Just notice what's happening in your physical body,
And your breath and your mind will work with all of those three layers.
One of the things that we know when we're going into deeper practice is that almost entirely what keeps us out of silence is what's going on in the body,
Our breath,
And in the lower levels of the mind.
And we have a lot of spiritual teachings that talk about being in the present moment,
And it's very helpful to anchor into this moment in time through our body and our breath and through watching that level of the mind.
That's very true.
One of the ways that we experience the moment is through direct perception.
Let's work with that first.
As you're experiencing your body right now,
Notice how you're experiencing it.
One of the ways that we experience it is through our sense perceptions.
We have coolness and warmth.
We have sensations of clothing.
When we breathe in and out through the nose,
We have sensations of air flowing over membranes.
We have proprioception,
How we know without looking how our body is positioned in space.
Some of that is through sensation as well.
Some of that is through interoception,
Or interoception,
Which is our sense of what's going on in the space that our body is occupying,
Energy,
Sensations,
Feelings.
And all of that can be at a layer that is direct,
Meaning without thought.
What is the direct experience right now,
Your sense perceptions,
All of the different ways that we sense?
What is that right now in your body?
And whatever it is that you're noticing,
And in some types of Buddhist meditation,
There's a practice of naming what we're seeing,
That's often a layer of thought that comes in.
We have the experience of,
For instance,
That my hand is on my desk and it's cool to the touch.
So I might be naming that coolness that I feel.
You might be naming the support you feel through your back.
You might be naming that the air flowing in the nostrils is cooler as you breathe in,
Warmer as you breathe out.
We're noticing that your breath is quite quick or shallow.
We're having the experience and then our mind,
Our thoughts are coming in to label and name the experience.
And this can be quite neutral.
We're just naming it.
And this is a big part of Vipassana meditation,
Noticing and naming,
Sensation of pain,
Thinking.
Then for a moment,
Come right back into the direct experience,
The sensation itself.
And not to get too wound up in the mind about this,
It's a different focus.
It's a different way of experiencing.
If you were to notice the feeling of the air as it's flowing in and out of your nostrils,
That would be one option.
You're noticing as you're relaxing your neck and shoulders,
Your upper back,
There's a different feeling,
A different felt sense there.
And of course the mind is going to come in.
So it might be labeling it,
Also might be judging it.
Well,
I should be breathing longer than I am.
Or maybe it's explaining,
Well,
It's no wonder my shoulders are up around my ears.
I've just been experiencing this worry.
We might notice that and then come back more to the direct experience.
And even with these very short,
Subtle experiences,
We notice that it changes very quickly.
If you were to bring your attention to your stomach area and notice the rhythm of your breath,
We might notice that as we soften our stomach area that the in-breath gets a little bit easier.
The muscles aren't as tight so they can lengthen more easily.
So we have an explanation for that in our mind.
We also just have the experience that my breath is getting deeper.
We have the thoughts about our experience.
Sometimes we have judgments or analysis or explanations.
And then oftentimes our mind just goes off into something completely different.
We go from relaxing our shoulders to thinking about what it was that caused them to tighten up and then we get into some train of thought.
And we could just keep bringing ourselves back again and again.
And as you do that,
Notice your relationship with that.
Are you frustrated that your mind does what it does?
Is there a sense of ease or compassion?
We're just noticing what is our experience,
The direct experience of sensation.
We might also notice a sense of stillness or a sense of restlessness.
And even before we notice the legs and arms specifically,
We've already started to let them settle because our breath is getting smoother and longer.
The other muscles in our body are starting to signal safety.
Our nervous system is getting that non-verbal communication that it's safe to rest.
We're developing these habits of presence.
