Hi,
This is Tiffany and this meditation will be one on open awareness,
Sometimes called choiceless awareness in MBSR and other practices.
And we'll begin by finding a comfortable seat,
Whether on a meditation cushion or in a chair,
Just allowing the body to be comfortable but alert.
You're welcome as well to lie down,
Just being aware that if at any point in lying down you start to feel tired or drowsy to just open the eyes gently and reawaken the mind.
And we'll begin and end our meditation with the sound of three bells,
Allowing the actual sounds to bring us here into the present moment,
Bringing full attention and awareness to the sounds as they arise and fade away.
And as the sounds of the bells fade into the background,
First becoming aware of the feeling of the body in space,
Giving the body permission to have weight and mass,
To take up space,
Noticing the posture of the body,
The places where it makes contact with the floor,
The cushion or the chair,
Perhaps even the places that parts of the body make contact with one another,
Feeling the sit bones as they make contact with the chair or the earth,
Pressing down towards the ground,
Rooting us quite literally to the earth,
Noticing the erectness in the spine,
The length of the body as the crown of the head reaches towards the sky.
I often like to imagine myself like a tree rooting through the base of the body,
Holding tightly to the earth,
Extending upward,
Reaching gently and easily up,
Out and away,
Spreading wide,
Being vast.
It can be skillful to really begin a meditation by giving yourself full permission to be here,
As the mind tends to travel from past to present,
Traveling down trains of thought.
You rarely take time to rest here,
But in this gift you've chosen to give to yourself,
These moments you've taken to sit,
Take the time to say to yourself,
I am safe here in this moment,
There is nowhere else to be,
There is nothing else to do,
Nothing to plan,
Nothing to fix,
Allowing both body,
Mind and breath to be here as one.
Perhaps with that acknowledgement we begin to notice our own presence,
That awareness of who is noticing,
Who is noticing the body in space,
Who is noticing the sensations of breath.
In this way acknowledging the sense of coming home to yourself,
As you become aware of your own presence,
Taking a moment to acknowledge yourself,
To greet yourself as you would a friend who you haven't seen for some time.
I often imagine opening the door of my home and finding myself there,
Taking a moment to say welcome home,
You can even imagine giving yourself an embrace,
Hugging yourself and welcoming yourself inside as you would a friend or a loved one.
Understanding what sensations that creates in the body,
In the heart,
Becoming aware of whether it feels good to have this place of unconditional welcome and unconditional knowing you are always here for yourself,
That there will always be someone to welcome you in,
To open the door with a loving gaze,
To offer a warm embrace.
Perhaps noticing the true sense of okayness that rests here,
No need for a mask or for falsities,
Being deeply connected and authentically open to who you are in this moment.
In that space of receptive awareness,
Bringing the body back into the foreground of experience,
Perhaps sensing the feet on the floor or as they make contact with the legs,
Maybe there is a tingling or a pulsing,
Perhaps you can sense pressure or heat,
Bringing the full legs into awareness through the ankles,
The shins and the calves,
The knees,
The thighs and the hamstrings,
The places the legs make contact with the cushion or the chair,
Perhaps the feeling of the hands resting on the tops of the legs,
Traveling our awareness up through the hips,
The buttocks,
The lowest part of the torso,
Up the spine and belly where we begin to notice the sensations of breath.
Continuing our travels,
We come into the chest,
Into the heart space,
The upper back and shoulders,
Feeling the collar bones coming down the left and the right arm through the biceps and the triceps,
The elbows,
The forearms and the wrists all the way down into the fingers and the hands of both arms,
Again perhaps noticing the places the hands make contact with one another or with the legs,
Bringing the fullness of both arms into awareness,
Just noticing,
Noticing what's here,
What can we learn from the arms in this sense of receptive awareness,
Traveling back up the arms through the shoulders into the neck,
The base of the neck where it makes contact with the clavicle,
Traveling up the neck all the way to the base of the head,
Both the front and the back of the neck,
Our center of speech,
Our voice,
Coming into the jaw,
Back of the head at the base of the ears,
Travel all the way up the head,
The front of the face,
The back of the head all the way to the crown,
Noticing what it feels like to experience the head from the inside out,
From here bringing the entire body into awareness,
From the tips of the toes to the crown of the head,
Just noticing,
Noticing through the sense of feeling,
As is its natural process,
If the mind begins to wander,
If you find yourself in thought,
Just gently making the choice to come back,
Again perhaps taking a moment to greet yourself at your door of awareness,
With open arms,
With love,
Opening the door and saying welcome back,
Opening your heart to yourself,
To your own presence,
You may make this choice to return home a thousand times in one meditation,
Each time coming back with love,
Coming back with a curiosity,
Again asking what's here,
What does this body feel in this moment,
What does it feel like in this body to be alive through a breath,
Noticing the expansion of the chest and belly on the inhales,
The relaxation on the exhales,
Perhaps noticing the air in the nostrils,
We can even subtly be aware of the sounds of our breathing,
How the breath infuses the entire body all the way into the fingertips,
Into the toes.
As we sit immersed in this open field of sensation,
This river of experience,
We can open ourselves even more,
Becoming aware of the sounds around us,
Perhaps even noticing the silence,
The spaces between noise,
And in this openness,
This field of receptivity,
We can find a gentle ease,
A sense of natural belonging,
Where there is space for absolutely anything and everything in awareness.
We can notice that just as the breath rises and falls,
So do sounds begin and dissipate,
So do feelings and emotions arise and fade away,
So do sensations appear and change.
Noticing the vast aliveness in this stillness.
Again,
If the mind has wandered to the past or to the future,
We've become intently focused on a discomfort or a pain in the body,
Just taking a moment to acknowledge and again making the choice to come home,
To return to your presence,
Greeting yourself at your own door of awareness and welcoming yourself in,
Welcome back,
Offering yourself the embrace of love,
And returning curiously and inquisitively to the fullness of your experience,
Perhaps again returning to that sensation of breath and widening awareness into the field of sensation of the body,
Into the sounds,
Perhaps even stepping deeper and becoming aware of the mind itself.
From this space we can see our thoughts as they arise and make the choice to let them pass away without attaching or following them.
Relaxing fully into this space of receptive presence,
Of compassionate awareness,
This space where everything is safe,
Anything can be held.
Breathing in to this open heartedness.
Open hearted awareness,
Open hearted connection to everything that is authentically you and alive in this moment,
Feeling the present through the body,
Through the sense of touch,
Smell of taste,
Of sound,
Of sight.
And acknowledging that this place is here for you in every moment,
Accessible through the breath,
Your ever present passenger.
Awake.
You you
