Body And Emotion Scan + Universal Compassion Meditation

Start by kind of gently bringing your attention to the breath as it comes in and out.

Just start by having a gentle focus on the whole body as it gets moved sort of back and forth by the breath as the tide of the breath comes in and goes out.

And maybe let's everyone,

If you want to turn mute your mics just so we don't get any cross talk or barking dogs as we go ahead.

And just a gentle attention to the breath as it comes in and out.

Start to notice the quality of the breath.

Is it a short breath?

Is it a long breath?

Just notice the different parts of the breath,

The top of the breath,

The gentle pause there.

High tide as your lungs are the fullest,

The bottom,

The drop of the breath.

Just be at home in the in-breath,

Be at home in the out-breath.

And before we travel fully inside into our bodies,

Let's open our eyes.

And without losing the connection to the breath,

Keep that attention on the breath.

Just look around your surroundings a little bit.

Notice the space that holds you,

That holds this moment and this practice.

The light,

If it's natural light or artificial light,

The quality of the light playing on the surfaces,

The volume of the air that holds you.

Are you close to the ground or are you in a tall building up in the air?

Are you out in the country with many trees?

Are you in the city surrounded by roads and cars?

Just gently let your attention travel over your surroundings without losing that connection to the breath.

And just gently pick a single object,

Maybe something that's kind of in front of you so you don't have to crane around too far,

Maybe something on your desk like a cup or a book,

Maybe even the computer in front of you,

And just gently bring your attention to this object.

Just see it as something that takes up space,

That reflects light,

That displaces air,

That is pulled towards the earth by gravity.

And just think about this object as something that shares the world with you and as something that has a history apart from you,

This object.

This object,

It existed before you encountered it,

Unless you made it,

But even so,

Its material existed for a long time,

Has a history,

Maybe it's something that somebody crafted,

Somebody designed that put their intelligence and their care and their labor into.

And even before that,

Before the person who crafted it encountered it,

Its material has a history.

Maybe it's made of wood that was part of the body of a tree in a forest.

Maybe it's made of clay or metal from deep within the body of our planet Earth.

Maybe it's made of plastic with a complicated chemical history.

Maybe if it's plastic,

It was even part of the body of a dinosaur hundreds of millions of years ago,

Or an ancient sea creature that swam in the oceans with our ancestors when we were fishes.

And just see this object and smile to it and welcome the object to sit with us in our practice.

And come back to the breath and just follow with your focus a few breaths all the way in and all the way out.

And now bring your focus to a part of your body,

Maybe your hand.

That's the obvious one for me.

And just bring your gaze to your hand or whichever part of your body you like.

And for a moment,

Just see it as an object in the same way that the your focus earlier,

The cup or the book or whatever is an object.

It too is something that takes up space and displaces air.

And it's a part of you.

It's a part of you.

And it's a part of that takes up space and displaces air and reflects light and sound as weight.

It too has a complicated history and it's made out of stuff material.

The stuff came from somewhere.

You ingested it as food.

Or the minerals in your water,

Maybe even plastics that we now all have in our body in small amounts,

Minerals.

Just see your hand or this part of your body just as an object in the world.

Other people see it too.

And then just shift your focus a little bit from seeing it as an object to feeling it from the inside as an instrument.

Not just an object but a part of the subject that is you,

The body.

Feel the sensations in your hand or whichever part of the body you like.

The play of temperature and pressure on the skin there.

The coolness or warmth.

Maybe it feels a little jittery.

Maybe it wants to move and wiggle around Maybe it wants to move and wiggle around because you're paying attention to it.

Feel these animate qualities of this instrument as part of your body.

And then just gently set that aside and come back to the breath as it plays through the whole body.

And come back to the quality of the breath from the top to the bottom.

Has the quality changed?

Is your breath longer?

Is it more open?

Is your breath up in the chest?

Is it mostly down in the belly?

Is it more on one side or the other?

Sometimes we breathe into one lung more than the other.

Just notice.

Don't try to force it.

But also notice that perhaps the light of your gentle attention encourages the breath to open up into a fuller breath the way that the sun can encourage a flower to open.

Just let the gentle light of your attention play on the breath.

Feel all the sensations throughout your body.

And let's now bring a special focused attention to the region of our body around our chest and our abdomen.

So maybe from the shoulder to around the navel.

