Rain practice I'm beginning by remembering our intention for this practice an intention to learn the skills of dealing with moments of difficulty and again then to the motivation I do this because and just filling in with your own phrase and as we focus on our breathing and become settled within our bodies with the rain practice we can bring to mind some kind of difficulty or discomfort and we can also maybe allow whatever arises to arise and just be there and knowing that by practicing this rain practice we have the skills to navigate and to be curious about this difficulty and so again just focusing on the breathing and gently moving to equalizing the breath using our counting or the phrases that we feel comfortable with just beginning to settle the mind and just for this moment when thoughts are arising gently focusing back on the breathing and equalizing and then moving our breathing to focus on the out breath so nothing too forced but with the idea of just a nice gentle long release of the out breath and a gentle in breath and noticing if the body relaxes or releases on that out breath and returning to a normal breathing pattern and just gently scanning through the body how is the body right now?
Any sensations of tension or relaxness within the body whatever is there is fine we are just noticing allowing those sensations a little space just to be there and perhaps moving the attention then to the contact of our bodies on the chair or the cushion on the ground and especially in this practice this idea that we are completely supported unconditionally by the chair or the cushion and we can imagine that the chair will never judge us or question us just there quietly supporting unconditionally a support that we can trust and we can now move our focus from the body and just gently allowing the awareness to move to the outer aspects of our body maybe sensations of our clothes around the body or even a sense of space around our bodies maybe even breathing in from this space and we can gently move from here to bringing the difficulty or discomfort that we may have to mind or just allowing whatever is there just to arise on its own and we can begin to recognize what we are experiencing a sense that we are turning towards this sense of discomfort or difficulty maybe even a sense of meeting it at the door and whatever it is whether it be an image or a sensation an emotion it may be helpful to name it or for some it may just be easier just to leave it where it is with a felt sensation without naming but whatever we do we are just acknowledging what we are experiencing and feeling right now not turning away we are actually turning towards with an attitude of gentleness and kindness towards this difficulty and then we can move to the second stage and moving towards allowing this difficulty just to be there is it possible to welcome it give it space can we let it in and maybe there may be a sense of resisting or keeping this difficulty at arm's length in this practice we just see if we can begin to really allow this difficulty to be here as it is it may be a little challenging it may be difficult to turn towards this discomfort and that's fine,
It's ok if that is the case we can just soften around the edge of the difficulty almost as if we are breathing into it and just allowing a little kindness and gentleness just finding a little space for this difficulty to rest and then we can move to the third stage of this practice and giving this difficulty some intimate attention so just becoming a little bit closer to it finding out about it and perhaps this idea of a beginner's mind we are looking at it for the first time and we can ask ourselves how is this difficulty manifesting in the body what kind of sensations make up this difficulty is the sensation in a particular part of the body or is the feeling more diffuse and we can just notice again sensations of tightness or contraction maybe some pain,
Fogginess in our thinking even perhaps a little heaviness within the body whatever it is we are just allowing it to show itself in the form of a sensation and then moving into the world I will repeat that sorry and then moving away from sensation into our feelings how is this difficulty showing itself emotionally is there one clear feeling or is there a constellation of feelings again just noticing whatever is there no judgement how am I feeling right now and again now we can move to noticing what kind of thoughts are around this difficulty are there any beliefs any messages we give ourselves,
Stories,
Images do the thoughts follow particular patterns or just go round and round maybe we can notice the temperament of our thinking in relation to this difficulty and just allowing the thoughts to be there and just noticing what kind of thinking we have not becoming too involved allowing the thoughts to be there maybe we can ask what kind of attitude or attitudes characterize the way we are relating to this activity maybe they underline the way we have been relating to this difficulty in our regular lives and now we can move into the last stage of the rain practice and we can slightly zoom out of the entire picture of what we have been focusing on or just slightly stepping back and maybe we become aware of the space around this difficulty is it possible to see that this is only one part of my experience at the moment is it possible that this is not all of who I am that I am more than this difficulty and this idea that perhaps that all that I have been investigating and getting to know can just be held in a wider space the wide open space of awareness not pushing it away we are not ignoring it giving it unconditional accepting space for it just to be there surrounded by space we may feel that this difficulty is permanent or is it just passing through does it seem solid or maybe it is changing and moving more than we actually noticed before and just allowing our mind to become vast like the sky and allowing our difficulty to be like a cloud moving across the sky and as we come towards the end of this practice taking time just to appreciate this practice of RAIN and to get a sense of how it can benefit us and ultimately those around us
