Hello my name is Matt Albury.
The following recording is made on my laptop of a Zoom meditation session that took place on the 27th of June 2020.
As a group we were unable to meet in person due to the pandemic so we met every Saturday via Zoom.
The following session includes a body scan to help settle us in and then a long awareness practice and then we will finish with an exam end of the day.
Okay so just bringing your awareness then to the feet on the floor and just notice that nice physical sensation of the floor under your feet and if you like give your toes a bit of a wriggle and just feel that firmness of the floor there.
And then take your awareness up to the chair supporting your body.
Just feeling that physical sensation of the chair supporting you.
And then take a moment then just to listen to the sounds around you.
So first you just listen to the sounds you can hear perhaps inside of the room where you are.
Just noticing those.
And then taking your awareness to the sounds you can hear outside of the room where you are.
And we're doing this with that sense of acceptance of whatever's present there.
And then when you're ready if your eyes are still open just bring your eyes gently closed and then we'll take two lovely deep breaths in.
Just breathing in through the nose and sitting out through the mouth.
Take a lovely deep breath in through the nose.
And we'll do that again.
Just doing a lovely deep breath in again.
And just allow yourself just to settle.
So to start us off we'll do our body scan.
So take your awareness to the sensation of your feet again on the bottom of the floor there.
On the bottom of the feet.
Taking your awareness up onto the toes.
Tops of the feet and the ankles.
Knowing your awareness then up onto the shins and the calf muscles.
Taking your awareness then up onto the knees.
So just in the front of the knees and the back of the knees.
Taking our awareness then up onto the thighs and the backside and the hips.
And then just take your awareness then to all of the sensations from the tips of the toes right up to your hip joints.
And then throw your awareness then up through from the hips onto your belly and the lower back.
Taking your awareness then up onto the upper back and the chest.
Up onto the shoulders.
And just take a moment just to notice the physical sensations present there in your torso.
And then take your awareness out onto the shoulder joints.
So bring your awareness down through the upper arms and the elbows.
The forearms and the wrists.
The backs of the hands and the palms of the hands.
And just notice that little hollow that forms there in the palm.
And then take your awareness out onto your thumbs.
First fingers,
Second fingers,
Third fingers and fourth.
And then just throw your awareness all the way from the tips of the fingers all the way back up through to the shoulder joints.
Just again notice the physical sensations present in your arms.
And then take your awareness then up onto the throat and the back of the neck.
Around onto the jaw.
Bring your awareness up to the mouth and the lips.
The teeth and the gums.
The insides of the cheeks.
The roof of the mouth.
Taking your awareness out onto the tongue and the space underneath your tongue.
And then take a moment just to notice the tastes and the physical sensations present in the mouth.
And then take your awareness up to your nostrils and your nose.
Taking your awareness onto the eyelids and the eyelashes and the eyes themselves.
Throwing your awareness around onto our ears.
Just noticing the shape of our ears.
And taking your awareness onto the back of the head,
Forehead and then the crown.
And then just as if you were being emptied out through the bottom of the feet just flow all the way from the crown of your head all the way back to the body as if you were just being emptied out all the way down to the tips of the fingers,
Tips of the toes.
And again this is the time just to let go of anything you want to let go of.
Anything that's bothering you.
Just picture it rolling out of the body through the bottom of the feet into the ground below you.
Just letting go of anything that's not serving you.
Anything that's bothering you.
And then when you're ready as if you're being filled afresh with a new liquid just flow all the way back through the body as if you're being filled up all the way from the tips of the fingers,
Tips of the toes,
Right up to the crown of the head.
Right up onto the top of the head.
And you reach the crown of the head.
Just take a moment just to be aware of your presence.
What it feels like to be in your body,
In the space that you're in.
So now you just have a second.
And I'll just say the mindfulness mantra a few times just as we sit.
Which is in this moment we've got nowhere to go,
Nothing to do,
No one to be.
Nothing to do,
Nowhere to go,
No one to be.
Just allowing ourselves,
Giving ourselves our permission just to do nothing.
Just to be present.
And then when you hear the bell start to guide us in our awareness practice.
So the key with our awareness practice is that we're going to use our breath as the place we come back to and just hang out really,
Just the place we stay.
So with this we just watch the breath moving the body.
Just watch the breath coming in through the nose.
Noticing the chest rise,
The ribs move,
The upper back move.
Maybe noticing the belly.
And this is where we come back to all the time in the practice.
If we get distracted at all,
And just come back to noticing the sensation of the breath.
It just comes in up through the nose,
Fills the body.
And then we just watch as it exhales.
Just watching the movement as the breath leaves the body.
Just allow this to be your place of rest for now.
Man,
Manage your breath.
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We're not saying whether it's good or bad how we feel.
Labelling it as a good or a bad experience.
We're just saying how am I?
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And then I'll start to guide us through our exam in of the day.
Come home to yourself.
Come home.
Lovingly accept and welcome into your home the person that you are.
Let your hands find rest.
Allow your hands to hold the weave from your day.
Come home.
Come home.
As we remember the day as it was,
Remember a moment that brought life.
Something that energized you.
Something that encouraged you.
And allow it to live again in your mind's eye.
Noting what it was about that experience that brought you that feeling of life.
That feeling of encouragement.
Be still.
Be grateful.
And then as we remember the day as it was,
Remember a moment that might have been a harder moment of the day.
It was a disappointment or a frustration.
And gently let this live again in your mind's eye.
You're doing it with kindness and acceptance in yourself in that situation.
And just gently let it live again in your mind's eye.
Noting what it was about that situation that was difficult.
Be still.
Be accepting.
And then take the moment of life and light and the moment that was disappointing or frustrating and allow them to settle into your heart center,
The center of your chest.
Just trusting that the divine love within you will just take those moments from you.
You just release them to that divine love.
Just allowing them to go.
Be still.
And the closing moments of our practice,
Take a moment to think of tomorrow.
Things that you hope to do,
The things that you feel that you need to do.
Or use this time to set some intentions of how you want to be tomorrow.
What qualities you would like to see in your day.
And then trust for your tomorrow.
And then gently return to the rhythm of your breath.
Returning where we started our practice.
Just noticing how you feel physically.
Maybe there's areas that become tense as you've sat or areas that have softened as you've sat.
Just notice the rhythm of your breath now until you hear the bells and then we'll do our grounding technique and we'll open our eyes together.
So just gently bring your awareness back to the sounds you can hear around you.
Possibly the sounds inside of the room where you are and the sounds outside.
Just noting what's there.
And then take your awareness then to the sensations in the body.
Noticing the sensation of the chair or the cushion or the bed that supported you as you've practiced.
Just noticing the places of contact.
And then take your awareness to that sensation of your feet firm on the floor.
Just noticing that ground underneath you that supported you as you've practiced.
And then we'll end our practice with the two breaths.
Taking a breath in through the nose and sighing out through the mouth.
Let's take a lovely deep breath in.
And do that again.
And then open your eyes when you're ready.
