Finding a balance between comfort and alertness.
Continuing to shift as you settle in.
Finding a spot that's comfortable for the hands.
Bringing the mind to move through the body.
Noticing if there's holding and bringing some softness so the shoulders relax,
The belly softens.
You can even kind of shimmy in your seat.
That sense of settling down,
Shifting into stillness.
Taking some fuller breaths to begin with.
Nice deep inhalation into the soft belly.
You might pause to hold the breath briefly.
Release fully.
Exhale maybe through an open mouth.
A couple of breaths like this just to further settle the body.
And as we settle the body it's an invitation for the mind to come to rest.
And eventually just breathing naturally the body knows how to breathe.
The body can take care of breath.
And let your attention come to rest now on the energetic sensations of the breath and the body.
As you breathe in noticing a uplift,
A rising energy,
The chest lifting and expanding.
On the exhalations that sense of softening,
Relaxing,
Down.
Feeling the aliveness throughout the body.
Tingling and pressure.
Aware of temperature.
Aware of the tactile sensations.
The air touching skin or the fabric of your clothes touching skin.
A gentle and open awareness of the whole body breathing that extends out from the edges of the body into the space around the body.
This beautiful definition of energy or effort from a buddhist point of view.
A mind that delights in virtue.
A mind that delights in goodness,
Wholeness.
We could bring that to bear here in our meditation by delighting in the basic fact of our aliveness.
These simple sensations that are known.
The gentle movement of the breath.
The aliveness throughout the body.
The tactile sensations and sounds.
A gentle effort knowing the aliveness of the body in a way that you could maintain your attention like this all day.
This is it.
This breath.
This moment.
Enjoyed in its simplicity.
Simple release of the exhalation.
That settling.
Letting go.
You know each exhalation an opportunity to let go completely of the past.
Of confusion.
Let go of greed.
Let go of ill will.
Resting in the breath in the body.
Just enough effort to know sensations.
The five traditional senses of sight and sound,
Taste,
Touch,
Smell.
All of these are known.
That sixth sense.
The mental realm.
So this is thought and feeling.
They're not coming as a result of a sense door but it's just in the mind.
Observing with that same gentle effort.
So a thought arises and we notice it the way we would notice the touch of the air on the skin.
This is thought arising.
We might notice the energy it brings with it or the impression.
The vedana,
The feeling tone.
It's pleasant or unpleasant.
Neutral.
And then it's gone.
Replaced by another thought or movement of mind.
Just enough effort to touch to know thought without becoming involved in it.
Allowing it to dissipate naturally.
But effort.
Bringing us to touch.
Experience lightly.
When the experience is pleasant,
We can enjoy.
Allow the delight of a generous mind.
Loving mind.
Patience.
Pleasant sensation in the body.
We touch it.
We enjoy.
But without holding on.
Without it becoming clinging.
Free to move through.
When we experience what is unpleasant,
Painful sensation or thought.
Again enough effort to touch to know.
So we're not holding tightly to it.
Neither are we involved with pushing it away.
We meet the unpleasant.
Let it pass through us.
Perfection of effort is mixed with wisdom.
So fully realized effort or energy is without a self.
Without a subject.
I or me.
Simple contact of consciousness with objects of consciousness.
Steady stream of unfolding causes and conditions.
