And gently close your eyes if they are open.
I invite you to draw in a deep breath,
Noticing the air as it enters your nostrils.
Take a moment to notice your body.
Gently shift your posture if you notice that you might be holding your energy or your body in a certain way that's reflective of the night and your sleep,
Such that you can have a natural rhythm to your breath,
Just letting go of any thoughts or activities from the morning to have you fully present in this practice today.
Today's practice is a sensory practice.
We will begin with the sense of smell.
So for your next breath,
As you invite the air into your nostrils,
Draw in any scents that are in your environment.
See if you can notice the scent without naming it,
But noticing its quality.
Is it strong or pungent,
Faint,
Lingering?
What is its distance to you?
Are you needing to draw from far?
Or is it in your immediate vicinity?
Is there a story or thought associated with the smell or the lack of smell?
Does the smell draw in your other senses?
Is there a color associated with it?
A taste,
A sound?
Do you feel attachment to the scent?
Or are you noticing that you're pushing it away?
And in between those two is the neutral states.
Some scents may sit in this neutral region.
And with your next breath,
Let go of the sense of smell.
Draw in the breath deep into your chest.
With a full exhalation,
Invite the sense of touch.
Notice the sensation at the tips of your fingers,
The feeling of your clothes against your skin.
Become curious to the sensations along the soles of your feet as they rest on the ground.
And is there a temperature associated with the sense of touch?
Warm or cool?
Moist,
Dry?
Notice if you can come into contact with parts of your body that you normally don't place in the center of your awareness.
Perhaps the back of your neck,
Forehead.
Maybe your thighs as they rest on the seat.
And if you choose,
Place your hands together.
Notice what the contact of one hand on top of the other feels like.
Are there any emotions,
Colors,
Sounds or feelings that arise when you clasp your hands together?
Your next breath,
Draw in again deeply.
Inhaling through the nostrils and exhaling fully.
Releasing the sensation of touch.
And now shifting your awareness to the sense of sound you're hearing.
Notice if you can hear sound far.
And draw the awareness from far away to that which is closest to you.
Notice the texture and quality of the sound.
Notice the frequency,
Tone,
Pitch.
Notice if you can let go of any labels that you place on the sound.
Notice the sound as a sensation.
Notice if any colors,
Smells,
Taste,
Or other senses are associated with the sounds.
Draw your attention to the sound of your own breathing if you have not yet done so.
Now take a deep breath.
Inhaling fully.
Drawing the air deeply into your lungs and exhaling fully.
Releasing the sense of sound.
We now invite the sense of vision.
And here,
The invitation is to slowly and lightly allow light to penetrate through your eyelids.
And as you open your eyes with a soft gaze,
Noticing what's before you as its colors and shapes.
Letting go of the label of what it is you're seeing and instead noticing the quality,
The texture,
The depth.
And with that soft gaze,
Notice if you can expand your periphery to notice the edges of your vision.
And you may choose an object as well as the focus of your sight and your gaze.
See if you can concentrate your sight onto one point.
And with that,
Noticing the distinct difference between a focused gaze and a diffuse gaze.
And what is the quality,
The feeling,
Any emotion that's associated with the sight.
And notice the experience of shifting between the periphery and diffuse gaze to the more focused gaze.
Are there certain colors or textures that draw your attention?
Now take another deep breath.
Inhaling fully and exhaling.
Now we bring us to our final sense for today.
And that's the sense of taste.
Here,
If you have something in your environment,
Maybe a cup of tea or some small fruit,
Invite you to take a moment to take a sip of that or a bite of that.
Noticing all the flavors,
Textures,
Sensations as you do so.
Close your eyes.
Notice a taste along the tip of your tongue,
The roof of your mouth.
Any sensations as you swallow.
What is this experience of taste?
Notice if you can sense any of the subtle flavors,
Any lingering taste from before.
Is it cool or hot?
Are there any thoughts or memories associated with the sense of taste?
Now I invite you to again take another deep breath.
And open your eyes.
And notice all the senses in their entirety.
The sense of taste,
Smell,
Sound,
Touch,
Sight.
And let's take a moment to rest in the awareness of our body and ourselves as a combination of our senses.
When you hear the bell,
I want you to close out your practice with another deep breath.
Bring yourself back to our space together.
