Welcome to day 8 of the 21 day meditation challenge.
Once again,
Find a comfortable seat and take a few breaths to lengthen up the spine,
Settle into your seat and make sure that you're balanced with the head over the shoulders and the shoulders over the hips.
So as mentioned,
We will be progressing to a slightly longer meditation today.
So ensure that you're comfortable and allow yourself to arrive.
So just a few breaths,
A few minutes to just let the mind settle.
If for whatever reason the mind is really busy or there's lots of thoughts,
Remember your option to write things down on a piece of paper,
Write compelling thoughts down,
To get them out of the mind so that you can just concentrate on meditating for the next 10 minutes.
You're welcome to pause and we'll begin.
Start with noticing whatever it is that you notice.
Sounds around you,
Clay of light perhaps behind the eyes,
Thoughts passing through the mind,
Physical sensations of the body and the breath.
So none of these things are specifically right or wrong.
We can choose to focus on the breath because that's simple.
It's something unambiguous and all of us generally can feel what the breath feels like.
But you can focus on anything,
Sound,
Other physical sensations in the body.
It's important to notice that in essence we are noticing our experience from moment to moment.
So focusing on a sound or focusing on the breath,
Something that's happening here and now in the present moment.
Noticing that you have a busy mind,
That lots of thoughts are happening.
Noticing that you're thinking however is different from thinking.
So we're not daydreaming,
We are placing our attention on the present moment experience.
Just notice that whatever shows up in your attention,
In your awareness,
Arises in and of itself and then also dissipates into the past.
We are not making our experience,
We are noticing it.
We are not making our experience,
We are noticing it.
There's no way to experience wrong or to experience incorrectly.
When you're listening to a sound,
Notice if you are subtly saying to yourself,
Am I listening to the sound correctly?
You wouldn't ask yourself,
Am I tasting this piece of food correctly?
The practice here is just to experience whatever is taking place from moment to moment.
However that shows up for you.
If the mind wants to get unnecessary attention,
Then you can just say,
Am I listening to the sound correctly?
Or am I listening to the sound correctly?
You can just say,
Am I listening to the sound correctly?
If the mind wants to get unnecessarily involved by commenting on what's taking place,
Just smile gently behind your eyes,
Thank your mind.
Notice that thought and notice that by recognizing the narrative,
It halts it.
It stops it and you can watch it dissipate the same as any other experience.
The narrative is not necessary,
The narrative is not the experience.
It's a story that we are telling ourselves about the experience and not the experience itself.
We are going to come back to direct experience.
Okay.
As a reminder,
Direct experience can be felt through physical sensations in the body,
Physical sensations of breathing,
Things that are showing up through your senses,
And even noticing that the mind is thinking,
Observing it like somebody else's mind,
Like any other natural phenomenon.
If you feel comfortable,
Centered,
You're welcome to continue for a few more minutes.
That is the allocated time for today.
Thank you for taking the time to practice.
I look forward to practicing again with you tomorrow.
