Practice 6.
Mindfulness Meditation Breath as anchor,
Venturing out into choiceless awareness Come into a seated posture and place your hands in your lap in any position that you can rest them Allow the eyes to gently close,
Gently Allow the jaw to relax and the shoulders to drop down from any hunching,
Relaxing the shoulders and root your posture,
Relaxing into the seat you are sitting on,
Whether that be a cushion or a chair and now tune in to the lower back,
Feel what you can feel You may find that a slight adjustment of the pelvis will bring your spine into alignment So try that now A very slight adjustment,
Perhaps a tiny tilt of the pelvis forward will help you to feel more upright,
More supported so you can just relax Relax around any muscular tension or tightness,
Just let any tensions dissolve Maybe there is a tension that doesn't really want to leave,
That's fine,
That can stay Now bring yourself to physical stillness Just be here,
Now in physical stillness and wait here until you notice the breath,
Anywhere it arises This can be nose,
Abdomen,
Chest,
Anywhere you feel it most vividly is your anchor So anchor yourself to the breath now,
This is the object that will keep you stable Feeling the physical sensations of the breath and if you can,
Being with the whole of the in-breath,
Feeling everything that occurs and then the whole of the out-breath,
And then the next one and so on When the mind drifts off,
Bring it back to the sensations of the breath,
Not holding onto the breath too tightly Just being relaxed about it And now we are going to venture out into choiceless awareness,
This means feeling whatever shows up in the field of the body That becomes the meditation object now,
An ache in the body,
Tingling,
Pressure,
We watch the arising,
Changing and passing away of these physical sensations as they happen in the body We may still feel the breath,
That is fine,
But we are allowing the stability of the breath as an object to recede into the background It's no longer the exclusive focus,
Anything that arises,
We watch that,
We feel that,
We pay attention And then as one thing fades away,
Up comes something else and we meet that with the same level of mindfulness Seeing that all things just come into being,
Have their lifespan and pass away You may find this tricky to do,
Because the mind and body experience can be quite turbulent,
You can easily be carried away by thinking,
That's fine,
If that happens We just bring the breath back into focus as our anchor,
This ground of stability will help you to steady yourself again And we stay with the breath for another minute or so and then venture back out into the body when we're ready,
Allowing the breath to recede as anything special Now the whole body and whatever arises in it becomes our meditation object And keep doing this,
Retreating to the breath when you feel you need its support,
Stilling the mind with the breath and then wandering back out in the field of the whole body experience And there's no hard and fast rule here,
It's your wisdom that leads the way and that comes with time Now letting go of all efforts and just being for a moment Perhaps you can see as you sit in stillness that you are still with whatever arises,
Still meditating without even trying maybe I'll leave you in this stillness in which you make no efforts for a minute or so before I ring the bell Now mindfully moving,
Stretching,
Allowing the eyes to open and bringing any mindfulness you have cultivated out into your life
