I invite you to practice with the eyes closed if that is comfortable for you.
Taking a little bit of time just to sit.
To feel the body on the chair.
To arrive.
Taking a deeper breath if you wish.
Noticing how you are.
Gathering all of your attention by noticing the whole body.
What is it like to sit or to lie?
This felt sense of being in the world.
We are not waiting for attention to come.
We are already here.
We are already aware.
Resting the mind.
Resting the body.
Not trying to make any sense of experience in any intellectual way.
Just a sense of sensations throughout the body.
Sensing into the body.
Perhaps tingling.
Perhaps a sense of the entire organ of the skin covering the body.
How the skin feels.
You might notice some coolness in parts.
Or warmth.
Or clothing touching the body.
If the mind has wandered away.
That's okay.
Returning to the focus of the body.
Without rushing there.
Acknowledging the mind wandering is not a problem at all.
It is part of this process.
It's a moment of clarity and mindfulness to notice that.
To be aware when you are lost in thought.
With a breath in and an exhalation.
Bring the attention all the way down to the feet.
Noticing the contact with the floor.
The soles.
The instep.
Simply narrowing your focus.
Just like a spotlight of awareness on the sensations of clothing touching the feet.
Perhaps your socks.
It's like a placing of the mind inside the feet.
And how you will know that your attention is really there is by the changing flow and sensations.
And not simply an automatic replay of experience.
We tend to think we know what is there already.
But here we're applying real curiosity.
A real beginner's mind.
Not expecting.
And noticing judgement of what we do find.
Just the ebb and the flow.
Patterns of movement.
Perhaps there's no sensations at all.
Including that as part of experience.
And taking the attention now.
All the way.
Up the legs to the seat.
And all of the sensations associated with lying and sitting.
Weightiness.
A gravity.
A pressure.
A squashiness.
Just sensation.
With a breath.
Lighting the spotlight of this attention.
All the way up the back of the shoulders.
And exhaling letting the breath flow down the arms.
To the hands.
The palms of the hands.
And the fingers.
Sometimes a pulsing.
A vibration.
A tingling.
The very tips of the fingers.
The nails.
Back of the hands.
The wrists.
Hands resting lightly.
Attention resting lightly.
Moment to moment.
Awareness.
And if it feels okay.
Letting the attention go of the hands.
To let the attention rest on the breath.
The breath simply coming and going.
Within this larger framework of the physical body.
No change here.
Just noticing.
Those movements associated with breathing.
Breathing is just happening.
And for the last part.
You can allow the attention to rest with whatever anchor you wish.
The feet.
The seat.
The hands.
Perhaps the breath.
Each time the mind wanders.
Returning to your intended focus in a kindly way with yourself.
When you're ready.
Reopening the eyes.
Taking a yawn or a stretch.
