As we begin this practice,
We bring our awareness down into the body,
Mentally descending into its depth,
Noticing the physical sensations arising,
Abiding,
And dissolving in the body.
And then for a little while,
Just enjoying the process of natural breathing,
Where we don't control the breath,
We don't alter the breath,
When we allow the body itself to choose the optimal rhythm,
Depth,
And volume of breathing,
Releasing all physical tension with each out-breath,
And just resting deeply in the here and now.
And then generating a positive motivation for this practice of applying mindfulness to the body,
Bringing our mind to our highest spiritual or psychological aspirations,
Which would include the act of balancing our perception of reality,
Our understanding of reality.
And then for the actual practice itself,
Bringing our awareness to the midbro area,
And focusing there,
Imagining this part of our body,
Keeping our attention there,
And then imagining that the skin and the flesh in this part of our body dissolves and disappears,
Revealing bones.
And then from that area,
The process of dissolution slowly unfolds,
As all of our flesh,
All of our skin,
All of our tissue,
Dissolve and disappear without a trace,
Leaving only the bones,
Only the skeleton.
So,
Taking a moment to imagine our own body transforming into merely a skeleton,
Held together,
Not falling apart,
But without any flesh,
Seeing our body as a skeleton in the meditation posture that we are currently in.
And then imagining that our skeleton grows in size,
And as it grows in size,
The rest of the environment also slowly and gradually becomes filled with nothing but bones.
So slowly,
Slowly,
On the level of our imagination,
Our entire area becomes the land of bones,
Then gradually our entire country.
And then the whole planet.
And then both our skeleton and the bones around us continue growing and increasing in size,
Until eventually,
The whole universe is nothing but a giant skeleton,
Our skeleton,
And the bones around it.
Everything assumes the aspect of bones.
And that's what we hold in our imagination,
That's what we focus on.
In a very easygoing,
Relaxed,
Open manner.
Holding our attention on this visualization of a universe-sized skeleton,
While breathing naturally.
So,
Holding our attention on this giant skeleton,
We practice shamatha,
The meditation for balancing and perfecting our attention.
And the object of shamatha is this image of a giant skeleton.
Not as something morbid,
But simply as something that is.
We know there is a skeleton in our body,
So keeping our attention on it is similar to bringing our awareness to the breath.
We're attending to something that is natural and resting there.
Bringing our mind back to the skeleton again and again,
Whenever we find ourselves distracted.
And then we imagine that our skeleton gradually becomes smaller and smaller,
Coming back to the size of the planet,
The size of our country,
The size of our area.
Then coming down to the size of the room that we find ourselves in.
So there's our skeleton and the bones around it in that room.
And then all the other bones dissolve in our skeleton.
And the skeleton itself gradually acquires flesh again.
Slowly,
Slowly regaining flesh,
With the last point in that process being our mid-brow,
The point between our brows.
And so for a little bit more we just attend to our skeleton and its normal size once again.
Keeping our awareness,
Keeping our attention on this mental image that corresponds to reality.
Breathing naturally and allowing this practice to liberate our mind from both excessive desire and attachment,
Along with all the projections,
And aversion towards things that simply are,
Like our skeleton,
Or the fact of our mortality.
And then slowly releasing all images,
All ideas,
All thoughts,
Associated with this practice,
And bringing our awareness back to the breath,
Just to balance our mind,
Just to balance our attention once again.
And then dedicating the energy of this sobering,
Insightful practice to our highest spiritual aspirations,
To our highest spiritual goals,
Which include the liberation,
The awakening,
And the well-being of all sentient beings and ourselves.
And then bringing our attention back to our environment,
Slowly concluding the practice and inviting the bell.
