Beginning with attention to the breath.
Get your attention drained down from the mind and into your center.
And with each inhale,
You can sense energy coming from the ground into your lower belly.
And each exhale is a letting go.
So you're drawing that energy in from the ground,
Up through your feet,
Your lower legs,
Your upper legs.
You draw it in with the inhale.
And every exhale is just a letting go.
And you're relaxing any unnecessary tension in your body.
Relaxing any tension in the jaw,
The base of the tongue.
Just let it drain down the shoulders,
Your neck,
Even relaxing the muscles in your eyes,
In your face,
Letting all that tension that keeps our focus often in the mind,
Letting go of all that and allowing it to drain down.
So this kind of relaxation and attention on the breath,
You can think of as the first phase of meditation.
And when you sit,
It's usually a good place to start.
And it's a fine place to stay,
But eventually you want to invite yourself into the next phase.
And that is noticing what's happening beyond you.
So with your senses anchored in your body,
And that's something you can always return to or stay with.
Start to reach out with your senses.
You're just sensing what is happening.
And open receptivity,
As if you're trying to hear a very slight sound in the distance.
It's a deep listening and open receptiveness to whatever it is.
And that receptivity is in the body.
There's nothing to understand,
Just to sense,
Just to feel,
Just to receive and be with.
And you may feel a kind of presence of warmth and energy.
And you're just allowing it to be abiding with it.
And this is the second phase of meditation,
Open receptivity.
We could call it abiding with awareness.
And again,
It's fine to stay here.
And it's also fine to allow yourself to move into the third phase of meditation.
And that is letting go of the meditator.
So as you're abiding with awareness,
Notice that sense of you that is doing it.
Notice into that sense of you that's doing the meditating.
And ask yourself is the feeling of you as substantial as the feeling of the awareness?
Which actually feels realer to you?
And you just sense the answer to that question with curiosity.
And you can go back and forth,
Sense into the you that's meditating.
And you feel that.
Where is that in you?
What is that in you?
And then you sense the presence that's all around you.
And you feel that.
Which seems realer to you.
And you may notice that that presence that you're abiding with that is behind all things is also behind you.
And so just with each exhale you can just drop the sense of you.
And allow the presence to be the root of you.
It's not something you need to sustain.
Something you allow.
Something you let go to.
Relax your mind.
It will be there when you need it.
And just let go of your sense of you.
And you're not breathing.
You're being breathed.
And your heart is being beat.
And your thoughts come and go.
Because you're not thinking them.
They actually have very little to do with who you really are.
