Hello and welcome to the Fundamentals of Meditation.
My name is Daniel and I'm going to be guiding you today through about 10 minutes of the real essentials of a meditation practice,
A little bit of theory and then some practice afterwards.
So meditation is really the art of attention.
It's at first just deciding to notice what's actually happening,
To be committed to discovering as unbiased a baseline for reality as we can.
And the first thing to notice as you step into this practice is that by becoming still and be closing the eyes,
There's still a lot of information moving around in the mind.
The visual world may be absent but images,
Pieces of language and emotional tone are still present.
We can call all of this thinking.
If we put thinking into a category that includes memory,
Future planning,
Ruminating,
You can consider all these types of thinking like objects in a pond or a lake with the surrounding water very still.
This still water that surrounds the objects of the mind we'll call consciousness.
Consciousness you could say is the backdrop of thinking.
It is where the thoughts emerge from and eventually where they'll return to.
And we exist even in the absence of thought.
We've evolved to notice threat and opportunity first so remaining attentive in the absence of threat or opportunity to just one thing is naturally more challenging.
But it really is this increase in ability to notice the subtle that provides much of the richness we can find in our lives.
You think of the subtle flavors of your favorite meal.
Could we savor life in this way as well?
So let's begin.
Our first meditation will include the breath.
So wherever you are just take a few moments here and settle in.
If you're in a chair you can lean back a little bit.
Your hands and body can be in whatever position is comfortable for you.
And just take a few long inhales and exhales just comfortably filling your lungs with breath making it a voluntary action of breathing.
That's really one side of the coin of the breath is our voluntary ability to breathe.
Breathing in,
Letting the breath fall out and just noticing the sensations of the breath while you breathe actively.
Our meditation will include an anchor for the mind and it'll be the breath this time.
Now as you breathe you can begin to relax the effort in the breath and this may not be possible to completely relax your effort while you pay attention but as much as possible to dial down the effort you're putting into the breath so the breath really feels as if it's breathing you.
As the breath becomes more subtle take a moment here to see where you feel it in the body.
It may be in the chest,
Maybe in the nose,
Maybe in the belly.
Now once you've located the sensation notice if you have or are engaging any tension in the body in the face,
The hands that would illustrate an effort,
Muscular effort that you're making.
That isn't necessary in this practice.
See if you can just let the body as much as possible relax,
Let the tension relax in the hands and the face.
And the act of attention or attentiveness towards the breath is really effortless.
And once you've located the breath or you feel it in the body as effortlessly as possible,
Now you can begin to underneath the breath just lay down a count.
You inhale and exhale being one as if you're just softly whispering that under the breath.
And we'll take that count up to five.
I'll give you a few moments of silence here.
Each inhale exhale being one.
And when you're ready.
When you reach your fifth exhale you can let the counting go,
Just let it dissolve.
Just remain attentive to the feeling of your breath.
It's as if you're looking out over a very clear pond or lake,
Very still.
What you're going to find that will happen regularly is within the stillness that we're calling consciousness there will be artifacts in the mind like things rising out of that still water,
Images,
Thought,
Pieces of language,
Future planning.
Imagine you're leaning back in a comfortable chair looking at this glass-like surface of the lake.
And as any one of those images,
Thought,
Patterns appear,
Let the eyes be soft so you're looking around it as well and into the background of stillness.
Every time something appears out of that stillness to capture your attention simply notice it dissolve.
Look for the spaces around the thoughts.
I'll give you another minute here.
It's And now you can begin to feel the presence of the body in terms of its pressure onto the surface you're sitting on,
Feeling a weight,
The temperature of the air on your skin defining the boundaries between you and your environment.
And for the last few moments here of our meditation you can begin now to breathe again actively,
Taking in breaths,
Releasing breaths back out.
And as you breathe you can apply a word or a phrase to the breath that signifies how you'd like to feel for the rest of your day.
Be peaceful,
Any clarity,
Compassion,
Whatever it is you'd like to provoke and engender in the mind today.
Feel as if you're breathing in that quality for a few moments here.
And finally you can let any technique at all go,
Any force or any effort in the mind or the body and you can begin to just gently blink the eyes open so you're seeing the world around you appear again if the eyes were closed.
You may want to do a stretch with your arms and legs,
Just feel very vital and present before you get up to do your next task for the day.
Thank you very much for listening.
This is Daniel Clement and we'll continue on with another nine parts to this ten-part meditation on the fundamentals of meditation.
I'll see you soon.
