Physical Senses

One way to practice mindfulness is to focus on your physical senses. This meditation explores this theme.

Transcript

In terms of posture,

Sitting is great because you're both alert and relaxed.

So lengthen your spine and relax your shoulders and arms.

If you haven't already,

Gently close your eyes.

Pay attention to what you're hearing.

Maybe you're hearing traffic,

Wind,

Or the sound of your own breath.

Maybe you just hear silence.

If you hear sounds,

Great.

If you hear silence,

Great.

Just notice whatever you're hearing for the next 30 seconds.

If you're hearing more than one sound,

You can pick one to listen to.

Listen to all the sounds at once,

Or let your attention naturally be pulled from sound to sound.

Experiment with these options and see which is interesting for you.

Here's another 30-second period of silence.

From now on,

Just practice the instructions during these periods of silence.

Placing your focus on sound or silence in your environment can provide a pleasant break from stress.

You don't have to try to get rid of stressful thoughts and feelings.

Just let them come and go in the background as you direct awareness towards the sound or silence around you.

Over time,

You'll begin to notice the grounding power of sound and silence.

If you're having trouble allowing stressful thoughts and feelings to come and go,

Try taking a few deep breaths,

Or relaxing your body,

Or putting a slight smile on your face.

Good.

Now let that go and bring your attention to your body.

Specifically,

Pay attention to your physical as opposed to your emotional body.

Maybe you feel the seat underneath you,

The touch of your clothes,

Or the expansion and contraction of your chest as you breathe.

Pay attention to whatever physical body sensations are happening for you right now.

You can focus on a part of your body,

Like your leg or chest,

Your whole body all at once,

Or let your attention naturally be pulled from sensation to sensation within your body.

If your attention wanders to other experiences like thoughts or sounds,

That's okay.

You don't have to stop the thoughts,

And the sounds don't need to go away.

Just let the distractions come and go in the background and bring your attention back to your body.

This redirection of your attention is like lifting a weight with your awareness.

That's how you strengthen your concentration.

Good.

Now let go of that.

Slowly open your eyes and bring your attention to what you're seeing.

You can focus on a single object in front of you,

Such as a desk or a wall,

Or take in your whole visual field,

Or let your attention be naturally pulled from object to object.

Focusing on what you see in your environment can provide a pleasant break from stress.

You don't have to try to get rid of stressful thoughts and feelings.

Just let them come and go in the background as you direct awareness towards what you're seeing.

With time,

You'll begin to notice the grounding power of external sight.

Good work.

The ending bell is about to ring.

Simply enjoy the sound of the bell.

Then keep listening as I have some final thoughts to share with you.

There's a common misunderstanding that meditation is something you do only when sitting on a cushion in a silent room.

But actually,

Practicing meditation while doing daily activities increases the benefits.

If you get stressed out over the next day or two,

Try focusing for even just a few seconds on one of the physical senses we explored today—sight,

Sound and silence,

Or physical body sensation.

Each sense is a good place to focus,

So just experiment and see which practice seems to reduce your stress.

Reviews

It felt like I was transported home to Los Angeles where I practiced with Jesse R Fleming. He spoke highly of you. It’s always a treat to practice with a teacher’s teacher.

Great practice, so simple and effective. Recommend!

Thank you for this beautiful simple profound practice 🙏🙏🙏

Pleasant and gentle guidance, easy to follow, and to see benefits. Suitable for beginners to intermediate; if some study and practice in relaxation has been done prior, easier to benefit or “drop in” to the practice and reduce stress and anxiety. Thank you.

Shinzen Young’s way of giving very precise instruction and illustrating benefits of practice is truly rare and helpful. Thanks Shinzen! Hope you will upload new material on IT.

Thank you so much! This is really helpful for reducing stress.

The focus on physical sensation in the body was eye-opening for me.

Very informative, I'll be coming back to this one again and again

Thank you for that simple but effective meditation. 🙏

Wonderful, straightforward and great soothing voice. Thank you!

I love Shinzen Young meditations, his calm, kind and matter of fact approach is what I need to adapt to these new dimensions of reality I'm finding myself in.

Clear instructions, and multiple variations to try

Very nice meditation and very interesting ending thoughts!

Thank you again.

I really enjoyed this format and will return to this meditation.

Practical simplicity. Loved it - especially the visual meditation component (hadn't tried that before), Great voice with easy to follow instructions.

Good to be encouraged to explore physical sensations, including sight, to relax, be in the present moment & reduce stress. Thank you.

Unusual in that it includes visual sense as well - nice!

Simple yet effective.

Down to earth and kindly advice. A refreshing short, sweet and sensible session. Grateful thanks.