Compassionate Bodyscan

A gentle mindful bodyscan integrating compassion and loving kindness. This meditation supports cultivating mindfulness of the body and was recorded during an Insight Meditation Retreat in Byron Bay. This practice is suitable for beginners and experienced meditators.

Transcript

Welcome to the body scan and beginning by getting a sense of arriving here in the present moment.

You might notice the contact that your body is making with the chair or the ground or if you're lying down with the surface that you're lying on and then gently taking a few full breaths and letting the exhalation be long and slow.

See if you can with each exhalation let go of any tension or tightness that may be held in the body and making an intention to be as present as you can with mindfulness being the soft awake gentle presence and this soft awake gentle presence also has a quality of kindness and love about it so it's like you're holding cradling your present moment experience in this sense of warm friendliness or kindness or love.

And then when you're ready bringing your attention to both your feet seeing if you can instead of thinking about your feet feel sensations from the inside out sensing the toes and the spaces between the toes,

The ball of the feet and the arch of the feet,

The heels on both feet,

The top of the feet and sensing the skin and you may notice temperature,

Warmth but maybe coolness,

Feeling the muscles and bones and tendons inside the feet,

Moving up to the ankles,

Feeling that soft awake gentle presence being curious about the ankles,

Sensations in the ankles and from the ankles moving up to the lower legs to the calf muscles,

The shins to the skin and feeling sensations in the lower leg and moving up from the lower legs to the knees,

Feeling the knees and if as we go through the body you notice that the mind wanders off which it will again and again,

Gently as though you're returning a lost child to their caregiver,

Gently without judgment with patience and kindness gently return your attention to the body or the breath in the body and then from the knees moving up to the upper thighs,

The upper legs,

There's feeling into the skin and maybe the sense of clothing touching your skin,

Feeling sensations deeply within the legs,

The upper legs and if there are difficult sensations or pain present,

The invitation is to hold those places in the body where there may be difficulty with this soft awake loving presence,

You might like to experiment sending the breath right into where you feel the sensations the most strongly and with each exhalation just see if you can soften around those places in the body where there's difficulty,

So that with the softening and the relaxing we're allowing the sensations to have more space to move and stretch and then from the upper legs moving to the hip sockets,

Scanning the hip sockets and noticing any sensations arising and sometimes there may be sensations and sometimes there may be parts of the body where you don't feel anything and if that's the case just notice that,

Let that be your experience and from the hips moving to the pelvis,

The whole of the pelvic bowl and then from the pelvis feeling and sensing into the sacral area and then moving up the spine vertebrae by vertebrae,

Feeling and sensing the tiny muscles supporting the spine,

The skin spreading out on the back of the body,

Feeling up to the shoulder blades and scanning up the front of the body,

Letting the belly be soft,

Feeling the belly expanding on an inhalation and falling on an exhalation,

Moving awareness up to the belly and the front of the body,

Feeling the skin,

Sensing the chest and the ribs and the lungs expanding as the body inhales and contracting as the body exhales,

Sensing all the abdominal organs that sustain life including the heart,

The lungs,

Systems of digestion and illumination,

Reproduction,

Moving up to the shoulder sockets,

Feeling into this extraordinary joint,

This shallow dish where our shoulders are connected and if there is any difficulty in any area or your mind gets pulled in a particular direction by a strong sensation,

Sensing the breath moving right into where you feel that sensation strongly in your body,

Letting the exhalation be a relaxing and a softening,

Attention moving down the length of both arms,

The upper arms,

The elbows,

The lower arms,

The wrists and hands and the fingers,

You might notice sensations in the hands,

Kind of a dance of aliveness of the nerve endings,

As you stay with those sensations in your hands,

Noticing that sensations in the body like all conditioned phenomena are impermanent,

Arising and dissolving,

Then coming back up the length of both arms to the neck,

Feeling and sensing into the neck and the throat area,

Sensing that mindfulness cradling the neck with loving presence,

From the neck moving up to the chin,

From the chin to the mouth,

Sensing the lips softly,

Maybe touching the interior of the mouth,

The density of the teeth,

You might sense moisture in the mouth,

Noticing an awareness of the tongue,

The tongue which is a large muscle,

It's being curious about any tension that may be held in the tongue,

Shifting awareness to the jaw and if there is a sense of contraction in the jaw,

Tightness,

Often that residual tension and holding,

The invitation is with mindfulness that you may choose to soften and relax but you also may choose not to,

Mindfulness is not about relaxing as much as creating a possibility to invite relaxation into our awareness,

From the jaw moving up to the cheeks and the nose,

Feeling and sensing the air moving gently into the nose and out,

Awareness moving up from the nose to the eyes,

Sensing the eyes soft and relaxed,

The area around the eye sockets,

These tiny muscles,

Sensing the space between your eyebrows,

Scanning the brow and the scalp and the hair,

The ears,

The outer ears and the inner ears,

Awareness of the whole of the head including the skull and the brain,

Skin and the hair and then with the next inhalation,

Sensing the breath moving through to every part of your body,

Breath,

Compassionate,

Kind,

Gentle breath,

Helping to restore the balance in your body,

Mind and heart and letting go of the body and just returning to the breath,

Tuning in to how the breath is for you right now,

Remembering that at any time in our life,

Moments that we can always return to the breath as a way to connect earth and sky,

This beautiful body that sometimes experiences so many challenges,

Sending loving kindness to the whole of the body,

Offering a sense of gratitude for the body,

No matter what's going on for you right now.

I'll just finish with these words by Nairira Wahid and I said to my body softly,

I want to be your friend,

It took a long breath and replied,

I've been waiting my whole life for this and when you're ready,

Gently moving your fingers and toes and in your own time opening your eyes.

Reviews

Beautiful practice. Love the poem at the end. Thank you

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