We will now begin a practice of meditation.
So sit gently with your legs crossed or on a chair.
And as you assume this posture,
Just be aware of your body for a moment.
Feel your legs,
Feet,
Your sitting bones,
Back,
Shoulders,
Arms,
And head and neck.
And just feel into your body,
Sensing that the body is breathing and the movement of the breath.
Take your awareness down to your feet and just sense the bottoms of your feet from the right foot and the left foot.
Just feel the bottoms of your feet.
Feel into both of your legs,
The right leg and the left leg.
And begin to sense into your sitting bones or sit bones and just feel the weight of your body evenly distributed between the right and the left sit bone.
Having the weight be balanced kind of in the middle of your sitting bones,
Not tilting forward nor tilting back,
But just the very center.
Since that your lower body is now the support or the anchor for your upper body to extend.
Feeling the lengthening of your spine right from your pelvis all the way up.
Relax your shoulders,
Arms,
And hands.
Placing the hands softly on the legs,
Palms facing down.
Relax the side of the sides of the neck,
Back of the neck,
The skull,
Scalp,
The muscles of the face,
Starting with the forehead.
Just allow it to become spacious and wide.
Relax your eyes,
Cheeks,
Jaw.
Feel the relaxation of your chest,
Abdomen.
Just sense your body here now.
Your body is in a fairly relaxed state and as you feel and sense your body here,
Be aware of your breath.
Just take a moment to feel the body breathing the breath.
Maybe you feel the breath at your abdomen,
The abdomen expanding and softening.
Maybe you feel the breath in the chest or maybe you sense the breath in the throat.
Wherever that may be,
Just feel the body breathing.
And now just bring your awareness right to the nose.
Just become aware of the in and out flow of the breath coming through the nose and out through the nose,
In through the nose,
Out through the nose.
You might notice that as you inhale,
The breath is cooling as it comes through the nostrils.
And as you exhale,
There's a little bit of a warmth that is experienced within the nostrils.
And as you observe your breath here,
Please start to count your breath backwards starting from 10 all the way to 1.
And if you make it to 1,
Then count back up from 1 to 10.
So next inhale,
You can visualize the number 10 in front of you.
And exhale,
10.
Inhale,
Number 9 appears on the screen.
And exhale,
9 fades.
Inhale,
8.
And exhale,
8.
And so on,
Counting down.
If at any point the count is lost,
You can begin again counting down from 10 or up from 1 if you've made it there.
Just let this be a gentle effort of counting the breaths.
Most importantly,
Just feeling the body,
Breathing the breath.
And then just letting go of the count now.
Returning to natural awareness of the breath.
Just feel the breath wherever it may be easy.
It might be in the chest,
Belly,
Or elsewhere.
Wherever it feels easy to feel the breath.
And begin to feel the sensations present in your body.
Feel your arms.
Feel your legs,
Your abdomen,
Your shoulders and chest,
Face.
And just feel your body here.
Now as you feel your body here,
You can make a little commitment or a promise to yourself to carry this vibration of peace and calm that you've created for yourself throughout your day,
Into your life,
And into your relations with others.
And so now you can rub your hands together vigorously.
And once your hands feel warm,
You can place them onto your face.
Just feeling the heat from your hands.
So this concludes our meditation.
You can come back to this simple meditation as often as you like.
Namaste.
