Having established yourself in bodily stillness,
You found your place of stability that is perfectly balanced,
With no unnecessary tension in any part of the body.
The stillness of the body resulting in the stillness of your mind.
Then start to deepen your bodily awareness.
Work now with the physical sensations within the body.
Natural physical bodily sensations.
This doesn't mean inventing,
Imagining or visualizing in any way.
Actual experience of what it means to be a part of this beautiful body.
Perhaps the feeling of the weight of the body against the foundation.
The touch of the air against the body.
The touch of the clothes against your skin.
Within the body itself.
A gentle feeling of vibration.
The constant movement even as the body is absolutely still.
The aliveness.
Work to explore each and every part of the body.
Start with the tips of your toes.
And start to move up the length of one leg.
You're aware of the physical sensations of this leg from the toes to the hip.
Before then moving attention to the opposite leg.
And again start from the toes to become aware of the natural physical sensation found in that leg from the toes to the hip.
To then actively scan your arms starting from the fingers of one hand gradually up the arm to the shoulder.
Then starting from the fingers of the opposite hand and moving your way up towards the shoulder.
Again you're looking for natural physical bodily sensations.
Not inventing,
Not imagining,
Not visualizing.
As you connect with the pelvic floor and gradually guide your awareness up the length of your torso towards your shoulders,
Up your neck,
Across all the muscles in the face and finally all the muscles in the scalp.
So that now you have explored the entire body.
Then you start to learn to inhabit the entire body all at once.
So start to expand your awareness.
Gradually then from the fingers to the toes,
From the crown of the head to the base of your spine,
From the outside of the body to the inside and from inside out.
Awareness of the entire body all at once.
Inhabiting this body like a hand,
Inhabits a glove.
As you do so of course you might start to encounter mental distraction.
Distraction also might arrive from the outside.
With each and every time you catch your distraction happening,
Guide your awareness back and reconnect with what you are doing.
You're sitting absolutely still and deepening your awareness of bodily sensations.
You're inhabiting the body.
You're a part of this body.
Then very naturally you'll discover that within the stillness of the body is the movement of the breathing.
You'll discover the movement as a rising and falling of the chest and your belly.
As a touch of the air that moves past the upper lip through the nostrils down your throat.
This gentle constant movement.
As you start to become aware of that you might also start to become aware of your controlling tendencies.
This breath is a special function of your body.
It's an automatic function which means no one has ever died because they have forgotten to breathe.
But at the same time if we wanted to we can consciously hold or suspend the breathing.
So this is the reason why we will work with the breath because it will help to reveal a mental tendency of wanting to control or change constantly,
Wanting to judge,
Wanting to react with whatever we are experiencing.
Understand that our controlling tendency and our constant judgment and evaluation is an impurity that with the framework of meditation we are trying to resolve.
Because when the mind becomes more and more silent and still,
We'll create an opportunity for us to deepen our connection with what is beyond the movement of this mind.
And so understanding this,
Use the breath to bring yourself to a non-reactive witnessing consciousness.
By just observing the breath as it is and learning not to intervene,
Not to judge,
Only be present as a non-reactive witnessing consciousness.
Allow the flow of the air entering and leaving the body to happen minus your participation.
Neither you like nor you dislike.
You just observe,
You stay present.
Not adding or subtracting to the experience in any way.
Even if the breath becomes shallower,
More subtle,
No need to consciously try to lengthen it.
Even if you are taking deeper,
Maybe faster breaths,
No need to slow it down.
Even when the breath becomes absent and you have stopped breathing,
No anxiety over the loss of the breath.
Be the observer of the breath.
Be a non-reactive witnessing presence.
Allow judgment to fall away.
Opinions,
Liking,
Disliking,
Comparison with things of the past,
Projection towards future outcome is all set aside.
The body in the breath.
The breath in the body.
The body in the breath.
The breath inside the body.
Nothing to do but to connect with the inhale and the exhale.
No concern over the success or failure of this practice.
No objectives to be met.
No milestones to achieve.
Only simply be present.
