This is a meditation to build your ability to observe things in your life without judgment.
Before we begin this meditation,
I'd like you to take a moment to choose a piece of food in your home that you have that can fit comfortably in the palm of your hand.
Anything like a grape,
A raisin,
Or an almond.
Once you have this item,
Then come back and continue with the meditation.
So the idea is that putting your attention to something or someone allows you to experience it without any judgment or any ego-based preconceived notion of what that person or thing should be in your mind.
This pointed attention allows you to just observe life with your consciousness rather than your mind or your intellect.
Practicing the art of observation or giving attention to something over time creates a sense of wholeness between you and your consciousness and everything that surrounds you.
You feel one with everything in the universe.
In time you'll feel as though there's no boundaries at all between you and the trees and the clouds,
Your neighbor.
And it all starts with this simple meditation,
This practice.
I experienced this quite a while ago when I heard a recording done by Thich Nhat Hanh and he was using an orange as the example.
It had a big impact on me then and it continues to do today.
So first let's get comfortable sitting either in a chair with your feet firmly on the ground and your back straight and your hands rested on your legs with your palms up with your item of food in your right hand and your right palm or sitting down on the floor with your legs crossed either on your yoga mat or a meditation stool or pillow.
Just making sure that you're completely relaxed.
I'd like you to put your left hand on your abdomen and breathe in deeply through your stomach,
Expanding your abdomen for four breaths in and then out your mouth for eight.
Then in through your nose,
Four breaths,
Expanding your belly and then out through your mouth,
Pushing the air out of your abdomen and your lungs.
Then in and out.
Breathing while expanding your abdomen is a form of diaphonetic breath,
Practicing this on a consistent basis will allow you to fall into relaxed states rather quickly.
Then breathing in through your nose and then out through your mouth,
Expanding and contracting your abdomen,
Count of four breaths in and at least eight breaths out.
As you do this,
Start to imagine from the top of your head and your scalp,
Feel it tingle,
Feel it start to relax.
This wave of relaxation coming down your scalp and over your forehead,
Relaxing your eyebrows and your eyes heavy down over your ears and your nose and your cheeks.
This wave of relaxation continuing to breathe four in,
Eight out.
As this wave comes down over your jaw,
Your tongue relaxes in your mouth and rests down the back of your neck into your shoulders and as your shoulders expand away from your ears,
Relaxing down and the wave of relaxation comes down your neck down through your shoulders,
Down your arms and your upper back and your chest,
Continuing to come down over your ribs and your middle and lower back,
Out your hands and down through your pelvis and over your hips,
Down through your legs to your knees and below your knees down into your ankles,
Your heel,
The arch of your feet,
Breathing in and out,
Out your toes and your body is in complete rest and ease and peace and harmony with everything around you,
A total feeling of calm and ease and peace and harmony.
Calm,
Ease,
Peace and harmony.
Now what I'd like you to do is feel your item of food in the palm of your right hand,
Resting.
Feel the weight of it and slowly take your left hand and with your thumb and forefinger,
Pick up the item and start to roll it around between your fingers and your thumb,
Feeling its texture,
Its pliability,
Its form in your fingers.
Just slowly rolling it around,
Focusing on what it feels like in between your fingers and your thumb and then slowly bring the item up to your left ear and as you move it around between your forefinger and thumb,
Listen to the sound the item makes in between your fingers.
What is that sound?
Is it squishy?
Is it hard?
Is it rigid?
What sounds do you hear as you hold this item next to your ear?
Now slowly bring it over underneath your nose and smell it as you roll it around between your forefinger and thumb and what does it smell like and what does that smell remind you of?
Does it take you back to when you were young?
Does it take you back to a forest or the ocean or a mountain or a time in your life?
What does it smell like?
And what does that smell mean to you?
Engulf yourself in the scent of your item.
Now finally and only if you want to,
You put the item in your mouth and taste it.
Taste it.
Taste how it sits in your tongue before you bite it.
What it feels like in your mouth.
What's that initial taste,
That initial sensation in your tongue and your taste buds?
What does the taste remind you of?
Where does it bring you back to?
How do you relate to the taste of your item in your mouth as you slowly bite into it and feel the intenseness of that taste and what it means to you and where it takes you?
Think about all these experiences you just experienced with your item and how the pointed attention to your item allowed you to fully engulf and experience what the item is,
Not what you felt it should be or felt it should feel like or your preconceived idea of what it would taste like or smell like.
Allow yourself to become engulfed in the process that you just went through with your item.
This item represents every event,
Person,
Experience,
Activity and thought in your world.
Whether it's a raisin or it's your loved one or the look in your child's eyes or a beautiful huge evergreen tree as it sways in the wind or the smell of the top of a mountain covered with snow or an ocean breeze or the feeling of sand between your toes or the feeling of loneliness and despair,
Pain,
Love.
Paying attention to all of these without having any preconceived idea or notion of what you should be experiencing is the goal of this exercise in training yourself to experience life for what it is,
Not for the stories that we add to it,
Our ideas,
Our ego,
Our history.
Just living in the moment,
Experiencing life without judgment,
Without any idea what you may have in your mind about anything in your life.
I'd like you to slowly open your eyes and take a deep breath.
Namaste.
