As we settle into our posture in this time together,
Let's bring awareness to our body.
I'm just feeling the presence of sitting,
What it's like to have your seat and your legs have contact in a chair and the feet have contact with the floor.
The hands rest on the thighs and the spine is upright,
But not uptight.
There's a sense of ease.
Let's take a full breath in.
Feel your lungs fill with oxygen and exhale slowly,
Release the breath.
Allowing your shoulders to relax away from the ears.
Do that again.
Breathe in fully.
And in this full breath,
You might feel a little tension at the top as you hold the breath.
And then exhale simultaneously,
Relaxing your body as the breath is allowed to leave.
And one more time,
Breathing in and breathing out.
The breath finds a natural rhythm.
With curiosity,
We come back to the breath to anchor the mind.
Eyes may be opened or closed throughout practice.
The eyes are open.
There's a gentle gaze straight ahead or three to four feet in front of you.
And the eyes just quietly rest,
Not seeking or trying to find anything in particular.
Allow your ears to reach open to sound.
See if you can notice the different sounds happening in this room and just touching in on them.
Fan,
People breathing,
My voice.
All sounds are welcome.
They're just really background.
They're okay.
If we hear someone in the hall,
That's okay.
Coughing is allowed.
Sneezing is okay.
Sounds are okay.
So bring your awareness to your feet and just feel your feet resting.
Right foot and left foot.
Feel the contact of socks or shoes on the foot.
See if you can feel that.
Are my feet cool or warm?
Is there vibration?
Any vibratory experience?
Are they itchy or quiet?
And with awareness on the feet,
We're gonna take a moment to have gratitude for our feet,
A sense of thank you for bringing me here today.
Thank you for all you do.
And then we travel up the legs and feeling the contact of the backs of the thighs on the chair,
Presence of sitting,
Sit bones connected and rooted down and bring some ease into your lower back.
See if you can breathe into that lower back as it is supporting you.
The spine supports you as you sit upright.
Your abdominal muscles support you as you sit upright.
Just like a little baby when they learn how to sit,
They sit perfectly upright,
Balancing their body,
Strengthening their muscles and feeling the shoulders.
See if you can soften across the tops of the shoulders,
Focusing your awareness there.
Am I holding tension here?
What happens if I just breathe and soften,
Soften with my mind,
Soften by paying attention,
Bringing awareness to the upper back.
And then we relax the jaw.
There's space between the top jaw and the bottom jaw.
The face has quietness to it.
The eyebrows are soft,
The eyes relaxed.
We're going to bring awareness to breath in the body,
Mindfulness of breath.
See if you can feel breathing in the abdomen without really changing anything.
Just supernatural,
Just breathing.
There's this gentle motion of expansion and contraction in the navel and the belly just as you breathe.
Now bring awareness to your nose,
To the upper lip,
Feeling the inhale and the exhale.
Can you with curiosity feel a change of temperature from the inhale to the exhale?
Is there a coolness on the inhale and a warmth on the exhale?
Each breath,
Really it's just this breath,
One breath at a time.
It's all we have to do right now,
Slow it down.
If you get tired,
That's okay.
This is my mind while it's tired.
You might tickle the roof of your mouth or open the eyes.
Okay,
So now we're going to find a place in the body where you anchor your mind too on this breath.
So if it was tangible for you at the nostrils,
Choose that as your touchstone.
If it's tangible for you in your belly or your chest,
Choose that.
So we're coming back to being here,
In this body,
In this time,
It's all there is.
Now we're gonna talk about what goes on with our thoughts.
So thoughts are always happening in the mind,
Especially while we're awake.
And if we can for this time really just acknowledge thoughts just as thoughts and not put any weight on them or discussion or value,
It's literally just a thought right now,
Whatever it may be.
And you see the thought and say,
Oh,
Thought,
I see you.
And then you direct your awareness back to the breath and the body.
And that's the practice of mindfulness meditation.
Mindfulness of our thoughts,
Just as thoughts,
Letting them go.
You might even visualize letting a thought go like a cloud in the sky.
It passes through.
The mind is spacious and open.
And we come back to being with the breath and the body,
Just this breath.
So you wanna notice when these thoughts arise,
How we return and we return to this body gently without judgment,
Kindness towards ourselves.
And just keep working on this until you hear the bell.
Just this breath.
