Thank you for joining me in this practice of mindfulness of breath and body.
Allow yourself to come to a comfortable seated position with your spine in a naturally straight and supportive position.
If you're seated and you have something behind you allowing your back to rest with ease and the belly to be soft.
During this practice,
Allow yourself to accept sensation and consider sending kind and compassion and thought to any area of the body where sensation arises.
Allowing the breath to breathe into spaces where the breath may support you.
Allowing yourself to settle in a bit more,
Softening the gaze,
Perhaps closing the eyes if that's available to you.
Allowing a pause to simply notice the breath as it enters the body and as it leaves.
Perhaps it will feel good to you to take a few deeper breaths.
And as you do so,
Allowing yourself to simply scan the entire body with the breath.
Enablishing a simple sense of presence for your practice.
As you scan,
Softening,
Releasing any tension that you may come across.
Allowing your breath to just be natural.
Bringing your attention to where you most easily detect the breath.
Or perhaps spirits most pleasurable.
Allow the place where you're experiencing the breath with most ease or most pleasure to be your home base for your practice and anchor you into this present moment.
Enabling this breath.
And if you need to choose an anchor other than the breath,
Perhaps try anchoring in sensations in the hand.
If not in the hands,
Then perhaps the entire body sitting here,
The sensations of the entire body.
Noticing this breath right here.
Or if you've chosen the anchor of sensations in the hands or in the entire body.
Noticing the sensations of the breath.
Noticing the sensations of the hands.
Or sensations of the entire body.
With a relaxed and interested attention,
Discovering what the sensations of the breath or your anchor feel like from moment to moment.
Noticing the sensations of the breath or your anchor feel like from moment to moment.
Where is your attention now?
Noticing the sensations of the breath or your anchor feel like from moment to moment.
Each time you wander off,
Gently bringing yourself back.
Seeing that,
Noticing that you've wandered off is a moment of mindfulness.
Gently and with kindness.
Just bringing your attention back to the inflow and the outflow of the breath or your anchor.
Offering a relaxed,
Wakeful presence.
Noticing the sensations of the breath or the anchor feel like from moment to moment.
Now scanning your body and noticing if there are any particular sensations that are really strong.
Calling your attention.
Allowing your breath to be your home base.
Allowing the breath to recede into the background and offer your interested and kind presence to sensations that are arising.
What do they feel like?
You might be aware of warmth or heat,
Coolness or chills,
Vibrations,
Tingling,
Aching.
Kind of a soft open awareness.
Simply feeling the sensations as they are.
Noticing are they pleasant,
Unpleasant.
And as you allow your attention to go to those sensations,
Do they become more intense or do they fade away?
Noticing how they change.
And if the sensations are no longer a strong experience allowing yourself to return to mindfulness of your breathing or your anchor.
If you find strong sensations are difficult to stay with,
Allow yourself to breathe with those strong sensations.
Letting the breath help you find some balance and openness in the midst of what's arising.
You can also name the sensations if there's something that comes to you or a word that describes it.
Tightness,
Heat,
Pressure.
Whatever it is that arises within you.
No right word.
No word is perfect.
You can repeat that word to yourself in silence.
Letting it be a soft sound in the background.
You might ask yourself what's happening inside of you right now.
Noticing any sensations that are dominant.
Even inquiring,
Can I be with this?
Really feeling the flow of sensation whether subtle or strong.
Letting life be just as it is.
Now returning to your home base,
The breath or anchor of particular sensations.
Then offering a calm and steady attention.
If a strong sensation calls your attention,
Just letting your primary anchor proceed to the background and bring your full attention again to what's arising.
Naming what you notice.
Offering your presence.
If nothing strong is calling your attention,
Just continuing to rest with your home base.
Relax.
Sensing the breath in the foreground.
Still aware of the field of sensations in the background.
You're learning to be centered,
Balanced,
And present for the breath and the living world of sensation.
Wisely aware of this changing life.
Thank you for sharing your practice with me.
I invite you to take a moment to come to a wide awake state,
Stretching fully aware in the wake.
Take a moment to journal from your practice if your time permits.
Once the results of this talk Hollins.
