Mindfulness Awareness Practice (Shamatha)

Hi,

My name is Sean and thanks for joining me for this Samatha meditation practice.

Samatha is also known as mindfulness meditation and concentration meditation.

Samatha can be translated into calm abiding and we use this practice as a way to anchor into our present moment and invite in a sense of calm,

Clarity,

And balance.

Now this practice as I was taught is a you could say three-part practice.

The first bit is just taking our seat,

So taking the posture of this practice.

So allow yourself now to bring yourself to a comfortable seated position if that's available to you.

The most important thing through this will be finding a position that supports you and your practice.

So while I'll be giving tips on that posture,

You're really looking for something that just feels good and comfortable in your body and allows you to be alert but also easeful.

So if you're seated,

You can allow your spine to stand tall,

Stacking your shoulders over your hips and your ears over your shoulders.

And you can imagine like a string tied to the crown of your head,

Just slightly pulling you up on your inhales,

Elongating the spine.

And on the exhales,

Softening down and just allowing the surface beneath you to hold you.

So if you're seated in a chair,

It's allowing your feet to lay flat on the floor if possible.

And if you're seated on a cushion,

Just seeing if you can allow your knees to sit under your hips.

Resting your hands,

Palms face down on your thighs,

Bring a slight tuck to the chin.

And seeing if you can leave your eyes open for the practice with a soft steady gaze about six feet in front of you.

But if that's uncomfortable,

You can also allow yourself to gently close your eyes at this point.

And just taking a moment to scan through the body,

Just bringing a wave of awareness into the body and just sensing into if there are any areas in the body that are holding obvious tightness or tension.

So you might just allow the jaw to soften and loosen and relax.

You may soften across the forehead.

Soften the hands,

Soften the feet.

I want to roll your shoulders up towards your ears and down the back.

And see if you can take your next inhale into a softening belly and exhale out with a softening belly.

And feel free to make any minor changes or movements in the body to really find a comfortable and supportive posture for you in this practice.

And one final note for your posture.

One of my teammates,

A friend of mine,

He's a professional bodybuilder.

He's a professional bodybuilder.

He's a great guy.

He's a great bodybuilder.

He's a great bodybuilder.

So if you're a bodybuilder,

You might want to take a moment to scan through the body.

And one final note for your posture.

One of my teachers used the saying upright but not uptight.

And so whatever position that you take for this practice,

Just maybe do one final scan of the body and see if you can find a position that allows you to hold the practice with alertness and ease,

But nothing that's uptight and gripping.

And now that you've taken your seat,

We go on to the next step,

Which is bringing your attention to a focal point.

And for this practice,

We'll be working with the breath.

Areas in the body that you might connect with the sensation of breath.

It might be at the nostrils,

Feeling the breath move in and out through the edges of your nostrils and over the upper lip.

It might be still a movement to the chest.

It might be the rise and fall of the belly.

Wherever you connect most notably with the breath and that sensation of breathing,

Place your attention there and allow your attention to rest and stay there throughout the practice.

So sometimes there is a want to move through maybe feeling it through the nose and then through like feeling it through the belly and then the chest.

And maybe at the beginning,

We just touch in to see where we're connecting with the most.

If you haven't already decided that in previous practices,

But if you have a general area that you connect with,

Allow your attention just to stay with that one space.

So we're not thinking about the breath in the sense of trying to do something special with it or make something happen or reach some type of perfect breath.

There's no meditation gold medal.

So we're just allowing the breath to flow however it is right now in its natural form with the intention on the breath.

And at some point,

You realize that your attention drifts from the breath and gets maybe lost or caught up in the thought,

Maybe a thought about a sensation or sound outside in your area.

And when that happens,

When you notice that the attention has drifted from the breath onto a thought,

You're not thinking about the breath.

You're just thinking about the sensation.

And when that happens,

When you notice that the attention has drifted from the breath onto a thought,

You're going to go to the third step of this practice,

Which is labeling that thought as thinking and then bringing your attention and placing it right back on your breath.

And in this practice,

We're meeting every thought with a democratic view.

And what I mean by that is there's no big thoughts or small thoughts.

There's no really,

Really bad thoughts and not so bad thoughts.

They all are just seen with the same attitude.

Equally,

A thought is a thought.

A thought about a sound is a thought.

A thought about a feeling in the body is a thought.

A thought about an emotion is a thought.

So when you notice that the intention has drifted from the breath to thinking,

You will kindly and compassionately label it as thinking and bring your attention back to the breath.

And so you might bring your attention back to the breath over and over again.

And if so,

That's okay.

Know that it is in the moment that you recognize your attention has drifted that you are showing a moment of mindfulness.

It is in that moment that you are mindful and aware that your attention is on thinking.

And so with that,

You bring a gentleness to this practice.

You're not militantly labeling it thinking.

Simply just noticing the thought,

Labeling it with a non-judgmental and kind attitude of thinking,

And then placing the attention back to the breath and letting go and beginning again.

So I'll give you time and silence to practice.

Being with your breath,

Recognizing when attention has drifted to thought,

Labeling it as thinking,

And bringing your attention back to your breath.

And so again,

Notice when your attention has drifted to thought,

Labeling it with a non-judgmental and kind attitude of thinking,

And then placing the attention back to the breath and letting go and beginning again.

So so so and just checking in again,

Seeing where the attention is.

And if the attention has drifted from the breath and you find it caught in a thought,

Just allow yourself to label that as thinking.

And just know that it doesn't matter how long you've been caught on that thought,

Or how long you've been ruminating or future thinking.

None of that matters,

The length.

What matters is that moment when you realize that your attention has moved from the breath and it's now on the thought.

That moment you are practicing mindfulness.

And it's in that moment that you simply label that thought as thinking.

If it's extra sticky,

You can say it twice,

Thinking,

Thinking,

And then bring your attention back to your breath.

So and maybe just taking a moment to check in with the attitude that you're meeting this practice with.

So just checking in with the body,

Seeing if the body is gripping anywhere,

It's holding on to any tension,

And just welcoming that gentleness and that softening back into the body.

And also just noticing the quality of the voice that's labeling the thoughts as thinking.

If there's any militants or blame in there,

Just welcoming the attitude of gentleness to the labeling and to the way that you are placing your attention on the breath.

So so And so wherever you are in the practice,

You can allow your attention to open back up to the body,

The space of your body,

Opening to the space around your body.

You might want to welcome a few conscious mindful breaths deep into the body,

Filling the belly.

Long exhale out.

Feel free to take a few of those,

Any mindful movements that you want to take.

If your eyes are closed,

You can slowly open them and you can gently bring yourself back into the rest of your day.

Thank you for joining me for this practice and for allowing me to guide you.

And I hope you have a wonderful day.

Take care.