Mindfulness of Breathing allows us to return home to our center. When we let go of distraction and settle into our natural breathing, the rhythm of the breath can be very healing. This meditation offers some preparatory instruction and a solid 3 minutes of silence to observe the rhythm of your breath.
Let's prepare for this meditation on mindfulness of breathing by coming to a seat or lying down and allow yourself to arrive coming to stillness becoming comfortable and balancing this sense of comfort with a sense of alertness so that you do not become sleepy or dull-minded allow this whole meditation to be a space in which to find balance between relaxing and being attentive to your moment-by-moment experience let's first tune in to our intention by turning into our intuitive side bring to mind something that would drive your whole practice for example an intention to commit to remaining here present for the whole practice even if we feel the impulse to pull away or it could be a greater aspiration such as being more relaxed being more joyful or being more courageous in life take a moment to sit with this not analyzing too much but allowing your heart to inspire you I offer a minute of silence now to connect with your intuition once you have it sit with it putting that aside now tune in to the body and mind awareness of the passing of sensations from moment to moment in time your awareness settles down allow thoughts of things you were doing today to pass set them aside for now if they're persistent and take a moment to relax even further as you notice areas of tightness tension or holding on to thoughts perhaps take a deep breath here with me and let it out relax from the soles of your feet through the legs through the torso the arms and the head allowing a quality of stillness in the body in the thought patterns in the mind allow yourself to be here if the mind wanders then bring it back and as we become more and more settled over time relaxing that inner voice from moment to moment a thought or sound or sensation may punctuate the underlying silence continue to let it go now let's take a moment to deepen our focus inward let's bring our attention to the region of the torso noticing any sound vibration or movement coming from this area notice how you know that you are breathing perhaps in the region of the torso you feel the movement of the belly the lifting of the ribs lifting of the chest the brushing of air in the nostrils notice if there's any pleasant or unpleasant feeling associated with noticing these sensations maintaining dispassionate awareness observing with non-judgmental awareness and with this flow of information from the body continue to recognize how you're breathing from moment to moment if it's in the belly noticing the lift of the belly and the dropping of the belly over time you may notice a pattern know when it flows in and when it flows out rhythmically know that there are spaces or rests as well like musical notation sense this feeling the rhythm of the breath now let's continue for three minutes in silence as we observe the breath and maintain our awareness upon this rhythmic quality continuing for another several rounds of breath and as we come back just observing the rhythm again here noticing if during the last several minutes if the attention waned or got caught up by a thought without any judgment just noticing maybe our tendencies here draw us away or we get bored or dull or somehow want to check out from this experience these are all just things to explore and to observe when we come back to our practice how do those things serve us and little by little as we continue to practice this way we begin to find that quietness that comes from observing the rhythm of the breath so perhaps take a moment now to notice what information or wisdom comes from sitting quietly with the breath like we did today taking note of that and holding it in your heart remembering that for yourself at this time we can begin to let go of this meditation if you'd like to take a deep breath breath in with me go ahead and let it out through the mouth this meditation has now ended thank you
