Combining Techniques

I invite you to find a comfortable seat wherever you are.

This might mean scooching a bit up or back in your chair or on your couch or whatever you're sitting on.

Let your hands just rest and fall naturally and think about the top of your head is facing evenly up to the ceiling or the sky.

Sit with dignity as Jon Kabat-Zinn might say.

And let's begin this meditation of combining techniques by finding the breath and let's specifically find the breath at the nostrils.

Really notice what the sensations of an inhale feel like exactly in this moment.

And then open up your awareness to notice what the sensations of an exhale feel like.

Can you really notice the differences between the inhale and the exhale?

Perhaps one is warmer or cooler than the other.

Perhaps one feels more rushed,

More urgent than the other.

Just notice with no judgment,

Simply awareness.

And any time you get distracted,

Perhaps because of a noise nearby or thought or an emotion,

Strong or subtle,

Just choose to carve out that freedom in your mind,

That mindfulness,

And choose to use the power within your mind to return your attention with gentleness back to the sensations of the breath.

This is mindfulness of the breathing body,

The first foundation of mindfulness.

And with this,

We're not changing the breath in any way.

We're just using our minds,

We're training our minds to really focus on the present moment.

And we're doing that by paying attention with beginner's mind to all of the sensations of the breath,

Only and exactly in this precise moment.

This is a mindfulness meditation,

Really powerful at releasing stress.

And it works even if it feels like you're not doing a good job.

It just works in trying to focus the attention,

Your mind on the sensations of the breath.

And it also is wonderful at training the mind to focus on the present,

What is actually happening in our lives.

So enjoy this time to focus on the present moment,

To focus on the breath,

And to be present for this exact moment of your life.

And now let's shift our attention from mindfulness of the breath and open up to all of the sounds in our environment.

So notice all of the obvious sounds that might be traffic or even one car going by.

Perhaps someone talking or playing music or watching something in a room nearby.

Maybe a fan or heater or air conditioning.

But I invite you to also notice all of the subtle sounds in your environment.

Perhaps somebody rustling or moving a little bit further away than you would normally be aware of.

So just open your attention,

The very relaxed mindfulness to all of the noises all of the sounds exactly in your environment right now.

And as we continue with this mindfulness of sound meditation,

I invite you to layer onto it this choice,

This freedom and decision not to judge any of the sounds in our environment.

Allow them to just simply be.

Perhaps with a smile,

You can think about all of these noises as being the symphony of your meditation.

This,

Whatever it is,

A car traffic,

Someone getting into an argument near you,

Construction,

Whatever it is,

Just allow yourself to think this simply is.

I am aware of these noises,

But I don't judge them.

They're not bad,

They're not good.

They simply are.

This simply is.

Watching,

Noticing,

Aware,

All of these noises,

Just allowing them to be.

Now I invite you to layer back on your awareness,

The feelings,

The sensations of the breath,

While you still hold an awareness of all of the sounds in your environment.

So we feel the breath,

We experience the breath.

We also hold this awareness of noise of sounds of what is around us.

I feel the breath and I hold an awareness of all of the sounds around me exactly and only in this moment.

So this has been a mindfulness of sound meditation.

And then layering on to that or mindfulness of the breath meditation.

But let's shift gears into our third and final meditation for this sitting.

Let's do a compassion meditation together so important at this time in the world.

And we can shift into a compassion meditation that comes from the Tibetan Buddhist lineage.

It's called Tonglen.

And with this,

We bring into our awareness,

We can think about bringing in on the inhale,

Any pain or suffering or anything challenging for us or for others.

Go with your intuition on that and think of bringing that in with the inhale.

And if it helps you can attach a color to it.

It could be anything maybe it's a gray like a smoky color.

You're bringing that in but then think of transforming that and sending out to the world.

It's your output,

Love and compassion and kindness.

And you can choose a color for this.

It could be beautiful blue,

It could be yellow for the sun,

Could be anything at all,

You can just use your intuition.

Think of sending that out with each exhale.

So we bring in any suffering,

Let's just say for other people,

Maybe it's all of humanity,

The suffering of humanity in this moment.

But then we can transform it,

We can choose to output kindness,

Love,

Positivity,

And send that out with each exhale.

Think about inhaling in troubles,

Exhaling out just simply love.

The choice,

The decision,

The freedom to be kind.

This is an advanced meditation.

So if it feels hard,

That's fine.

We just go into it with beginner's mind.

Each breath,

Each inhale is a chance,

A beautiful chance to simply start again.

And if it feels too heavy to think of global troubles,

It could just be maybe one tough moment in a friend's day.

Inhale that in and then exhale out just the choice to be kind to this friend.

Each breath,

Each moment,

A chance to begin again.

With this Tonglen meditation,

We can remember as meditators that we have so much freedom,

So much power,

So much agency on the energy,

The words,

The interactions that we bring to our day.

So even if someone we know or an acquaintance or someone we're getting a coffee from brings us something that's even a little bit tough,

We can just choose to let that go and to respond with kindness when we want to,

When it is wise to.

That is always our choice.

And to close,

Let's just go back to the sensations of the breath at the nostrils.

We can think of this as our home base.

Just a very relaxed awareness of what the sensations of the breath feel like.

Just a gentle noticing.

What do I feel as the breath comes in and comes out of my nostrils?

What am I aware of?

What am I experiencing in this moment?

And when you're ready,

If your eyes have been closed,

You can open them.

And if you'd like,

You can stretch your arms out,

Your legs out if that feels nice.

We started with a mindfulness of the breath meditation,

Focusing specifically on the breath at the nostrils.

We then moved on and shifted our attention to a mindfulness of sound meditation.

Then layered on to that the choice not to judge the sounds and brought into our awareness,

Mindfulness of the breath as well.

And then we closed with a compassion meditation.

And really a beautiful metaphor for the choices and the freedom that we have throughout the day.

So this is one example of combining techniques.

You can also choose any and all of the meditations that we have practiced so far in the course and use your own intuition to decide how you might want to combine them when you're guiding meditations for others or even when you are doing your daily sits.

Thank you for this beautiful chance to sit together and I wish you a beautiful rest of the day.