The meditation that we are about to do is a fundamental skill,
And this is the way that you begin every meditation session really.
You begin by breaking the flow of the ruminating mind,
That mental chit chat that you may be bringing to the beginning of any meditation session,
And you do that by developing bare attention,
Focusing only on one sense field at a time.
And so,
Begin now by first of all closing your eyes.
And with your eyes closed,
The reports of the senses that you become aware of are likely just to be either sound or tactile sensations.
The sense of touch either on or in the body.
Allow your attention to roam throughout the body,
Being captured by either sound or tactile sensations.
Without focusing your attention in any one place or on any one object,
Allow that monkey mind to romp,
But to romp among the sense impressions and remain present in the present moment because of your focus on the sensory present.
To the degree that you are focused only on sounds or tactile sensations,
You will remain engaged with the present moment of experience.
It's when you begin to think about the sense impressions or your mind just wanders to a memory or a fantasy that you lose the present moment engagement.
But rather than suppress thoughts,
Maintain your peripheral awareness and allow thought to circulate in peripheral awareness,
But without it capturing your attention.
Your attention is attending to sensations of the body or to sound.
And now continue to maintain your peripheral awareness as you narrow the scope of your attention to tactile sensations only.
And now sound also remains in peripheral awareness,
Where you can be aware of it without it capturing your attention.
There is a rich palette of tactile sensations to which you can attend.
Sensations all the way from the back of your head to the heels of your feet,
Where your body engages the floor.
And if among those sensations you notice any tension or any pain,
Simply release that tension or pain on the exhalation,
Deepening your relaxation as if with an inaudible sigh of release.
Try to keep your body still for the period of meditation also.
You will probably feel impulses to move,
But rather than giving into the impulse,
Simply note it and remain engaged with tactile sensations only.
Continue to deepen your relaxation as you are focused only on tactile sensations,
Releasing tension,
Releasing pain,
Allowing thoughts to remain circulating in peripheral awareness.
And as you deepen your relaxation,
Maintain clarity.
Don't give into the habitual association of deep relaxation and drowsiness.
If you become drowsy or your attention becomes lax,
Open your eyes.
If your attention has gone wandering into thoughts,
Memories,
Fantasies,
Simply release it and return your full attention to tactile sensations only,
Wherever they occur in the body.
Let your attention roam,
But within the narrow scope of only this one sense field.
Maintain your peripheral awareness while you give full attention to this one sense field only of tactile sensations.
The tactile could be an itch,
Could be a pressure,
Could be motion of air across your skin,
Sensations of heater cold.
Without demanding stability of your attention,
Simply let it be captured by any tactile sensation.
You have narrowed the scope of your attention to only the tactile domain,
But letting your attention roam within that domain.
Practice now for two minutes in silence,
Maintaining peripheral awareness as a way of balancing clarity and relaxation while you attend to only this field of tactile sensations as a way of remaining in the sensory present.
