During this short practice we will explore mindfulness of the mind,
The emotional landscape,
The domain of thinking and how we relate to our experience.
Please choose a posture which will be supportive of your wakefulness.
You may sit,
You may stand,
You may lie down.
You may sit,
You may lie down.
We begin with a reminder that we practice mindfulness in our bodies,
That we meditate in our bodies,
That we are present nowhere else but in the body.
So allowing the awareness to sweep through the body,
Allowing it to land in the feet.
Noticing the feet,
Noticing their temperature and how they are in contact with the ground.
Noticing the sensations inside the feet and then the seat.
Seeing if it's possible to allow your body to be held fully supported generously.
Noticing the hands and how they have landed,
Wherever they've landed.
And so with a connection to the feet,
The seats,
The hands,
We attend to the breath,
To the sensations of breathing.
And with the mind,
The awareness tethered to the breath,
The in and outness,
The rhythm.
You may notice the mind space,
The thoughts,
The commentary,
The emotions,
The likes and dislikes or the,
What we call the feeling tone related to your present moment experience.
Feeling that whatever your experience is right now,
Whether the mind is busy or quiet,
That it is okay.
Whatever it is that's drifting through the mind,
That you do not have to necessarily attend to it or follow its direction.
Just the act of noticing is an opportunity to return into the body,
Return to the body,
Return to the body,
To be with the breath,
To be present.
Only a few seconds have gone by and maybe the mind has again drifted off in some direction towards the past or the future or some even hard to distinguish direction.
And knowing that this is going to happen again and again,
We remind ourselves that again and again,
We are afforded the opportunity to return into ourselves,
To attend to our breath,
To notice at what point the in-breath becomes the out-breath,
To allow our attention or awareness to rest in that gap,
In that space,
In that moment after we have exhaled fully and before we begin to inhale again.
The space of no breath.
The thought comes,
We give it space,
We acknowledge it,
We let it drift by.
Remember you do not have to believe everything you think.
But you can inhale and know that you are breathing in.
And emotion arises and tugs at the heart.
You can become aware of the physical,
Bodily manifestations of that arising.
And then you can exhale and know that you are breathing out.
And seeing the qualities of nowness,
Of bodiness,
Of hereness,
Being with the breath.
Or perhaps more deeply being the breath.
Can a breath please release out anywhere?
