Discovering Stillness And Movement In Mutuality

This 20-minute-long meditation begins with our conscious connecting to a object, possibly a candle. We guide our attention to the moment by engaging with our object through simple touch and visual observation. We move over to sound and scent until we playfully explore our body moved by breath through peripheral sight.
Then, we move inward. With (optionally) closed eyes, we notice movement and stillness in our sitting body. Approaching our still body parts as anchors that root us into gravity, we can safely explore breath as it moves through our whole body, from outside to inside. We get to play with holding and releasing breath and finally notice and welcome whatever breath has kissed awake in us.

Transcript

If you don't have a candle,

Find something for your attention to rest on.

It could be an object in your hands,

It can be,

In this moment I would invite you to have something like tactilely in your hands that you can connect with,

As well as your eyes.

So it could be your own hands,

Your own hands connecting and your eyes connecting to something.

So we've got sense of touch and sense of sight on purpose,

Consciously connecting to something really simple in this moment.

I'm just feeling the sensations in the hands.

We're inviting our attention to connect to what just simply is through our hands.

So for example,

My hands notice a coolness,

There's a coolness in this candle holder.

So I'm just noticing that as a simple,

Actual,

Factual,

There's a coolness sensation.

No need to change it,

Fix it,

Understand it,

Manage it.

So maybe there's a simple sensation with your hands connecting to whatever your hands are connecting with.

And then the same with something that you're seeing.

It just is what it is.

It's almost like we're a half step behind the experience,

But not quite.

Those words might not match exactly,

But we're just witnessing,

Observing,

Noticing without rushing in to be meddling with the experience that we're seeing and that we're feeling through the hands.

And there might be other sense receptors that come in,

Sound or scent.

The same kind of invitation to just observe or notice.

With the eyes open,

You might just notice the periphery of body in some kind of way,

And the periphery of body moving through or with breath in some kind of way.

The same invitation to just simply observe or witness other aspects of the sitting body and the breathing body through the eyes,

Through the kind of just accidentally almost we might notice peripherally through the eyes,

The breathing,

Sitting body.

And then if you want to put your object down or keep your object in your hand,

That's fine.

Just let the eyes close now to feel the moving body and the sitting body.

We've got both non-moving and moving.

And just let your attention discover.

Discover what's,

For all practical purposes in this moment,

Pretty anchored,

Not in movement.

And it might depend on your context or your positioning.

So it could be your sit bones or feet or something,

Maybe even some aspect of,

Yeah,

Underneath or just noticing what's not really moving with your sitting body from the experience itself.

A different way of connecting to this is how we're rooted or grounded in gravity in this moment.

Some simple way that you experience gravity,

The heaviness of your body within the field of gravity.

Maybe your chair or your couch connects you with or the floor connects you with,

Bed connects you with.

And to decrease the data,

If it feels right to let the eyes close,

No,

You don't have to do that.

But it just does decrease the data so we can come closer to simple experientials that are more sensation.

But you can,

Yeah,

You get to choose that at any moment feels right for you.

And yeah,

As you've identified experientially your non-moving anchor,

While also at the same time noticing that there is movement,

There is movement in the upper body.

And in the same invitation,

Just being curious,

Observing,

Noticing,

Witnessing the movement in a way that is simple for you.

How is there proof that you're breathing is a kind of a fun way to try that on.

So you might feel it or experience it more from the outside,

Like you might feel or experience the shoulders rising or falling.

Or maybe the way the back is connecting to the chair moves a little bit through breath.

Maybe you feel the front of your body moving as the body is filled and emptied with breath.

And gently bringing your attention more to the inside where breathing originates in the lungs,

In the nose,

In the diaphragm,

In the pelvic floor,

Somewhere on the inside where there's quote-unquote proof that you're a breathing creature.

And feel that filling and emptying from the inside wherever your attention is simply connected with experientially.

Some simple experience that you can feel the filling,

The filling up as breath comes in,

And then the deflating when breath goes out.

And inviting your attention to meander a little bit.

Go into a,

Maybe try on a new area of your breathing body to play with noticing the movement.

The breath process literally stretches us.

It fills us.

And then physics,

We know through physics that when something is filled,

It changes form.

And so we are experiencing that,

That changing every time the breath comes in and then leaves we experience a change,

A structural change.

