Mindfulness of breathing taking a seat sitting in an upright position sitting in a way that embodies dignity that embodies wakefulness perhaps with your head slightly tilted forward your chin down a sense that the spine is stacked on top of each other that there's not too much effort to sit in the way you're sitting now bringing your awareness to the body sitting here right now any sense of contact you can feel perhaps where the sit bones are making contact with the seat or your feet on the floor all the sense of contact of clothes on skin perhaps the air coming in and out of the nostrils and the mouth just wherever you can feel contact with the outside world beginning to settle in into the body now we're going to be paying attention to our bodies process of breathing over the next 15 minutes or so so letting your attention move to anywhere in the body where you can feel breathing readily and that might be in the stomach as the stomach expands and contracts as you breathe in and out or it might be higher up in the chest and the diaphragm as it expands and contracts or it might be around the nostrils feeling perhaps cool air as you breathe in and then warmer air as you breathe out we're just going to be coming back over and over again to whatever area feels most suitable for you today as you do the mindfulness of breathing exercise as we find ourselves distracted or off in thought or distracted by sound or other body sensations we're just going to gently direct our attention back to the breathing and it can be helpful to use a sense of curiosity about the direct sensations of breathing that we're experiencing we might be curious about the length in which we're breathing whether we're breathing long or we're breathing short whether there's a sense of ease as we breathe or if it feels labored and we're not trying to change the way we breathe we're just being with however we are breathing so if it's deep it's deep or if it's shallow it's shallow we're just noticing as best we can in the present moment noticing what's here right now we might be noticing the movement of breath or the absence of movement noticing what parts of us are moving as we breathe and perhaps other parts that are staying still the breath that supports us through our entire lives that we often don't pay any attention to at all spending a bit of time just hanging out with what it's like to be a human being breathing right now what the direct sensations are like as best we can moment to moment staying with the very beginnings of the breath all the way through to perhaps a slight pause before we breathe out and start the process all over again and if we find ourselves off in the realm of thinking we don't really have to do much as soon as we realize we're off well we're pretty much back and we can perhaps bow acknowledge to where we've been distracted to thoughts of the future or thoughts of the past maybe a storyline we've been caught in we can acknowledge it bow to it and then just come back come back to the direct sensations of breathing the flow of breathing and if we get lost a thousand times then we come back a thousand times you fostering a sense of curiosity of interest of care of what it's like to be breathing right now what are the sensations like can we feel a little bit of pressure as we breathe in and then the release of that pressure as we breathe out you can we feel the temperature of the air as we breathe in and out you are we able to be aware of all the processes of breathing all the areas that are involved in breathing at the same time can we bring them all into awareness or do we focus more on one particular area and we when we find that we lost again far away downstream in the thinking mind and when we come back can we be kind about it can we give ourselves a break knowing that this is what minds do or do we feel a sense of frustration and judgment towards ourselves if we do can we just hold them in awareness notice what it's like to be frustrated what does it feel like in the body to be annoyed and then come back to the direct sensations of breathing over and over again getting lost in thought isn't a mistake it's part of the training as we come back to the anchor of breathing right here right now and again can we notice the quality of our breathing if there's a there's a ease if it feels labored then that's what we notice we're just being with our breath exactly as it is not trying to make anything happen nothing to be done nothing to be undone turning towards our breath exactly as it is right now and as best we can staying with the breath right here right now just breathing and again if we get lost there's nothing to it we just come back perhaps over and over to the mindfulness of breathing knowing that we're breathing in when we're breathing in and knowing that we're breathing out when we're breathing out And as we come to the end of this period of sitting,
It can be helpful to spend a moment or two congratulating ourselves for spending time in this way.
For carving out a bit of our day to spend it in such a radically kind and caring way.
