Finding yourself in a comfortable seat we're going to practice awareness now a more open awareness an awareness that we can take into our everyday lives in a way taking this mindfulness off the cushion and into our lives and this is a practice which involves holding our anchor in our awareness at the same time as speaking or listening and in this case we'll only be doing the listening particularly useful to do while we're in conversation with others so I'll invite you now to find that comfortable posture that we've come to know that perhaps the feet are flat on the ground and you may like to close the eyes or perhaps having a loose gaze becoming aware of the body the feet on the ground,
The hands,
The sit bones noticing the places the body makes connection with the earth arriving here in the body in this moment noticing the gentle rise and fall as the body breathes and now choosing for yourself an anchor that will serve you during this practice perhaps the feet,
Sit bones,
The hands or the breath the noticing of the physical sensations in the body of one of these places,
One of these anchors and allowing your focus,
Your awareness to rest here and if you notice the minds wandered off knowing that nothing's gone wrong this is the nature of minds seeing if it's possible to gently and kindly draw your awareness back back to whichever anchor you've chosen back to the body,
Back to the felt sense in this moment and we're going to move the focus now so that not only are you aware of this anchor this felt sense in the body but also you're aware of my voice balancing your awareness both on the anchor and on the sound of my voice so that roughly your awareness is evenly held on both but not worrying when one comes into focus more than the other or attention will move and flow and at some points you may notice your attention's wandered off completely to neither the anchor or the sound of my voice and knowing that that's okay and once more seeing if you can kindly and gently guide guide the focus,
Guide it back to the anchor and to the sound of my voice and this is a practice that we can use throughout our days perhaps when we're in conversation with someone else maintaining that awareness of the body it can enable us to choose how we respond getting that feedback from the body feeling how the body is other than reacting we can choose to respond wisely and skillfully in our communication with others we can choose to hear to listen and in a moment I'll invite you to gently open the eyes and begin to take in vision as well so when you're ready slowly starting to open the eyes noticing what you can see the play of light colour and seeing if it's possible to still stay with the anchor and stay with the sound of my voice even with the eyes open even with an awareness revision of sight perhaps setting an intention as you move on into your day to take part of this awareness with you into your communication with others and as we come towards the end of this practice perhaps taking a deep breath in and out seeing what the body needs perhaps allowing some movement in the body shoulders fingers and the toes when you're ready slowly ending the practice and stepping back into your day
