We'll begin by becoming more mindful of the breath and I like to approach mindfulness by as much as possible even when we're paying attention to one particular thing like the breath as much as possible to keep the mind,
The awareness really open to everything that's happening in the present moment so moving away from this idea of having to focus or concentrate on one thing to the exclusion of others the way I describe this is see if you can gently and lightly hold your breath in the centre or the foreground of your open awareness and still being aware,
Not trying to ignore all the other things that are happening and just allow them to happen slightly in the background around the breath so thoughts,
Sounds,
Other sensations and feelings all still there,
All still welcome,
All still within my open awareness but for the first few moments of this meditation just choosing to have a particular interest in the breath so let's spend a few moments really feeling the breath in the body and feeling the physical sensations of the breath as we breathe in and out so you don't have to change the breath in any way just allow the breath to be as it is and feel the breath rising and falling in the body and don't worry if you find your attention moves away from the breath whether it's to sounds or thoughts or anything else at all you can only experience in the present moment so you really haven't moved anywhere you're always in the present and then you can just remind yourself that whilst all these other things are going on you're still breathing and see if you can hold the awareness of the breath in your awareness along with whatever else may be pulling at your attention so for example if there's a distracting sound you can be aware of that sound just notice that you're also continuing to breathe,
See if you can hold both things within your awareness or if it's a particular train of thoughts just notice that while you're thinking you're also breathing so not excluding anything from our awareness,
Not blocking anything out just seeing if we can have at least some of our attention on noticing the breath as well as just allowing the breath to be as it is without trying to change the breath in any way before we move on to thoughts,
See if you can get a sense of the body being breathed by the breath so the breath is the active part and the body is the passive recipient of the breath and your awareness also a passive recipient of the experience of the breath so you don't have to make any effort at all to make the breath happen you don't have to remember to breathe or make a conscious choice to breathe so spend a few moments just noticing how it feels to experience the body being breathed by the breath so allowing the breath to continue just as it is keeping the awareness nice and light and open noticing all the other things as well as the breath that you can be aware of in this moment so other sensations as well as the breath in the body,
Sounds that you can hear how you're feeling and the thoughts that are occurring within your mind and for the next part of the meditation the invitation is to now pay a particular interest in the experience of your thoughts so gently bringing your thoughts into the centre and the foreground of your open awareness and allow the breath to join everything else just slightly in the background so again not excluding or trying to ignore anything that's happening so just giving a bit of prominence to your experience of your thoughts so spending a few moments now really feeling what it's like to be thinking whilst you're paying particular interest to your thoughts not necessarily to the content of the thoughts but just to the experience of thoughts occurring within your mind so thinking with this awareness and as we did with the breath,
Don't try and change your thoughts in any way don't try and think less,
Don't try and think more slowly,
Don't try and think more positively so we're shining a light of awareness on the thoughts but we're really disinterested in the content of the thoughts so much so that we're not going to make any effort at all to change or influence the content of our thoughts give your thoughts that complete freedom to just be as they are and again mirroring what we did with the breath where we had a sense of being the passive recipient of the breath,
Of being breathed by the breath so here we can experience a similar thing with your thoughts and experience that you also don't have to make any effort to create a thought you don't have to remember to think or choose any particular thought see if you can experience the fact that the thoughts just arrive and arise within your mind,
Within your awareness,
All by themselves how does that feel?
The final part of the commentary before we have a few minutes for silence is to see if you can keep the awareness so open and welcoming and be so alert and attentive that you can catch the arrival of each new thought into the mind so you have that interest and that wonder as to what your next thought may be not trying to guess or predict what it is but being open and alert to catch the arrival of whatever the thought is once a thought has arrived in the mind we're completely disinterested in the content of the thought and it can hang around and do whatever it wants for as long as it wants because we're always going to be looking out for receiving the next thought that arrives obtaining that easy and light openness and that alertness and attention without any tension,
Interest,
Wonder open to receive and welcome so what's your next thought going to be?
And then the next one after that.
So a few moments just practicing this so disinterested in the content of your current thoughts and turning your interest and your alertness to seeing what the next thought and the thought after that will be arriving all by themselves within your open awareness OK so for the last few minutes before we end the meditation just keeping this practice going and just inviting or being open to maybe some different types of thoughts coming into your mind maybe different to your usual or habitual thought patterns again not trying to create anything but just sending out that invitation and keeping that openness for any insightful,
Inspirational or intuitive thoughts to naturally arise within your open awareness so an invitation for insight,
Inspiration,
Intuition without expectation just maintaining this nice and light and open and receptive awareness so a few minutes in silence so so so so one more minute or so before we finish just checking that awareness is nice and open and that you're turning your interest and alertness to thoughts arriving,
Appearing within your awareness,
Within your mind and being open to thoughts of insight,
Inspiration and intuition so so so OK so when you're ready you can bring the meditation to a close so so so so so so so
