Sitting Meditation - Breath, Body, Sounds & Thoughts

This is a sitting meditation practice which will last approximately 20 minutes.

So finding a place and a time where you can be relatively undisturbed.

And this practice is usually done sitting down.

So finding a cushion or a chair and if your circumstances allow,

Adopting a posture that supports alertness.

So if you're sitting in a chair,

Coming away from the back of the chair if that feels right.

Or if you're sitting on a cushion on the floor,

Allowing the back to be self supporting.

Resting the hands in the lap and just letting go of any tension in the body,

In the shoulders or in the jaw.

Tucking the chin slightly in so the back of the neck lengthens.

We'll begin this practice by coming to the breath.

So shifting the awareness to sensations of the breath in the body.

And wherever these sensations are most alive for you,

Most vivid for you right now.

Resting your awareness here.

So maybe that's around the nose and the nostrils,

The back of the throat,

The chest.

Maybe low down in the belly.

Wherever.

And we're not looking for the breath to be a certain way.

So rather than having a awareness of the breath where we're thinking about it as best you can,

Sensing the breath,

The movements of breath in the body.

Letting go of any expectation to get this right.

Not striving to experience a certain outcome,

Not looking to get anywhere.

But instead experiencing the breath as it is in the body right now.

One to moment,

Breath to breath.

And when the mind wanders,

Noticing where the mind has gone,

Where the awareness has drifted to,

Making note of this and as best you can coming back to rest the awareness on the anchor of your breath.

Connecting with this next moment.

Expanding the awareness now of the breath in a particular part of the body to include the whole body.

So as best you can having a sense of the whole body sitting here on a chair in a cushion.

And a sense of the whole body breathing from the top of your head down to the tips of your toes.

Breathing into this.

Allowing sensations to arise,

Making note and having a broad awareness of the whole body watching sensations come and go.

Perhaps there's areas of pleasantness or neutral parts of the body.

Sensations that are interesting or curious.

Other times there can be parts of the body that are difficult for us right now.

Pain,

Tension,

Bracing.

Perhaps holding our breath.

And as we've been learning there's different ways of working with these difficult sensations.

If a simple movement or a shift in posture supports more comfort then folding this into your practice and becoming aware of all of the little movements involved in this shifting of posture.

As we've been learning mindfulness is not about gritting our teeth or learning to be stoics.

If there's something simple that can be done that supports our well-being then this is something that we can choose to do when we become aware.

From time to time we'll notice that pain or bracing or tension might endure and persist.

And seeing if it's possible to rest the awareness on the breath so the breath is in the foreground of our awareness and the sensations of pain.

We're not looking to change them or get rid of them or push them away but allowing them to be there in the background while we rest our awareness on the breath.

Right now in this moment choosing to rest the awareness on the breath as best you can.

Or perhaps having an open curious stance towards the difficulty and using the breath to guide your awareness right up to the edges of this difficulty locating where it resides in the body perhaps in the chest or in the belly maybe there's a holding or a tension in the back.

And seeing if it's possible to bring your awareness right into the area of greatest intensity exploring all that you find.

Recognizing that we can come back to rest our awareness anchor our awareness on the breath at any time of our choosing.

Perhaps there's one sensation here or maybe a bundle of sensations.

Maybe there's some change in these sensations from moment to moment in their frequency intensity as best you can making note of whatever you find.

Not looking to fix it to make it go away but to be open to it with curiosity and with kindness.

Breathing into this part of the body and breathing out from.

So letting go now of awareness of the body and shifting the awareness to receive sounds and noticing how we often label sounds.

The tendency is to categorize or label sounds and seeing if it's possible instead to receive sounds here one moment and gone the next.

Again bringing as much of our awareness to this experience as we can receiving the sounds recognizing their pitch tone timbre.

Sounds far away in the distance.

Becoming aware of the space from which the sounds arise and noting how they eventually fade away.

The changing soundscape.

The orchestra of our day.

And from time to time checking in with our posture and our breathing.

Sometimes a gentle shift in posture can support a sense of renewed alertness awareness.

Then coming back to rest on sounds,

Receiving sounds from moment to moment.

So letting go of awareness of sounds now and shifting the awareness to thoughts.

And having a broad spacious awareness of any thoughts that are present here now.

And similar to sounds thoughts are subject to change.

Here one moment gone the next.

And like sounds we often have a tendency to label our thoughts,

To judge them.

So letting go of this tendency,

This inclination and as best you can just allowing thoughts to arise in your awareness to develop and to fade away.

Almost like there are clouds in the sky.

Drifting by and drifting away again.

And quite often we can get caught up in our thoughts and we can try and problem solve or suppress some of our thinking and recognizing if this is something that is typical of our experience and noting how this is for us.

And as best you can just allowing the thoughts to fade away like clouds in the sky.

Here one moment gone the next.

And sometimes certain thoughts can carry with them a strong emotional charge.

Perhaps a feeling of hurt or rejection.

Some difficulty.

And if it feels right for you,

Making note of the part of the body where this difficulty resides.

So maybe there's a thought in a particular part of the body associated with this thought.

And as best you can allowing the breath to guide your awareness down into this part of the body.

Gently exploring its edges with kindness,

With curiosity.

Realizing that we can come back to the breath at any point of our choosing.

And exploring what it's like to just allow this difficulty,

This sensation to be here.

Not looking to change it,

But instead just being open to it as best you can.

Because it's here let me be open to this.

Breathing into this part of the body.

Each in breath a new beginning,

Each out breath a letting go,

A letting be.

Now allowing thoughts and our awareness of our thoughts to just fade into the background.

And now as we bring this practice to a close for the next few minutes,

Choosing to rest your awareness on any aspect of your experience.

Whether that's the breath,

The body,

Sounds,

Thoughts,

Emotions residing in the body.

Being a broad spacious awareness of the whole entirety of your experience from moment to moment.

Recognizing that our experience is constantly shifting,

Constantly in flux.

And within us there's a space where we can observe all of this.

And as we bring this practice to a close now,

Recognizing that you've taken time out of your day to support your mindfulness practice.

To cultivate moment to moment awareness.

To notice the tendencies of the mind.

And also to experience how things change.

And taking this learning with us into the next moments of our day.

This ends the sitting meditation.