We begin this meditation today with the intention of entering a state of relaxed awareness,
To calmly witness with presence and spaciousness the experience,
Your experience,
Of being here,
Now.
Sit comfortably with your spine gently lifted,
Yet relaxed.
Feel how it feels to be here.
Become aware of your whole body.
And as you become aware of your whole body,
Become aware of the support below you.
Perhaps a chair,
Or a couch,
Or your bed,
Or perhaps the floor,
And then below,
The earth.
Become aware of your breath.
Notice the natural rhythm of your breath.
Notice how your breath moves all around your body.
How it enlivens your body.
How your breath rises and fall.
How your belly moves as the breath enters it,
And as the breath leaves your belly.
Notice how your chest moves as air flows in and out of your body.
Notice how natural it feels to just breathe.
To just breathe right there.
Become aware of everything that it takes for you to be there,
Simply breathing in and out.
I invite you now to hold the awareness of your breath with spaciousness.
Allow yourself to be in a spacious sensation within your body,
So that you may experience and so that you may contain all that you are experiencing while remaining anchored to your breath.
Allow yourself to feel yourself as the breath itself,
As if you are the breath rising and falling inside a spacious,
Vast field.
A quiet,
Spacious field where you can witness more of yourself,
Where you can hold more of your experience in whatever way it comes to you,
So that you can also let go when it feels right to let that go,
To let go.
To let what arises arise,
And to let what wants to leave,
What wants to lift out.
So it's the feeling of inhaling and containing,
And then the feeling of exhaling and releasing,
And noticing that flow,
That wave by wave,
And how the waves are connected to a vast field,
To a spaciousness that perhaps feels or could feel like the ocean or like the vastness of the sky.
And so let's practice in this way for about five minutes,
Just following the breath with your awareness,
While maintaining a spacious,
Relaxed feeling around the breath,
As you witness the silence that emerges,
As you explore the quiet return of your breath to your body,
And the effortless letting go of your breath as it leaves your body.
As you inhale,
Allowing the experience,
And as you exhale,
Allowing this experience to simply be released into the spaciousness of your awareness,
Into the container of silence that you are creating,
Or that you are experiencing.
And you simply do this,
And you return to the breath.
Every time you feel like your mind wanders,
You just go back to that effortless center.
Just go bring yourself to that container of silence and stillness,
And you follow again your inhale and your exhale.
And you follow that for about five minutes.
How does your body respond to this quiet awareness?
And now notice where in your body you are holding the knowing of this quiet spaciousness.
And as you notice perhaps a specific area in your body,
Allow this quiet spaciousness to spread throughout all of your cells.
So that all spaces within you may know how it feels to be a quiet witness in a spacious field of awareness.
Breathe it all from the tips of your toes to the top of your head,
From your skin to your bones,
Surrounding yourself with this knowing.
With this palpable understanding of this experience,
Of the calm,
Of the quiet,
Of the spaciousness,
Of the breath.
You can remain here for as long as you would like,
Or you can gently and softly open your eyes when you're ready,
Greeting the space around you with a quiet,
Spacious smile.
