Easy Meditation

This is a live recording from the Meditation Learning Center. A basic and easy guided meditation for anyone and everyone. The meditator is taken through a practice while receiving instructions as to how to meditate and what to focus upon.

Transcript

Please make yourself comfortable. Most of you look like you already have. I like that. That's comfortable as you're practical, You know, It's practical. If I see one gentleman sitting on the floor against the wall there and that's, Or a couple, Yeah, Many of you, And if you want to do that, That's fine. That's good. Otherwise, Just make yourself comfortable. You can hold your hands anywhere you want. Like I said, Try to keep both feet on the ground and I'll try to talk up and as clear as I can so that I hear the instructions. Just allow the eyes to close. And notice what happens when closing the eyes. Just shutting down this one sense allows a form of relaxation to overcome the body almost immediately. Particularly if we're comfortable in our environment, We feel comfortable in our chair, We feel supported. So in meditation, In order to make it as easy as possible, We try to find a room that is nice and quiet. This room is working out very well. We can still hear subtle sounds like air conditioning. You can hear my voice. These things are very natural and if we feel safe and secure in our environment, We can find ourselves becoming very relaxed. We're shutting the eyes and we still likely have visualizations going on. This is completely normal, Completely natural. Much of this stuff will fall into the background such as the sounds. They will become unimportant. Visualizations will become unimportant. The taste and the smells are very minimal, Very neutral. And we have these sensations in the body and these feelings that we have in the skin. We can feel the temperature in the room. We can feel the clothes against our skin. We can feel the pressure of the chair or the floor against our backs. And generally at first it's very easy just to tune in on these things that are happening within our environment. In other words, Within our senses, Our perception of what is happening. But after a while we notice that the mind can easily wander off. And generally wandering off into the area of the past or something that happened maybe earlier today or something we've been worrying about. We might notice that the mind will go into the future and trying to fix something, Maybe some kind of a project. And these are all patterns that if we don't notice them, They can continue. So our job for the next few moments is to set all this aside, Give ourselves permission to completely relax, Give ourselves permission to find a switch, So to speak. And just let everything for the time being be as it's supposed to be, Be as it is, Without the need to change anything from other than what it presently is. To allow ourselves to be in just this one moment. This is what I refer to as finding the switch. When we look at this intellectually we understand that this is all we have, That the mind thinking of the past or the mind placing itself into the future is just simply the mind. It's something that we really don't have to identify with. We can just see these things come up. So the analogy could be placing ourselves on the edge of the river's bank and seeing these things within our world arising. Thoughts connected to the past and the future, Just see them for what they are without judgment, Without criticism, Or without any kind of decision making, Without the need to fix anything. Just allowing these things to be as they are. So if we see these thoughts flowing through the river and just kind of flowing right by us without trying to grab on or stopping anything. This is the analogy of the mind, Everything coming into and rising into our attention and then just drifting off, One thing after another. It could be thoughts, Which is the mind being the mind, And it might be sensations in the body, Maybe some subtle discomfort or even a pleasurable feeling in the body coming to our attention and then falling away, Drifting off. It could be a state which is a mood or emotion that we seem to have. And our job as a meditator is to just see these things for what they are, Not necessarily connecting with them and identifying with them. And sometimes this is easier said than done or our attention will wander off. And so I invite you to just place your attention on the breath. And this is kind of our grounding tool or the foundation of the practice. Even keeping our attention here will not be 100%, But it's something that we can keep bringing our attention and our concentration back to as something that kind of grounds us into the practice. And then when something arises and pulls our attention away from the breath, We can just simply take a note of it, Notice it, And then come back to the breath. And this is really the heart of the practice. So bring your attention to the breath where it meets and even seems to caress some part of the body, Where it touches the body in one place. And this could be the area of the nostrils. It could be a little deeper in the body, In the sinuses. Maybe in the windpipe, The feelings of the lungs filling up with air, Or it could be the rising and falling of the abdomen, The stomach. Just bring your attention to somewhere in the body where it seems to connect with the breath the most, Something that seems to work best for you. You might feel the coolness of the air as it comes into the body. And then the warmth of the air as it leaves, Just slightly warmer from connecting and being within the body. Just try to connect with this for a few moments. Try to be very, Very present with this very simple activity. As subtle as it is, Just try to find a flow within doing this, Refraining from thinking or even worse, Any kind of anxiety. Allowing yourself to notice any kind of boredom, Just staying with the activity. Giving yourself permission to relax. Letting go of any stress or tension that you might be holding in the body. Completely relaxing the eyes and the jaw. Can allow this relaxation to move down the body, Down the neck, Into the shoulders. See if you can relax the shoulders as you place your attention on the breath. Breathing through any discomfort or tension that you might feel in the muscles of the body. Allow this relaxation to flow down the arms, Relaxing the biceps, The elbows into the forearms, All the way into the hands, Even into the fingers, Allowing any stress or tension to leave the body through the fingertips. Be what light to imagine that. Just imagine and visualize, If you will, Any kind of stress or tension leaving the body in the area of the torso or the trunk of the body, Placing your attention on relaxing the upper back, The area between the shoulder blades, And around the front of the body and the area of the chest or the heart. And perhaps allowing yourself to relax deeper with every exhalation of the breath. This is the most relaxing time throughout this process of breathing is when we're exhaling. Allow this relaxation to work its way down into the middle of the back and the diaphragm or the sternum, The upper stomach, And allow it to move its way down into the lower back and then the abdomen, The stomach itself. And allow this relaxed awareness to move down the body, Past the hips, Into the legs, Relaxing the thighs and the hamstrings, Largest muscles in the body. Down past the knees and into the shins and the calves of the legs. Great relaxation flowing through the body, Down into the ankles and the feet, And all the way down into the toes. Even visualize any kind of stress or tension leaving the body through the toes, Through the fingers if you like. Any kind of stress or tension leaving the body and just flowing into thin air out into the atmosphere where it harms nobody or no thing and actually helps other life forms like plants. And every time you exhale with the breath, Allow kind of a sweeping motion of relaxation of flow throughout the entire body. Sweeping relaxation through the body from the top of the head all the way down to the feet every time you exhale. Keeping the back fairly straight, Try to keep the chin slightly lifted. Feel this connection between the exhalation of the breath and relaxation of the body. We're using the breath as a tool to not only calm the mind but to relax the body as well and to bring ourself into this presence that is very healing and very distressing. We're using the breath as a tool to relax the body as well. We're using the breath as a tool to relax the body as well. We're using the breath as a tool to relax the body as well. We're using the breath as a tool to relax the body as well.