My name is Leslie Hubbard and I am the Program Director of Student Engagement and Contemplative Instruction at UVA's Contemplative Sciences Center and it is an absolute pleasure and honor to be with each and every one of you this morning wherever you are joining us from in the world.
The type of meditation practice that I'm going to guide us through today is a mindful breath awareness practice with a particular focus of practicing with intention.
And I'm confident that all of us come here today to this meditation practice with a variety of different intentions or goals related to our own individual lives and our context that could range from wanting to gain some self-regulation skills like reducing our anxiety or our stress or our response perhaps to physical discomfort or pain and cultivating a sense of peace,
Stability,
Calm,
And joy.
Or perhaps what drives our interest in meditation is related to self-exploration like creating some space and clarity to explore big questions in our lives like what is the meaning of my life?
Who am I?
Or perhaps even the notion of self-liberation and the cultivation of attitudes and dispositions that promote a sense of broader connection to each other and the world around us.
So the role of our intentions in mindfulness practice has become the subject of ongoing research particularly in Western psychology to understand and to theorize about the mechanisms of the mindfulness practice itself.
And for today's practice I'm going to be working with a framework called the IAA model which stands for intention,
Attitude,
And attention.
And we're going to be practicing setting an intention and then paying attention to our present moment experience with a particular attitude that is infused with qualities such as non-judgment,
Patience,
Openness,
Curiosity,
And acceptance of our inner experience.
So simply we start with why am I here practicing and move into how am I going to practice paying attention to my inner experience for the duration of the practice.
And this is not practice that is linear in nature but it's more of a circular interactive experience in that our intentions in the beginning set the stage for what is possible and then throughout the practice they remind us from moment to moment how we are going to practice.
For example if our intention is to cultivate a sense of calm and acceptance with each breath and after a few moments of practice we start getting frustrated or agitated and critical of our own ability to pay attention to our breath then in that moment we have forgotten our intention and we remember to bring our intention back and figure out how are we going to practice with that sense of calm and acceptance moment to moment.
Now for the practice itself we will be taking our awareness of our breath as the object of our mindfulness and you may like to focus on the sensations around the nose of the air flowing in and out or the rise and fall of the body like around the belly or chest or perhaps you even want to place your hands on your belly and feel the rise and fall of the belly against the hands.
And this practice is to return home to our breath moment by moment and when your attention it evidently gets redirected involuntarily or voluntarily to something else notice that your attention has gone elsewhere first of all and then we turn back to the breath all within the spirit of patience,
Acceptance of our innate human tendency to get distracted and openness to being with our experience of breathing in a novel way.
So without further delay let's begin.
If you are seated in a chair please sit upright with a dignified posture extending the crown of your head into the space above and plant your feet on the floor underneath you and bring a sense of ease to the shoulders and ease to the face and to your hips and find a position for your eyes in which you feel comfortable so either you can completely close them open them partially so that light is coming in but you're not focused on any external object or keep them open and just gaze downwards.
We're going to begin this practice by taking three deep long breaths so breathing in deeply expanding your belly ribcage and chest and exhale softening the shoulders the ribcage the belly and at your own speed take two more deep breaths.
Now just let your breath be natural and set your intention for your mindful awareness practice right now in your mind.
What is your personal vision and intention for your practice today?
And remember this intention is connected to how you will practice in these next moments perhaps focusing on practicing with patience or acceptance of our inner experience.
Now place your attention on your breath and simply just be with the inhalation and be with the exhalation and it's just one at a time being present moment by moment with your breath.
When your mind starts to inevitably get distracted on something else just notice my mind is focused on something other than my breath let go of that focus and redirect to your breath feeling the in breath being with the out breath.
Present for just one breath in this moment.
We get distracted and lost in another thought or sensation or external sound.
Just notice remember our intention to practice and we turn back to your breath.
I'm not trying to create any special feeling inside just being with whatever is in this moment.
Realizing our inner experience the breath with our full attention the sense of care openness curiosity.
Now in a moment we'll be sharing our thoughts and feelings with you.
And we'll be shortly bringing this formal practice to a close and as we do let's come back to our intention right now that you said moments ago.
Just entertain the thought for a moment of how can I continue to bring this intention into my life today somehow in a way that's manageable and appropriate for whatever situation I'm going to find myself in.
How do I want to schedule my mind so to say for the day?
The challenge complexities of our lives today can we come back to this intention that brought us here today as a means of guiding us through the rest of the day and practicing in our own life in a way that's meaningful and impactful.
