Okay,
As we begin to settle,
Let's ask your body what you may do,
If there is any small adjustment that you can welcome,
Just to feel maybe 5 to 10% more comfortable than you were before.
You're welcome to keep your eyes open or to gently close your eyes.
And let us start by regathering attention,
Hope.
During the day our attention is scattered everywhere,
From thoughts to feelings to information,
Activities.
A beautiful way to invite attention back home is to find the spontaneous movement of your breath.
Notice how you first meet the breath as you invite it in the foreground of your experience.
You may be feeling the air flowing through your nostrils,
You may be feeling a flow of air caressing your throat,
You may feel the chest expanding and relaxing,
Or you may feel the belly expanding and relaxing.
And please take a few moments just to witness the breath.
See if you can sit back and simply observe the breath without any attempt to fix it,
Change it or alter it in any way.
Just notice the breath.
If it feels right,
Be curious about the breath.
How is it?
Is it slow?
Or is it fast?
Is it regular?
Or is it irregular?
Is it deep?
Or is it shallow?
Is it involving more the belly?
Or is it more in the area of the chest?
You may notice that the mind might be trying to enter,
Maybe asking if the breath is right or wrong.
Am I breathing the right way?
Am I practicing the correct way?
If you notice that,
I encourage you to simply answer,
I don't know.
See how those very simple words land on you.
I don't know.
I don't know.
See if you can simply allow the experience,
Now the experience of the flow of your breath,
To be just as it is.
There is nothing you need to know about the experience.
The invitation is simply to allow the experience.
There is nothing you need to figure out.
See if it is possible to simply observe.
Nothing to be analyzed.
No problem to be solved.
Nothing you need to understand.
You don't have to breathe.
Breath is just happening.
Breathing is its own spontaneous flow.
There is no task for you.
You are allowed not to be ready for any task.
There is no role for you.
Nothing you need to hold on to.
Just rest.
And simply be.
There is nothing you need to do to be.
Doing is something that may emerge from being.
But being,
In a sense,
Comes before.
If it feels right,
Every time you exhale,
Allow the gentle flow of the exhalation to bring you deeper and deeper in the sense of simply being.
Every time you exhale,
There might be something that spontaneously lets go.
Then you rest back,
Way back,
Into simple being.
If it feels right,
You may inquire,
What is that space?
What is that gap where the exhalation finishes?
Then there is a moment of suspension.
And then the inhalation comes.
What is that silent gap?
What's there?
I invite you to follow the flow of exhalation as if it were welcoming you in this empty gap where no breath is happening.
You might even visualize yourself on a small boat on a very beautiful blue ocean.
And every exhalation is like the wave going down closer and closer to the core of the ocean itself.
Then an inhalation will come like a new wave bringing you a little bit up,
But then again the exhalation will help you go down deeper and deeper in this ocean of being.
See if you can set everything else simply free to do whatever it wants to do.
If thoughts are coming,
Let them come,
But please come back to this breath.
Come back to your core sense of being.
If a physical sensation is arriving,
Set it free,
But come back.
If an emotion is arising,
If you have the sense that you're getting caught in a daydream,
It's okay.
The invitation is simply to notice it and come back.
And just enjoy the possibility to experience firsthand this silence,
This deep ground from which everything emerges,
Inside which everything unfolds,
And into which everything eventually fades away.
You may be visited by flows of joy,
Even completely unexpected joy,
Unmotivated joy,
That is simply the natural response of your body every time there is a letting go.
Maybe some thoughts that you were caught in just find their way to fly away.
Maybe some physical sensation gets liberated.
Every time that happens,
A flow of joy visits you,
Completely unrelated to any circumstance.
And this silence is the place where you can fully rest.
Nothing to do.
Nowhere to be.
Nowhere to go.
Nothing is missing.
Nothing you need to do.
Just welcome the mystery.
Now,
As we are moving towards the end of our practice,
I invite you to gently maybe open your eyes,
Allowing lights and colors to shine through your eyes,
And yet noticing that this mystery can stay here.
Normally we are so absorbed in our senses,
In our thoughts,
In our activities,
That we just don't notice this silence.
And yet,
It's always there,
To a moment's notice.
And from direct experience,
I can really only suggest you to go there as frequently as it fits.
