Come to your usual seated posture and allow your eyes to close gently.
Feel the body in a state of relaxed awareness.
Allow what I'm saying to be experienced semantically with bodily intelligence rather than mental intelligence.
So a feel in the body.
This way you'll feel the instructions rather than try to work them out in your head.
So just relax with the spine alive,
No slumping,
Alert relaxation and just feel what it's like to be in a body,
To be alive now.
Soon the breath will make itself known if it hasn't already.
And if it isn't quite in your awareness yet,
What is?
What's currently alive in you?
How do you know from a physical standpoint that you are now alive?
In other words,
Feel and hang out with what you feel and watch it change.
Try not to favour any particular feeling at this moment.
Anything will do,
Even pain if that's the only thing that's making itself known and you can handle it.
We're going to,
In this session,
Observe the length of the breath to experience if we are breathing in long or short and breathing out long or short.
This is just a knowing,
A knowing as it is happening.
So now tuning into the breath.
Where can you feel it?
Where is it making itself most known?
And seeing as you breathe in,
Is that breath long or short?
Is the in-breath and the out-breath the same length?
If not,
Which is longer and which is shorter?
Examine.
Move closely in.
Why?
What has the length of the breath got to do with anything?
When we look to see whether a breath is long or short,
We have to move closer into the breathing process,
Which is exactly what we are trying to do.
The more intimate we get with the breath,
The more able we are to remain with it,
The less we wander away.
It keeps the mind awake and engaged.
Also,
You may notice as the session progresses that the breath changes,
Maybe slows down,
Grows longer,
But maybe not.
If you get lost in thinking,
If you have a stressful thought,
You may notice a change in the length of the breath.
The breath is directly connected to our current mental state.
The next time you are involved in an argument,
Watch your breath and you will see the connection quite clearly.
As the breath changes in pace and length,
You may also notice that it is experienced more broadly across the body and remembering to stay with the breath all the way in,
The pause and all the way out.
Seeing the length of the breath and noticing is it changing?
Try not to interfere with the process,
Just allowing the breath to be.
And you can't get this wrong,
So sit without doubt,
As doubt is a hindrance to meditation.
If you are always thinking,
Am I doing it right?
You will find meditation to be a battleground and it shouldn't be.
It is a relaxed awareness,
An opening of oneself to what is here and now.
It's so simple.
We struggle with simple.
We think,
It can't be this easy,
I must not be doing it right.
But you are.
Let any of those thoughts go.
You will feel the urge to move when discomfort arises and that's fine.
But try not to be a slave to sensations in the body.
Move when you are ready,
On your terms.
Bring the mind back to the breath when you wander and do it with kindness,
With delight that you've had a little awakening from your usual dream state.
If we look at the length of a breath,
We have to stay with it for the duration,
But we don't know whether it's long or short.
If we've been planning or worrying and were asked,
Was the breath you've just taken long or short,
We probably won't know.
Look at the quality of the breath.
Is it bumpy,
Stopping and starting,
Hitting points where it sticks a little,
Where the flow isn't easeful?
If you find this to be the case,
Notice to see if the next breath is the same or has it changed a little.
Resting here in the body,
Allowing breath sensations to be felt.
No pushing,
No pulling,
Seeing that the body doesn't need your help,
The breath is self-inflating.
And can you see how just watching the breathing process helps to calm the mind and body?
And now open your eyes and don't get up just yet.
Just sit for a moment,
Eyes open,
Keeping your awareness on the breath.
Have a look round.
Does everything look the same as it usually does?
Rest your eyes on whatever draws your attention and try to see it a little deeper than usual.
Like studying the veins on a leaf,
Is there something that you have been missing?
If you like,
Mindfully stand and walk over to an object,
As you do,
Feeling your feet meet the ground as you walk.
Now really look at the object.
Is there a newness,
A freshness about it?
Things can really leap out when we're mindful.
We can notice things we've never seen before.
The eyes are one of the most powerful sense doors and if we don't include sight into our practice,
We're missing out.
Try to tune into the eyes from time to time and really see.
Instead of allowing the brain to just dump a tree into the tree box,
Really look next time you see a tree.
Is a tree trunk really just plain old brown?
Is the wing of a sparrow just brown?
Take this mindful seeing out with you into a wonderful new day.
