Find a comfortable place to sit.
Adjust your posture so that your spine is straight without being rigid or stiff.
Allow the rest of your body to be relaxed around the upright spine.
Rest your hands in your lap,
On your legs,
Wherever comfortable for you.
And if you're comfortable,
You can allow your eyes to gently close.
You can find a soft gaze either in front of you or down below.
Let's bring our full attention to the physical sensation of sitting still.
Allow your breathing to be natural.
Don't change anything.
Just breathe.
Bring your attention to your head.
Release any tension in the face.
Soften your eyes.
Relax the jaw.
Scanning the body slowly downward,
Relax the neck and the shoulders.
Feeling the rise and the fall of your breath in either your chest or your belly.
Bring your attention all the way down through your body to the places of contact with the chair or your cushion.
Allow your body to be supported by the seat that you're in.
Feel your pressure and the density of your relaxed body sitting upright.
Bring your full attention to the present time experience,
Acknowledging the full range of phenomena that's happening in the moment.
Thinking is happening.
Hearing is happening.
Even with the eyes closed,
Seeing is happening.
Tasting,
Smelling,
And different physical and emotional sensations are all present.
Allowing all of these experiences to be just as they are,
Redirect your attention to the sensations of your breath.
Let the other sense experiences fall to the background as you bring your awareness back to your breathing.
Take a few moments to investigate where you feel the breath the most.
You may feel it through your nostrils,
On your lip.
You may feel it in your belly,
In your chest,
The rising and the falling.
Find the place where you feel your breath coming and going and use that as your point of focus.
Breathing in,
Know that you are breathing in.
Breathing out,
Know that you are just breathing out.
A simple way to stay focused is to quietly acknowledge in your mind,
In on the inhalation on the inhalation and out on the exhalation.
Another technique you may like to try is counting as you're breathing.
Breathing in one,
Two,
Three,
Four,
Then out.
Of course,
You'll quickly realize that your attention will not stay with your breath.
It will be drawn back into thinking over and over again.
That's okay.
You have a thinking mind.
Just thank your mind and bring your attention back to your breath.
In the beginning,
The practice of meditation is often just training your attention to return back to your breath.
Each time your attention wanders,
Bring it back to your breath.
Gently redirect yourself back.
This natural process of training the mind is the essence of meditation.
It's important to understand that the thinking mind will continue to think over and over again.
It doesn't mean that you're doing anything wrong or that you can't meditate.
It just means that you,
Like all people,
Are used to thinking rather than feeling in the moment.
Naturally drawn into this thinking pattern.
Just remind yourself to go back to your breath until you have trained the attention to connect and sustain contact with this experience rather than the mental experience.
Your practice is just that.
It's practice and training the attention and what we call present time awareness.
Bringing our attention back to the experience of the breath over and over again.
Breathing in.
Know that breath is coming into the body.
Breathing out.
Know that breath is leaving the body.
Each time the attention wanders into thinking or into another sense experience,
Just acknowledge that that is happening.
Noting the thinking or the hearing or the seeing and returning again to the awareness of your breath.
Start over.
Each time the attention wanders,
Just come back again to your breath.
While we're training mind and present time awareness of breath,
The mind's almost constant wandering into the awareness of the breath.
The mind's almost constant wandering and returning.
It's important to bring a quality of kindness and understanding to your practice.
Try to be friendly toward your own experience.
Of course,
The mind wanders.
There's nothing wrong.
It's just what the mind does.
Breathing in.
Know that breath is coming into the body.
Breathing out.
Just know that breath is leaving the body.
It's necessary to be patient and kind to yourself in the process of training.
Training yourself to be in present time awareness and coming back to our breath.
Attempt to bring a friendliness to your relationship with your thoughts.
Simply redirect your attention back to your breath.
Breathing in.
Know that you are breathing in.
And breathing out.
Know that you are breathing out.
Let's take a minute or two and just sit in our breath in the quietness of our awareness.
Whenever you feel ready,
Give yourself some kindness for your breath meditation.
And the time out that you took for yourself today,
It's a beautiful thing to connect with oneself and to connect with others.
And as you come back into your space,
I encourage you to join me in a collective breath.
I like to extend out and take in as much as I can.
So if that's what feels good to you,
Bring it.
Peace and joy to you and yours.
Hope to see you soon.
