I'd like to invite you to stop and turn inwards.
This meditation is an opportunity to be guided to a place of stillness,
Settling your mind,
Allowing your body to settle,
So that you can stay in that space and have a longer meditation experience.
So turning away from the world of doing and our expectations of how things will be,
Connecting to a deeper sense of who you are,
Where you're going.
So to start,
Feel your body physically settle into this space.
Your back active but relaxed.
Your chin slightly tucked in and your feet grounding into the floor.
Let's set an intention right now to be here.
I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be.
This is exactly what I'm supposed to be doing.
This is it.
This moment is all that's real.
We'll start with the connection to our fingertips,
Taking your awareness and placing it on the fingertips and allowing your full focus to rest there.
Stay with it.
Allowing your nervous system to respond to your attention and seeing if as you do that and you open that conversation,
You can feel a vibration or gentle humming in your fingertips.
Your nervous system responding.
Perhaps it comes and goes.
Perhaps you don't feel anything at all.
Just notice whatever you feel and keep your awareness on the fingertips.
And if your mind is already kicked in with thoughts,
Just gently give yourself permission to let them go and return to the practice.
No judgment or control.
Just letting go.
And now see if you can feel that same sensation in your toes.
Starting with your big toe and working across all the way to the little toe on each foot.
So now your fingers and your toes are both in your awareness and noticing where you feel that gentle humming or vibration.
Perhaps it's different in one side or the other.
Perhaps your feet feel less than your hands.
Now gently allowing that to spread across the palms of the hands and the soles of the feet.
Spreading up the ankles to the knees.
The knees down to the thighs,
Up to the hips.
Your whole lower half of your body in your awareness.
Before travelling up from your hands,
Up through the arms,
Into the shoulders and across the chest.
Down into the belly.
Feeling an openness.
Feeling it just being with your whole body in your awareness.
Staying with it.
Bringing your attention back any time it wanders.
And noticing anywhere that's holding tension.
Without trying to change it or do anything,
Just noticing.
Perhaps noticing the cheeks or the jaw.
The top of the head.
Now gently take your attention to your breath.
See where in the body you feel it.
Perhaps it's where the cool air enters your mouth or your nostrils.
Maybe today you notice it in your chest as it rises and falls or in the belly.
Just see what emerges and allow your attention to settle wherever it lands.
Perhaps it's somewhere different each time you meditate.
Perhaps you can choose to focus somewhere different.
But just notice that the breath comes and goes on its own.
You don't need to make it happen.
Your body's breathing for you.
Your role is just to observe,
To be the witness.
And to see what's happening.
If your mind gets distracted by thoughts or judgements or feelings,
Just let them go each time and return to the breath.
Know that you're right here where you're supposed to be.
Beginning to label that breath experience.
So as you breathe in,
Labeling it rising.
As you breathe out,
Falling.
Rising,
Falling.
Rising,
Falling.
This is your base camp.
Place you can return to any time in your practice and in your day to day life.
This place is always here for you.
Rising,
Falling.
And as you let go of that focus on the breath and you open your awareness,
You'll notice something will emerge.
Perhaps a sensation in the body or a sound or a thought.
Maybe it's a sensation,
Just labeling it sensation.
Sensation.
Sensation.
But going searching for it,
Allowing whatever's there to come into your awareness.
Maybe it's sensation where your body meets the chair.
Or discomfort somewhere.
Whenever sensation comes up,
Just label the experience until it falls away.
And then allowing your awareness to open fully.
So perhaps sounds come in too.
And again,
Not looking for sounds,
But just letting them come to you.
And when they do,
Just labeling them hearing.
Hearing.
Hearing.
Not trying to identify what the sound is.
I'm getting carried away with thoughts about it.
Just labeling it hearing.
Hearing.
Sensation.
Perhaps thoughts have already begun to creep in.
And we'll now just add thinking to any that come.
Thinking.
Thinking.
Not attaching to any thoughts or following the thought.
Just noticing when that begins to happen and labeling it thinking.
Thinking.
Sometimes when we practice there's lots of thoughts,
Lots of sensations,
Lots of sounds.
Other times there's fewer.
Sensation.
Hearing.
Thinking.
And we'll use this open awareness practice to drop down into a deeper ocean and let go of the doing.
Becoming aware of that you that's aware.
That can allow sensations and sounds and thoughts to flow through.
Letting go of what you believe to be reality that comes from your thinking mind.
Now you're allowing sensation,
Hearing and thinking to flow through.
Knowing that this awareness is always there.
Seeing that flow as things arise and then fall away.
And every time you find the urge to follow those thoughts or sensations,
Using that labeling practice to just allow them to go when they're ready.
You,
Your being,
Is still and constant as that open awareness accepts whatever rises and lets it pass through.
Maybe sometimes things stay for a while.
All those many things.
That's okay too.
Just notice and bring your attention back each time that you notice you've been distracted.
And remind yourself that that is the practice.
Knowing that there's a deeper awareness that can emerge.
Open to it.
Gently allowing and accepting everything to drop away.
So you're left with pure awareness whenever there's a gap between sensations,
Hearing and thoughts or feelings.
And now my voice will drop away as you stay in that awareness.
Allowing things to come and rise up in your awareness.
And then allowing them to flow through.
No effort or trying.
And trying to let go of expectation of how it should feel.
So as my voice drops away and you stay in that awareness,
Labeling anything that emerges.
Sensation.
Hearing.
Thinking.
And I'll guide you back when it's time to return to the doing.
Now gently start to bring your awareness back to the breath.
Back to that rising and falling.
Focusing that labeling,
The breath,
As you come back into the space.
Focusing your attention once more.
Having spent time in that open awareness practice.
Rising.
Falling.
Rising.
Falling.
Now take three bigger than usual breaths.
Allowing your chest to open fully and the air to go right down to the belly.
Expanding the chest and then allowing it to fall.
You've done that three times.
Allow your breath to return to its normal rhythm.
Gently wriggling the fingers and the toes.
Noticing what it feels like to return that movement to the body after being still.
Perhaps you lost the sensation of your hands for a time during your practice.
As you dropped into that deeper awareness.
And now when you're ready,
Gently blinking your eyes open and keeping your gaze soft until the bell chimes.
And with that just like when your life looked world wide open.
