Coming to your seat,
Find a posture that is both easeful and alert.
Pad your sitz bones,
Especially if you have lower back tension or the back has a more difficult time elongating.
General rule is to have our hips equal or higher than our knees.
That means if you have to sit up quite high,
That's okay.
That's good.
We allow our spine to elongate for the most oxygen to go to the brain and the stability to open the chest,
To relax the shoulders and soften the belly.
And we arrive.
Notice the sounds in your environment.
Notice the sounds,
Notice the silence.
Notice that there is a body.
Feel the body and its embodied presence here and now.
Notice what you have arrived with.
Maybe notice the general attitude.
See if you can commit to being here now,
Shedding all of the moments,
All of the events prior to coming here.
The sense of alertness,
Presence,
Kindness.
See if you can soften the heart to allow all of the things to come with kind attention.
As we remain open to all of the messages,
All of the sensations,
All of the chatter,
All that is us,
A deep welcoming for the full self.
All the excitement,
Anticipation,
Judgment,
All of our worry,
All of our sorrow,
All of the humor and the joy and the gratitude.
Invite everything here,
The full self.
Bringing attention to what is making contact with the floor or the cushion or the chair.
Feeling the ground beneath you.
Trying to open the field of sensation,
The awareness of the field of sensation throughout the body.
Drawing attention to the feet.
Maybe you notice tingling.
Maybe you notice the points of contact to the floor.
Maybe a numbness.
Moving up the legs.
Notice any circulation,
Vibrating,
Softness,
A tenseness.
Be aware of what is here now.
Making it simple.
Whatever you notice.
Moving up the body towards the belly.
Try to soften and relax there.
And see what is coming up as we notice belly.
Moving up towards the heart space,
The chest.
Noticing heart,
Noticing chest.
No need to reach out and try to find words.
Maybe in the immediate is something like vibrating,
Warmth.
And if you can't find the words,
Simply now this.
Into the arms.
Awareness of arms.
Maybe you notice their placement.
The bend in the elbows towards the hands.
Hands.
Maybe noticing the fabric,
The texture over the finger pads and the palms are resting.
Warmth.
Coolness.
Now this.
Drawing attention to the back.
Stability.
Tension.
Holding.
Warm.
Cool.
Now this,
Back.
Face.
Awareness of the face.
Now this.
Throughout this meditation,
If you find it grounding to keep scanning the body,
Do so as your anchor.
I'll remind you of this further on as we draw attention to the center of it all,
The breath.
Notice the body breathing itself.
Notice what may happen to the breath once we draw attention towards it.
See if you can take three full breaths from top to bottom,
Inhaling and exhaling.
The breath is attached down.
It's always with us.
Without any effort,
We are always breathing.
And as we sit with mindful attention,
We draw back to what's ever flowing,
The breath.
See if you can witness this breath without judgment or manipulation,
Just noticing.
Now I'm breathing in.
I'm breathing out.
Keep it simple.
Now I'm breathing in.
A kind attention.
Thich Nhat Hanh says,
Even drawing a half smile to our awareness,
To our kind attention,
To the body,
To the breath.
That seems helpful.
I encourage you.
A little half smile.
Now this,
This breath.
Now I'm breathing in.
Now I'm breathing out.
You may have started to notice that the mind has wandered away from the breath.
If it has not,
You've reached Samadhi,
It's okay,
It's all over.
Notice the mind wandering away from the breath and simply draw it back to center.
Now I'm breathing in.
Now I'm breathing out.
If the breath is seeming to be too difficult for you today as the anchor,
We circle back to the body and where we began.
Maybe that's the full body presence.
Simply feeling your entire self in the field of sensation.
Maybe that's the sound in the environment anchoring back with sound.
Maybe a body part is an anchor for you today.
Heart,
Heart.
Or simply now this.
See you all right now.
Maybe you start to label what is coming through in the mind.
Memory.
Fear.
Excitement.
Perceiving,
Seeing,
Labeling,
And drawing back towards your anchor.
Now this.
This breath.
And the same in the body as we started tingling.
Warmth.
Tightness.
Dryness.
Twitching.
Now this.
Now I'm breathing in.
Now I'm breathing out.
Keep it simple.
Notice the impermanence of it all.
A thought comes through or a succession of thoughts.
And just like clouds in the sky appear and disappear.
A sensation in the body.
Maybe some are longer lasting than others.
But the awareness keeps moving around.
Things keep appearing and disappearing.
Awareness is mapping,
Showing.
Now this.
Drawing back.
Now I'm breathing in.
Now I'm breathing out.
Constant vitality of breath,
Of being alive.
And for the last few minutes,
Try to deepen your awareness,
Deepen your attention.
Possibly labeling.
And drawing it back.
Reciting in your head.
Any words that are coming to mind coming through.
Or now this.
This breath.
Allow the information to come towards you.
You may not seek it out.
You may not seek it out.
Keep it simple.
Yeah.
Allow awareness to do the work.
Maybe simply observe and attention.
And keeping the eyes closed,
Coming back.
We place a hand or both hands on a part of the body that feels natural,
Nurturing,
Grounding.
And if that's just how the hands are right now,
Stay.
Maybe that's putting the hand over the heart or the belly.
Maybe the face,
The neck or the shoulders.
Releasing the hands back from the tops of the thighs.
We'll slowly open the eyes,
Slowly,
Slowly,
Allowing the saturation of the world to come in very gently.
