Hello and welcome to this meditation on mindfulness of breathing.
This meditation comes from the Vipassana tradition.
Vipassana translates as insight.
So this is one of the foundational meditations of the insights meditation tradition from Buddhism.
The aim of this practice is to become the observer of your thinking mind using the breath as your anchor.
So starting out today by finding your comfortable meditation position,
Whether that's sitting cross-legged with your back straight or in the lotus position if you know that one.
Or you may want to sit on a cushion with your legs folded under you or you may want to sit in a chair with your feet on the floor and your back straight.
I do recommend that you do this meditation sitting not lying down.
So before starting this practice let's just take a deep breath in and raise the shoulders up to the ears,
Scrunch,
Tense,
Tense,
Tense.
And then release them on the out breath.
Take one more deep breath in,
Scrunching the shoulders up,
Tensing the shoulders and release them on the out breath.
One more deep breath in,
Scrunch the shoulders and release on the out breath.
So bringing your palms down into your lap,
Left palm in right,
Facing up.
Or if you're sitting in a chair you may want to bring your palms facing down placed on your knees.
Bring your attention now to your natural breathing.
Bring your attention very closely focused onto the place just below the nostrils where the air is coming in and then exiting the nose.
So noticing the sensations on the in breath,
Notice the temperature of the air,
Notice everything that happens.
And the same with the out breath.
So we're going to be keeping our attention in this place throughout this practice.
In breath and out breath.
In breath and out breath.
Noticing if you're doing anything for this breathing to happen or if the breathing is just happening.
And then noticing if you're being taken away from the focus on the breath by thoughts.
Noticing if you can just notice the thought arising and let it go on the out breath.
So notice the thought and on the out breath just imagine that thought dissolving with your out breath.
Each time you're noticing the thought on the out breath,
Breathe out that thought and watch it dissolve.
So constantly bringing the focus back to the breath every time you find your mind is wandering.
Coming back,
Noticing the sensations of the in breath and dissolving your thought on the out breath.
So dissolving into presence on each out breath.
Noticing if the mind is distracted by any sounds.
This is also a thought form arising and just dissolve on the out breath.
Every time you notice the thinking mind getting distracted,
Dissolving the thought on the out breath.
Dissolving into presence.
Being one with the sensations of the breath.
Being very careful too of the judging mind here.
So there is no wrong way to do this meditation.
Every time you notice a thought,
You take a mental note,
Thinking mind and on the out breath just watching that thought dissolve with the breath.
Free from self judgement.
Free from any analysing of how you're doing.
Just watching the breath and watching the thoughts.
This takes a very fine constant practice of just returning to the breath.
Returning to the sensations right underneath the nostrils.
Watching all the subtle sensations of the in breath,
The temperature,
The air flow and of the out breath the same.
Dissolving into presence with every out breath.
Living presence.
Nothing to do,
Nowhere to go.
Just being here with yourself,
With your breath.
Immediately or endlessly.
So we're coming to the end of this mindfulness of breathing meditation.
So I want you to bring your focus into your body.
So taking your focus away from the breath just under the nostrils and bringing your focus into your whole body.
Feeling the contact of your body with the ground if you're on the floor or with the chair if you're sitting in a chair.
Feeling all the contact points of your body with the support.
Noticing the solidity of the floor the support it gives you or of the chair.
Really feeling that.
Feeling the full weight of your body.
And then noticing the air around your body so the presence of the air the contact of the air with your skin.
Noticing the temperature of the air.
Noticing the sensation if there's any breeze.
Noticing the feel a touch of your clothes on your skin.
Noticing what it's like just to be with yourself.
Nothing to do nowhere to go and no one to be especially.
You're just your presence and your breath.
Anytime during the day or night where you're feeling in any way disconnected from yourself you can come back to this.
Just being just being with yourself with your body with your breath with your mind with your thoughts and with any sensations that are arising.
This is your refuge.
If you'd like to just bring your palms together,
Rub them together,
Create some heat and then place them over your eyes.
Just drinking in that beautiful restful darkness that comes when we drop into presence beyond the mind.
And then slowly bringing the hands back down to the heart center.
I highly recommend that you integrate this practice into your daily routine.
Even for five or ten minutes a day this will really change your experience of life and will change your day.
So if you can I recommend practicing right the moment you wake up before you do anything else.
So thank you for practicing.
Thank you for being here.
Many blessings to you.
May you be well.
May you be happy.
May you be free from suffering and may you have inner peace.