And maybe it helps to close our eyes at this point if we still have our eyes open.

Just feel this part of our body from the inside as the breath comes in and the breath comes out.

Is there tension against the weight of gravity as we sit?

Is there tension against the against the weight of gravity as we sit?

Is there tightness?

Is there pain?

Is there openness?

Is there pleasure?

Sometimes it can feel so good just to take a breath.

Just try to notice that simple pleasure,

That basic goodness that's in every breath.

Sometimes we miss out on it just by not paying attention.

But also notice if there's pain.

Sometimes there can be pain and we don't even notice.

We don't even notice.

When we pay attention to all the sensations,

We notice little pockets of sensation.

Some of them maybe we don't want to focus on because they're painful or unpleasant.

But whatever we find there,

Don't force it away.

Don't push it aside.

Welcome it.

So sit with us in this practice.

Whatever we find there,

These are our treasures.

These are parts of us,

Even when they connect to deep emotions.

Even when they connect to deep emotions.

And if we focus particularly on the area in the core of our chest around our heart,

There can be so much sensation there,

So much connected with deep emotions.

We tend to tighten up in our chest when we feel things that we don't want to feel.

So as the breath comes in and comes out,

We breathe in support and nourishment.

We breathe out and we feel spaciousness and clarity.

Every breath is a symphony of sensations,

Many notes,

Sounds,

Feelings of stretch and tension,

Weight and gravity,

The coolness of the movement of the air through our lungs.

See what emotions you can find there that maybe you haven't been paying attention to through the busy week.

Maybe there's some anxiety,

Some fear.

Maybe there's a little bitter pocket of disappointment,

Feeling of being misunderstood.

Maybe there's a hot wire of anger,

Maybe there's a little acidic bubble of jealousy or envy.

Maybe there's a void of guilt,

A little pocket of loneliness.

Just breathe into it and notice what's there with gentleness.

Don't push it away,

But don't get carried away by it.

Just breathe in and out.

And notice what's there with gentleness.

Don't push it away,

But don't get carried away either.

Sometimes we can get sucked into something we find there that's very powerful,

Especially if it's something we have been carrying around without noticing for a long time.

It's important work to spend time with these treasures that we find,

But we don't have to do that work right now.

Right now we're just doing a survey,

An inventory.

We're not going to get carried away.

These things might call out for our attention right now,

But just acknowledge them and know that they're there and that you have time to come back and spend time with these treasures.

Right now,

We're just breathing.

Come back to the breath.

All the way up to the top,

All the way down to the bottom.

And try to feel into that pleasure,

That basic goodness,

Even when there's pain,

Even when there's fear,

Even when there's loneliness.

Behind it,

Aside it,

Alongside it,

There's also that pleasure,

That goodness of just being alive,

Of just taking another breath.

It's important to notice that those things can be there in us together.

Now,

Staying with the breath,

Let's start to feel the breath.

Start to travel up a little higher in the body,

Up into the shoulders and the neck.

That work so hard to support our head,

To carry around our great big brains.

What do we feel in the shoulders?

What do we feel in the neck?

Is there tightness?

Is there exhaustion,

Tiredness?

Sometimes it can feel like just too much,

Just to keep staying upright and fighting against gravity can feel like such a struggle sometimes.

Just breathe into it.

Maybe we feel the complex melody of sensations as we swallow.

It's not one sensation,

It's a whole series.

Breathe into it,

And start to travel up from the neck into the head,

Along the back of the head.

What do we feel there?

Is there some tightness?

Maybe just coolness or warmth,

Travel up the back of the head,

Along the scalp.

Feel around the ears,

Sides of the head,

The temples.

Feel down into the sides of the jaw,

Those hard-working jaw muscles that chew our food,

That help us to speak,

That help us to smile or to not smile,

To frown or to not frown.

They work so hard,

But they don't have any work to do right now.

Now they can just rest.

And our cheeks,

They do a lot of work in expressing our emotions or hiding our emotions.

But right now they can just rest.

Our lips,

They can just rest.

The inside of our lips against our teeth,

Our tongue,

The palate of our mouth,

Back of our throat,

Our nose,

Our mouth,

Our eyes,

Our ears,

Our nose,

Our mouth.

Back of our throat.

Back out to the front of our face,

Our nose.

Feel the breath travel in through the nostrils.

The nostrils are like a doorway for the breath.

