See what can soften around your structure.
See what can soften around the jaw,
Around the eyes,
Let the tongue spread out,
Let the tongue spread out towards the roof of the mouth.
Bring your attention to the breath that's moving just outside the nostrils.
The breath that's breathing into the space around you,
The breath that both is space and creates space.
The breath that can hold the body without restriction.
The breath that can hold the body without restriction.
Very likely thoughts enter immediately.
Just take a moment just to notice the quality of those thoughts.
Do they feel sharp and singular?
Do they feel round and circling?
Do they feel steady?
Just bring a little bit of attention to the feeling tone of the thoughts that are coming in.
Very likely thoughts enter immediately.
Then you can begin this practice of labeling.
Labeling thoughts as past or as future.
As we talked about,
It's helpful to label them twice,
So past,
Past,
Future,
Future.
When a thought comes in,
Notice if it's in one of these two directions.
Label it and continue to feel your breath.
We're labeling not to push anything away,
Not to throw anything away.
Not to throw it out,
But to recognize what's happening.
Not to be a part of what's happening.
Here you are in your body.
The body which is present in the moment.
We're just trying to actually be there for a little bit.
With one inhale and exhale,
Coming and going outside the nostril at a time.
We're just trying to be there for a little bit.
When you come back to the breath,
Once you've labeled,
You're going to feel your breath as you exhale.
You might find that the feeling tone of that thought is part of that process.
That when we return back to the breath,
The feeling underneath that thought might be there.
Let that be part of the feeling of your breath as you keep going breath by breath.
Past past,
Future future.
Past.
Can you allow the feeling tone to be there just like the breath outside the nostrils?
Just like space.
Past.
Past.
Past.
Past.
Bring your palms together in front of you.
Take a breath here with a sense of being in your body.
Just even a moment of what it feels like to just be here,
Not separate from all that we care about,
All that we want to nourish in the world,
But actually here in that.
Bowing to each other.
Bowing again to your own practice.
