So let's just start by allowing our eyes to close.
I often say that the first five minutes of meditation for me are just settling.
It can take a few minutes to settle into a meditation and allowing space for that,
Not forcing it or pushing it.
You can start by just listening to the sounds going on,
The sound of my voice or the sound of my dog wiggling beneath me,
The sound of cars going by or birds chirping,
Just arriving where you are.
You don't need to force the attention down or anything.
You can feel your body sitting in the chair or cushion or lying down or however you may be,
The points of contact where you're touching something or the clothes are touching your skin.
You can feel your position in space,
The air on your skin,
Part of this room that you're in.
Maybe you can make a note,
Without needing to change anything in this moment,
Make a note of the mental space or the kind of affect that you're bringing to the meditation today.
Is the mind active?
Is it worried?
Is it calm and at ease?
Does it feel concentrated?
Again,
Not needing to change or fix anything,
But just noticing where the mind is at.
And we'll start with a few minutes of just working with the breath.
I use the tip of my nose and the sensations of the breath coming in and out at the nostrils,
But you can use the rise and fall of your chest or shoulders or the expansion and contraction of the abdomen.
And I like to think of kind of collecting or picking up all of my attention or awareness and gently placing it here,
Resting in the direct physical sensation of breathing.
So not our thoughts about it,
Not our stories about it,
The actual physical sensation of breathing.
Trying to even let go of labels like nostrils or belly or expansion and contraction.
And instead just offering the very simple in and out as a label as you breathe.
In and out.
Remembering when the mind wanders off,
Just coming back to the breath.
Recollecting that awareness and bringing it back to the physical sensation.
Can imagine kind of picking up your awareness gently like a bunch of puppies and just bringing it back to the breath.
Seeing if you can be with the breath from the beginning of the inhale all the way through to the end of the inhale that pause and then all the way through the exhale.
In and out.
And now we'll add in the second instruction from Mahasi Sayadaw,
Which is to recognize the posture of the body.
So I'm sitting right now.
So I would in my mind be noting in,
Out,
Sitting.
And in that moment of noting the posture,
Noting the actual physical sensations that tell us we're sitting.
I can feel my butt in the chair,
My arms resting on the armrests,
My feet on the floor.
In,
Out,
Sitting.
And finally we can add in some open awareness.
So anything else that comes into your experience.
In,
Out,
Keeping the breath as an anchor.
Letting go of the posture and instead noting anything else that comes up in your experience.
Just noting the sense store.
So in,
Out,
Feeling in the body.
In,
Out,
Thinking.
In,
Out,
Hearing.
Not diving into any experience too deeply,
Just tuning into it and recognizing that we're hearing or that we're feeling something in the body.
We don't need to identify it as an itch or a pain.
Just noting that we're feeling.
Just noting that we're hearing.
Whenever the mind wanders off,
We can recollect our awareness and bring it back to the breath.
It's one of the things I love about this practice is the breath offers us an anchor in this open awareness practice.
Instead of letting the mind kind of just wander to whatever arises,
We're always anchored in the breath.
In,
Out,
Feeling.
For these last few minutes,
Letting go of the open awareness,
Letting go of the postures of the body,
And just coming back to the breath.
In,
Out,
In,
Out,
And returning to this concentration or collected awareness on the breath.
