Allowing yourself to settle into presence,
Becoming conscious of all of the points of contact with the floor,
The weight of the body,
And from those points of contact with the floor sweeping up through the body,
Sensing the aliveness,
All of the arising sensation,
Surface levels of the skin,
And the interior sensations sweeping up through the legs,
Into the torso,
The interior and exterior movements up through the spine,
The rise and fall of the chest and belly,
Becoming present in the hands,
Upper arms,
Moving our conscious awareness through the shoulders,
Up through the neck,
Sensing the jaw,
Cheekbones,
Around the thighs,
Forehead,
Sitting in open receptive presence,
Upright and unguarded,
Continuing to sense throughout the body,
Including the rise and fall of the breath,
Expanding to near and distant sounds,
And the space between those sounds.
If a mental formation causes this expanse of awareness to shrink down to a story of I,
To a story of a problem,
And expand again and sense the smallness of this story within the field of awareness,
Sensing the open receptive but full space between sounds,
Between thoughts,
And sensing what it is to occupy that open receptive untroubled space where the I might dissolve into the now without being forced,
And allow the inner silence to be continuous with the outer silence,
Sensing one vast silence from which all the formations can appear,
Sensation,
Sound,
Mood,
Forms of thought.
Returning to this ever-present,
Unconditioned silence,
Whenever awareness brings to light a self-limiting thought,
A troubled I amid obstacles,
And noting how the obstacles fade into silence the moment the I fades into silence,
Sensing how awareness is without boundary,
No need to place or anchor the I within the sensory field,
And sensing the arising and passing of sensation,
Sound,
A sense of physical space.
As we align and realign with awareness itself,
We might sense that we are also without boundary,
Not limited by any I story.
Those moments of quiet mind might sense what it is to be silence within silence,
Sensing into the moment in ever-widening circles of awareness,
