Thanks for being here today.
Find yourself sitting in a comfortable and sturdy position.
Your posture is the foundation of your practice,
So take a few moments to arrange yourself in a way that feels easeful,
So you can allow yourself to sink into your cushion and relax.
You might try sitting toward the front part of your cushion,
To tilt your pelvis forward.
And then you can trace upward,
Imagining a line extending up from the ground,
Up through your spine,
And through the top of your head,
Extending up into the ceiling,
Like there's a string at the top of your head,
Holding it straight up.
You can begin with a few deep breaths to settle yourself.
And as you do that,
Let's acknowledge that you showed up today.
And you might take a moment to remind yourself of why you are prioritizing practice.
Why are you here?
And then you can begin to examine your body,
And just take a kind of weather report.
How are you in this moment?
Try to do that without judgment,
Just noticing.
What signals is your body giving you?
Notice in particular if you're holding tension anywhere.
You might look through the major muscle groups and try tensing and releasing them,
Just briefly squeezing and letting go,
To really encourage them to soften.
Do this with your eyes,
Your jaw,
Your neck and shoulders,
Your arms and hands,
Your butt,
Legs,
Feet,
Just letting your body be a nice,
Soft,
Stable container for your practice.
And as you take that internal weather report,
Notice if you're falling more on the side of pessimism right now,
Or optimism,
Or neutral.
And if it's pessimism,
Try on just putting a very slight smile on your face.
You showed up for practice today,
And you're lucky enough to be able to practice.
And see if you can just let yourself sink into the cushion,
And just feel ease right now.
And begin to tune into your breath.
Try to zoom in on the nose.
As you breathe through your nose,
Notice which nostril the air is more prominently moving through.
Left,
Right,
Or both.
And try to keep your attention on that,
Wherever the air is coming in and out.
Whichever nostril,
Focus all your awareness,
All your attention there,
Just with gentleness,
Not holding tightly.
Feeling that air move in and out,
Noticing how it's subtly different on the in-breath and the out-breath.
Notice the temperature,
And check your posture.
As you're doing this,
Are you leaning forward to the side?
Try to re-center yourself so the top of your head is pointing straight up.
And you can tilt your chin down a little too.
Continuing to notice the nostrils,
Physical sensation of air passing in and out.
And as distractions come in,
Thoughts,
Just gently notice that,
And come back to the nose.
When you're distracted,
You didn't do anything wrong.
You haven't failed.
Each distraction is an opportunity to practice and return to your anchor.
Keep focused on the breath,
And this is how we slowly practice turning down the volume on the thinking mind,
And focusing on pure awareness.
Noticing the distraction,
Back to the breath.
And if it feels like there are too many distractions,
Or they're too powerful,
You can count the breaths.
In,
One.
Out,
Two.
When you get to eight or ten,
Reset back to one.
And if you get lost on the way,
Just start again at one.
In and out.
And remember that the mind and the body are very closely linked.
So notice tension in your body and tension in your mind.
And when either of those happens,
The solution is simply acceptance and softening.
Noticing the distracting thought,
Noticing distracting pain in the legs or somewhere else,
Just gently returning to focus on the breath.
Oh,
There's a thought.
Oh,
There's an itch on my nose.
You don't have to do anything about that.
Just return to the awareness of breath with so much gentleness.
Again,
Notice if you're holding weight a certain way,
Holding tension.
Just allow those muscles to relax.
You don't have to be working hard here.
All you're doing is observing the breath.
So when any thoughts appear about the future,
The past,
The what-if,
Just return to right here,
Right now.
And that's always where the breath is,
Right here,
Right now.
That's your landmark to find your way home.
Thanks for practicing today.
