Welcome to this meditation on subtle whole body breathing with Jonathan Faust.
You may notice in this meditation,
As you spread awareness of the breath through specific parts and then the whole body,
You may experience a more unified field of awareness,
A sense of inner balance and deepening in body presence.
To begin,
Take a few moments to let your body make any micro-adjustments or to shift,
Adjust in any way that feels good for you as you prepare.
As you're ready,
Letting yourself settle into stillness.
And for the length of this meditation,
You will be letting your breath be long and smooth and easeful.
The idea here is to let the breath be a source of pleasure,
So you're lengthening the breath just to the point of where it feels pleasurable.
Take a few moments now and see if you can find this place inside where the breath lengthened has a quality of pleasure to it.
And with the breath,
You'll be exploring an inner sense of expansion on the inhalation and on the exhalation,
A sense of melting,
Of softening,
Of releasing on the exhalation.
Take a few moments to sense if you can establish your awareness of the breath long and pleasurable and a sense of expansion on the inhale and a sense of melting,
Softening,
Releasing on the exhale.
We'll take some time now to explore bringing awareness to specific parts of the body.
And with this practice of lengthening breath,
Expansion,
And softening,
Bring your attention now to the inside of your head.
And notice long,
Pleasurable in-breath,
A sense of expansion,
Softening on the out-breath.
As I mentioned the body part now,
Each body part expands with the in-breath and softens and relaxes with the out-breath.
And you might sense the breath as pleasurable and bathing each part of the body.
Sensing now into the throat,
The lungs and the heart,
The diaphragm and the ribcage,
The belly and the lower abdomen,
The lower back and the buttocks,
The pelvis,
And sensing the length of the arms,
The palms of the hands,
Sensing the length of the legs,
The volume of the feet.
And following your sense of intuition now,
You might visit any particular parts of the body,
Or you might rest in whole body awareness,
A pleasurable long in-breath filling the exhalation emptying and spreading a sense of subtle aliveness.
Is it possible to let the breath be a source of pleasure?
Expansion on the inhalation,
A sense of melting,
Softening,
Releasing on the exhalation.
And you might inquire if there are any parts inside that are calling for some attention and investigation.
You may find some parts are very sensitive,
Such as the inside of the mouth,
The palms and fingers and thumbs,
Soles of the feet.
Other parts may feel a little more dense.
Let yourself follow your intuition now,
Either bringing attention to specific parts,
Or opening your awareness to the whole body as you breathe.
And as you refresh your sense of this breath,
Long and pleasurable,
Is it possible now to relax and soften even more,
To simultaneously sharpen your attention to this awareness of the subtlety of sensation,
To the aliveness inside,
Either scanning or bringing awareness to specific parts,
Or if you feel drawn,
Resting back into whole body awareness,
Deeply relaxed,
At the same time alert.
In these remaining minutes,
You might inquire,
Is there anything right now in this field of sensation,
In this field of awareness that could relax or soften or let go right now?
You might,
If you wish,
To gently let go of controlling the breath.
Is it possible to relax even deeper into this quality of presence right now,
Allowing the body to breathe by itself,
The body permeated and suffused with a sense of ease?
And take this time to deeply relax and feel and allow.
Notice and feel the quality of presence right now,
However that may manifest for you.
You might gently now lengthen the breath just a bit,
Let your awareness expand to include the sounds around you,
The space around you,
And very,
Very gently,
In your own time,
Begin your transition.
