Welcome to this practice together.
My name is David.
Let's just take a moment to settle into our practice.
When you are already easing into a posture that respects the boundaries and comfort of your own body,
We can reflect that how we sit decorates the form for how we hold the mind too.
So we look to sit with a level of alertness that also carries space for a sense of ease,
Balancing effort and surrender,
Strength and grace,
Feeling ourselves beginning to simply be here.
The essence of meditation is awareness.
So we may set an intention for this practice to kindly and gently play with the balance between our attention and our own awareness,
Whatever our experience is of that.
You may also wish to reflect on what brings you to practise in this moment.
Whatever motivates you to be here,
Allowing whatever answers arise to inform your own sense of motivation to practise.
In this way,
We can begin to make this practise and every practise our own experience too,
Settling,
Allowing ourselves to just be here,
And resting gently our attention on the forehead.
We may feel the forehead softening a little,
Our eyes gently resting in their orbits,
The jaw,
All the muscles we use to speak and engage with the world,
Melting just a little more if possible,
Even the sense of a smile emerging across our lips,
As we may feel nurtured for bringing ourselves to this moment of practise,
Feeling a sense of nourishment for attending to our experience of life in this way.
Without adding to their story,
Can we be aware of what is here for us now?
Sensations,
Images,
Thoughts,
Impressions too,
Allowing space and present for whatever we have brought to practise from all the prior moments before this moment.
Softly letting dissolve whatever may no longer serve us here and now,
And what remains can we simply allow with a kind curiosity,
Like gazing at a butterfly resting on the warm open palm of our hands.
All the while,
We may notice the presence of our hands and our eyes,
All the while we may notice the presence of our own unfolding natural breath,
This body,
This humanity,
Breathing as it always has since we were born,
Our existence looking after itself without interference.
Wrapping our attention around this natural breath once more,
You may take several conscious deepening breaths,
Paying full attention to the sense of the in breath and full close attention to the feelings of the out breath.
As we take in a new in breath,
We may say to ourselves,
Arriving.
As we release this breath back to the world,
We may say to ourselves,
Surrendering.
Breathing in,
Arriving.
Breathing out,
Surrendering.
Continue this way on your own with a few more breaths.
Can we be curious and simply open to how the out breath feels?
As we breathe out,
We may sense into a feeling of peace and peace,
Peace,
Peace,
Peace,
Peace.
We may sense the feeling of peace,
Peace,
Peace,
Peace,
Peace,
Peace,
Peace,
Peace,
Peace,
Peace,
Peace.
As we breathe out,
We may sense into a feeling of release,
A softening,
A melting,
A surrendering,
Like ice melting in the warmth of early morning spring sunshine.
Breathe with this deepening sense of releasing,
Simply allowing ourselves to be here.
Nothing to do,
Nothing to fix,
No thing to be.
Gently,
Gradually,
Our experience may move from doing to being.
Eventually,
The mind may wander into habitual patterns of thinking,
As it will,
As it does,
Thoughts leading to other thoughts.
This is the simple nature of all our minds.
Just being aware of this,
We are experiencing a moment of mindfulness.
Bringing to this moment of mindfulness,
A sense of gratitude for being self-aware,
We say to our mind,
Noticing we have wandered is important to me.
When you are ready,
Surrender once more into the natural flow of this breathing body.
Breathing in,
Arriving,
Breathing out,
Surrendering.
Practice is about creating the conditions in order to let go of conditions.
We may gently reflect and quietly adsorbiate asrings in the game itself,
And Oklahoma receive Didier's quote in what he wrote,
His Med disruptive voice as he addressed that text he wrote,
Roots of TI affirmations,
And quietly acknowledge to ourselves,
That practise isn't about forcing the mind to be calm.
It's the skill of allowing the mind to settle on its own.
Breath flowing.
We invite our awareness to fall and pour into the breathing body now.
Being open to falling into wherever the breath reveals itself in your own experience of your body.
The feeling sense of your own personal experience of breath.
The soft rise and fall of the chest.
The gentle rhythmic movement in your ribs.
Maybe even the feeling of expansion and contraction in the whole body.
A sense of the volume of your body being breathed.
Whatever arises is okay.
Even being unaware of your body is fine.
Then curious too,
What does that feel like?
When you feel able,
Pivot your attention towards a more focused sense of the breath at the nose.
Paying close attention to how the breath presents itself to you here.
I will leave you briefly for a few minutes to take some moments to breathe this way.
Holding this directed,
Focused attention to the breath and the breath.
As it shows itself to you at the nose.
Coolness,
Warmth,
Neuriness,
Humidity.
When ready,
Choose to soften this tighter attention and allow your awareness to pour into the body once more.
Opening to what presents itself to you here once again.
Taking a few moments to be present to what is here for you without adding to the story.
Let's practise like this together for a few more minutes.
Softening and opening your attention still more.
Allowing the boundaries of your attention to fall wide open into a state of open awareness.
Open awareness is a state of relaxed,
Open receptivity to what is.
We are not lost or distracted.
We are fully present and aware.
Listening without hearing anything in particular.
Sensing without feeling anything in particular.
Sight without seeing anything in particular.
Thoughts without thinking anything in particular.
Aware without directed attention.
Simply allowing yourself to be here.
Open.
Let go of the doing mind.
Just be present.
Letting go of effort or striving.
Letting your mind be as it is in this moment as it is.
Moment flowing into moment.
Breath morphing into breath.
No interference to what is here.
Can we take a few moments on our own to breath this way together?
But at your own pace?
Let's take a rest just now.
And allow yourself to be here.
Knowing we are all sitting here together.
Practice requires effort.
And sometimes we need to remind ourselves to let go of effort and striving.
And allow our mind to assimilate what we have just experienced.
Let's do this practice again.
Bringing your attention back to the breath with intention to hold tight awareness to the feeling quality of the breath at the nose.
Coolness.
Warmth.
Movement.
And stillness.
See if you can breathe this way for a few minutes on your own at your own pace.
If your mind wanders,
Bring a sense of gratitude for becoming aware of that.
And then when ready,
Gently pivot your attention once more to wrap around the feeling breath.
Now loosening your attention.
Bringing your awareness into the experience of your breathing body.
Don't worry if your mind wanders in many directions.
Notice this.
And the tendency to want to control your mind.
Gently curious if you notice this impulse.
And then release it.
There is nothing to do here other than be aware and be present.
Again,
Find your own pace for the next few moments.
Can we be open now to explore letting go of our awareness of our breathing body once more.
Allowing all boundaries to fall away.
For any sense of control to melt away.
And simply be here.
Open.
Aware.
Open receptivity.
And we may gently reflect once more too.
That practice isn't about forcing the mind to be calm.
It's the skill of allowing the mind to settle on its own.
Practice we create the conditions to let go of conditions.
When you notice your mind has wandered off,
You are already back in awareness.
There is nothing more to do.
Just rest in effortless presence.
Surrendered awareness.
Taking a few moments now to be with this practice in your own way.
Find your own pace.
As the practice moves towards its conclusion,
Let go of any idea we are meditating here.
Set yourself free from any sense of doing.
Like floating in warm,
Calm water,
Just allowing yourself to be.
We may even choose to dedicate this practice to not just our own flourishing,
But the flourishing of all beings.
And we may feel inspired by the feeling impression captured within the words of late John O'Donoghue.
I would love to live like the river flows.
Carried by the surprise of its own unfolding.
You may even wish after the singing bowl signals the end of the practice to rest a little more,
Allowing the practice to finish with you.
And gently moving into your day with a little more awareness.