The ribs,

The belly,

The pelvis,

The nostrils,

They all change.

And we can kind of track that a little bit with our attention,

Our conscious attention.

And meanwhile,

Back where our anchor lives,

Not,

Maybe not as much noticeable change.

Maybe it's pretty solid or pretty still or,

Yeah,

It's just different.

We might try on the perspective that our lower body is just holding space for the upper body to be moving.

The chair,

The bed,

The floor,

And then our sit bones or legs or whatnot.

Just holding space for the movement of the breath.

And all the different characteristics and qualities,

The stretching,

The heat,

The coolness,

The whatever's that we are experiencing through that filling and emptying.

And just so we can really feel that more in a simple way,

I'm going to invite you to take a longer,

Slower inhalation.

So maybe five counts,

Six counts,

Seven counts,

Whatever,

Eight counts could be,

Whatever you feel comfortable with,

Just so that you can feel the filling more,

The stretching,

The receiving of breath.

And they're kind of the same,

Maybe one or two counts longer when you breathe out.

We're really getting to experience this filling up and this deflating out,

The physics of breath,

The sensations that come with it,

The experiences.

And I really invite you to breathe in just a tiny bit more than you're comfortable with.

Like really feel like,

Boy,

We really have this capacity to fill,

To be filled so completely that it becomes almost too much,

Becomes almost uncomfortable.

And then we slowly release it all the way out.

And so just play for a little bit,

Taking breaks.

We don't want to be filling ourselves completely with 10 counts of breathing in every time we breathe,

For example.

But let yourself experiment a higher count of breathing in than normal.

And then take a break,

Let your body go back to just however it wants to breathe for a few cycles.

And then again,

A conscious counting until you really feel filled.

And then when you can't feel any more,

Take one more sip of air in and slowly let it out.

You'll start to notice different sensations,

Likely different thoughts as well.

So you might have some thoughts here.

That's okay.

We're not trying to convince ourselves to like the stretch of a full,

Full,

Full,

Full inhalation.

We're just inviting ourselves to notice the experience.

So don't try to convince yourself into liking anything.

Let the narratives be what they are.

And then come underneath the narrative.

So just notice the qualities and characteristics,

As simple as they might present themselves.

Meanwhile,

The chairs,

Chair,

Bed,

Floor,

Sit bones,

Legs,

Feet,

Whatever.

Continue to hold space for this extravaganza of the upper body.

Maybe even just for fun,

Imagining the lower body saying like,

Yeah,

I've got you.

I've got you.

We're anchored here.

We're grounded in simplicity with gravity.

As all of this,

All of these experiences and sensations are happening in the visceral area with breathing.

When you're done with your next cycle of breath,

Just letting letting all of that go.

All that counting go.

Letting the breath do what the breathing wants to do without you doing it,

Without you counting it out.

And just be curious.

Just be curious of what has woken up inside of your physiology.

What has breath kissed awake?

Maybe it's the ribs somewhere,

Or a temperature somewhere,

Or a heat stretch somewhere.

Maybe it's yeah,

Just your own words might come.

Comfort,

Discomfort,

Curiosity,

Dislike,

Tiredness,

Awakeness.

And there's no right or wrong experience to be noticing.

Just notice what's been touched for you with what we've been playing with this morning.

The lower body,

The anchored,

The grounded gravity,

Just holding space for all of it.

Also,

Perhaps impacted by this experiment,

This playfulness that we've been engaging with.

As your eyes stay closed,

Just let your body maybe move a little bit.

We'll slowly start to come out of this rest.

Letting the body sway a little bit from a side to side if it wants,

Or arms can stretch a little bit if they want,

Or maybe the neck wants to move,

Or the legs want to move.

Oh,

The back maybe wants to round or something.

Letting the body creatively stretch.

Let's have full permission to just stretch in mysterious ways without rhyme or reason.

And then let your eyes slowly start to open.

With the eyes opening,

See if your anchor is still here.

Your relationship to gravity is still here.

Breathing is still here.

And then just take your time and coming back to the screen.

If you want to make any notes about your experience,

Maybe something new you discovered,

Maybe something you want to continue to be curious about,

Go ahead and make some notes with that.

And then we'll come back together.