Taking your position.
Allowing the eyes to close down.
And then start by feeling the parts of your legs which are touching the mat.
And then widen your awareness to include your sitting bones,
Sitting on whatever they are sitting on.
And your hands resting on your legs.
And notice how the sensation of contact feels in these different places.
Is there a sense of heat,
Of pressure,
Of heaviness,
Coolness?
Using these sensations.
To start to slowly draw your mind out of your body and into your physical body.
If you notice that your mind is not moving,
Is being drawn away by a distraction,
See how gentle you can be in guiding your awareness back to these places of contact.
Keep using these places of contact to anchor your mind.
And then without fully losing the awareness of the heaviness of your body,
Creating the sensation of touch in these places,
Start to notice your breath.
Notice which parts of your body are being moved by the breath.
Feeling each inhalation and each exhalation.
And the breath is the only part of our autonomic nervous system,
Which is the functions within our body that work without us actively having to make them work.
Which we can have a little bit of guidance over.
So this autonomic nervous system includes our heart rate,
Our digestive system.
Many things which happen without our conscious influence.
But the breath is something we can gently regulate.
And thus it is kind of like a doorway into this autonomic nervous system.
This part of our nervous system which happens without our control.
So in this way we can use the breath to calm the body and therefore the mind.
And the breath is therefore one of the most invaluable tools we have,
Not just in our practice,
But in our daily life.
So we will practice now developing a calming breath.
And you can do this by allowing your breath to flow all the way down into your lower belly.
Where your waistband may be.
If you find it challenging to move your breath down here,
You can always slide your hands onto your lower belly.
And feel how the inhale moves the lower belly.
And then the inhale travels upwards from there,
Filling up the upper belly and the chest.
And exhaling all the air back out again.
So you feel the inhale pouring all the way down as though you're filling up that pelvic ball.
And then up into the chest and exhaling out again.
Now as your breath moves up,
You feel your lower belly fill,
Then your upper belly,
And then your side ribs,
So where your bra strap might be.
Continuing to breathe in this way,
Breath flows down into the lower belly.
Side ribs expand,
Chest fills up.
And on the exhale,
All the air flows out again.
The out-breath is smooth and relaxed,
Not forcing,
But making sure you reach the very end of the exhale.
And in this full and calming breath,
It can help to imagine as though you're filling up two balloons.
First one from the lower belly,
Filling up the whole belly,
And then one in the chest.
And then both balloons deflate again.
Taking three more of these deep,
Full,
Calming breaths,
Focusing on filling up the lower belly,
Upper belly,
And entire rib cage.
And then after your third breath,
Release any control over the breath and just allow your breath to return to a natural rhythm,
Uncontrolled,
And following your natural breath.
Okay.
And you may notice,
After having calmed the breath in this way,
That even without any control,
The breath takes on a more full,
Calm nature.
And there is nothing to do in order to achieve this calm breath now.
It is simply allowing the breath to come.
Noticing each inhale and each exhale.
Okay.
Okay.
And the other wonderful thing about the breath,
Beside it being such a useful doorway into the unconscious,
Is that the breath is always accessible.
So no matter how many times the mind becomes distracted,
No matter how long for,
You can always return your attention back to your breath.
Okay.
Okay.
And just slowly start to become aware of those points of touch between the body and the mat,
Your sitting bones,
Your hands.
Noticing any sounds,
Not going towards the sounds,
But letting them come to you.
And then in your own time,
You can finish off your meditation however you like,
And whenever you're ready,
Opening your eyes.
