So the first foundation of meditation is the body and a way to connect to the body is to connect to the breath and in the practice we're just going to be feeling the breath and bringing our attention to the breath again and again so you'll get distracted and then you can just very clearly,
Very directly and gently bring yourself back to your body and back to your breath So let's start by just letting the body settle into the seated posture and feel down into the base of your posture Have a sense of your legs heavy on the ground and your weight dropping down through your sit bones and you can let the energy rise up your spine so you can sit up tall The crown of your head rises up towards the ceiling as if it's being drawn up by a golden thread and you can let your chest be broad and open Your shoulders can relax down your back So feeling a sense of stability through the base of the body and a sense of poise through the upper body and then just notice that you're breathing Where do you feel the breath?
And as you feel the breath,
See if you could start to relax a little through the chest and down into your belly and start to gather your attention down in the lower belly and as you breathe in your belly you can just keep softening and as you breathe out you can just let go of any holding in the belly and see if you can broaden your attention through the whole of the upper body now so having a sense of your belly and your chest and feel how both the belly and the chest expand as you breathe in and release as you breathe out and you don't need to breathe in any special way the practice is just feeling the breath feeling the natural rise and fall of the breath and when you get distracted you can just come back to the body and notice where you're gripping in the body when we get distracted there'll be somewhere where we're holding tension physically it could be your shoulders,
Your belly or your chest it could be your thighs and just release any tension and then feeling the breath again so we're training our minds,
Gathering our minds the different scattered parts of ourselves back into the body integrating around the breath and now just start to broaden your awareness out through the whole of your body and it's as if every pore of your body could breathe from the soles of your feet to the crown of your head can you feel the vibrancy and aliveness of your living breathing body?
And now just start to let go of the practice stay sitting and stay still but just release all your efforts to meditate and just sit for the last few moments of the practice so you can stay sitting on like this and when you're ready you can bring the practice to a close ok
