And allow your eyes to close if that's comfortable for you.
And start listening if there's anything,
Any sounds in the room where you are,
Or any sounds coming from outside the room.
Or just the quiet that might be there,
Or the sound of an air conditioner,
Or the refrigerator.
Sometimes it is fluorescent lighting,
That's a little bit of a hum from the lights.
And just as if you were sitting up in the mountains and the wind is just flowing,
And the leaves of the trees are rustling.
You can hear that sound of the leaves with the wind going through it.
You're just listening as if it were in the middle of the night,
In that darkness,
And you hear these sounds of things in the woods,
And you become very focused on the awareness of sound.
We just take a moment,
Just listening.
And as you're listening,
To bring attention to your breath,
Noticing whatever sensation you feel in the nostrils or in the back of the throat,
Or the abdomen,
Belly rising and falling,
Or the chest rising and falling,
And just feeling and watching the air as it flows in and out.
And if you notice your mind wanders to thoughts of anything other than the breath,
Just gently and with some ease and feeling of allowing,
Just to bring yourself back to attention to the breath.
Just watching the breath flowing in and out,
And each time some distraction comes up.
That's really the essence of the meditation,
To notice it and then bring your awareness back to breathing.
And as you're breathing,
Keeping attention to the breath,
Maybe half your attention,
50% on the breathing.
I'd like you to think and then go back about,
In your mind,
About three months ago,
The beginning of the summer,
Middle of the summer.
Where were you?
What did you do then?
Just some activity.
And then jump ahead about three months from now,
Thinking about something you might be doing then.
Go back to about three or four days ago.
Recall something that occurred then.
And now today's Tuesday,
So think about this coming weekend,
Saturday or Sunday,
Something that you might do Saturday or Sunday.
Now bring your attention,
Your mind to thinking about where you were right before you came into the room,
Where you are now.
And where you're going to be going out of the room later on after we finish the meditation.
And then bring your attention to when you first started to sit down and imagine,
Picture yourself getting up in about 15 minutes,
20 minutes from now.
So you picture yourself coming into this position where you're sitting and in about 15,
20 minutes moving out of this position.
And then bring your mind to about a few minutes ago when the meditation started and a few minutes from now,
Maybe when this meditation might end.
And try and come closer and closer and closer from the past to the future,
Weaving up and back and coming right into this very moment.
Watching your breath flowing in and flowing out.
And as you're sitting there watching your breath right now,
Feeling the effects of gravity holding you firmly against the earth and allowing gravity to do its job,
To relax into gravity.
Feel maybe a shift inside your arms or your legs or your back of just softening and letting gravity tug a little bit against your muscles hanging on the bones.
Just relaxing into that,
Surrendering into the tugging,
Letting gravity do its job.
And noticing in your mind if there's any awareness or thoughts of liking or disliking in this moment.
And letting all the thoughts in your mind dissolve and just drop away,
Becoming very still.
Allowing the thoughts to be like water going over the edge of a cliff.
The thoughts dropping away.
And if there were water going the edge of a cliff,
The water free falling.
And as the water falls,
Due to the effect of gravity,
The droplets start to separate from each other.
And if the water falls far enough and far enough,
The droplets start to separate further and become a very fine mist.
And if that mist keeps falling longer and longer and long enough,
The mist evaporates right into the air and disappears.
It vanishes.
The water starting at the top of the waterfall,
Dropping and dropping and dropping,
Separating into droplets into a mist and the mist just gradually evaporating and disappearing into the air,
Vanishing into stillness.
And allowing any thoughts in your mind to evaporate into that stillness.
The calm,
Quiet,
Peace and flowing in love.
The unknown.
