The breathing anchor meditation.
Choosing whatever posture is most comfortable.
I'll leave this as if sitting,
But you can do this practice in any posture.
If you are sitting on a chair make sure that your back is upright yet relaxed and that your feet have contact with the floor.
You may wish to put a book or a yoga block under your feet to enable the body to be more comfortable.
Come a little away from the back of the chair so that your spine can be upright and your hips balanced evenly,
Neither tilting back nor tilting forward.
And once you have this comfortable upright position I invite you to close your eyes and let the weight of the body settle into gravity.
Take a few moments just to land in your body,
Inviting the awareness inwards,
Becoming aware of how your feet are contacting the floor,
Of how your pelvis is contacting the chair,
Of the length of the spine right up through the crown of the head,
So that at once gravity is dropping down through the body and a sense of dignity rising up through the spine.
Slowly becoming aware of the breath,
Of the movement of the breath in the body,
Where can you feel it most strongly?
Being curious about what you find without any judgment,
Letting go of whatever you think should be happening.
There's no need to change the breath,
We're just noticing where we can sense the breath moving in our body,
Aware of the breath in the whole torso,
The belly swelling with the in-breath and subsiding with the out-breath.
And can you be aware of the breath in the back of the body?
Maybe between the upper back and the shoulder blades.
And now let's come more deeply into the body,
Just having a kindly curiosity for sensations of breathing deep in the body,
Cultivating an acceptance of whatever is happening at this moment and this moment.
Utterly receptive of movements of our natural breath,
Allowing the body to be saturated with a kindly,
Tender breath,
Rocking and cradling us,
Soothing any pain,
Any stress or discomfort.
And don't worry if thoughts arise in the mind.
Meditation is not about having a blank or empty mind,
It's normal to think.
But I encourage you to bring your awareness back to the physical experience,
The sensations of the breath.
And if you experience thoughts,
Can you look at them rather than from them?
Can you be aware of any feelings or thoughts without blocking them or becoming overwhelmed by them?
Can you be less caught up with thoughts and feelings and come back to the breath in the body again and again?
And the sensations of breathing,
Just like any thoughts and feelings,
Are changing all the time.
Nothing is fixed or solid.
We can notice this flow of changing sensations,
Each time returning to the sense of breath and movement in the body so that the breath and breathing sensations become an anchor for our mind.
If you find it difficult to focus on the breath in this way,
You could also use the weight of the body as an anchor,
The contact with the chair.
Every time your mind wanders,
Returning to the breathing anchor with kindness and patience.
Mindfulness is a skill.
We are training our mind.
Kindly,
Patient,
To come back to the sense of the breathing body.
And when you are aware that the mind has wandered,
This is actually a magic moment of awareness,
A moment of waking up from distraction.
This is your moment of choice and it means you're succeeding in practice.
You're aware that your mind has drifted and you can choose to come back to the breath or the weight of the body.
And practicing this way for a few moments.
What's happening now?
Guiding your awareness back to the sensation of the breath over and over again.
And now letting any effort go and just becoming aware of the weight of your body sitting,
The sounds around you.
And whenever you're ready,
In your own time,
Slowly opening your eyes.
