Welcome,
Friends,
To Meditations with Hanya.
Today we'll be doing a meditation around our wandering thoughts and our wandering mind.
Let's begin.
Come to a comfortable position,
Whether you're sitting on a chair or even if you're sitting on a couch or even lying down.
Let yourself be comfortable.
Start to soften around your shoulders,
Your jaw.
If it feels right for you,
Close your eyes and give yourself a couple moments to just check in,
Noticing sensations in your body,
Areas that might feel restricted,
Areas of ease.
You're simply noticing what's here.
Now turn your awareness to your thoughts and your mind,
And you might notice that your mind has already started to wander.
Can you observe the thoughts that are in your mind at this very moment?
What are the quality of your thoughts?
Are they helpful?
Could they possibly be hurtful?
Are they thoughts of what you did before this moment?
Are they thoughts of what you have to do next?
Our minds wander half of our waking hours of our day.
One way to bring attention back to this very moment is to bring your attention to your breath.
So notice the natural flow of your breath.
And just like you observed your body,
See if you can observe the steady rhythm of your breath.
And what is the quality of your breath?
Is it short and choppy or long and deep?
Is it smooth?
Just simply aware of as you breathe in,
You are breathing in.
And as you breathe out,
You are breathing out.
Take the next couple moments to simply observe your breath.
Don't try to change anything or fix,
But simply observe.
Your breath aligns you with this very moment.
It aligns you with the here and now.
But as you start to notice the breath,
You might notice that your mind has already started to wander.
And that's very natural.
Visualize yourself on the platform of a train,
Sitting on a bench,
Watching the trains go by.
Imagine what the air smells like,
A faint smell of exhaust,
A crisp air around you.
Notice the sounds,
People bustling all around,
Trains in the distance and the foreground.
Other extraneous noise.
Notice yourself just sitting comfortably and observing it all.
You can imagine that each of the trains going by are like thought patterns,
Individual thoughts,
Collected thoughts,
Repetitive thoughts,
Scattered thoughts.
And you might come back to the anchor of your breath and start to breathe here in this moment,
Imagining yourself on this train platform at the station.
And then perhaps you start to notice that you've gotten onto one of the trains and you've gone a few stops.
And then your awareness kicks in and you realize that you're along the way.
You're far from the station.
So you get off the train and you return back,
Back to the platform,
Back to the station.
And as you sit and as you bring awareness to the breathing body,
You follow the inhale,
You follow the exhale.
Your awareness is open.
You see the people around you,
The trains passing.
Again,
You might notice that you've wandered onto a train in the opposite direction.
Now you might be a few stops beyond and then you realize that you're going in a direction that you want to stop.
So you get off the next stop and you return back to the station,
Back to the platform where your bench is and you can observe life as it is.
Again,
You're on another train,
This time going even further in the opposite direction.
But then your awareness kicks in and you decide to get off at the next stop and return back.
This might happen hundreds of times,
Each train with its train of thought,
Following each of those trains of thought.
But it's actually in the return,
Back to awareness,
The moment you've noticed that you've gone down the path,
That you've gone down several stops.
It's in that moment of awakening where you come back to this present moment.
And maybe it repeats itself hundreds of times,
But you keep returning back to awareness,
Back to the right here and the right now,
Back to the seat at the platform of the train station.
You follow your breath in and you follow your breath out.
Because your breath is your powerful tool to keep you present.
No matter how many times you lose that train of thought,
No matter how many times you get on a train and it goes off several stops,
You always return back.
And you learn a little bit more each time.
In this present moment,
When you are fully awake,
When you are fully aware,
It's a reminder that you are exactly where you are meant to be.
And it's a reminder that in this moment,
Gratitude lives here.
Fullness lives here.
Life lives here.
Compassion lives here.
And even joy.
Can you rest in this moment,
Sitting,
Allowing the trains to keep going back and forth,
As you sit and simply observe,
Knowing that you are the witness.
You are the seer.
Observing it all happen and taking it all in,
Fully,
Completely.
Now,
When it feels right for you,
Start to bring awareness to your fingers and your toes.
Awareness to your body as you're sitting exactly where you are.
And when it's truly right for you,
Open your eyes.
Return back to the space.
Thank you for your practice.
Namaste.
Namaste.
