Please make yourself comfortable now for meditation,
Sitting upright if possible,
Or making yourself comfortable in a recliner,
In a semi-reclined position,
Laying down if need be.
We can meditate in any position,
But the more upright the spine,
The more alert the mind will remain during our practice.
And closing the eyes,
Taking the first minute or so as a settling in period,
Where you're free to shift and adjust,
Making the hands and arms as comfortable as possible,
Adjusting the legs,
The head,
Relaxing the face.
You could try turning up the corners of the mouth into a relaxed smile,
Thinking to yourself,
Now I'm going to meditate,
Now I'm going to deeply relax and observe my mind unfolding.
You might take a deep breath or two,
Breathing deeply into the belly,
Fill the belly and chest,
Softly exhaling through an open mouth,
Making the exhalation a little bit longer than the inhalation,
Doing that another two or three times.
Working on the exhalations that you are settling and softening,
Making a transition eventually just to a natural breath,
Let the body breathe itself.
We're going to do a simple breathing meditation with a visualization that can help you to settle down,
Settle down the discursive mind,
The busy mind,
By placing it inside of a visualization.
I'm going to imagine a tube that is running the length of the body,
Just in front of the spine.
To begin with,
You could imagine the tube is clear plastic,
It is about the diameter of a ping pong ball,
And that there's a ball inside,
Again initially a little plastic ball because that's what we're used to in the material world,
We can visualize this quite easily.
But then shifting that image to making the tube luminous,
The tube made of light and the ball itself,
A little glowing ball of light,
And we're going to focus on the length of the tube between the navel and the throat.
Beginning with the ball of light,
About the level of the navel or just below the navel,
The ball is hovering in the tube,
And on the inhalations,
The body naturally breathes in.
Imagine the inhalation is moving the ball of light up the tube,
Up the length of the body,
Just in front of the spine to the level of the throat,
And as the exhalation begins,
You imagine the ball drifting all the way back down to the belly.
Inhaling that rising energy,
Ball of light floating up from belly to throat,
And exhaling it drifts back to the belly.
It may be difficult at first to uninvolve yourself in the process,
We want to control the breath.
Let's see if you can let that go,
Let the body do the breathing,
And you as the observer visualize that movement of the breath,
Up and down,
Just in front of the spinal column.
Let yourself customize this visualization,
So you may find if you imagine the tube and the ball as a little bigger in size,
That it might help for the mind to remain connected with the image.
Maybe reducing the size,
Making it a thinner tube and a smaller ball of light,
Seeing what it feels like to make it very small,
The size of a grain of rice,
Or make it very large,
Make it larger than the body itself.
We could play along this size spectrum,
Finding just the right size,
Where the practice feels comfortable and effortless.
And finally,
Avoiding the temptation to elaborate on the visualization,
To find or create meaning around it,
Simply using the visualization to steady and settle the attention in the breath,
Refining from time to time,
Replacing the mind in the ball of light if it's drifted,
Allowing yourself to settle more and more deeply into relaxation,
Without becoming dull or sleepy,
Body and mind relaxing,
Awareness itself brightening,
Continuing to sit for as long as you'd like.
