So in settling in,
You may at times hear some background of a little one home from school today,
Just like is happening for lots of people all over the country,
The periods of being in school and out of school and such.
But for now,
Kind of letting yourself settle in and we'll spend good bits of time muted from my end so that you don't have too much background noise.
First giving yourself a few moments to get here,
To get fully here.
Sort of deliberately sort of pulling in the net of your attention.
So that you're staying within your own field of the four foundations of mindfulness,
Your own physical experience,
Your own mental experience,
Your awareness of having this conscious mind and your own sense of relationship to the way life really is right this second.
In the physical realm,
Allowing yourself to provide support such that your muscles don't have to overwork,
So arranging the skeleton,
Utilizing the furniture,
And just noticing places in the body that feel pleasant or unpleasant,
That feel constricted or relaxed.
Places that are warm or cool,
Places where there feels like there's just activity just beneath the skin even in places that feel calm or neutral.
Thank you.
And of course as your attention is sort of withdrawn from outside issues and more into the immediate experience of your body,
Sometimes then there comes this awareness of,
Oh,
I'm here and I do have this mind that can be aware of its own experience.
So just noticing what that's like,
Especially in noticing that there is this mind that can be aware of physical sensation.
It's not fused with it.
There is this mind that can be aware of objects of mind as they're sometimes called,
Thoughts,
Feelings,
Emotions,
Plans,
Memories.
These are all objects of mind.
And there is this mind that carries all of that,
But is not synonymous with all of that.
There is other centuries of static thought that can beFat Splinish And then the recognition that there is a mind that can be conscious of,
Aware of bodily sensation.
It can be aware of objects in itself,
Objects of mind such as thought,
Memory,
Feeling.
And this mind can also be aware of other experience,
Right,
Of just how things are right now that are not necessarily about thought,
Memory,
Planning,
But just the awareness of what things are like right this moment.
This recognition that in being embodied in a human body,
This mind experiences stress.
This mind experiences a wish for things to be other than they are.
And this mind experiences,
Can even experience mental anguish to the degree that it fights with how things really are or to the degree that it wishes things were other than they are.
It is this mind that we want to sort of carve it out a place to settle down.
Right,
So you may carve out that place by just being aware of the feeling of the support of the seat underneath you and just coming back to that again and again for a sense of stability and support.
You may enjoy the experience of the breath,
The way it shows up for you moment after moment without any effort on your part.
And even though there are so many things that this mind may want to have be different,
Just sort of deliberately bringing the mind to rest right here,
Right now,
Right this second where we are just fine as we are.
And then you can just sort of take a moment to feel the energy of the mind and just kind of choose something in the immediate experience to rest in,
Whether it is breath,
Whether it is sound,
Whether it is just the physical sensation of being able to sit and not having to do anything else for the next few minutes.
Thank you.
Now of course,
Thoughts of ways that we wish things were different or even just maybe plans we have for the rest of the day.
There is a couple of ways we can deal with those and one is if it is useful,
If it works,
You can just sort of deliberately ask those thoughts to wait outside the door of the room you are in.
You allow yourself to sort of go inside and just rest this mind for a bit,
Letting those thoughts just wait outside.
Or if they are thoughts that feel more urgent,
Where there is more emotional attachment there,
It can be useful to treat them like a child that you want to just like let that child sit on your lap and soothe it,
But you are not really listening to it,
Right?
It might babble on,
It might complain,
And you are listening to how it feels,
But you are not paying a lot of attention to the words.
You are just there being supportive.
Even imagining patting it on the back or something while you just still allow yourself to rest with the breath or with sound,
Whatever feels soothing to this mind right now.
It may be worth reminding ourselves we are not trying to stop thoughts from happening,
But we are just giving ourselves a little space from them or we are just not buying into them right now.
You you you you When we give ourselves a break from our wants and wishes for a few minutes important to remember we're not saying that we are wrong to wish for things to be different some things really might feel better if they were different so we're not wrong to wish for that but we can just give ourselves a break from that wishing and notice how much better that feels just for a while you you you you you this final couple of minutes allowing yourself to be aware of what opens up for you if you allow yourself to quit wishing for something to be different whether it's something about your own self or something about your own situation or something about the world in general if you let go of that pull that stress of wanting something to be different what becomes possible you you