The door swings in,

The breath comes in.

The door swings out and the breath goes out.

Feel the muscles around the eye,

The camera crew that keeps the show rolling,

Helps us focus on the world.

Right now they just rest.

They work so hard,

They deserve a break.

Just thank them for all the work they do.

And feel the front of the face,

The forehead and the eyebrows.

Sensations there and the muscles and the skin.

What do you feel?

The crown of the head,

The top of the scalp,

The very tip,

Top of your head.

Stretching up into space away from the earth.

And now,

While still maintaining attention on the breath as it comes in and comes out,

Feeling the pull upwards into space from the top of our head,

Away from gravity,

Even as we feel the pull of gravity down through our base,

And we feel this column of force of our posture holding us upright,

Stretching us up into space.

Even as we feel all these sensations in our body,

We can also start to bring our attention to our intention for this practice to bring all this gentle,

Loving attention to our bodies,

Our body that works so hard.

And just feel this intention to love your body,

To show compassion towards your body.

And feel also the connectedness that we are all sharing right now by sharing in this practice,

By sharing in this intention.

Compassion towards ourselves,

Towards each other,

Towards the world.

Compassion towards the sensations that we find inside and the emotions,

The pleasure and the pain,

The joy and the sadness,

The fear and the loneliness.

And just be aware that all of these things connect us,

They bind us together.

Your experience is yours.

The moment is yours.

And no matter what you're feeling,

It is yours.

And no one else's,

It is truly yours.

But it also binds us all together because we all live a moment.

We all live joy and pain,

Fear and loneliness,

Love,

Disappointment.

And know that these things bind us together,

Even when we feel alone.

You're never less alone than when you feel lonely.

Everybody feels lonely sometimes.

And these emotions,

These feelings bind us all together as a practice circle.

And just broaden that compassion,

That circle to everyone who has these feelings,

Everyone that has a body across the world in this troubled time,

Across the history of the world through all the troubled times,

Out through space,

Out through time.

We're all living a moment.

We're all living inside a body.

Trillion,

Trillion,

Trillion miles away in another galaxy somewhere,

There's a being living a moment,

Living in a body,

Maybe feeling pain,

Maybe feeling joy,

Maybe feeling heartbreak and loneliness,

Maybe feeling misunderstood,

Maybe feeling that everything is lost,

And nothing will ever be okay again.

Just send some compassion to that being,

Send some love to that being.

And know that when you're in your moment of pain and loneliness,

That somewhere out there,

A trillion,

Trillion,

Trillion miles away,

There's a being that's living a moment.

There's a being that's sending you compassion and sending you love,

Because we're all in this together.

And that when we tap into that universal sense of compassion,

Of presence,

Of love,

We take part in something that transcends space and time,

And that binds us all together as embodied spirits,

As conscious beings.

And breathe.

Stay with the breath,

Stay with that connectedness,

Stretch upwards into that intention and downwards into the body.

Our awareness can bridge all that infinite space.

Just feel all the sensations,

Feel your body,

Everything that's there.

Feel all those sensations.

Feel that consciousness,

That awareness of the sensations,

And that awareness of the awareness of the sensations.

It's something that's so particular to you and yet so universal.

It's beautiful,

It's beautiful,

It's beautiful,

It's beautiful.

It's something that's so particular to you and yet so universal.

Pure consciousness,

That is an element of the universe.

Just breathe.

Breathe upwards into that intention to stretch out,

Stretch out your consciousness to all the other consciousness that's there,

Pure consciousness that moves in us all,

And yet stay with the breath.

And then gently,

Gently,

Ever so slowly,

Without losing that connection to the breath and the body,

Without losing that connection to the pure consciousness,

Gently,

Gently bring our awareness back to our surroundings,

To the room that holds us,

To the light as it plays off the furniture and the walls and the objects in the room.

Open our eyes to the light and our current surroundings.

And maybe start to wiggle around in the body again to wake things up a little bit.

Stretch a little bit.

And come back into this more ordinary way of being,

But it doesn't have to be any less special or less mindful for being ordinary.

Try to bring that awareness into the ordinary,

Into every moment.

And we'll sort of gently come out of practice mode and back into regular life mode.

And that's the practice.

And I'll just wrap up by saying thank you so much for sharing the time with me and for showing the courage and the love and the compassion for yourself to give yourself this time to take care of yourself.