Welcome to this 30-minute mindfulness of breath and body meditation.
In this sitting practice,
You are going to be bringing your attention to the breath and then expanding to hold the whole body in awareness and allowing your attention to move to wherever the sensations are arising in the body,
Noticing what is present,
Ease or tension,
Pleasant or unpleasant.
And when your attention moves to those hot spots in the body,
Experimenting with staying present and remembering the attitudes we are cultivating in mindfulness,
Bringing a gentle,
Compassionate,
Patient and non-judging awareness to your experience.
When you are ready,
Adopting an upright and dignified posture with the spine straight but not rigid,
Head balanced over the shoulders,
Shoulders balanced over the hips,
Feet flat on the ground if you are on a chair.
If you are on cushions on the floor,
Setting yourself up so your back is supported by raising your hips slightly higher and allowing the knees to fall to the floor and supporting the knees with cushions if they do not rest on the floor,
Feeling the support of the surfaces you are sitting against.
This practice may also be done lying down if this is what you need to take care of yourself right now.
So taking a few deeper breaths right into the belly and slowly exhaling,
Slightly elongating the out breath,
Allowing the body to settle comfortably into the sitting posture.
Taking a few moments to feel into the posture,
To feel your body in space,
Our sense of proprioception,
Knowing how the body is positioned in space,
Sensing and feeling the uplift,
The dignity in the posture,
A posture embodying alertness,
Wakefulness and a willingness to be present to the experience of the moment just as it is,
Bringing a gentle investigative curiosity to your experience,
Staying present.
Bringing attention to your breathing.
The body is breathing itself.
You don't have to think about the breath.
You don't have to do the breathing.
Simply letting go and observing the breath in the body.
So the breath is unique in that you can manipulate it,
Consciously breathing deeper.
But most of the time we don't have to think about it.
It's happening automatically in the background.
But at any time you can turn your attention to the breath.
Observing it just the way it is and in this way allowing the breath to awaken you to present moment awareness.
So right now noticing,
Feeling the full in breath followed by the full out breath.
Sensing the breath just as it is.
Perhaps on the in breath feeling the coolness of the breath as the air moves into the nostrils.
Or noticing the sensations at the back of the throat.
Perhaps feeling a gentle movement in the chest as the lungs are inflating with the in breath and deflating with the out breath.
Or perhaps feeling a gentle rise and fall in the belly as it is expanding with the in breath and releasing with the out breath.
The breath always changing but always here.
Allowing yourself to become aware of wherever you feel the breath most vividly and holding your attention here as best you can.
Allowing yourself to become aware of where you feel the breath most vividly and holding your attention here as best you can.
In the silence you may have become aware that your attention has moved away from the physical sensations of breathing.
And when you notice,
As soon as you notice,
You have woken up to the present moment.
You are back in awareness of the moment.
Really noting what is on the mind,
Thinking,
Thinking,
Worry,
Memories,
Planning.
Perhaps sounds,
Perhaps other physical sensations or impulses.
Noting whatever is on the mind and choosing to bring your attention back to the physical sensations of breathing wherever you are noticing them most vividly.
Allowing yourself to become aware of where you feel the breath most vividly and holding your attention here as best you can.
Allowing yourself to become aware of where you feel the breath most vividly and holding your attention here as best you can.
And when you are ready.
Allowing the awareness to include a sense of the whole body sitting here from the base of the feet to the top of the head.
Perhaps becoming aware of the sensations arising at all the points where the body is touching the surfaces it is sitting or lying against.
Perhaps feeling sensations from the air moving against the body or clothing touching the skin.
There may be sensations or patterns of sensations arising inside the body.
Allowing your attention to move freely alighting wherever the sensations are appearing in the body and bringing the sense of investigative curiosity to your experience of the sensations.
Understanding their qualities,
Their depth,
Parameters,
Intensity and how they may be changing and staying with the sensations until they have disappeared.
And then perhaps sensations arise in another region of the body and moving your attention there and exploring these sensations of the breath still here.
Bringing an open hearted and gentle attentiveness to body sensations wherever they are arising and passing in the body.
Same present.
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