MIDL 15min 09 / 20: Perceptional Borders

New to MIDL? 15 Minutes of Mindfulness is an introductory series to the MIDL 52 Mindfulness Meditation Trainings. 9/20 is the MIDL Mindfulness Training the sensitivity to the four elemental qualities & perceptional borders that arise as the experience of the body to train the First MIDL Pillar of Flexible Attention. Practice daily for one week before moving to the next exercise

Have a question? Insight Timer Group: MIDL Mindfulness in Daily Life with Stephen Procter. Private question? Send me a message.

Transcript

Hello,

My name is Stephen Proctor.

In today's guide of meditation we will look at the elemental quality of our body and perceptional borders that appear around them.

If you just start out by taking a meditation posture and gently place one hand within the other,

Holding each hand together lightly.

Now close your eyes over lightly,

Relax your jaw and place your tongue behind your two top teeth.

Now gently take a deep breath in and as you're breathing out,

Allow yourself to relax.

Now start off by being aware of the feeling of your body sitting or lying down.

Start to notice that throughout your body there's a feeling of heaviness.

Anchor your awareness within that feeling of heaviness within your body.

Bring out your focus.

Allow your awareness to sink down to the place where your body touches the chair or the floor.

The experience a touch may appear to you as sensations such as pressing,

Hardness or softness.

The experience a touch may appear to you as sensations such as pressing,

Hardness or softness.

Be aware of the point where one hand touches the other.

In the experience of your hands touching each other,

Can you experience the sensation of warmth there?

If you can,

Be aware of it and silently say,

Warm,

Warm.

Within the touch of your hands,

Can you experience any coolness there?

If you can experience coolness within your hands,

Be aware of it and silently say,

Cool,

Cool.

Be aware of the point where one hand touches the other.

Of the experience of coolness and warmth,

Hardness,

Softness within your hands.

Can you notice where one hand begins and the other hand ends?

Or can you only notice,

Only experience the hardness,

Softness,

Warmth,

Coolness?

As the perceptional borders of your hands disappeared,

There is only left the experience of these elemental qualities.

As the perceptional borders of your hands disappeared,

There is only left the experience of these elemental qualities.

Now gently bring your attention down to the place where your body touches the chair or the floor.

Become aware of the elemental qualities of hardness,

Softness,

Warmth,

Coolness in that touch.

Can you experience where your body ends and the chair or the floor begins?

Or can you only experience the elemental qualities such as hardness,

Softness,

Warmth,

Coolness?

As the perceptional borders of your body dissolved.

Now gently expand your awareness throughout the whole of your body.

Notice all the different sensations within your body.

Being aware of the borders of your body,

Can you experience where your body ends and the room begins?

Or can you only experience the warmth,

Coolness,

Tension?

Or can you only experience the warmth,

Coolness,

Tension,

Heaviness?

Can you only experience the elemental qualities that make up your body?

Have the perceptional borders of your body completely dissolved?

Have the perceptional borders of your body completely dissolved?

Now bring your awareness gently down to the point of touch with the chair or the floor.

Immerse your awareness within that touch.

Open your awareness up and be aware of any sounds around you.

Allow the sounds to come into you.

And very slowly open your eyes.

Be aware of seeing.

Be aware of just being in the room.

Thank you for spending this time with me.

Take care of yourself.

Goodbye.

Reviews

Profoundly expansive and quietly delightful to experience.
Thank you teacher

Each step of this MIDL program has been so very beneficial...gratitude for illuminating a path to stillness that is so structured and progressive...loving it 🙏

Amazing experience! Thank you.

Stephen hello and profound thanks. I have been listening to your many offerings for over two years and I consider you to be one the best guided meditators on insight timer..... less talk, more silence to actually practice! 🙏🏼
So I have a question. Is the aim of this practice to feel the sensate qualities of hardness, softness, pressure and temperature as they occur in the moment?
If so, how does this benefit our spiritual practice?
With humble thanks
Hetti

Hey Stephen. I have been listening for a week but I can't quite understand how I can loose the perceptual boarders. I can sense (say at the hands) the qualities at the meeting point. So that is how I know there seperateness. I feel the air on my skin, that is the borderline of my body and the room ? Thank you very much for your time and providing us with these amazing teachings out of the kindness of your heart. I believe this teaching to be a successful transcendence of suffering and a life practice

Very good exercise for expanding your awareness that the connection between to your body is within the mind

Really enjoyed this body awareness session. Feeling into where I am in the space of my room. Thank you

Loved this practice in particular and the systematic approach MIDL offers

Nice guided meditation to understand how the limits of the body dissapeared, nice and relaxing a good practice to repeat alone

This meditation made me aware that we are constantly giving and taking from our environment and made of the same elements. It made me think that I want to be more conscious of what I contribute.

Thank you, Stephan, for this meditation. Profound and calming.

Thank you for this. Very peaceful time with you.

Thankyou the hands stood out to me.. i really enjoyed this meditation ...
Namasté🕉🙏

Good meditation. And the volume is reasonably audible again.

Really enjoyed this one and the practice of perceptual borders! My hands blended with each other, my lower body blended into my cushion, my whole body blended with the Universe. I sat quietly for a while longer after the guidance was over and practiced my new lesson. Thank you Stephen.

Great guided meditation! Really really allowed me to loose the borders of my body. Thanks a lot for this gift.

I love the way focusing on the peripheral borders of conscious experience gives the wandering mind something strange & new to wonder into!

So perfect for my mindfulness meditation practice. Thank you !

Not keen initially on his pace of his voice but actually this is a very helpful practice and his voice has a light touch which doesn't interfere with your concentration. Will return to this one 🙏