Welcome to the mindful practice of sitting meditation.
Taking your seat on a chair or the floor,
On a cushion or a bench.
Gently closing over your eyes or gazing softly at the floor.
Adopting a comfortable posture,
Upright and dignified and relaxed.
Your lower body grounded on the chair or floor.
Your hands resting gently in your lap or on your thighs.
Your back rising up from your pelvis,
Straight and strong but not rigid.
Settling your shoulders into a relaxed position as best you can.
Tucking your chin in slightly so that your neck extends a little at the back and your head sits comfortably centered.
Allowing your face and chest and belly to be soft if possible.
If that is not possible at the moment that is okay too.
Settling in now to how you actually are as you come to sit.
Rather than how you may like to be.
It is okay.
By setting time aside to sit quietly with yourself you are stepping out of the usual way of life.
Being busy and constantly doing.
You are cultivating a different way of being with yourself.
With whatever arises in the mind and acknowledging it in a friendly way.
As best you can letting go of judging and striving for things to be other than they are.
With this attitude of allowing and simply acknowledging in time the mind can relax and become more steady.
In time you can develop more of a capacity to be still.
A quiet place where you can feel safe and more easily connect with your intuitive wisdom.
And bringing your attention now to the body.
Understanding the points of contact between the body and the chair or floor.
And bringing mindful awareness to those parts of the body where we tend to accumulate tension.
And allowing a letting go if possible.
And the eyes.
The lips and jaw.
Neck and throat.
The belly is tight inviting it to release the grip of any emotion it may be holding.
Now bringing your awareness to the breath flowing in and out of the body.
Noticing where in the body you can feel the breath most strongly.
Maybe at the nostrils or chest or belly.
And bringing your awareness to rest in that area.
Helping your awareness down into the body breathing.
Noticing the physical sensations.
And it may help to mentally say the words breathing in and breathing out.
In out.
This is an in breath and this is an out breath.
And soon you will notice that your mind has drifted off from the present into the past or the future.
Into figuring things out.
Memories or worries.
This is perfectly normal.
It is what minds do and it will happen many times during the meditation.
Gently notice where the mind has gone.
And staying there for a moment with a friendly attitude.
Or returning to the breath.
It can be helpful just to mentally use the label thinking.
And then returning to the breath patiently over and over again.
Following the natural rhythm of your breathing without trying to change it in any way.
Just observing.
Being with the beginning of the breath and noticing how it expands in the body before it begins to turn and you start to breathe out.
The entire body breathing.
Mentally scanning your body from the head to the toes.
Noticing the general temperature of the body.
Feel of the air on your skin.
Feel of your clothes.
The general sense of the body in this moment.
Being aware of your posture.
And now bringing your focus to sensations in the body.
You may notice that some particular sensations repeatedly draw your attention towards them.
It may be sensations of discomfort or pain or restlessness.
When this happens there are a number of possibilities for how to be with them.
You may simply move away from the intensity and return your focus to the breath.
Another is to stay with this sensation.
Bringing your mind up to the intensity and exploring.
Knowing if you can soften around it.
Letting go of wanting things to be different.
Being with what is there as best you can.
Letting go of the tension that is so often present when we experience something unpleasant.
Being with the difficult sensation or moving your attention back to breathing in the abdomen.
Whatever works best for you.
And now bringing the spotlight of your awareness to hearing.
Noticing sounds within the room or outside.
And maybe sounds from within the body.
Not striving to hear sound but receiving them as they arise and watching how sounds arise,
Develop and then disappear.
And noticing how the mind tends to judge and create stories about the sounds.
Being curious about how we label some sounds as pleasant and others as unpleasant.
Noticing the difference between thinking about sounds and directly experiencing sound.
Noticing silence.
The spaces between sounds.
Now letting sound fade into the background of your awareness.
And taking thoughts as your next focus of attention.
What thoughts are there?
Taking thoughts past like clouds in the spaciousness of the sky.
The body sitting here solid as a mountain.
Breath like the wind.
And the mind like the sky.
Notice how you can just observe the thoughts without needing to get drawn into their content.
And noticing that some thoughts may be harder to let go of and that is okay.
Some may carry strong emotion.
Maybe joy or fear.
Grief or boredom.
And if you can notice how each thought registers as a physical sensation in the body.
As best you can allowing these thoughts to be there and remember that you can always return to your breath in the body as a safe haven.
We are learning to become a container for all that arises in the mind including difficulties.
And now paying attention to what emotion or mood is present.
Maybe feeling peaceful or bored,
Happy or sad.
And gently being with and breathing with that emotion.
It is already there,
It's okay to feel it.
Seeing if you can name the emotion.
There is sadness here or irritation or fear or perhaps joy.
And softening around the emotion,
Not striving to change it in any way.
And noticing what happens when you sit in awareness with the emotion.
That intensify or settle and dissolve.
And now returning your attention to settle on the breath.
In breath and the out breath.
And now sitting here in the present and noticing whatever comes into your field.
Maybe a sound or a thought or a physical sensation.
Not searching but being present to whatever arises.
This is called choiceless awareness.
Aware of the space in which everything arises,
Develops and disappears.
Cherishing the emptiness of the legislature.
And knowing that the presence of the consciousness and space of the transmigration,
It's this you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you
