Vedanupassana

Introduction to mindfulness of feeling. The meditation leads the practitioner to observe pleasant, unpleasant and neutral feelings and recognize the tendencies to attach or build aversion to certain feelings.

Transcript

Before we begin this meditation,

I'd like you to jot down a couple things,

Or at least bring to mind a few things.

I'd like you to think about a couple different areas of your life that you might be working on,

Areas that you feel need your attention,

Or if you've already mapped this out and you have three,

Five areas of your life that you are currently working on that are important to you,

Kind of your domains of well-being.

Then I'd like you to have those in mind or have those handy because we're going to return to these once we are warmed up and ready to really start cultivating insight.

So if you'd like to pause this right now and get a pen and paper and jot a few things down,

You can do that.

Or if you have these domains of your well-being in mind,

You can do that.

You can keep them in mind as we go through.

So this meditation will be on Vedanupasana.

This is paying attention to feeling,

Tasting your experience,

And getting insights.

We are focusing on feeling with our sense of feeling.

So to warm up the meditation,

Warm up your mindfulness,

Your awareness,

Being present moment.

I'd like you to start with coming to your sense of sight,

Recognizing where you are,

In some way bringing your consciousness back into your body and just noticing that you can see.

Recognizing colors,

What different colors might feel like to look at.

One color might be soothing.

Another color might be exciting.

Another color might look boring.

Noticing different colors and maybe noticing how you might respond to those colors or combinations of colors.

Two colors might feel good together.

You may notice that,

Hmm,

I like that.

Two colors together,

You might say,

No,

Don't like that.

Those don't go together.

How do we know they don't go together?

Noticing feeling.

And the same with shape.

Noticing different shapes that you can see around you.

You might notice shapes that feel good,

Feel nice,

Feel attractive and notice that.

I like those shapes.

The shapes look nice together.

I like having that shape on my shelf.

Where I don't like that shape doesn't make sense to me.

It provokes unpleasant feeling in me.

Are those shapes together?

They look awkward.

How do we know that?

Then noticing the feeling.

Light and shadow,

Noticing light and shadow.

Some light and shadow might look nice,

Might look pleasing.

Like it,

You might want more of it.

Might dislike it.

It's too dark in here.

It's too bright.

Noticing that these preferences are due to feelings that come up in you.

There's no absolute correct right or wrong.

This is good or this is bad.

This is attractive.

This is unattractive.

This is all led by feelings that are coming up within you and your resistance,

Your aversion,

Your craving,

Your grasping,

Wanting more.

Or neutral feelings.

I could like it.

I could take it,

Leave it.

Noticing feeling.

And coming to your sense of hearing.

And noticing sounds.

In the same way we might notice sounds that we like,

We might call a sound soothing or even conducive to meditation.

Might put us at ease.

Might be constant,

Might be smooth,

Might be light.

Or it might be rough or jarring.

Might say that sound is a disruption.

That sound is distracting.

Might be unpleasant feelings.

That sound.

And therefore we might say that sound is bad.

We might even say that sound reminds me of this event or that event.

It might happen with smell as well.

Noticing different sounds.

Noticing your response,

The feelings that come up in you.

And coming to the body.

Slowly coming to the body and noticing any feelings in the body.

Noticing the posture of your body.

Might be something that feels good,

That feels right or it feels wrong.

Like I should be in a different posture.

I have painful feelings in my body.

I don't like those.

I want less of them.

Or I have a couple feelings in my body and sort of neutral.

Just noticing them.

Might notice emotions that are currently present.

Feel nice.

Feel relaxed.

Enjoyable.

Savor it.

Might feel uncomfortable.

You might feel an urgency.

I just want to get this over with.

Noticing what feelings are there.

And as we go through the body,

Feelings,

Sensations in the feet.

Any temperature,

Pressure.

Feel nice.

Maybe a tingling feeling.

Maybe your leg has fallen asleep.

I like that feeling or I don't like that feeling.

Being curious about that.

And if you need to move your leg,

You can.

Or if you want to be curious about the feelings and your resistance to them and see what happens with the feeling.

Noticing that.

Being curious about the whole process.

How do I respond?

What does my mind do to that feeling?

I like that feeling.

Do I not like that feeling?

Does it completely take my attention?

Can I leave that feeling there and move to another one?

Noticing sensations in the legs.

Clothing in the body.

Might like these pants or these shorts.

I dislike them.

