Welcome.
This is a 20 minute sitting meditation,
Practicing awareness of breath and body.
Mindfulness of breathing is simply practicing a calm,
Non-judging awareness of the breath,
Allowing thoughts and feelings to come and go without getting caught up in them.
The intention is to practice waking up to automatic pilot and to come back to the senses.
Pay attention to the breath,
The body,
The senses,
Cultivating attitudes of non-striving,
Letting go of any expectations of how our experience may be and opening up allowing our experience to be just as it is,
Inviting curiosity to the present moment experience.
So settling into a comfortable sitting position,
Either on a straight back chair or on a soft cushion on the floor,
The bum supported by cushions,
If using a chair sitting away from the back of the chair so that the spine is self-supporting.
Just taking a few moments to experiment with the posture,
Finding that middle ground between a place of alertness and dignity and a sense of ease and comfort.
And closing the eyes if that feels comfortable,
If not,
Simply letting the gaze fall unfocused,
Soft,
A few feet ahead.
Feeling the sitting bones on the chair of the cushion and tuning into these sensations of the body.
Perhaps feeling a sense of weightedness through the lower part of the body,
A sense of lightness or uplift through the front of the body,
The upper part of the body,
A sense of growing tall.
The head is balanced on top,
Not too far forward,
Not too far back.
And if you're sitting on the floor,
Feeling the feet on the floor,
The legs are uncrossed.
Just tuning into this awareness of the sense of touch as we sit in this deliberate,
Alert and dignified way.
Whenever you're ready,
Moving to the sense of hearing,
Opening up to sounds outside of the room.
Practicing allowing the body to receive the sounds.
The ears,
The doorway to hearing,
Not identifying the sounds in any way.
Just letting the sounds come and go in and out of awareness.
They're outside of our control.
So just resting back and noticing rhythm,
Volume,
Pitch.
There's no need to label,
No need to create a story around the sounds.
Just listening.
Moving to sounds inside the room.
What's here to be noticed?
Just allowing the sounds to come and go as they please.
Picking a choice to allow ourselves to be exactly as we are right here in this moment.
Aware of thoughts and emotions as they come and go.
Awareness of the sense of touch.
Paying particular attention to these sensations of touch.
This sense of the body as we encounter them.
Acknowledging our experience just as it is.
And when it feels right,
Gently allowing the attention to notice the movement of the breath.
This constant feature in life that's so easy to ignore.
So allowing ourselves to take some time with it now.
Actually feeling those sensations of the breath as it rolls in and rolls out.
Practicing allowing,
Just allowing the breath to move through its own natural cycle of in breath and out breath.
There's no need to control the breath.
No need to have it any particular way.
Just noticing where is it that I can sense the breath in the body.
Maybe allowing the hands to rest on the belly.
There's a sense of rise and fall maybe in the belly.
Maybe it's easiest to notice the breath in the chest.
A sense of uplift and rise and a falling back on the out breath.
Or maybe you're sensing the breath most easily at the nostrils.
That play of air.
Just as best we can feeling the movement of the breath,
The rhythm.
Just letting it roll in and roll out.
Just resting the awareness in this moving breath.
Practicing the waves of the breath from moment to moment.
And if at any time sensations in the body become too uncomfortable,
Thoughts too difficult carrying us away to the past or the future or emotions arise that are too difficult.
Remembering that it's always possible to return to this rhythm of the breath in and out.
Practicing coming back and being with the breath.
Allowing it to be your anchor back to the present moment right here right now.
Or if the breath isn't feeling like an anchor,
Like a refuge,
Maybe practicing tuning into the sensations of the soles of the feet on the floor or the bum on the chair.
Just tuning in and listening to the sound of my voice whenever you feel ready to continue on with the practice.
Moving awareness now to the level of physical sensations in the body.
Becoming curious,
Investigating the experience of this very alive body.
Becoming aware of the tension on the sensations of touch,
Contact,
Pressure in the body,
Wherever it makes contact with the floor or with whatever you're sitting on.
Exploring these sensations of the mind.
Whenever the mind wanders maybe off to other aspects of our experience,
Thoughts or emotions or sounds,
Simply acknowledging this is part of our experience.
Remembering this is what minds do.
Acknowledging where the mind wanders if that's possible.
Naming it as thinking or feeling,
Hearing.
And inviting the attention back gently but firmly to explore onwards.
Bringing awareness to the changing patterns of physical sensations in the belly.
Focusing,
Maybe wherever it's easiest to sense the breath moving deep in the body.
The nostrils,
The upper lip,
Maybe the chest,
Through the belly.
Just a sense of moving in and moving out.
There's no need to try to control the breath in any way.
Simply letting the body breathe itself as best we can.
Staying in touch with these changing physical sensations for the full duration of an in-breath.
The full duration of the out-breath.
Opening up to all these subtle sensations of breath in and out.
Perhaps imagining that there's a balloon in the belly.
Each time we breathe in,
Noticing how that balloon inflates those actual sensations.
And then each time we're breathing out,
Noticing how the balloon deflates.
As best we can,
Bringing a sense of freshness,
A beginner's mind to each unique breath.
Just inhaling,
Just exhaling.
There's nothing to be fixed,
No problem to be solved.
There's just this one breath.
Noticing how the attention moves.
At one point we may be aware of the senses,
Physical sensations.
In another may be the rise and fall of emotions.
Just letting go and gently coming back to the anchor of the breath.
Or the sensations of the bum on the chair,
The feet on the floor.
Anchoring back to the present,
Through the breath,
Through the body.
When thoughts come into the mind,
When we realise this,
This is the moment of awareness.
We remember it's natural to get caught up,
To get lost in thought.
It's what minds do.
Simply practicing with a gentle curiosity.
What would it feel like to let go of those thoughts?
We don't have to follow them or analyse them in any way.
Softening any judgements around,
Having thoughts,
Emotions.
Just noticing and choosing to come back to the body,
Back to the anchor of the breath or the feet on the floor.
Whenever we notice that the attention has drifted off and getting caught up in sensations,
Thoughts or emotions,
Simply noticing that the attention has drifted and coming back to the breathing.
Letting go of any judgements that may be arising.
No matter how many times this happens,
We begin again.
Letting go,
Coming back to the breathing.
Just this one breath in and out.
Maybe noticing is there a pause between the in and the out breath?
Whenever you're ready,
Allowing the attention to expand now,
To include the entire body.
From the soles of the feet right up to the top of the head and out to the edges of our body.
Being present to the totality of sitting here,
Sitting here in this present moment.
Gathering our attention onto the sensations of the breath.
Recognising how it's been a constant companion and how it brings the whole body together.
Feeling the earth beneath us.
Feeling all those points of contact where the body meets the ground.
Tuning into this deeper sense of knowing that we are sitting here.
The breath is rolling in and rolling out.
Breathing in through the body and breathing out back down into the ground.
Really earthing ourselves,
Grounding ourselves in this present moment.
Whenever you're ready,
Gently turning the awareness to sounds here in the room.
The sounds outside of the room.
Bringing the practice to a close in your own way.
Maybe allowing a bit of gentle stretching or movement in whatever way the body feels like it needs right now.
And gently opening the eyes,
Savouring these last few moments of stillness.
And thanking yourself for spending this time to nourish and nurture the mind and body in this way.
Your awareness of breath and body practice is complete.
