Hello and welcome to our 2019 7 Days of Guided Meditation.
Thank you for being here.
Thank you for joining.
I am starting a little early,
So today is New Year's Eve,
And I thought I would give us an extra recording for the purposes of giving us a little bit of instructions that we can use with the proper principles of practice that will take us throughout the rest of the seven days.
So I often get a lot of questions around how do I sit,
Do I keep my eyes open,
Do I need to focus on my breath,
What do I do with my hands,
And so on and so on.
So I will address a whole bunch of these things today,
As well as give us a primer into mindfulness so that as we're practicing for the rest of the week,
Even though we will be doing various different kinds of guided meditations,
We will be able to do so with some of these correct principles of practice for mindfulness.
So to begin with,
What I would recommend is to have yourself sitting in a comfortable position,
Something that feels relatively easy,
But not lying down.
So we want to have our back upright,
And we want to be able to feel the support of whatever we're sitting on.
So if we're sitting cross-legged,
That's fine.
If we're sitting in a chair,
Then have the feet flat on the floor and feel the support of the floor against the feet.
Feeling the bottom and the sit bones resting against whatever surface the bottom is resting against,
And giving ourselves an opportunity just to start with an easy and maybe a bit of a deeper breath.
So taking a nice breath in and exhaling out.
And feel free to,
On the next in-breath,
To bring your shoulders up towards your ears.
So breathing in and lifting the shoulders up towards the ears,
And on the exhale,
Releasing back and down.
So we can do this kind of a reset or a deeper breath at any point during our meditation.
So we've got our posture.
We're sitting in an upright position.
Let your hands rest wherever they are.
There's no need to have your hands in a particular posture,
A particular mudra,
As it's called.
We can allow our hands to just be resting in our lap or at our sides.
With respect to having our eyes open or closed,
Keep your eyes lightly open and just gazing in front of you.
If your eyes are tired or have been strained for a prolonged period of time because of devices or reading or whatnot,
Then you can definitely close your eyes if you wish to give your visual system a bit of a rest and to also disconnect ourselves from whatever devices may be nearby,
Whatever it is that you're listening to this recording on.
So we're noticing the body sitting.
Feel the support of the surfaces below you.
Feel how they're pressing into the body and feel how the body's resting against those surfaces.
Notice the position or the posture of the body in terms of what's bent.
Are the elbows bent?
Are the knees bent?
Are we bent at the hip?
Feel the straightness of the back.
If the eyes are open,
We may even start noticing a little bit of movement,
Even though we're sitting still.
We might notice the movement of the eyelids blinking.
We might notice the movement of the body breathing as the breath comes in.
The center of the body expands as the breath releases.
The center of the body also releases.
So we come to be aware of this body in a way that doesn't feel like it's our body.
This is what mindfulness teaches us.
This is one of the correct principles of practice.
We want to be able to observe this body as if it's not our body.
So we're becoming aware of this body as it is.
If we start to feel discomfort somewhere,
We notice that there's discomfort before attending to that discomfort.
So if there's an itchy spot or if there's stiffness somewhere,
Allow ourselves to notice the stiffness before we go to scratch or adjust.
All of these things are okay.
If you need to adjust,
Go ahead and adjust.
But be mindful,
Be aware of the discomfort.
Notice when you're moving or adjusting and then notice the sense of relief afterwards.
So we'll give us a moment to sit and rest and just pay attention to the body as if it's not our body.
So even within 30 seconds,
If we're paying attention to what's going on,
We're probably aware that the mind has gone off to think about things.
And just like we're noticing the body as it is,
When we practice mindfulness,
We notice the mind as it is.
So it's important to know that the mind went to think or the emotions went to feel something.
So if there was a thought about something and we liked it,
Then we can notice the thought and we can notice liking.
If there was an unhappy feeling,
Then we noticed that we disliked something or there was an unhappy feeling that came up.
So we're interested in observing this mind even more so than we're interested in observing the body.
But we start with the body because we want to become aware of this body as it's at rest.
And we start to become aware of this body a little bit more at a distance as though it's not us,
Which can help us also recognize the thoughts as not us.
The thoughts come and go without our permission.
The feelings come and go without our permission.
So with our practice,
We notice and observe this mind and this body exactly the way that they are.
We see the truth of them.
And we don't see the truth of them from three minutes ago,
But we see the truth of them from just a moment ago.
So when we're practicing mindfulness and during this week,
I will be guiding us through lots of different kinds of guided meditations that won't necessarily be mindfulness.
But I encourage us all to incorporate some of the correct principles of practice within our seven days.
So at any time,
If I'm guiding a meditation and your mind goes off to think about something that you have to do that day or remembering something that happened yesterday or earlier that day,
Or might be off in a daydream or a fantasy or have wonderful ideas coming flooding into the mind,
Then know that these things are arising.
See them as thoughts,
As feelings.
See the body as it's sitting.
See the body as it's moving and breathing.
We're observing all of these things as though they're not us.
So I'll give us another moment to practice just easy in a very easy going way,
Just sensing this body sitting,
Observing it,
Observing the mind and its movements just for a short while.
Okay.
So this is the basic fundamental instruction for the rest of our week.
I hope that this will inform your practice as you move forward.
And for those of you who are joining for the first time,
Welcome.
For those of you who have joined before and have either taken lessons or classes before,
I'm so happy that you're continuing your journey with me.
I look forward to seven days of guided meditations with you and I invite you to email me if you wish,
If you have any questions or if you need any assistance.
So I look forward to seven days of guided meditation together and I invite you to continue practicing in this way using some of these principles as we go through our seven days together.
Every day will be about 10 minutes.
So it's not a long period of time,
But I will focus on a different kind of meditation every single day.
So when we finish our practice together,
I will invite you to do what we're going to do in a moment now,
Which is to bring your hands together,
Thumbs up towards the chest.
So just let the words resonate however they do for you.
May we all be happy.
May we all be healthy.
May we all be peaceful and free from suffering.
May all beings be happy,
Healthy,
Peaceful and free from suffering.
And may all beings,
Large or small,
Near or far,
Seen or unseen,
Known or unknown,
Those born into the world and those yet to be born into the world.
May all beings,
All living things share and benefit in the merits of our practice together.
So thank you and namaste.
I wish you a wonderful New Year's Eve celebration,
Whatever you get up to.
And I look forward to having you join again tomorrow for our day one of our seven days of practice.