Feeling the body seated on the ground.

Feeling your butt seated on the cushion.

I feel hard.

I feel soft.

I feel good.

It feels good,

You might feel,

Oh this feels nice.

It's a comfortable cushion.

Good bye.

I'm really good at choosing things out.

Like this.

This is hard.

I can't believe I bought this.

Why did I do that?

I'm no good at that.

Noticing where the mind might float off to when we like or dislike something.

Back to the body.

Feeling sensations in the belly.

Movement in the belly.

Your spine.

Then the movement of the body as you breathe.

Noticing pleasant,

Unpleasant or neutral sensations.

Sensations in your shoulders and neck.

Sensations in your left arm all the way down to your hands and fingers.

Unpleasant,

Neutral,

Pleasant.

Feeling sensations in your right arm all the way down to your arm,

Elbow,

Forearm,

Hands and fingers.

Feeling sensations in your throat,

Neck,

Face of the skull,

Jaw,

Teeth,

Gums and tongue,

Chin and lips.

And all the sensations.

Facial muscles in the eyes.

And sensations around the nose,

Noticing feelings.

And allowing the body to relax and release into a stillness.

And noticing feelings.

This feels right,

This feels wrong.

Feels awkward to allow the body to relax and release.

Feels good.

And allowing the body to breathe naturally.

Letting go of control of the breath.

And that might be easy to let go of the control of the breathing and the breath might just flow very naturally and freely and just let go into it and feel really nice.

Or it might feel awkward,

It might feel like there's a holding,

A fear to let go.

It might be almost anxiety producing.

Just being curious about that.

Not spending too much time on it,

Just noticing and continue.

If you control the breath a little bit,

That's totally okay too.

Being okay with that is the first step to letting go.

So letting the body control it a bit,

Letting the mind control the breath a bit.

Feeling the in breath and feeling the out breath,

Just feeling a couple breaths.

And as we go through this next part of the meditation,

We're going to bring this,

One of these domains of our life,

These domains that we'd like to be working on,

Focusing on,

Applying our attention.

And we're just going to be curious about this area of our life,

This most important area.

If we took action in this area,

It would change our life,

Create more well-being for us.

When you think about this domain,

I'd like you to notice what sort of feelings come up.

So bring to mind sort of the sentence of the domain.

So this is my health,

Or my health is important to me,

Or my diet,

Or my exercise.

Or it's a relationship,

Or your career,

Or a hobby,

Or whatever it is,

Bringing that area to mind,

Noticing what feelings come up as you sort of sift through that area of your life,

The different aspects of it.

Oh my.

.

.

And you might even think about some failures in this area,

Some successes in this area,

Some desires to move forward in this area,

Some plans,

This feeling around these.

But keep coming back to this domain of your life,

This relationship,

This activity,

Whether it's your health,

Career,

Family,

Whatever it is.

Noticing if you're trying to push away some feelings here,

Hold on to something.

You can even put some words to some of the feelings.

And if at any time you want to jot down a few words,

Sort of staying in this meditative state,

Just you need to jot down a little bit,

That's okay.

One more time sort of running this area of your life through your mind and noticing feelings.

I'll do that for another minute or so.

Okay.

And what does it feel like in this area of your life when things are going well?

.

And what does it feel like in this area of your life when things are going poorly?

.

So feeling into this area and noticing the different feelings that are there that come up occasionally,

Noticing what it feels like when things are going well,

What it feels like when things are going poorly.

You might notice aversion to feelings,

You might notice savoring and holding on to other feelings.

There might be a host of other feelings there,

Emotional and other,

Which you might not be able to put a word to,

Or maybe you can't.

Just continuing to develop some insight around these areas.

So if you want to continue this meditation after it ends,

You know,

If you have a further meditation to do,

If you have more time,

You can continue with going into a different area or staying on this one.

Otherwise we'll bring this meditation back to a cool down,

Sort of,

Come back to centering yourself.

So coming back to the body and noticing yourself breathing.

Feeling the in breath and feeling the out breath.

You may notice your mind go back to this area that you're thinking about,

Just coming back to feeling the sensation of breathing just for a bit,

Seeing the feeling of the breath.

And feeling all the sensations in your body as you breathe.

And noticing the different sounds that you can hear.

Just allowing whatever feelings,

Whatever sounds are there to be there.

And when it's comfortable for you,

You can take a deep breath,

A small stretch.

And when you're ready,

You can open your eyes.