Settling into the posture of meditation,
With the lower body rooted and the upper body light and buoyant,
Relaxing into stillness as much,
As intimately,
As fully,
As is available in this moment.
And tune in as we begin to the doing aspect of sitting,
Sitting as an action.
We intentionally put the body in its posture.
We intentionally gather in our attention from the outside,
In its posture,
We intentionally gather in our attention from whatever else we've been thinking about.
We do all of these little gestures that help in the process of settling,
Arriving,
Focusing,
Opening.
Notice the actions that you do in these first moments of sitting in meditation.
Notice the little adjustments of posture to get comfortable.
And what it feels like when sunny rather thanjo,
On your own,
You can easy accumulations of feeling a little drainedness and your Bailey to the posture of rest which is the debilitating nature of comments increases and then settles and the adjustments settle towards stillness.
There's no rush to become still,
But notice the process.
Notice the process of arriving with the breath,
Finding the breath at all to begin with,
Noticing the state of the breath in the body,
Smooth or rough,
Shallow or deep,
Short or long.
And make the breath as comfortable as you can and begin with the action of working with the breath and our intention.
Like the settling into stillness,
Make the breath a little longer or a little more relaxed or a little shorter.
Send the breath into the belly or out into the arms and legs.
Wash the torso with breath.
Notice all the little ways that you meet with your own doing,
The process of the body breathing,
And know that you can be active here.
Really adjust the breath to find comfort the same way you would adjust the posture to find comfort.
And then notice the actions in the mind in the attention.
Notice the mood that's here as we begin sitting the emotional tone and your being.
Notice whether it's easy to bring the attention to rest in the body and breath or difficult if it jumps away quickly back into story,
Memory,
Planning.
Notice if the emotional tone in the body-mind is comfortable or uncomfortable.
And like with the body and breath,
Make the mind comfortable.
How do we do that?
Consciously,
Intentionally,
Volitionally,
Settling the attention,
Turning attention away from that which is painful toward that which is neutral or pleasant is a doing that supports the process of settling into non-doing.
Make the mind as comfortable as you can.
Some of the aspects of the body-mind that you can play with in this opening toward finding comfort are whether the eyes are open or closed.
Do whichever one feels most easeful right now.
Whether you're feeling the breath in a very narrow way like at the tip of the nose or in a very broad way like in the sense of the whole body breathing or even the whole room breathing or mind in an even vaster space just listening to sounds,
Letting the sense of the body be not the foreground but the rising and falling of sounds,
Settling into more of a big mind.
So focus narrow or broad.
Do what's most comfortable.
Begin in your energy.
Again we're going for comfort which often means shifting our state a little bit away from the extremes.
So if you're quite tired and dull,
Brightening a bit,
Deepening the breath,
Opening the eyes,
Lifting the sternum,
Broadening the shoulders.
If you're quite restless or anxious or buzzing with energy,
Calming,
Settling down and back through the posture,
Feeling the out-breath,
Lengthening the out-breath,
Maybe eyes close or maybe eyes just settle down as a way to bring calm to the body.
And as we find this basic comfort in body,
Breath,
Attention,
We feel for how that comfort and the stillness blend together into a kind of further settling.
We settle into a state where the mind is bright,
Clear,
Senses awake,
Hearing,
Feeling,
Seeing,
Hearing,
Knowing,
But also calm,
Not grasping at thoughts or grasping at stories,
But settling toward a spacious,
Focused ease.
The actions we take to begin sitting are not fundamentally different from any other action in our life.
We have choice about where to place our attention and how to work with the body.
And then all of the conditions at play unfold.
The body and mind do what they do,
Responding to everything,
The weather,
What we ate,
What's happening in our life,
And our choices.
And then in each moment,
Experience unfolds,
Awareness meets that moment with presence,
Engagement,
Intimacy,
And choice.
And as we practice,
We learn how to meet unfolding experience more and more clearly and allow our inner being to rest,
Bright,
Awake,
And calm more and more clearly.
So we'll sit together in silence.
When the mind wanders,
Invite it back.
Let body and breath be the whole of your world.
And choose again and again,
Center,
Steady,
Sustaining attention,
Letting go of everything not needed in the heart-mind in this moment.
