Meditation on the breath.
Let us begin by establishing our meditation posture and placing our hands in the form of the cosmic mudra.
Or if you wish,
You can simply place your hands,
Palms down on your legs.
Then mentally run your mind over your body,
Checking your posture.
Make sure that your spine is straight but not overextended.
Your spine should be resting in a natural S-shaped curve.
If you are using a chair,
Make sure that you are not leaning against the back of it unless you need the extra support and that your feet are planted firmly on the floor.
Make sure that your body is natural and relaxed.
There should be no sense of straining.
Check that your shoulders are not tense.
As you breathe out,
Consciously allow any tension in the shoulders to slip away.
You should feel a sense of openness in the chest.
Check that your head is balanced gently,
Imagining that you are supporting the sky with the crown of your head.
Now close your eyes or half close your eyes and let your gaze gently fall a few feet in front of you.
There should be a sense of quiet dignity about your posture.
Bring your attention to your breath.
Notice the breath as it goes in and out.
Try to really tune into it.
Notice where it first hits the point just below the nostrils before it enters the body.
Perhaps you can feel a cool sensation as the air passes through the nostrils on its way to the lungs.
Feel the rising and falling of the belly with each breath as the diaphragm broadens and flattens and then rises back up underneath the ribs.
Can you be aware of your chest expanding and contracting?
Try not to change the breath.
You are not doing something with the breath.
You are just observing it.
Allow the breath to do whatever it needs to do.
Just gently follow it in and out.
If your mind wanders,
This is OK.
This is the natural process of the conditioned mind.
When you notice that it has wandered,
Just gently bring it back to the breath.
If you need to do this a hundred times,
It's OK.
You are not failing when your mind wanders.
Every time you notice that your mind has wandered,
This is a moment of success,
Of awareness.
Have compassion for yourself.
Now go a little more deeply into your body.
Where are you feeling your breath the most?
Can you feel the rise and fall of the body with each breath like an ocean swell?
Feel the natural movement of the breath and the body.
Stay with this process for two or three minutes,
Watching the breath going in and out.
We are using the breath as an anchor for the mind.
Each time the mind wanders,
We anchor it back on the breath.
In order to notice that the mind has wandered,
There must be something bigger than the mind that has a wider perspective.
This wider perspective is awareness.
It is much easier to handle the mind when it wanders in the wide open space of awareness.
Just like the sky stays still and serene as clouds gather and pass across it and then dissolve into its vast emptiness.
So your thoughts will gather,
Roam across the vastness of your awareness and then dissolve into nothingness.
Just staying with the breath,
Watching it going in and out.
Feeling the rising and falling of the breath in the body like an ocean.
Where can you experience the breath in the body most strongly?
Is it in the chest area or the belly or even perhaps the back of the body?
Noticing the movement of the breath in the back of the body tends to be naturally calming.
Allowing yourself to sink down into this experience of the breath in the body.
Now just gently bringing your awareness to the weight of your body sitting on the cushion,
The floor or the chair.
Feel the weight of your hands and your arms resting in your lap.
Gently extend your awareness back out into the room that you are in.
Becoming aware of the surroundings.
Take a few deep breaths,
Connect with your feet and open your eyes in your own time.
