Mindfulness Of Breath And Body

In this meditation we practice mindfulness of breath and body, cultivating a kind, accepting, and non-judging awareness of all that is arising in body, heart, and mind. When we find ourselves caught up in thought, we kindly and gently bring our attention back to the breath and body. We also open to challenging emotions and mind states, learning to 'always trust in the difficult' (Rilke) as a path to freedom of the heart.

Transcript

If you'd like to,

You can let your eyes close,

Let your attention come inward.

And you might consciously drop out of the thinking mode,

The planning,

Reflecting,

Remembering mode,

And just come into the body.

Drop your attention down into the body.

Taking your seat,

Maybe inviting the shoulders to relax,

Letting the hands settle on your lap or on your knees,

Or your thighs,

Wherever they're comfortable.

Just feel your body in contact with the surface beneath you.

Maybe the contact of your skin with the air around you,

Maybe warm or cool.

Contact of one part of your body with another,

The hands with the lap or the knees,

Or with each other.

Just feeling the body from the inside.

Letting yourself arrive,

Putting aside thoughts of the future or the past.

You can always come back to those later.

And if they do come up,

You can just choose to let them go and be present with whatever's here right now.

The pressure,

The warmth,

Tingling,

Pulsing,

Coolness,

Hardness.

You might let your breathing help you to settle into being here.

It can be helpful to take a few longer,

Deeper breaths.

Nice,

Deep,

Full in-breath,

Filling the chest,

Filling the lungs,

A brief pause,

And then releasing,

Letting go on the out-breath.

Breathing in,

Calming the body.

Breathing out,

Calming the mind.

The Buddha's instructions on mindfulness of breathing,

Which are the first of a number of practices in the foundations of mindfulness,

He says,

Breathing in,

Know that you're breathing in.

Breathing out,

Know that you're breathing out.

Just this awareness of breathing.

He says,

Breathing in,

Being aware of the entire body,

And breathing out,

Being aware of the whole body.

Breathing in,

Calming the body.

Calming the body.

Breathing out,

Calming the body.

Letting your breathing help you settle into being here.

And whenever you're ready,

Letting the breath settle into its natural rhythm.

It's breathing in,

Breathing out.

And the invitation to meet whatever is present with kindness and with acceptance.

If anything feels difficult or challenging right now,

Things that are going on in your life,

Or just some agitation in this moment,

You might find it helpful to put your hand on your heart,

Maybe another hand,

The other hand on the belly.

Just letting this gesture of kindness and care help you to hold whatever is present right now.

Hold yourself with kindness.

And you might find it helpful to just let your attention rest on the breath,

The sensations of breathing in and breathing out.

The breath can be a very helpful home base for us.

It's where we rest our attention.

And there can be a lot going on around the breath.

Thoughts come up,

Emotions,

Sensations.

But we can ground ourselves in just this awareness of the breath,

The body breathing.

And when we get pulled into stories,

Narratives,

Plans,

Memories,

Once we recognize and notice that we've gone off,

We can just gently and kindly come back to the breath,

Come back to the body.

If you need a little more support,

You could just note in for the in-breath and out for the out-breath.

Just to give your mind something else to just focus on,

Counter the tendency of the mind to just drift in as the breath enters the nostrils and out as release the breath through the mouth or the nose.

Or if you're aware of your breath at the torso,

At the belly,

Or the chest,

You could just note rise as the belly expands,

The chest expands,

And then fall as the breath is released.

Just if it's helpful.

When you notice the mind has gone off,

You know,

You find yourself thinking about the future or the past,

Daydreams,

Plans,

Memories.

You can just pause.

No problem that the mind has gone off.

Just choosing to redirect your attention back to the body in the breath.

You're doing that gently and kindly,

Coming back.

This is very much part of the meditation,

Not a problem,

Not a failing or an aberration.

Just the mind will go off and just when we notice,

We come back.

And when we do that,

We strengthen this capacity.

We build the muscle of awareness,

Of attention.

If you find yourself experiencing anything difficult,

Painful,

Or challenging,

And maybe there's a strong emotion present,

Maybe worry or fear or grief or sadness or anger,

When you become aware of that,

Let your attention go to that place of difficulty.

Maybe some thoughts of,

Say,

Sadness.

See if rather than getting into the story of why you might be sad,

Allow yourself to open to the feelings.

Where do you feel that in your body?

Allow yourself to feel maybe around the heart or around the eyes.

Letting yourself open to what's present with kindness,

With care,

With acceptance.

Making space for whatever is here.

Experiencing the sensations in the body,

Feelings.

Opening to what's present.

As Rilke,

The poet says,

Always trust in the difficult.

He says if we can remember the principle to always trust in the difficult,

Then what now appears to us as the most alien will become our most intimate and trusted experience.

There's a wisdom in opening fully to and wholeheartedly to what we're experiencing,

What we're feeling.

If there's fear,

Can we open to how that is expressing itself in us?

The tightness,

The tension,

For going into a fight or flight,

Just allow ourselves to feel what's present.

Let it come,

Let it go.

When the sensations,

Emotions,

Feelings lessen or pass,

We can then come back to the body,

Come back to the breath,

Come back to our anchor.

In-breath and out-breath.

I'll finish off the meditation with a little bit longer quote from,

This is one of Rilke's letters to a young poet,

Responding to a young poet.

Responding to a young poet,

Talking here about trusting in the difficult.

We have no reason to harbor any mistrust against our world,

For it is not against us.

If it has terrors,

They are our terrors.

If it has abysses,

These abysses belong to us.

If there are dangers,

We must try to love them.

And if we can remember the principle which tells us we must always trust in the difficult,

In the difficult,

Then what now appears to us as the most alien will become our most intimate and trusted experience.

How could we forget those ancient myths that stand at the beginning of all races,

The myths about dragons that at the last moment are transformed into princesses,

Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act just once with beauty and courage.

Perhaps everything that frightens us is in its deepest essence something helpless that wants our love.

Perhaps everything that frightens us is in its deepest essence something helpless that wants our love.

Reviews

One of the most wonderful guided meditations I have come across during 50 years of meditation. It gets to the core simplicity of what meditation can be at its best. Hugh Byrne is exceptionally good at bringing you to the here and now and to the core of existance.

Nice to let go and be kind to my mind💙

Lovely and the Rilke quotes are so helpful!

This was helpful in bringing me back to the present over and over.

Thank you Hugh….as always.

Hugh Byrne is a compassionate and brilliant teacher. I recommend him to as many people as possible!

❤️🙏🕊️

Just wonderful. Beautifully paced and pitched, and such evocative Rilke to conclude with 🥰thank you so much.

Soothing, grounding a reminder to return to my breath and body as so often I distract and run away. Love the thought that staying with the difficult will eventually turn out to be rewarding. Thank you 🙏

Thank you dear heart 💕

Great meditation, very relaxing.

I loved this meditation 🧘🏿‍♀️. Thank you. 🙏🏾

Loved the silence and the quotes, thank you.

Great !

Will revisit

A deeply calming and balanced meditation and the Rilke reflection was really supportive. Thank you Hugh 🙏

Wow. Thank you for that, and for the Rilke. I feel a bit more courageous now.