Let's start this meditation together by finding our breath,
Wherever it is most obvious for you right now.
That may be the rise and fall of your chest or the in and out of your belly,
Or maybe you're present to the feeling of air in and out of the nostrils,
Or maybe just kind of an overall movement of your torso or your shoulders.
And with this time with our breaths,
We're gonna breath,
We're going to just notice if there's any kind of light reactions to how the breath is right now.
There may be some thoughts that come up that you notice around thinking about how the breath should or shouldn't be,
Or maybe there's a light feeling tone about how your breath is,
Maybe your breath is fast and your brain kind of senses,
Maybe am I anxious or fearful right now,
Or maybe it's the opposite and it's really calm and there's a kind of light,
Delight or joy that you have a reaction to for the breath.
Next,
We're gonna shift our attention from just the breath to just tuning in overall to our body.
And you can do this either in kind of a body scan method of working from the toes up or working from the head down,
Or you can also just kind of sit with whatever kind of calls out to you most readily.
Either one of those methods as we move through this exploration is totally fine.
What we're gonna do with the body is similar with to practice with the breath,
And we're gonna explore that a bit more.
Just initially noticing any liking,
Preference,
Grasping,
Holding on that may come up when you notice body sensations.
Those would probably be associated with kind of pleasurable sensations,
Like maybe you have a light warmth,
A feeling of ease,
A feeling of calm,
A feeling of relaxation can often kind of have this light feeling tone of liking and wanting it to stay longer.
And then there may also be plenty of sensations,
Plenty of physical sensations that come up,
That arise that instead drive a little bit of a very light or a strong resistance,
A rejection,
Maybe fear,
Maybe a light pushing away or running away from the physical sensation.
So this is obviously more common with things we may kind of associate with pain.
So maybe you have back pain,
Maybe you have a chronic pain that is very present when you sit to meditate,
Or it's quite common that maybe there's pains that you don't notice,
But when you sit and kind of are present and still,
They really are making themselves very clear.
And still too,
There's even pains that come from meditation,
From a sitting in one position,
Then the numbness from having a lack of blood flow if you're kind of sitting in such a way that your legs are losing blood a little bit,
That can be very uncomfortable.
Or just sitting in one place for a while and having your body kind of in stillness can drive some feelings of,
Oh gosh,
I have to move,
I have to get away from what I'm doing right now.
Whatever arises,
Just try to notice,
See if you can notice that just light feeling tone,
That very kind of deep guttural reaction to all of these physical sensations that your body is experiencing on a moment to moment basis.
And just like with all of our practices,
Anytime we are noticed,
We notice that we are in the loss,
In the trance of thought,
Just bringing it right back.
And for this practice today,
We're bringing it back to noticing the physical sensations and kind of the light reaction,
Medium association we have,
Positive,
Negative,
Or neutral with that physical sensation.
The sensations in the body are always changing moment to moment,
And the practice is to notice and acknowledge.
We can also seek to notice where pleasure and displeasure are felt in the body and in the mind.
Sometimes there's a light kind of physical reaction to even these minor feelings of like and dislike,
To see if you notice that,
Any of that naturally,
There's a felt sense of feeling that reaction.
And when nothing strong is calling the attention,
If maybe there's not,
Doesn't feel like there's a lot of physical sensation going on in the body,
You can also just rest your awareness on your breath,
The same kind of light craving,
Aversion,
Neutrality,
Disassociation,
Those are there for everything.
So you can also just rest on your breath and seek to gain awareness of those reactions you have to how your breath is from one moment to the next moment.
We've talked about the liking and the disliking.
In this practice,
We believe there's three.
There's the liking,
The disliking,
And neutrality.
All of our reactions fall into one of these three categories and the neutrality can be hard to notice.
It's also there and it often kind of drives a reaction of feeling of boredom,
Feeling of disinterest,
Restlessness,
Or spacing out.
So we're also just noticing that as well.
For the next part of this meditation,
We're gonna shift our attention to sounds while maintaining the same practice.
It's another object to pay attention to and direct our attention upon with the same goal of noticing that immediate reaction that we have to any sound that comes up,
A liking,
A disliking,
Or a neutrality.
And with sounds,
It really allows us to experience the ease with which we can note stimuli.
It kind of gives us a feeling of the awareness that is naturally here without having to put forth a lot of effort,
An easy,
Receptive quality of attention.
So we're resting our awareness on the ever-changing sounds.
And even when there's not a lot of sound,
You're still listening.
This is the same quality that we can bring to all awareness.
Your awareness is still there.
Noticing how quickly we go to labeling and images and often stories,
Elaborate stories sometimes about the sounds that we hear.
Maybe a curiosity of what is that sound,
What is creating that sound?
Why is the sound happening right now?
Especially if it's an annoying sound.
And just noticing that,
Recognizing that general either craving or aversion or neutrality that is associated with all of that,
That labeling or those images or stories.
And coming back to what is it like right now?
And as you note these light reactions,
Looking to see if there's a way that these sounds or any experience,
But right now we're focusing on sounds.
If these sounds can be observed with a non-reactive awareness,
Is there a simple acceptance of whatever it is like right now that we can bring?
This last minute,
We're going to broaden our awareness to try to hold kind of the all-encompassing experience of the moment.
See if you can hold kind of the whole body in awareness and the sounds in awareness.
And noticing what this moment feels like.
There's a light feeling tone associated with it and how that's different from how we began.
What was it like when you began this meditation?
Thank yourself for your time and open your eyes when you're ready.
