The Zoom Sessions: Thornbury Monday Night Meditation Group (April 27, 2020)

This is a field recording of a live meditation session. It contains a Body Scan, An Observation and Welcoming Meditation Practice and ends with an Examen (an ending of the day meditation). May this practice serve you.

Transcript

Hello,

My name is Matt Albury.

This is a recording of a Zoom meditation session that happened on the 27th of April 2020.

It's a meeting of the Thornbury Monday Night Meditation Group and due to the corona pandemic we were unable to meet in person so we continued to meet online every Monday night.

So this is a recording of that session.

During this session there will be a body scan,

An observation with welcoming leading into a dropping into stillness and then the session will end with an examine.

So we'll allow ourselves just to settle in by bringing our awareness to the feet on the floor and just noticing that contact there.

Just noticing the sensations of the contact and where perhaps there is in contact with the floor.

And then take your awareness then up onto the cushion or the chair that's supporting you.

Just noticing that sensation of being held.

And then take your awareness around the sounds that you can hear around you.

So maybe the sounds you can hear inside of the room you're in first.

And then taking your awareness to the sounds that are outside and inside.

And we'll take two breaths to settle us in.

So take that lovely breath in through the nose and slide out through the mouth at your own time.

And we'll do that again,

A lovely breath in.

And just allow yourself just to settle for a moment.

Just enjoying us and settling in.

And then we'll just do a quick body scan.

So take your awareness again to the feet on the floor,

The toes,

The tops of the feet and the ankles.

And just notice the physical sensations there.

And then take your awareness then up through the lower legs,

The knees,

The thighs,

The hips,

The backside.

And just notice the physical sensations there.

And then flow your awareness then up through from the hips up onto the lower,

You know,

Up onto the belly and the lower back.

Taking your awareness to the upper back and the chest.

And just notice the physical sensations there.

And then take your awareness up onto the shoulders,

The shoulder joints.

The upper arms.

The elbows.

The forearms.

The wrists.

The backs of the hands and the palm of the hands.

Taking your awareness out onto the thumbs.

First fingers.

Second fingers.

Third fingers.

And fourth.

And then just flow your awareness then gently all the way back up through your arms.

Just noting what's present as you flow back up to the shoulder joints.

And then take your awareness to your throat,

The back of the neck.

Taking the awareness out onto the jaw.

Up to the mouth.

Your lips.

Your teeth.

Your gums.

The insides of the cheeks.

The roof of the mouth.

The tongue.

And the space underneath your tongue.

And then just take a moment just to notice the tastes and the physical sensations present there.

And then flow your awareness up to the nostrils and the nose.

Taking your awareness up onto the eyelids.

The eyelashes.

And the eyeballs themselves.

Just noticing what's present.

And then take your awareness around onto your ears.

Flowing the awareness onto the back of the head.

The forehead.

And then finally up onto the crown.

And then when you are ready just allow yourself to be emptied out as if you were being emptied out through the bottom of the feet.

So just flowing all the way back through the body,

Scanning all the way down to the tips of the toes,

Tips of the fingers.

And as you do this let go of anything that you want to let go of at this moment.

Just watch it leaving you going out through the bottom of the feet where the earth just takes it away.

Just flowing as you go.

And then when you're ready just allow yourself then to just flow all the way back through your body as if you were being filled afresh.

A fresh new liquid filling your body.

All the way from the tips of the toes,

Tips of the fingers,

All the way up to the crown of the head.

Just noticing what's present as you do that.

When you reach the crown of the head just take a moment just firstly to notice the physical sensation of being in your body.

Bringing that awareness to being present where you are.

Just noticing what it feels like to be in your body and the space that you're in.

And then when you're ready just use some time now to set an intention for your practice.

What you want this practice to be for yourself.

And just allow that intention to settle into your heart centre.

And then we'll start with our observation.

So to start off with we'll use the mindfulness technique of watching our breath to settle us in.

So bring your awareness first to the breath at the nostrils.

Just noticing the temperature differences of the air as it comes in and goes out.

