So we're beginning with a question really about how are we,
How am I.
Like you would ask to a friend that you meet,
How are you?
But we ask it to ourselves,
How are you today?
And instead of this just being a greeting,
A nice thing to say,
We mean it.
And we ask ourselves how are you today,
Body,
To begin with.
And we ask the body with kindness,
With an intention to listen to what the body has to say.
And we might find some tightness because often the mind is drawn first to something that is difficult to be with,
A pain or something dense,
Something that feels contracted.
And we let the mind go there and we notice,
Ah,
There's a noise over here that we didn't expect to find.
And so we notice,
Okay,
The mind is drawn to the noise,
But then we practice the discipline of meditation in bringing the mind back to the body.
Oh yeah,
There's the noise.
Ah,
The noise has stopped.
But where's the body?
Okay,
Listening again to the body.
Exactly as in a conversation when we might get a little distracted and we say,
I'm sorry,
I missed that.
What did you say?
Body,
What did you say?
What were you saying?
And what else does the body want to communicate?
And we might suggest to the body that it settles,
That it finds the back.
So we take the attention,
We move the light of our attention like a torchlight,
We move it to the back of the body,
Shine the light of attention on the back of the body and invite some softness there.
Some release of the muscles.
And we might notice that other parts of the body call for that light of attention and that invitation to rest.
Maybe the shoulders are crying out to rest.
Maybe the belly is asking for some softness.
The throat might feel tight and want to let go.
So we answer the calls of the body with yes,
Permission,
Permission to be soft,
Permission to let go,
Permission to relax.
Like we might say to a friend,
It's okay.
It's okay.
I'm here.
You can relax.
You're safe.
And in this way,
We befriend the body.
So let's sit for a moment or two just with this friendship of the body,
With the body.
Reminding the body it's okay to let go.
It's okay to relax.
And it's okay to feel what you're feeling as well.
And we might find that some settling happens,
Something arrives,
Some feeling of being more present,
Even some sense of stillness arising We are now really present in this conversation with the body.
We're really here for our And with this feeling of friendliness and togetherness,
Like something communal,
We might turn the attention outside,
Away from the inner experience to the outer experience.
And we might notice,
Ah,
The sound of the sea or the beautiful sky,
The plane passing overhead.
And there may come thoughts about that.
So I already said beautiful sky,
Not just sky.
So with anything that we notice,
There's usually some judgment.
So we can say sand and we might say something on top of that.
We notice a piece of rubbish.
We think it's dirty.
Or we notice a bird print and we think,
How nice.
So watching closely as the mind moves in the outside world to sound,
To vision,
And noticing also the tendency of the mind to place a judgment on it.
I like,
I don't like,
Or I don't really have a feeling about that.
So let's do that for a moment.
Moving the mind around this kind of open awareness,
Noticing how the mind moves and how the mind tends to judge.
How the mind tells stories.
And once we notice that the mind is telling stories,
Is it possible to apply again that discipline of meditation to pull back from the story and stay with the simple experience of hearing or seeing?
Is it possible?
Sometimes we have to start over.
Ah,
Body,
It's okay to be feeling what you're feeling.
Noticing again where the contraction is,
Inviting some softness.
Maybe we find the tightness in a different place this time.
Maybe it's behind the eyes or the tongue feels stiff.
And wherever we find that,
The invitation again to soften,
To be with.
And maybe for today this is enough.
This being with the body,
Making friends with the experience of how it is.
And giving ourselves permission to be as comfortable as it is possible to be in this bodily experience of life.
Yes Welcome to the
