Okay,
So in this practice,
I'm going to invite you to come into a fairly formal posture,
And that's to ensure that you feel alert,
But relaxed.
And so like we did the very first posture meditation,
I'll guide you through simple steps of posture,
So you can feel the contact with the chair,
The cushion,
The floor underneath you,
The feet,
The legs,
Sit bones,
And just to the best of your ability right now,
Feeling a sense of balance of the weight on the feet or the hips or the legs.
And then feeling that slight tilt in your pelvis,
Slight tilt forward,
And then your spine can lift up out of that slight tilt,
And trace your attention up through your spine.
And as you get to your upper back and neck,
Having a feeling like there's a string just lengthening and lifting the top of your head,
And there's really a lengthening in the back of your neck.
The chin drops slightly,
But also kind of drops down and back so that your head is really balanced over your spine.
And finding the center point,
Your spine forward to back,
Side to side.
And with the hands,
You can have them crossed one over the other in your lap or on the knees.
And just taking some breaths here,
Feeling a sense of the posture and feeling for length of the spine and balance can give you a sense of an uplifted yet also relaxed quality.
So all the other muscles and bones can just soften and release down around the uplifted spine.
And then as you're feeling your posture,
Starting to become aware of the movement of breath.
So feeling the sensations of the inhale,
Sensations of the exhale.
And if there's any space between the exhale and the inhale,
Just feeling the whole body sitting,
Feeling the posture.
And feeling your breath wherever it's easy or spontaneous.
And we'll begin here,
Just feeling the three-part breathing,
Inhale,
Exhale,
Whole body.
When the mind wanders,
It's really helpful to,
Can be helpful when the mind wanders just to let your attention land back in a soft body.
So you notice that your mind wanders.
As soon as you wake up to that,
Just feeling your body and letting go or relaxing any contraction.
And then returning your attention to the inhale,
The exhale,
And whole body sitting.
And seeing if you can pay attention,
Really closely watching beginning,
Duration,
End of the inhale,
Beginning,
Duration,
And end of the exhale,
And the whole body sitting.
And we do need to put in some effort,
A relaxed effort of keeping our attention connected to the changing sensations of breath.
You can use soft mental note if that's helpful,
In and out,
Sitting.
And as the concentration deepens,
You can shift into the seven point of concentration,
Seven point breath.
So noticing the very beginning,
Duration,
Very end of the inhale,
And on the very beginning,
Duration,
The very moment of ending of the exhale,
Whole body sitting.
And now,
As you're paying attention to the breath and just keeping the attention so closely engaged,
Every little part of the breath,
Noticing,
Is there a sense of I,
Me,
Of someone who is directing the attention,
Someone who is feeling the breath,
And seeing if you can go find that self.
So looking around in your body,
Is there,
Can you find a permanent,
Unchanging you somewhere in the body?
Just looking until you have the experiential shift of unfindability,
Turning the attention towards itself and the mind,
Is there a permanent,
Independent,
Unchanging you?
See if you can find it.
And notice the experience of unfindability keeps slipping away as unfindable.
And when you have that experiential shift of unfindability,
Look into what remains.
Awareness and all of this content remains.
Look into the field of awareness that remains.
In one way,
Nothing changes.
And also,
It can feel completely different.
And then seeing if you can concentrate and attend to the breath from the awareness itself,
Rather than from the sense of self.
Awareness,
Being aware of itself,
Body breathing itself.
Anytime a sense of contraction back into me,
Breathing me,
Paying attention,
Me good or bad at this,
You can just go look for the me.
A permanent,
Independent,
Unchanging me.
When you have the experience of unfindability,
Look into the awareness that remains.
And letting the meditation continue from that field.
And now I'm going to invite you to open your eyes if they aren't already.
Bring your eyes up just to the horizon or right in front of you.
And becoming aware of the space.
And the sense of the space just pervading everything around you.
And then pouring your awareness into the space.
And the space into your awareness.
So it becomes one field of awareness space.
No inside or outside.
And I'm starting to notice that this awareness space is infinite.
Expands out in all directions.
If you become aware of boundaries or edges,
Just pour the awareness space over the edge,
Over the boundary.
In all directions.
Until you have a sense of this infinite,
This boundless awareness space.
And then as you're aware of this infinite boundless space,
You can notice that there's something timeless,
Unchanging about or within the field of awareness space.
And then holding that view.
Boundless,
Timeless awareness space.
And letting the contents of mind be experienced just as waves in that timeless,
Boundless space,
Awareness space.
All sounds,
All sights,
All thoughts,
This lively awareness itself.
Awareness showing itself to itself.
At any point it gets contracted,
Look again for a sense of self.
Doing the meditating.
And then let go of any effort in here.
Any doing,
Just letting the mind be.
Enjoying anything that feels relaxed,
Open.
And then whenever you're ready,
You can bring this practice to a close.
Take a few deeper breaths,
Stretch,
Whatever you need.
Let me just kindly reflect a bit on what happened,
How that was.
