Let's take a minute to come into our comfortable posture for meditation.
Begin by taking three breaths,
Clearing the energy,
Helping us settle in.
Letting your exhales be long,
Letting your inhales be full,
And letting there be a sense of ease throughout.
Give yourself the time for about three or four more nice breaths or just simply settling.
As you settle into this,
A place of relaxation,
Start to reflect on the benefits of cultivating compassion.
How will having more compassion help you and how will it help others?
And then we turn in our attention towards the immediate experience of the body,
Observing the ongoing flow of sensation.
As you notice the body,
You may notice areas of tension or uneasiness.
You may normally turn away or ignore them.
But today in the spirit of compassion,
Bring attention to these areas and release with each exhalation.
Along with relaxation,
Align with the qualities of stillness and wakefulness in the body and mind.
And with this foundation of relaxation,
Stillness and wakefulness,
Quiet the inner voice,
The inner speech within the mind,
And settle into the natural flow of your breath.
Now we take three steps for steadying the mind.
First beginning by noticing the five physical senses.
They gradually bring sensorial experiences into your awareness.
Receiving the experience rather than grasping.
Then receiving the experience of tactile sensations in the body.
Slowly we come to rest upon the sensations of breathing,
Noticing where you feel the breath,
Perhaps in the belly.
Directing our attention to the rhythmic quality of the breath.
Knowing when it flows out,
When it flows in,
And knowing the spaces in between.
To develop our continuity of attention,
Let's focus on the next 21 breaths,
The exhalation,
Counting,
Remembering that if you forget the breath and the attention wanes,
Then just start over,
Celebrating that as a moment of recognizing this forgetfulness.
First beginning here with 21 breaths,
Plus or minus.
Breathing quietly.
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