To start off the spacious awareness practice,
Getting comfortable in your seat,
Working out any,
Moving the body,
Working out any tension,
Giving it the permission to move before you come into some stillness.
And letting go of any expectations for this meditation practice today.
Setting your intention to be okay with whatever arises.
Starting out by taking your deep breaths.
Deep breaths in through the nose,
Blowing out through the mouth.
If you're stressed out,
Then elongating the exhale through the mouth,
Blowing a little bit of air at a time,
Connecting to the air that's coming into the lungs and going back out of the mouth.
And seeing if you can visualize the air,
See the air going in through your nose,
Filling your lungs and going back out through your mouth.
Really connecting to the wind element,
The air element.
And as you breathe out,
Seeing if you can follow the air into the space around you,
Sensing that space.
And it's not your head that senses the space,
It's your heart.
Coming to a regular breath.
It's helpful to get some concentration going at the beginning,
Following your breath or whatever your object is.
Paying particularly close attention to the spaces between your objects,
The space,
The rest,
The pause between breaths.
And allowing your awareness to drop into these pauses,
Into the space between breaths.
Breathing in,
Tranquilizing the body,
Breathing out,
Tranquilizing the mind.
You do a labeling practice,
You might want to do this for a few iterations,
Tranquilizing the body,
Tranquilizing the mind.
If you don't like the word tranquilizing,
Use the word relaxing the body,
Or calming the body,
Or calming the mind.
As you breathe in and out,
Being extra aware of the air,
Sensation of air.
Allowing this air to lighten your body,
Fill your heart,
Relax and calm the mind.
Having your breath in the air is your predominant object,
Allowing everything else to be in the background.
See if you can relax just a little bit more,
Letting go.
If you have a lot of energy bouncing around in your body,
Notice the space between energetic bursts.
And allow your awareness to rest in the space.
It's a dropping,
Sinking,
Letting go sensation,
Restful.
Now bringing your awareness to the exterior of your body,
Your physical body,
And notice the sensations on your skin,
Whether it's clothes touching the skin or air.
Now noticing sounds.
As you breathe out,
Following the air,
Resting your awareness right outside of your nose,
Your body,
And sensing how your breath is mingling with all the air and other breaths in this room.
And just resting in the awareness of this air in this room.
And sensing the quality of the air,
The spacious,
Luminous,
Nurturing,
Full quality.
And now opening your awareness outside of this building,
In which you'll hear all these sounds.
Allowing your awareness to open up to the sounds,
Framing the sound as coming and going out of the spacious air.
Resting in the space between sounds.
Resting in the space that holds sounds.
Resting in the space that sound goes back into when it dissolves.
And in the space from which all sounds arise.
You may experience a floating quality.
If your awareness won't leave your body,
Then stay with the feeling of touch of air on your skin,
And the air around your body.
But if you can,
Just rest in the space outside of this building.
The space that holds the animals,
The trees,
All buildings,
All humans.
And you'll hear other things.
You'll have other sensations.
Have them in the background with the space being in the foreground.
Thoughts will come and go.
Leave them in the background.
If you'd like to drop a little mental label of resting,
Opening,
Resting,
Opening.
Imagine that your awareness can float above this building,
Above the trees.
You can look down and see this mountain,
See this area.
Allow yourself to feel the restful floating quality.
Allow your awareness to float above the level of the clouds.
Sensing the energy,
The life in this space.
Seeing so much sky as you rise even higher than the clouds.
And there's nothing but space around you.
You look down and see the earth is disappearing as you float in space.
No cares,
No worries.
Sensing the origin of life.
The potential energies here in this full and yet empty space.
And you're not here and yet there's this heartfelt presence,
Heartfelt awareness.
That knows it's come home.
This tremendous sense of freedom.
This game of life seems so far away,
So small.
This light,
This energy,
This awareness of who you are resting.
Staying,
If you want,
Out in space so you can come back outside of this building and just rest in the sounds and the space between sounds.
And if you start to get distracted,
Just sense the air on your skin.
And then follow,
Allow your awareness to follow that air,
Fall into it with your heart,
Spilling into the space around you.
Here comes the month of October.
Bringing your awareness from outside back into your body.
Bringing that spaciousness into your body,
Into your heart.
Bringing any sense of ease with you.
Bringing back the feeling of expansiveness that life is not as contracted and serious as we once thought.
We don't need to get caught into the game of life,
Into the delusion.
We can breathe in the air,
Bring in some expansiveness.
Bring in some space between thoughts,
Space between experiences,
Space to relieve stress.
We can remember who we truly are.
We can remember who we truly are.
