Cittanupassana

This is a guided meditation introducing the meditator to the practice of Cittanupassana. It guides the practitioner through mindfulness warm-up focusing on the senses, then breath. It is followed by an examination of our thoughts, sentences, and mental states that cloud our experience of reality.

Transcript

We can start the meditation just by checking in with your environment,

Seeing where you are,

Making sure that you are comfortable,

Whatever it is that you're sitting on,

Making sure the environment feels safe and you know you're not going to be distracted.

If you feel that you are,

You can pause and lock a door or let other people know that you're going to be meditating and not disturb you and letting yourself rest a bit.

And when it's comfortable for you,

You can close your eyes and just becoming aware of your body and feeling,

Noticing the state of things,

Taking a bit of accepting inventory.

Notice if there's any tension in the body.

Notice your posture and seeing if a particular posture allows you to let go and release more muscles,

More tension in the body.

And noticing your breath,

Noticing your body moving and breathing.

Notice how alive you are,

The buoyancy of life.

And if nothing else,

Reveling in that for just a moment,

Because that,

If you can,

Can be a raft for every meditation.

Letting the life of your body just kind of keep you going through the meditation.

Just watch,

Watch as it goes,

Watch the energy behind it.

Feel that in the breath.

The breath is just going to keep going.

You know,

If you get distracted,

It's breath is going to keep going,

Right?

So many things in our life we have to keep putting energy into and make sure that it's going and building and making sure that people are doing the right thing and keep our eye on the ball.

But this is something that'll just keep going.

So just for the meditation,

While it's going for your life,

Just allowing yourself to enjoy it and feel the breath.

Feeling the body create the breath,

Seeing how much you can trust and let go of the energy of trying to control and make sure it does the right thing or people do the right thing or you do the thing you're supposed to do.

Just letting go of that and letting the body create the breath,

Letting life do its thing.

Trusting it,

Really trusting it.

And you might notice it's tough to do that.

It's tough to just let go.

Let go and not control.

And this might be the first thing that you,

First sort of mental state that you notice.

This sort of regular anxiety about making sure things go the way that they should go.

The way that you want them to go.

Can you just release,

Let things go whatever way that they go?

Can you let go of adding anything extra to the moment,

To the experience?

Let go of making it better.

Let go of commenting on it,

Correcting it.

And instead,

However imperfect it is,

Just enjoy.

Just savor each moment.

Even laugh about it.

Notice how tight that can be if you have difficulty letting go and just enjoying.

Okay but really what we're going to do is begin to feel the breath.

Feel the body breathing.

Feel the sensation of both the in-breath and the out-breath.

Even savor the feeling of the in-breath and out-breath.

Letting go of any tension in the body that is inhibiting the breath.

And beginning to feel the sensation of breathing just in the area around the nose.

Feeling the coolness of an in-breath,

Warmth of an out-breath.

And even counting the breath for a bit,

So feeling the in-breath,

Feeling the out-breath,

One,

Feeling the in-breath,

Feeling the out-breath,

Two,

Feeling the in-breath,

Feeling the out-breath,

Three,

And so forth.

Counting up to eight.

And I'd like you to do that three times.

And I'll come back in three rounds.

One,

Two,

Three,

Four.

Five,

Six,

Seven,

Eight.

Nine,

Ten,

Eleven,

Twelve.

And then just savoring three more breaths.

And in this meditation,

We're going to keep our attention on a particular area of our life.

And we're going to be mindful of the different thoughts that come up in our meditation.

And I'm going to take you through three sections of this meditation.

And the first one,

We're just going to notice some different thoughts that come up.

We're going to notice where our mind goes,

What the associations are that happen.

You might think about feelings,

You might feel feelings as well.

You might think about images,

You might think about thoughts,

Think about people,

Relationships.

We're just going to look at the thinking mind.

We're going to let out the leash a little bit.

Taking it out from the focused concentration meditation.

And I'd like you to start thinking about one domain of your life,

One domain of well-being that you're working on.

Again,

This could be your career,

This could be your family,

This could be your profession,

This could be friendships,

This could be your health and wellness.

I'd like you to get specific about something that you're working on.

Just choosing one,

Getting really clear on this is what I'm going to focus on.

And then I'd like you to let the thoughts go a bit.

I'd like you to start thinking about that area.

This is really just free association,

Thinking about it,

Thinking about when you're involved in that,

The people,

The relationships,

The conversations,

The feelings,

All of that.

