The first part of the meditation will be mindfulness of breath.
To begin with,
Simply become aware of your breathing and as much as possible really feel the physical sensations of the breath in the body.
Don't make any effort to change your breath,
Just allow your breath to find its own rhythm and its own time and just notice how you are breathing,
Whether it's more with the chest or the diaphragm,
Nose or mouth,
Deep or shallow,
Fast or slow.
Just spending a few moments becoming familiar with your breath just as you find it in this moment.
I find it really helpful to keep an open awareness,
That is not trying to focus or concentrate on the breath,
But just to have the breath gently in the foreground or the centre of your awareness and allowing everything else of the present moment to be there just in the background surrounding the breath,
Still aware of thoughts,
The body,
Sounds,
Not trying to block out anything,
Welcoming the whole present moment,
But for now just taking a bit more of an interest in the breath and in the physical sensations of the breath in the body as you breathe in and out.
See if you can get a sense of the body being breathed by the breath rather than it feeling like you are having to breathe or make any effort to breathe.
So we are simply allowing the breath to enter the body without restriction and allowing the breath to leave the body without holding onto the breath at all.
Getting a feel of the breath flowing freely in and out of the body and the body being breathed by that breath.
So let's apply this same approach to our thoughts.
So treating our thoughts as just another experience happening within our awareness that we can be more mindful of,
Just as the breath occurs in the body,
Experiencing the thoughts occurring in the mind.
And as we did with the breath,
Not making any effort at all to try and change the thoughts in any way.
It doesn't matter how fast or slow they are,
How deep or shallow,
How positive or negative.
See if you can adopt a real disinterest in the content of your thoughts.
Just enjoy the experience of the flow of thoughts coming and going through your mind,
Through your open awareness,
Remembering not to concentrate or focus on the thoughts,
But just holding the thoughts gently in the center,
The foreground of your awareness.
See if you can still have half an eye on the breath,
The body sounds,
Still staying connected to the wholeness of the present moment.
As we did with the breath and now with the thoughts,
Just having a bit more interest in the experience of thinking,
Flow of thoughts through the mind.
Good.
You're welcome.
So keeping a nice light and open awareness,
Allowing the thoughts to flow freely through the mind and allowing the breath to flow freely through the body Getting a sense of the breath,
Breathing the body and the thoughts occurring to the mind neither taking any effort at all For the second part of meditation we'll move into this idea of creating space for insight,
Intuition and inspiration.
One very simple and quite literal way of doing that is to simply get a sense of the space around the body.
So for me getting a sense of the space of the room,
Feeling the position of my body in the room and getting a sense of the space just in front to either side and behind the body A sense of the space between the walls,
Floor and ceiling of the room.
And I'll allow my awareness to hold the whole space of the room within itself This can really help us go beyond the idea or experience that thoughts just happen inside the head.
Actually our thoughts happen within our mind,
Within our awareness and our mind and awareness is not limited in size,
Has no walls.
So beginning to get a sense of the potentially unlimited space of the mind of the awareness by just going beyond the limits of the body to the space around you.
Now there's much more space for new thoughts to come.
Don't try and stop your usual habitual thoughts,
Just allow them to keep flowing just as they are disinterested in the content but just feeling now there's this extra space potentially unlimited space.
Not just the space of the room but the space outside even beyond the sky.
Your awareness can stretch in all directions without limit The feeling you have so much inner space mental space that your usual habitual thoughts are just a tiny little stream in an unlimited ocean or just a few clouds in an unlimited sky.
What we can do now is have some minutes of silence without commentary just seeing if you can relax into keeping your awareness nice and open,
Getting a sense of that space,
Physical and mental space,
Allowing your body,
Your breath,
Your thoughts to relax and flow within that open unlimited space of awareness of mind.
And with great patience and without expectation being open to the possibility,
The potential of thoughts or feelings of inspiration,
Insight,
Intuition,
Naturally,
Spontaneously also flow through this open space of your awareness.
I'll leave about five or six minutes so we can really relax into this experience and just see what comes.
Okay.
Allow your breath to flow freely through your body.
Allow your thoughts to flow freely through your mind.
Feel the breath enter from the space around the body as you breathe out,
Going back into that space and allow your thoughts to also flow out into that space around you.
Keeping awareness nice and open,
Couple more minutes,
Really being open to the possibility of insight,
Intuition,
Inspiration to arrive naturally within this open space of your mind.
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
During the last few moments,
Just really enjoying being present with the breath,
Present with your thoughts whilst keeping a nice open awareness.
Okay.
Okay.
When you're ready,
We can begin to bring the meditation to a close.
