Let's begin.
Settling into your seat.
Seats flat upon the floor if you're seated in a chair today.
Danny Arguetty.
Maybe a few shoulder rolls.
Inviting shoulders to loosen and lower on torso.
Danny Arguetty.
Arms draping down from shoulders.
And hands finding a comfortable resting place,
Perhaps on thighs or a cup within lap.
Danny Arguetty.
Inviting a loosening of jaw.
Lips either gently touching or slightly parted whichever you prefer.
And eyes as well,
What's your preference,
Open or closed today?
You can always experiment alternating between the two.
Settling in.
Feeling that sense of grounding below from the floor and the chair.
And that sense of opening and spaciousness,
Head held high.
Taps spine and shoulders.
Noticing what sensations may be most prominent in your attention in this moment.
Whether it be something within body or from the environment.
Most prominent sensation,
Something pleasant or unpleasant or somewhere in between.
And just acknowledging the presence,
The experience of.
That sensation.
And then.
Noticing this capacity of directing attention.
Rather than letting your attention sort of be grabbed by.
That sensation or sensation.
We have this wonderful capacity of directing our attention,
And in this case,
To the sensations of body breathing.
Perhaps the rise and fall of chest and belly.
Or the movement of air through nose or mouth.
Choosing where your attention comes to rest in this moment.
And filling your attention as best as you can fully with the sensations of body breathing.
Not needing to change or manipulate the breath,
Just feeling each breath as it occurs.
Danny Arguetty.
Pause of some length,
Long or short.
Then that letting go,
That occurs with the exhale.
Letting those sensations fill your attention.
Completely.
Noticing how this directing attention is not pushing anything away.
More so inviting,
In this case,
Inviting the sensations of breathing to fill your attention.
Sometimes there's a misconception with meditation that we're stopping thoughts or pushing distractions away.
Rather,
It's more so a choosing.
Choosing where I direct my attention,
How I fill my field of awareness up in this moment.
There's no need to push anything away.
We simply notice.
The light touch,
Whatever else may be present.
And then once again,
This capacity,
Reclaiming the neural networks of attention.
Where shall I focus in this moment?
And they're continuing to walk through the different qualities or characteristics of mindfulness.
Today,
We're going to explore.
Beginner's mind.
Another label for this characteristic is curiosity.
Our minds naturally seek out novelty.
When it is new or different.
And while this can sometimes bring wonderful things into our world,
Into the moment.
When this function of mind becomes clouded by assumption.
We sometimes miss out.
And what may be considered mundane.
For those of you that maybe have children on board.
Sort of this quality of,
I know everything there is in this moment,
And it's the same old.
With beginner's mind,
We breathe a freshness into our perspective.
Recognizing that this moment has never happened exactly this way before,
Will never happen exactly this way again.
Whatever we're experiencing in this moment,
Be it through the sensory doorways.
Or emotions or sensations or thoughts within.
By their very nature,
Completely new and novel.
Beginner's mind is about shedding what we think we know about this moment.
And greeting whatever we find in this moment with a curiosity.
So if we feel a particular sensation in our body that,
Oh,
I felt that a hundred times before,
Well.
Some form of it has been a hundred times before,
But not this current sensation you've never experienced in this way.
Or something from the environment,
Maybe a sound or texture or light.
Greeting it for the very first time as it is.
An emotion stirring within.
Perhaps you've felt.
Some form of this emotion before,
But not this particular presentation in this moment.
Every emotion may be present,
Wherever it falls on the continuum of pleasant to unpleasant,
Greeting it.
The very first time in this particular form.
A particular thought.
Especially a repetitive sort of thought.
It's not going to be exactly the same in this moment as it was before.
Even the body breathing,
Each breath is a new experience to encounter.
How does it feel this time?
The next moment or two,
Bringing curiosity into everything you're experiencing,
Be it a sensation,
An emotion,
A thought.
Making full contact,
Experiencing it for the very first time.
One of my favorite quotes about beginner's mind comes from Suzuki Roshi,
One of the first major teachers of meditation in the West.
I'm going to paraphrase exactly the way you stated it,
But the idea of,
In the expert's mind,
There is only one option.
In the beginner's,
There are many.
So considering the possibility as you enter into tasks today.
If you find yourself feeling sort of stuck or bored.
Inviting in the freshness of beginner's mind as if you're encountering this particular task or challenge for the very first time.
What is being missed out on with experts mind and inviting in the freshness?
A beginner's mind.
What is there to be revealed with this freshness of beginner's mind?
If your eyes were closed,
Opening eyes and bringing that freshness of beginner's mind what you're taking in visually.
What is there right before you that you see every day that may be a little different with this freshness?
Little stretch or movement transitioning back into activity for the day.
So I invite each of you to have fun playing with beginner's mind today and find maybe the gifts,
The opportunities.
And maybe have always been there,
Just needed this freshness of perspective to be seen.
Thank you all,
Pleasure hanging out with you and until we meet again.
Be well.
Goodbye now.