Let that all come up in that area.

And to help anchor you just a little bit,

I'd like you to think of a name for that area.

Say it was playing the guitar.

Say it was my relationship with so and so.

And then see what sort of pops up for you when you say that sort of phrase to yourself,

That domain of your life.

And if you notice yourself floating too far away,

Just coming back to that phrase,

That domain of your life,

What do I think about this area?

We're just warming up.

We're keeping ourselves in this sort of fenced in area,

Just around this area of well-being,

Letting the thoughts out just in this area.

So just noticing what sort of associations your mind makes,

What conversations that your mind goes to,

What feelings,

What people.

And then we can come back to the breath just for a moment,

Just feeling the breath again,

Centering ourselves again,

Knowing that the breath is always there for you.

You can always come back to just letting the body breathe.

Anytime this gets overwhelming,

Just coming back to feeling the breath.

That's your home base,

Something we've cultivated.

So next what I'd like you to think about are as you notice the thoughts in this area,

Your mind goes to,

And see this area again,

This domain.

And I'd like you to think about one sentence that comes up for you about this area.

One sentence,

It might sum it up,

It might sum up of an important concept in this area.

It might be a sentence that you repeat in your head,

But there's some salience to it.

If it is,

Again,

Using the example of playing the guitar,

You'd say,

Oh,

Being able to sing a song,

It'd be training the mind,

It might be learning a craft,

It might be impressing other people,

Be feeling good about myself,

Whatever the sentence is,

Right?

So if it's a relationship,

It might be expressing my needs,

It might be clarifying what I want,

It might be asking to be heard,

Whatever it is,

Just noticing what sort of sentences come up for you.

Maybe some negative sentences,

I will never experience this,

Everything always falls apart.

Just noticing where your mind goes,

Right?

So we're gathering insight.

These are the obstacles,

These are the positive things,

These are the aspirations in this area.

And if you feel like you'll forget it,

You can jot it down.

And coming back to this meditation.

If you feel like you're getting a little bit distracted,

You can also always come back to the breath.

So why don't we do that?

Let's come back to feeling the breath for a little bit.

Feeling the sensation of the breathing just in the area around the nose.

Really giving yourself a full break just for a moment.

Okay,

Now the third part of this meditation,

We're going to start to think about this area of our life again.

We can see the area of our life to ourselves.

And then I'd like you to start to think about the states of mind that you get into in this area.

This could be a passionate state of mind.

This could be a frustrated state of mind.

This could be a concentrated state of mind.

This could be an excited state of mind.

Just thinking about what are the feelings,

The thoughts,

States of mind that start to arise.

What sort of states do you get into?

Familiarizing yourself.

Feeling that again.

Realizing the state of the mind.

As an example,

If I'm playing the guitar,

I might get into this state of enjoyment.

Might get into a state of being in the zone.

Might get into a state of being excited.

Feeling pleasure in playing.

Might get into a state of feeling rushed or nervous for my lesson.

Just noticing the states of mind for your domain.

What are the states of mind you get into?

What thoughts might come up in that state of mind?

How does that state of mind affect you and how you respond in relationships?

Again,

If you need to say that state of,

Say that area of well-being that you're focusing on,

State it to yourself to kind of keep yourself anchored in that area.

The thoughts go too far away.

And if you start really losing concentration,

You can always come back to the breath.

We'll just stay with this area,

Thinking about the state of mind,

Thinking about the thoughts that come up around that state of mind,

How that state of mind affects you.

We'll just think about that for the next minute.

Fascinating.

And then beginning to let go of the breath.

And then you can come back to the sense of breathing.

Enjoy the sensation of your breath.

Savor the sensation just in the area around your nose.

And letting the thoughts start to go.

You can feel what that feels like to let the mind rest.

You can actually feel the mind.

Feel what it feels like to let go of the thoughts and thinking.

Just savor the sensation of the in-breath and out-breath.

And feeling the whole body breathing.

All the sensations in the body as you breathe.

And noticing all the sounds that you can hear.

And when you're ready you can take a deep breath.

Small stretch and open your eyes.

Reviews

Manages to somehow keep heavy stuff light without compromise. Helped me do some important exploring without feeling swamped or overwhelmed. Many thanks! 💖

nice soothing voice, kind guidance and intense exploration. thank you

This meditation is definitely 'work' but very meaningful for me. Every time I realize something new about myself and how I see my life.