You might notice one nostril flows easier than the other which is quite common.

But just allow yourself to settle there watching the breath at its source.

And then just start to follow the journey of the breath.

So you're just bringing your awareness to this breath coming in through the nose.

Flowing down the back of the throat.

Watching the journey of the breath into the lungs.

Noticing the ribs moving.

The upper back,

The belly.

Just watch that journey of the breath coming in.

And then just watch the breath leaving in the same way.

So just watching the breath rolling in and rolling out.

And if your mind is particularly busy today you can even bring in that visualisation of the,

As the breath rolls in it's a bit like a little wave coming up a shallow beach.

And then it just reaches the end of its journey and then returns back to the sea.

So that your breath is like that little wave just rolling in and then rolling back into the body of the water.

So you know there's an option to bring a visualisation until they're watching the breath.

G child.

You you you you you you Just continue just to sit you you you you you you you you you you So there's the option now just to return back to the observation and the awareness again of everything that presents.

So just bring yourself back to that place of watching what comes up.

That sense of welcoming,

That sense of acceptance.

You you you you And then when you're ready just allow yourself just to deepen your practice in the way that you just drop into the stillness.

So we use Pantagiali's technique of just just dropping into stillness.

So that's where our observation is.

We just drop into that feeling of existence.

A feeling of being present.

And if we get distracted at all that's fine.

We just come back dropping ourselves into that stillness.

So it's a bit like I was saying the other day.

It's just allowing that muddy water to settle.

It's by just allowing things to naturally happen that the stillness comes and by letting water settle the clearness comes naturally.

Trying to force it.

So that's the quality we bring to this bit where we observe that stillness,

That bliss.

We don't try to make it happen.

We just allow it to turn up.

Just allow yourself to stay in that place,

Get lost in that place.

Keep an eye on the time and chime every five minutes.

You you you you you you you you you you you you you So just start to bring your awareness back just to the sensation of the breath moving in your body.

So just really homing in on those physical sensations of the breath moving the ribs,

Chest rising,

Moving the belly.

Just noticing those places that we started.

So just returning back to the physical sensations of the breath in the body.

You you you you you you you you you You begin by lighting a candle.

Come home to yourself.

Come home.

Lovingly welcome into your home the person that you are.

Let your hands find rest.

And allow your hands to hold the weave from your day.

Come home.

As we remember the day as it was,

Remember a moment that brought light or life to your day.

Gently revisit that moment and allow it to live again in your mind's eye.

Noticing the qualities where life came because of that experience.

Be still.

Be grateful.

And as we remember the day as it was,

Remember a moment that brought frustration or disappointment or despair perhaps.

And gently revisit that too and allow that to live again in your mind's eye.

And if possible without judgment.

Be still.

Be accepting.

And gently take the moment of life and light and the moment of frustration or disappointment and allow them to just sink into the divine love within you.

Just allow that divine love to take those moments away.

As we just hand them over just let them go.

Just letting them be absorbed by this divine love deep within us.

Be still.

Be still.

And then in the closing moments of our practice think about tomorrow.

Maybe the things that you hope to achieve or the things you want to do tomorrow.

Just take a moment just to think them through.

And if you like take this time to think about any intentions you want to bring to your day tomorrow,

Any qualities that you would like to see.

And then trust for your tomorrow.

Be still.

And then as I gently blow out the candle just return your awareness back to the sensation of the breath in your body.

And then when you hear the three bells that will be the end of our practice.

And we'll use our grounding technique and then move gently.

So bring your awareness back to the sounds you can hear around you.

The sounds inside the room and maybe some sounds you can hear outside.

And then take your awareness to the chair or the cushion or whatever you're sat on that has supported you as you've practiced.

Just allowing your awareness to be there for a moment.

And then take your awareness to your feet on the floor.

Just notice the firm sensation of that floor underneath you.

That's what has supported us as we've practiced.

And then we'll take two breaths.

Breathing in through the nose and out through the mouth.

So take a lovely breath in.

And then another lovely breath in.

And then gently open your eyes when you're ready.