Before we get started,
Find yourself a quiet,
Comfortable spot where you won't be disturbed.
Make sure that you're in a comfortable,
Upright,
Seated position using any props you need so you can stay seated pain-free throughout this practice.
Whenever you've found a comfortable position,
Close your eyes,
Completely relax your body and turn to stillness.
Let's begin.
Begin by taking a deep breath in through the nose and on the exhale sighing it out through the mouth.
Inhale through the nose and exhale through the mouth and repeat a couple of times until you feel yourself settling in and then choose a gentle,
Easy and steady breath through the nose.
Take your time with each breath in and find a rhythm that reflects the qualities of calm,
Patience,
Ease and spaciousness.
The intention for this meditation is the noticing of breath so we commit right here,
Right now to holding the mind's attention on breath.
Zero in on breath but with an attention that's not too tight,
Not too loose,
Just right.
We stay with this gentle,
Easy breath,
The sound of our breath moving in and out through the nose.
Perhaps there's a temperature to the breath,
A cool breath in,
A warm breath out,
Open to noticing the felt sensation of breath.
How does it feel as it moves in and out through the nose?
How does breath move and feel in your body?
Notice the movement of inhale expansion,
Exhale letting go.
Notice the lift of the chest with breath in and the release of shoulders,
Belly,
Thighs with breath out.
A sense of lightness with breath in,
A sense of grounding,
Rooting to earth with breath out.
Continue to allow the breath to draw your attention inward in whatever way it does.
Be curious about your breath,
Its movement,
Its energy.
Whatever arises,
Keep returning to intention,
To noticing of breath.
Again and again allow the breath to draw you in and all the while you remain still open,
Still spacious,
Still free.
Continue to focus on your breath with about 25% of the effort of your mind and with another 25% of your mind,
Notice whether or not you are still paying attention to the breath.
So each time you find that your mind has wandered,
Shift your focus back to the breath.
So the second part of the mind,
It acts as the noticer,
The witness and it's this witness that tells you when your mindfulness has dropped.
It's this witness that guides you back to mindfulness.
So continue in this way watching breath and noticing when your attention on the breath has waned.
Return to the breath as many times as you need.
Eventually we notice that even the watcher needs a little part of the mind to watch it too.
So with the third part of your mind,
Notice whether or not you are still aware of your mindfulness on the breath.
Is the witness part of the mind doing its job?
And then what about the third part of the mind?
Is it too doing its job?
There's a fourth part of the mind further back that watches the witness,
Who's watching the witness and so on.
And back and back it goes.
Follow for a moment the sensation of moving further back,
Deeper into the origins of awareness.
Where is or who is the original witness?
As the mind gets lost or confused or overwhelmed,
Just rest.
Rest in the spaciousness of awareness.
It's limitless,
Without beginning and without end.
That spacious,
Infinite,
Expansive awareness is you.
Infinite in its ability to notice and infinite in its ability to see,
To feel,
To listen.
So keep resting in the sensation of spaciousness,
Open awareness.
Just be.
When you feel like the mind has gotten small again,
Closing in on one train of thought,
One distraction,
Return the mind to the breath.
Repeat the process until you reach the felt sensation of open spaciousness again.
And there you rest.
You remain.
Spend as much time as you'd like in this state of infinite potential,
Limitless awareness,
Limitless wide open space.
See if you can hold that sense of spaciousness as you slowly open your eyes and return to the space around you.
