Welcome.
We're going to take a short meditation this morning,
Allowing for yourself to sit comfortably.
So you can sit on a chair,
Sit on a cushion,
Sit on the floor,
Whatever feels good for you.
Just find a position that feels comfortable where your sit bones can be down so you're grounded.
If you're on a chair taking your feet down to the earth or maybe put in a book or something underneath them so they can really nicely be down onto the floor.
You're going to find that length through the spine.
Try and support yourself using your nice upright spine otherwise you can lean back a little if it starts to get too much in the back.
Let your shoulders be nice and soft.
We can allow the chin to just tuck down and back a little.
So we're not allowing the head to bow but we're getting that length up the back of the neck.
And choosing your hand position we can either rest the hands onto the legs wherever they're comfortable.
Maybe joining thumb and first finger to make our chin mudra with palms up or palms down.
Or taking our traditional dhyana mudra where we lay the right hand into the left and allow the tips of the thumbs to join.
Making space between the arms and the body so we're not clamping those arms into the sides of the body.
I'd like you to allow your gaze to lower or just let your eyes close.
So we're just going to arrive here just noticing that feeling of grounding.
And then just see if you can let go of any sounds that are around you.
Then taking your awareness to either the movements in the body as you inhale and exhale or to the tip of the nose and the nostrils.
So as we inhale and exhale through the nose with our nice gentle natural breath.
Either noticing the sensation of that breath at the tip of the nose or noticing the movement of the breath in the body.
Making sure your natural breaths are full breaths so allowing the chest and the belly to both move.
It's just taking a moment to let yourself tune in to that breath.
So as we stay with that breath just allow anything else to have the volume turned down.
So the aim of meditation is to focus but not to allow all the other things in our mind to start grabbing our attention.
We attend to the thing that we choose to attend to.
So stay in with your inhale and your exhale and just allowing for that conscious awareness to rest with the breath for a moment.
Now we have a choice this morning of whether we would wish to incorporate a mantra,
A visualization like our candle that we've looked at before or whether to use counting for your breath.
If you choose to use counting we're going to count one on each inhale,
One on the exhale,
Two on the inhale,
Two on the exhale.
Now I'd like you if you are using counting to not let yourself become attached to the count.
As soon as the mind starts to wander just start the count again from one.
Doesn't matter if you get to two then you're doing fabulously.
It's just letting yourself focus on that breath and either taking your mantra,
Your count,
Your visualization or just staying with breath focus without any of those.
It's just letting yourself stay with your focus.
Any distractions just allow them to not grab your attention.
If they have just bringing your attention back to that point of focus.
Staying with that focus.
Just letting whatever it is your point of focus has chosen to be today.
To have your conscious awareness.
Everything else just turned down.
Keeping with that focus.
Bringing the mind back to the focus if there's any external distractions also.
Staying with that focus for a few moments longer.
Letting your focus to fade whether it be your visualization,
Your mantra or the counting.
Allowing the awareness to just soften.
We're going to allow the head to gently bow.
When we're here just allow yourself to become aware of the earth below you.
That feeling of grounding.
Any sounds around you inside the room,
Inside the building.
Any sounds outside the building far away.
We're going to bring our palms together and give them a little rub if the hands are cold.
Then just gently allow your hands to cup the eyes.
Take a nice deep inhale as if you're breathing in fresh air.
Big exhale through the mouth and then gently allow your head to raise up.
Let the eyes open,
The fingertips divide.
Then we can rest the hands down.
Thank you so much for joining me in meditation today.
