setting into a comfortable sitting position either on a straight-backed chair or on a soft surface on the floor,
With our bottom supported by cushion or on a low stool or meditation bench.
If we use a chair,
Sitting away from the back of the chair so that our spine is self-supporting.
If we sit on the floor,
It is helpful if our knees can actually touch the floor,
Experimenting with the high of the cushion or stool until we feel comfortably and firmly supported.
We start by practicing paying attention to what is actually happening in the present moment.
So perhaps just asking ourselves,
How do we feel?
What is our experience?
Something dropping into our experience in this present moment.
Perhaps asking ourselves,
What is going on for me right now?
Not the thought of what is going on or remembering past events,
But just opening up to any physical sensation already present.
When it feels right,
Gently noticing the movement of the breath.
It's such a constant feature of life that it's easy to ignore.
So taking time with it now.
Actually feeling the sensation as the breath rolls in and rolls out.
Feeling it to move through its circle of in-breath and out-breath without controlling.
Perhaps sensing the rise and the fall of the belly.
Or the feeling of the air in the nostrils or upper lip.
If you care to,
Placing the hands on the belly,
Feeling the movement of the breath,
The rhythm.
Just let it roll in and roll out.
Riding the waves of the breath from moment to moment.
Moving awareness to the level of physical sensations in the body.
Investigating the experience of very alive body.
Exploring the sensations in our body.
When the attention wanders,
Which it may happen,
It's what minds do.
Learning and practicing,
Making a choice to come back with care and kindness.
Here right in this moment to the awareness of the body.
With the present moment experience.
With awareness come choice.
Perhaps we might choose to stay with whatever our mind has wondered.
Or perhaps we choose to come back into the present moment.
Come to the physical sensations in the body.
Practicing being with the breath or feet on the floor as an anchor.
Moving down into the ground.
Without judging our experience as good or bad.
Learning the moment by moment sensations with a gentle curiosity.
Noticing nuances of sensation.
Perhaps thoughts and judgments.
Practicing stepping back to observe.
To open space in awareness.
Using the breath as a vehicle for kindness.
Breathing into the body.
Softening.
Letting go with the outbreath.
Noticing that sensations change.
That they,
Like the breath,
Have a beginning,
A middle and an end.
As best as we can gently turning towards,
Allowing,
Opening.
Now we gently turn towards our experience.
Noticing whatever we may currently be finding to simply be there.
Just noticing if we can learn towards what is there.
We may like to say it's okay,
Let me feel it.
Can we practice allowing it in?
Practicing bringing our attention down from the head into the body.
Asking ourselves what is our actual present moment experience.
As best we can.
If there is nothing there.
Just being curious to the changing movement of our experience as we ride the waves of our breath.
Seeing any tendency to move away from or towards any sensations,
Thoughts or emotions.
Maybe judgments that may arrive.
Practicing that this is it in this moment.
This is how we feel.
If we feel overwhelmed by any sensations,
Thoughts or emotions.
Knowing that we can shift our awareness to the anchor of the breath.
Staying with the rhythm of the breath rolling in.
And rolling out.
Until we feel okay.
And then if we wish returning to the present moment experience.
Seeing if we can gently open up to any difficult sensations.
Maybe taking our awareness there.
Breathing whatever is here in this moment into the light of our awareness.
Breathing into it.
Breathing out of it.
Just being with what is here now.
Breathing onward.
Maybe unpleasant thoughts or emotions are here.
If we are feeling emotional pain.
As best as we can practicing softening into it.
Does it have an echo in the body?
Breathing hold it in our kind awareness as we might a child who has just hurt themselves.
Gathering them to ourselves.
Sensing them.
Breathing the emotional pain into the light of our awareness.
Just practicing being with what is here now.
Anchoring and coming back to the breath.
Feeling how the gentle rise and fall has been a constant companion.
Where do you feel the breath most vividly today?
How is the body?
Maybe feeling the sensation of gravity.
The sense of being gently hold.
Closely.
Without fail.
Practicing not distracting ourselves from the unpleasant aspects of life.
Just simply allowing them to remain in the background of our awareness.
Explorating now into the whole of our experience.
Exploring onwards.
Maybe shifting the focus of awareness to become sensitive to the pleasant dimension of the moment.
Seeking out the pleasant.
Just gently allowing it into the light of our awareness.
It is already there.
We don't need to invent it.
We just gently practice allowing it in.
Seeking out the good.
The simple pleasures of our life.
It might be something like calm in the room.
Pleasant.
Warm hands.
Pleasant.
A softness in the belly.
Pleasant.
Sensing awareness of the pleasant aspect of our experience.
Exploring it with our senses.
Absorbing the pleasant down into the body.
Fingering with the sensations.
And now broadening out our field of awareness to include and hold both the neutral,
Unpleasant and pleasant aspects of moment by moment experience.
We sort of zoom out into a much broader quality of attention.
Practicing,
Sitting with the neutral,
The pleasant and the unpleasant experience.
Observing them just to be side by side.
Seeing whatever presents itself to us in the moment.
Being spacious with whatever arises.
To the best of our abilities,
Noticing how it is all constantly changing.
Rising and falling.
Coming and going.
Living in stillness with whatever comes and goes.
Practicing being here now.
Getting to the totally of our experience.
Being fully human.
Exploring the neutral,
Unpleasant and pleasant aspects of shared humanity.
Returning the attention to the body as we sit.
Being present to the totally of our experience of sitting here in this moment.
Maybe feeling the breath moving in the body.
Noticing the thoughts and emotions.
Exploring the experience of our very alive bodies.
Feeling allowing ourselves to be exactly as we are.
And now grounding ourselves.
Earthing ourselves.
Breathing in and breathing out.
Down into the ground.
Noticing being mindful of the whole of our experience.
Remembering that practicing in this way helps create a wider,
Deeper,
More open way of being in our life.
Gently turning our awareness to the sounds in the room.
To the people practicing just like us.
The sounds outside the room.
Maybe starting to move and stretch in any way that feels good right now for you.
The meditation is now complete.
Thank you.
