Welcome to your meditation practice.
We'll begin by allowing the sound of the singing bowl to help us to find our seat and settle into stillness.
Bell travel sounds We'll be sitting together for 20 minutes today,
So please take the time to establish yourself in a good meditation posture,
Sitting in a way that feels supported but also upright and spacious.
Sit well as you have been discovering what that means for you and how to best be in your body in a way that is in support of this mindfulness awareness practice of meditation.
In our practice today we're going to be working with the qualities of precision and gentleness and letting go.
So find that here first in your body in the way that you take your seat.
Applying precision as you attend to the little details of your posture.
Long spine,
Open heart,
Relaxed belly,
Soft spacious gaze.
Within that precision,
Let there be a lot of warmth and gentleness,
A sense of really relaxing within this upright posture.
And then finally a sense of letting go,
Of letting go of the need to do it right.
Letting go of the need for your body to be any different than it is right now.
Letting yourself be in this body as it is right now.
And as we sit together,
If any discomfort arises in your physical body,
For today I'll invite you to see if you can just let it be without needing to move or change your posture or fix it,
But just letting it be.
Letting it be a part of your experience.
Recognizing that physical discomfort in these human bodies is often part of the fabric of our experience and it's okay.
And then within your body,
Feel for your breath.
Bring your attention wholeheartedly and single pointedly to the feeling of breath in your body.
Remembering that we're not attending to the breath of the exclusion of everything else.
Everything else is included,
But we bring the breath to the forefront of our attention and let the breath for these few precious moments of our day be the most important thing.
And apply these qualities of precision and gentleness and letting go to how you relate with your breath.
So there's precision in the sense that you're right there feeling the breath in your body,
Maybe in one particular place where you can connect with the breath most easily.
There's a sense of placing your attention right there.
There's also this quality of gentleness that just allows the breath to come and go without needing to control it or change it.
And the quality of letting go is not something that we do,
It's just something that happens when we apply precision and gentleness and the breath all by itself can teach us a lot about letting go because every out breath is a letting go.
Not that the person doesn't notice the Pierce connection,
But the person produces it a And now as you sit here,
Allowing your body to rest in the stillness and your attention to rest with breathing,
You'll become aware of the movement of your mind and the appearance of thoughts and the experience of emotion.
And we can apply these qualities of precision and gentleness and letting go with how we relate with our experience of mind as well.
So there's a quality of precision every time we notice a thought,
A feeling.
Every time we see clearly what's arising in our mind.
There's a quality of precision.
It's the difference between being lost in thought and being aware of thinking.
The quality of gentleness reminds us that everything that arises in our minds is completely okay.
There's space here for everything.
And there's an attitude that we take of allowing,
Allowing our mind to be as it is,
Allowing our thoughts and our feelings to be as they are.
And then each time we notice and allow,
We relax the struggle and we make the gesture of letting go.
And by letting go,
I simply mean letting be.
When we let ourselves be,
We relax the struggle,
It makes it easier to return,
To come back to the feeling of being here with this breath in this moment,
Making ourselves available for whatever is going to arise next.
So I have sufficient energy to let myself be very attached to consciousness and love When your attention wanders,
Ask yourself,
What am I aware of now?
Applying the techniques that you've learned,
Working with posture and gaze and breath.
For these next few minutes sitting together here in stillness and silence,
Be your own best meditation instructor.
Applying the qualities of precision and gentleness and letting go.
In addition to whatever subtleties of the technique that you've learned that have been helpful to you.
And when in doubt,
If there's ever a moment in your practice or in your life when you don't know what to do,
Just simply come back to the beautiful simplicity of the feeling of breathing and being right here,
Right now.
And now let go.
Let go completely of any particular technique that you're working with.
Let go even of the sense that you're meditating and just be here.
Feel the totality of your experience all together here somehow.
Your body,
Your breath,
Your mind,
Your heart,
The life that is unfolding within you,
The life that is unfolding around you.
And see if just for this moment you can let everything be exactly as it is.
Everything that arises is in support of your practice,
Of your path,
Of your awakening.
As we close our meditation,
I'm going to invite you to bring both of your hands up to rest over the space of your heart.
One palm resting atop the other.
Letting your eyes close and your breath deep in and just letting this gesture be one of recognition and of acceptance.
And let it be to a deep honoring of the presence that is here in you and the practice that you've done today.
And then let your hands come together in a gesture of prayer in front of your heart.
And just let yourself make a silent offering or dedication of your practice with an acknowledgement of the benefit that the practice has brought to you and then a desire to extend that benefit to the world around you.
May all beings be well.
May all beings be happy.
Peace,
Peace,
Peace.
Bell Thank you for your practice and for your presence.
May you be well.
May you be happy.
May you find peace.
