Welcome to this guided meditation on resting in direct experience.
It's an invitation to let go of the mind's need to interpret or control,
And instead rest in the simplicity of what's here.
What you can feel,
What you can hear or sense or know directly.
You're not trying to achieve anything.
You're not trying to understand or explain.
Just being present for this moment exactly as it is.
Let's begin by finding a comfortable meditation posture.
You can sit on a cushion or a chair,
Upright yet relaxed,
Allowing your spine to gently rise,
Your shoulders to soften,
And your hands to rest in your lap or on your thighs.
Letting your eyes close,
If that feels comfortable,
Or lowering your gaze towards the floor.
Taking a few deep,
Full breaths,
Breathing in through the nose and out through the mouth.
Now just letting the breath breathe naturally,
Just as it always does,
All on its own.
Feeling the support beneath you,
Feeling gravity,
Feeling the ground,
The cushion,
Feeling that you're being held and just resting for a few moments.
Now gently bringing your attention to the body.
Feel the contact points where your body touches the chair or the cushion or your feet on the floor or your hands resting on your legs.
Deeply sensing into the felt sense of these contact points without labeling or naming,
Simply noticing.
Feel the sensations in your body right now.
Beyond these points of contact,
You might feel other things in the body,
A warmth or a coolness,
Tingling or pressure,
And perhaps some vibration even.
Staying with this raw bodily experience.
You don't have to describe it or label it.
Simply feel it.
And moving your attention slowly throughout the body,
Noticing what's present in your the middle back,
Your stomach and chest,
Your shoulders,
The neck,
Jaw,
And the lips and the tongue,
The cheeks,
The eyes and the area around the eyes,
The forehead,
And the top of your head and the back and sides of your head.
Notice how each area has its own subtle sensations,
Its own quiet language.
Trying not to change anything.
Just sensing in and being with the body as it is.
When thoughts come in,
Which will inevitably happen,
Things like this is tight or this is uncomfortable,
Just notice the thought and then gently and kindly return to the direct experience of the sensation.
What does this moment feel like in your body,
Regardless of what the mind is saying about it?
Sensing into the raw,
Bare,
Direct experience of whatever's in the body in this moment.
Now shifting your attention to your other senses.
What do you hear?
Listening without trying to identify or label sounds.
Simply letting the sounds wash over you,
Whether they're near,
Far,
Steady,
Or changing.
Tuning into the sound without the story.
Just waves of vibration in the air,
Resting in the direct experience of hearing.
Whatever the sounds are,
It doesn't particularly matter.
It could be the clock ticking or cars outside or internal sounds of digestion in the body.
It doesn't really matter what they are.
We're simply practicing resting our awareness on the raw sounds and letting them wash over you without needing to label or identify them.
Now bringing your awareness to the sensation of breathing.
Notice the rise and fall of the chest,
The coolness at the tip of the nose,
The subtle expansion and release of the belly.
No need to shape or change the breath in any way.
Simply following it,
Feeling it,
Sensing into it.
Let the breath become your anchor to the present moment.
Resting in awareness without interpretation.
Now we'll let go of any attempts to focus on any one thing.
Instead,
Resting in open awareness,
Allowing whatever arises to be directly known without naming,
Without chasing,
Without pushing away.
Noticing a sound,
Just sound.
A thought arises,
Just a thought.
A feeling emerges,
Just sensation.
Not identifying with,
Not pushing away,
Not grasping.
Simply noticing,
Observing whatever objects arise into your field of awareness.
Simply being aware of them without any commentary,
Decision or interpretation.
Just this bare awareness of your direct experience.
Continuing to return to the question,
What is my experience right now?
What is my direct experience right now?
Let it be simple.
Let it be felt or sensed rather than explained.
And you'll likely find that the mind starts to comment,
Interpret,
Label or just drift off into fantasy.
And that's quite natural and expected.
Each time you notice,
Simply returning to what is here.
Just gently but firmly returning your attention to the breath,
The body,
The sounds,
Whatever is showing up as an object of awareness.
And remember,
It's not a failure or a mistake.
This is what the practice is all about.
You're simply exercising your mindfulness muscle in a way,
Bringing it to the direct experience of what's unfolding in your life rather than being lost in the mind that interprets and comments and chatters away about what's occurring.
We're just bringing back or stepping back our attention back to that bare experience.
Letting this be a time of noticing,
Of listening,
Of observing,
Not listening for anything,
Just listening,
Listening to the body,
Listening to the breath,
Listening to the quiet silence of the now.
Just coming back to direct experience again and again.
It's very much a practice of repetition.
We're really training our mind to come back to the now,
To the direct experience of the now.
To get out of our heads and into our lives.
So if you find you drift off or you start labeling and commenting,
Just know that this is what minds do and it's quite natural and should be expected.
Just continuously coming back again and again to the direct experience of the moment.
Now beginning to gently return to the breath,
Letting your attention settle once again on the in-breath and the out-breath.
Noticing what's going on in the body,
The sense of the room and the sounds around you and feeling the support of the ground beneath you.
Moving your fingers and your toes,
Maybe rolling your shoulders or stretching.
Begin to transition from the meditation to the rest of the day and seeing if you can bring this sense of being in each moment of your life with this kind of focus.
Really knowing what's happening moment by moment.
Rather than being lost in thought about the moment or about the future or worry about the past,
Just taking a moment to sense how you feel energetically,
Physically,
And again carrying this felt sense of the direct moment into the rest of your day.
