So coming to your seat,
Finding the best position for you to feel comfortable and awake,
And perhaps allowing your shoulders to fall down and relax,
Softening your jaw and having your hands resting in your lap or on your thighs,
Arriving in this moment as best as you can,
And then gently closing your eyes if that feels right,
Perhaps taking some deeper breaths,
And then sinking into your chair,
Noticing the sensations of sitting here,
Right now in this moment,
And giving yourself permission to be here,
Having this time for yourself,
Taking care of yourself,
Just being here,
Right now,
And then noticing the sensations again of your body touching the chair,
The contact your soles of your feet are making with the floor,
Perhaps noticing your socks or your shoes touching your feet,
Just spending a few moments exploring these sensations as we sit here.
And now we're letting our attention settle on the movement of the breath,
Just becoming aware of this miracle of breathing,
Something we so often take for granted,
And it happens so quietly in the background,
Always supporting us.
So just noticing these always changing sensations as you breathe in and you breathe out,
Seeing if it's possible to follow the breath for one full cycle,
As you breathe in and you breathe out,
And sometimes it helps by saying quietly to yourself,
Breathing in on the in-breath,
And breathing out on the out-breath.
And as you will find during this meditation,
Perhaps very often,
Your mind has a mind of its own,
And it easily gets pulled into ideas and thoughts,
And all we do is try to stay alert to when this happens,
Because this is what we're practicing.
It's that magic moment where we notice that our mind has got distracted,
And what sometimes helps is then to label it,
Planning,
Or worrying,
Or thinking,
And then gently but firmly,
As best as you can,
Letting go of that thought,
And then coming back to the focus of the breath.
So let's just practice this focusing on the breath for a few more moments,
And now we're letting go of the sensations of the breath,
And we're bringing our focus to sound,
To the sensation of hearing,
Seeing if it's possible for us to tune into this sensation of hearing.
And we don't want to label sounds,
Or explain sounds,
We're not reaching out for sounds,
But we're just allowing to gently receive them from all directions as they arise.
What's the furthest sound that you can hear?
What's the closest sound?
Trying to be aware of obvious sounds,
But also of more subtle sounds.
Perhaps the space between the sounds,
Or of any silence.
As best as you can,
Just becoming aware of sounds simply as sensations.
We become aware of them,
They linger for a while,
And then some of them will just leave.
So we're trying not to label them,
Or judge them.
We're just allowing them to be,
From one moment to the next.
Perhaps noticing how we like some sounds,
And we want to pull them towards us,
And how we judge other sounds,
Wanting to push them away.
Noticing if just for this practice,
We can receive all sounds equally.
And now we're letting go of sounds,
And this time we're going to invite thoughts themselves into center stage.
Just really being curious about what thoughts are here.
No need to look for thoughts,
Just letting them arise naturally in the mind,
Just as you did with sounds.
Letting them arise,
And pass away,
Moment by moment.
Noticing that thoughts are just events in the mind.
And just like sounds,
We can notice them arise,
We focus our awareness on them as they pass through our mind,
And then we see them eventually disappear.
So seeing if in this moment we can just notice thoughts as they arise,
Inviting them in,
Letting them linger,
And then letting go.
Just practicing that.
And sometimes when you notice a thought,
It can be helpful to imagine it as a character in a play.
Seeing if you notice if this is the critic,
Or this is the bored one,
Or the planner,
Or the dreamer,
Or the worrier.
Just noticing the nature of the thought as a character.
And as soon as you can,
Directing that thought to leave,
As if you allow it to exit from the stage left.
So noticing as the thought arises,
Noticing its nature,
And then letting it leave,
Crossing the stage to go.
And now allowing your attention to settle once more on the breath.
Remembering that your breath is always available as an anchor to settle you,
Whenever you need it.
Whenever you're being pulled away by thoughts or sensations or emotions,
The breath can always pull you back to be right here,
Right now,
In the present moment.
Feeling yourself as whole and enough.
Allowing your experience to be just the way it is.
Allowing yourself to be just the way you are.
