And we come to sit in meditation as a way to turn toward the truth of our own experience,
The truth of this life showing itself moment to moment.
So to begin sitting with this as the path,
The path of seeing clearly,
Of understanding,
Of becoming intimate with this life,
And helps to settle the body as much as possible out of the hum of restlessness and activity and relax around the eyes,
Relax around the jaw and the corners of the mouth,
Let the face rest,
Let the face rest,
Maybe feel that in the resting of the musculature of the face,
You can drop the social mask and let the face rest into itself,
Letting the head relax on the shoulders,
Floating over the heart space,
Softening through the neck,
Letting the shoulders drop as best we can,
Letting go of all of the holding,
The doing,
The bracing,
The vigilance we can carry there.
Set down the burden through the shoulders.
As shoulders relax,
Breath can move more freely into the ribs.
I might settle back through the ribs,
Breathing fully without any strain or effort into the diaphragm,
Filling the cathedral of the ribs with breath.
And with the full breath and the exhale,
Letting the belly soften and all the way down into the bowl of the pelvis and the hips,
The breath moving,
Swirling,
Softening through the belly.
So often we hold in the belly either for social or strength reasons,
The way we sit in the chair or the way we want to be seen in our bodies.
Here,
The encouragement to let go through the belly.
Let the low back rest into its natural curve.
Trust that the upper body is supported on that flexible channel of the spine.
Let the belly soften around that central channel.
Legs can just be relaxed,
Heavy,
Grounded,
Whether you're in a chair or on the floor or wherever.
Lower body is solid.
The training in meditation is largely to be able to keep the attention where we choose it.
If I choose to stay with the breath,
I can stay with it.
If I choose to let the attention follow the arising of a thought or feeling,
Be with it through its arising and flowering and passing,
I can do that.
If I need to apply my mind to a problem to figure out,
I can do that.
And if I want my mind to rest in open receptive stillness without taking up any passing thought,
I can do that.
And the training is to learn to direct the attention,
Not to make the mind do what you want,
But to decide what to pay attention to moment to moment.
We focus on the basic practice being returning to the anchor of the body and breathing body.
When we notice the mind has wandered away,
That attention has left the body and is riding the wave of thought or feeling,
Story,
Complaint,
Analysis.
But it's possible just to notice that pull and to choose to stabilize attention with something else,
To not change the channel to whatever is calling out.
In addition to that basic skill of bringing attention back when it wanders,
There's a parallel skill of bringing attention back when it wanders.
There is a parallel skill of preventing it from wandering.
To find this side of the practice,
Come back to the body or breath,
Really establish the felt sense of what you're being with.
Feel the movement of the breath or the posture of the body or sounds coming and going.
And then notice that when you establish that contact,
Story and other thoughts steps back for a moment and there's a silent contact,
Quiet,
Clear,
Direct with whatever you're choosing to observe to be with.
And the part of the practice that is about sustaining this,
Not just coming back after we've wandered,
But preventing the distraction in the first place.
This is about feeling for just the right amount of energy here.
From the open space of mind,
Just enough effort to keep the thread taught.
And then just riding the breath,
Rising and falling around that central thread.
After a few breaths,
It becomes easier.
After a few dozen breaths,
It starts to become joyful,
Even blissful,
The deep spacious field of silence.
We can learn to abide in.
It's not effortless,
But it's not tense.
So we'll practice toward this sweet spot together or with any silent meditation discipline that you work with.
We'll sit together in silence now.
