This is a meditation called the sand timer meditation where we'll be starting with a broad awareness then narrowing our focus and ending broad again.
Starting by taking whatever position you will be in for this practice and remembering that my guidance is just guidance.
You can tune me out or drop underneath my words anytime you want to.
Whether you're sitting,
Standing or lying down,
Embodying a sense of wakefulness.
Meditation is about falling awake not falling asleep.
And also being receptive to whatever arises over the next 11 minutes.
We'll begin by just dropping into the here and now and noticing what's here.
There may be thoughts flickering across the mind.
Thoughts about something that happened earlier in the day.
Thoughts about your to-do list or projects.
Maybe thoughts about the future.
Not getting caught up in those thoughts or feeding them.
Just sitting back and watching them arise and fall away again.
Some of those thoughts might be carrying an emotional charge.
You might notice that you're thinking and the quality of that thinking is pleasant,
Uplifting,
Joyful.
Or you might notice that you're thinking and the quality of that thinking is a bit depleting.
Maybe making you feel frustrated,
Anxious.
So acknowledging whatever emotions,
Whatever mood states are present and giving yourself permission to feel however you're feeling in this moment.
And then turning attention to the body and the universe of sensations in the body.
Just as with thoughts,
Some of those sensations might be pleasant.
Sense of warmth,
Openness,
Relaxedness,
Ease.
Other sensations might be unpleasant.
Discomfort or tightness.
Sensations we might label as pain.
And then there'll be other sensations that are neither pleasant nor unpleasant.
There's nothing to do,
There's nowhere to go,
We're just noticing what's here.
The body and the mind and in the heart.
Perhaps dropping in the question.
How am I doing right now?
Noticing what comes up.
And then gathering up and focusing our attention on the sensations of breath down in the belly.
And if the breath doesn't feel like a place of comfort in this moment,
You can focus attention on the soles of the feet.
Or perhaps in the hands.
Using the breath or the body as an anchor to keep our attention in the present moment.
And coming back to that anchor whenever we notice that the mind has wandered.
So if you are down in the belly,
There's no need to change the way you're breathing.
No need to manipulate or control the breath,
Just letting it breathe itself while your attention rides along.
In with the ebb and flow of the in-breath and out-breath.
Perhaps the feeling of clothing against the belly when we breathe in.
And then a falling away again as we breathe out.
And at some point,
The mind is going to wander away into thinking,
Judging,
Analyzing,
Comparing,
Storytelling.
It's just what the mind does.
That moment of noticing that our minds have wandered,
That's a moment of mindfulness,
A moment of waking up.
We can register where our minds have gone,
That's important data for us.
And then just escort our attention gently back to our chosen anchor.
Which at this moment is the breath sensations down in the belly.
Getting curious about the quality breath,
Its length,
Its depth,
Its regularity or irregularity.
Following the in-breath all the way in,
Watching it turn around again and then following the out-breath all the way out.
Coming back to the breath whenever we feel distracted.
As I've said,
You can use any anchor for this middle section of the practice where we're focusing our attention.
Feet on the floor,
Hands,
Sensations of breath,
Maybe a little bit of a smile.
Maybe even sounds in the space around you.
Just like a sand timer,
We started with a broad awareness.
We transition to a more narrow focus.
And as we come to the final stage of the practice,
We're going to go broad again.
So allowing awareness to grow larger around the breath sensations or around the feet,
If that's where you've been resting attention.
Letting awareness permeate through the body,
Lower body,
Torso,
Arms.
Noticing the length of the body,
Weight of the body sitting here,
Lying here or standing here.
The texture of this thing we call the body.
You might notice how when resting in a whole body awareness,
The line between where the body ends and the world begins starts to get a bit blurry.
Coming back to a sense of the body as a whole,
Whenever you get distracted,
And resting here until you hear the sound of the bells.
