The following talk was given at the Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City,
California.
Please visit our website at audioderma.
Org.
So,
It's often good to begin by taking a comfortable alert posture.
And so you might sit up a little bit straighter than you normally would.
It's good to remember that alertness is an important part of the path of meditation.
And then to take a few long,
Slow deep breaths as a way of connecting to your body as you breathe in.
And as a way of relaxing as you breathe out a long,
Soft out-breath.
And taking some time at the beginning to consciously breathe in and out,
A little bit bigger breaths than usual,
Is a little ritual to remind you,
To remind us to be here to the best of our ability to put aside the thoughts and concerns that we have in favor of being here with our lived experience,
With the immediacy.
And in mindfulness meditation,
We put tremendous value in our present moment experience,
Which I think of as the same way as our lived experience,
The experience that we live in and with and through.
This moment,
These moments we're having now,
Will never happen again.
And then letting the breath be normal.
And for this period of meditation,
I'd like to offer you three different aspects of mindfulness that you can do.
And you might start by doing it with the breath.
And the first is to acknowledge,
To have a clear acknowledgement.
This is an in-breath.
This is an out-breath.
This is a person breathing.
The second is to feel,
To connect to the felt sense.
So to feel the experience of breathing,
Not so much watching it,
Not so much thinking about it from a distance,
But connecting to how your body experiences breathing itself.
So the first is to acknowledge.
The second is to feel.
And the third aspect of the practice is to soften,
To soften around what you're acknowledged,
What you're feeling,
To soften the awareness that is in your body.
To soften around what you're acknowledged,
What you're feeling,
To soften the awareness that is aware.
And the art is to maintain a continuous stream of being mindful like this,
So that the habit of wandering off into thoughts and concerns doesn't sweep us away.
So as you sit here today,
You might experiment with these three steps or three aspects of mindfulness.
To acknowledge whatever is happening,
To acknowledge it clearly,
And then to feel it,
To sense it,
To allow yourself to connect to the felt sense of it,
Whatever it is.
And then the third is to soften with it,
Around it.
Acknowledge,
Feel,
Soften.
So as you sit here today,
You might experiment with these three steps or three aspects of mindfulness.
So as you sit here today,
You might experiment with these three steps or three aspects of mindfulness.
So as you sit here today,
You might experiment with these three steps or three aspects of mindfulness.
So as you sit here today,
You might experiment with these three steps or three aspects of mindfulness.
So as you sit here today,
You might experiment with these three steps or three aspects of mindfulness.
So as you sit here today,
You might experiment with these three steps or three aspects of mindfulness.
