Take a moment to settle into your seat,
Relaxing the body and taking note of any sensations that arise when you're in this posture.
Are you noticing unpleasant sensations,
Pleasant sensations,
Or neutral sensations?
Still noting by identifying the nature of your sensations,
Thoughts,
And emotions helps us recognize our experience without getting lost in it.
Let your mind scan your body,
Observing the area of the head.
Are you experiencing any pleasant,
Unpleasant,
Or neutral sensations in the head?
Even if the sensations are unwanted,
Invite your mind to adopt a friendly attitude towards your experience.
Now move your attention to your neck and shoulders.
What do you notice there?
Let your attention travel down your arms to your hands,
Taking note of whatever is happening in your joints,
Your skin,
Your muscles.
Bring your attention to the belly and torso.
What's happening in that area of your body?
Dropping down into the hips,
Noticing what's happening in the whole pelvic floor area.
Down through the thighs,
To the calves,
And the feet.
Just pausing for a moment to reflect on what it is that you've experienced in this body scan and how your mind is labeling the experiences of your body.
Now notice your breath.
Let your attention settle there with your breathing.
You don't have to do any special kind of breathing.
Just let your body breathe and we're going to observe what's happening when you breathe.
Where do you feel the breath most in your body?
Just notice.
Observe the entire journey of your breath as it enters into your nose,
Travels down your throat,
Into your lungs.
Notice the rise and fall of the chest and belly.
Are the sensations of the breath pleasant,
Unpleasant,
Or neutral for you right now,
Today?
And keep bringing your attention back to the breath again and again.
See if we can stay here with the breath,
Following that journey of the breath into the body and then as it's released out of the body.
As your mind is focused on the breath,
Notice if any thoughts arise about the breath or about your meditation practice.
Just noticing what's arising.
Noticing is a helpful tool for becoming the observer of your experience.
In Buddhism,
Thoughts may be labeled as wholesome or unwholesome.
So just take a moment.
Notice what thoughts are arising.
Would you describe those as wholesome thoughts or unwholesome thoughts?
I'm going to try using a little bit of different language that might be helpful.
In dialectical behavioral therapy,
We might label our thoughts as skillful or unskillful.
Skillful usually means kind of helpful.
Unskillful is probably not helpful.
So that's another option to label your thoughts as helpful or unhelpful.
So as you notice your thoughts arising,
Label them based on the nature of the thought and your judgment about the thought.
So the judgment is if you think the thought is wholesome or unwholesome,
Skillful or unskillful,
Helpful or unhelpful.
And now we're going to take it up another level and notice the source of your judgments.
Where's the judgment coming from about whether this is helpful or not?
Just noticing,
Trying not to get trapped into the story,
But just noticing,
Ah,
That's where that's from.
So as we're going on this journey into labeling your thoughts,
Are there emotions that are arising in response to your thoughts?
Try to identify the emotion and now determine,
Is the emotion pleasant?
Is your experience of the emotion pleasant,
Unpleasant or neutral?
So pleasant being like,
Oh yeah,
I'm enjoying this.
Unpleasant,
Not so much liking this.
Neutral is,
I don't know,
I guess it's okay.
It's just here.
And then return to the breath.
In this way,
Our breath is the anchor of our meditation.
Each time that the mind wanders,
We just take note of the experience,
Label it and return to the breath.
Our thoughts and emotions are not the enemy.
The goal is not to not have thoughts and emotions.
Our goal is to observe your experience without over identifying with it.
We're simply curious observers of our ongoing thoughts,
Emotions,
And body sensations.
For instance,
We might think,
Ah,
This is what happens when I start feeling unpleasant sensations.
Ah,
That's where my mind goes.
When I experienced something unpleasant or pleasant.
Invite curiosity about the emotions that arise with each experience and then return to the breath.
Noticing the inhalation and exhalation through the entire cycle.
Your breath coming into your nose,
Down your throat,
Into your lungs that rise and fall of the belly and chest.
And then as it moves back out,
Let's try labeling the breath.
Breathing in,
Breathing out,
Breathing in,
Breathing out,
Breathing in,
Breathing out.
Continue in your own mind.
When your mind wanders or thoughts,
Sensations or emotions happen,
Simply label them and then return to the breath.
Is your experience pleasant,
Unpleasant or neutral right now?
And returning to the breath.
And if you notice thoughts arising,
Are they helpful or unhelpful?
And returning to the breath.
Let's try labeling the breath,
Labeling the inhale and the exhale.
And so as we inhale,
We think inhale.
And as we exhale,
We can think exhaling.
Inhaling,
Exhaling.
Inhaling,
Exhaling.
And now continue in your own mind,
Labeling the breath.
And of course,
Labeling anything else that comes up while you're paying attention to the breath.
If a thought or sensation pulls you away from the breath,
Acknowledge it,
Label it,
Thank it for its efforts to get your attention.
And then with a gentle,
Friendly attitude,
Return your attention to the breath.
Inhale,
Exhale.
Breathing in,
Breathing out.
And continue focusing on the breath and labeling whatever else is coming up for as long as you like.
And when you're ready,
Open your eyes and release from the practice.
