Just notice that the body is breathing.
Inviting the body and the breath to settle into their own natural rhythm.
Letting everything be the way it is.
Just knowing the breath coming in and going out.
Inviting the calm movement of the breath to gently soothe you into a calm,
Safe,
Clear space like a mother lovingly rocking her child.
When the mind gets distracted,
Just acknowledge that and feel the breath either entering the body or returning to the world.
Allowing yourself to feel whatever sensations connected with the breathing body.
Letting everything be the way it is.
Right here,
Right now.
Just this one breath happening.
Letting everything be the way it is.
As the Sufi mystic Rumi wrote,
There is one way of breathing that is shameful and constricted.
Then there's another way,
A breath of love that takes you all the way to infinity.
Inviting the heart to open up to the inherent love of the breath.
Breathing in the gift of oxygen from the trees and the plants.
Breathing out your gift of carbon dioxide back to the trees and the flowers,
To the bees,
To the whole world.
Just being present like this with this timeless connectedness with all.
Letting everything be the way it is.
Just knowing the in-breath as it's coming in and the out-breath as it's going out.
Welcoming this ordinary experience of breath entering and breath returning.
Inviting the breath,
The breathing,
The body and the knowing.
To converge and unify.
Just letting it all be.
Breathing is important in the practice of meditation.
Because it is the faculty in us that is simultaneously voluntary and involuntary.
You can feel that you are breathing and equally you can feel that it is breathing you.
So it is a sort of a bridge between the voluntary world and involuntary world.
They are one.
Like Yoda the breath is.
Simple and unassuming it seems at first.
Simply underestimate it's depth and profundity one can.
I have done this practice for more than 20 years and for thousands of hours.
And the breath is still my teacher.
Sometimes a challenging one too.
But also still taking me to inner peace and joy.
Just this,
Knowing whether the breath is coming in or going out.
And knowing that knowing.
Is important.
Always learning.
You you