Open & Stable - Steadying & Expanding Awareness

Good morning,

Everyone.

Just a few kind of announcements and technical things to align ourselves with each other.

So the first thing is where to find the chat on an iPad if you haven't used it before it's hidden.

So on the iPad on the top right corner you have a few options.

It's where you mute yourself or turn on your camera.

There's also an option that says more and if you click on more you'll see the chat there.

So that's where we'll get back to you if you've left us a message so you can see that you can look at that to know.

So that's the first thing.

The second thing is that when we.

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Just give it a moment and wait for Liz.

She's just joining us.

Don't be sorry.

It's wonderful to see you.

So the second thing just to let you know that this happens.

So if Nathan and I both leave at the end of a meditation in order not to shut down the whole meeting which we don't want to because we want the space to stay open.

We have to assign the host capacity to someone else and it'll just be random who it is.

But I'm telling you this because when it turns out that it's you when you come to leave the meeting you'll get the same message.

It will say to you you're the host so you need to assign the host to somebody else and you just need to click yes and it will happen.

But just so you know that that might happen and it doesn't you know freak you out because it might because you didn't know you were the host.

So yeah it doesn't mean anything just that there needs to be a host in order to keep the meeting going.

Does that make sense to people?

Is that clear?

Yeah.

Okay.

And another two more practical things.

If for whatever reason you can't hear us during a guided meditation sometimes it can happen or any other time but also during a meditation.

I think some people had trouble hearing Nathan last night.

Then send us a message in the chat.

We will we check every once in a while yeah in case somebody has a has an issue like that so just put a message in the chat and then we will try and fix it.

It's yeah it's usually workable so so just know that you can let us know that it's allowed and even encouraged to send us a chat message to say you know you're not clear.

It's difficult to make out the words.

Yeah and the last thing is on the schedule there's after this session there's a walking period and then there's a sitting that starts at eleven fifteen and on the schedule it runs straight through till twelve which is the talk.

So just so you know if you're participating in that sitting we will end it probably about seven minutes before twelve so that you have time to attend to the body and care for the body before the talk we just realized that it was clear to us but it wasn't clear from the schedule that that's going to happen so just so you know that that's that's there.

Okay so I'll offer some some suggestions some guidelines for the practice today and then we'll sit together and there'll be time for questions also.

So today as you know on most mostly when we start a retreat on the first day really emphasize the gathering of attention the steadying stabilizing and also today we'll play with opening yeah playing with opening the awareness opening it wider as as we've done before it's not completely new to you guys.

So one one way we can look at the practice is we can say that when we pause and relax yeah when we're doing those pause relax practices what we're actually doing is gathering studying and stabilizing awareness and attention yeah so when we pause we notice and acknowledge what is present in awareness right that's what we do when we pause we're just noticing and acknowledging what is present in awareness and as we do that we're actually stabilizing and studying because we notice what it is that we're noticing and we're also noticing that we're noticing yeah so it's two things that are going on there it's just the noticing that we're noticing and noticing what it is we're noticing yeah and and just doing that yeah just the pausing and the noticing has this steadying and stabilizing quality because we're not in that momentum yeah not just being propelled forward by experience but actually having that noticing that knowing of experience at the forefront of our of our interests and of our curiosity so you know we notice what we notice and we notice that we notice you know the breath is like this right now the body is like this right now the momentum of the mind yeah feels like this right now it's being propelled in in kind of this kind of atmosphere or this kind of speed and as we bring in the relax right which is as you may remember relax receive allow it's not just the relaxing of the body but also the acknowledgement that we invite relaxation but sometimes the body does not relax or the mind does not relax on invitation it's not that simple unfortunately and so we relax what we can but we also bring in the receive and the allow aspects of relax to kind of increase that capacity to stay steady and stable yeah and to open to what is unfolding with less struggle less struggle and so kind of the image when I was reflecting on it earlier today the image was kind of it's as if we're widening our base yeah widening our the base of our stance in the moment in experience just like we would you know when we're doing if we're doing some form of qi kong or tai chi or yoga and we're widening the base we're widening the stance so that we're more stable so in many ways the relax really supports that and we can feel it directly in that shift sometimes from a more narrow sense of experience more narrow more limited to more wide more expansive and so today we will continue to to kind of invite pause and relax as supports for our practice and we'll also bring in open the third id guideline we'll also bring in open which again has different layers but will will at this point be with open in two ways both the capacity to open out and expand what we're aware of so opening out for example in the body to a wider body awareness and again this is something that you're familiar with already but it's one of those things that's always helpful to come back to and kind of remind ourselves that we can do even as a possibility so the the opening of the field of awareness to be to be wider in the body and sometimes beyond the body yeah so if we're using sounds for example we're actually opening out the field of awareness to the realm of sound which is known within the body awareness known within awareness but actually is happening in a wider field and another way that we'll be working with open probably more this afternoon is the awareness that we can open externally and internally and shift between the two right so especially when we're working with somebody else and inside dialogue this becomes very clear yeah the the choice that we have the play that we can have with opening the awareness to include the other maybe even letting it shift more to the other sometimes and then the the awareness internally yeah so the movement we have between the two internal and external which is another aspect of open does that make sense so far to people okay so with all of this a few more things to add so as we practice one way we'll be we'll be practicing or approaching practice is to look at experience and through two components that it has yeah so every moment of experience has a lot of different components that make it up but we'll be looking at two that are always present one is that there's an object yeah an object of attention so it may be an object that we've chosen an intentional object like when we're practicing body breath and the second is the relationship yeah how i'm relating you know sometimes we call it the atmosphere of attention yeah what's the atmosphere of the attention right now and that will impact how i'm relating to the object so am i relating to this body sensation is there an atmosphere of interest or is there an atmosphere of judgment for example or of harshness yeah maybe one way but there always will be those two components that sometimes especially with the relationship it can be quite subtle yeah what it actually is what's actually there so this isn't you know we don't need to go into analyzing and kind of getting a headache over okay what's the object what's the what's the relationship what's the atmosphere what's going on but just to have a kind of a knowing a general sense that there is always that the two are always there and so as we practice today we'll be primarily using breath and body as the object yeah unless you know for yourself there's an object that is more useful for you like it may be that it's sound it may be that it's you know for example the metaphrases or any of the other brahma viharas you feel welcome to choose what your practice is but just be clear yeah that whatever the practice is that you're doing then there is the object which is what you're paying attention to and then the relationship and we'll kind of be exploring gently ways of relating to experience yeah that support the the opening the steadying the stabilizing yeah so some of those ways we've already you know pause relax open they're all ways of relating to experience yeah they're reminders okay and they affect when we pause our real what changes is our relationship to experience because we're interested to know it that changes straight away so yeah things like curiosity and interest yeah which are ways to actually open to our experience to bring openness playing with the space of awareness yeah opening it out through the body as i was saying or bringing it more to a specific area or aspect of experience and noticing how that affects the sense of steadiness gentle perseverance yeah so just a gentle patience and perseverance of coming back that's another way of relating to experience which brings the flavor of stability and steadiness and also opening because if we're just gently persevering coming back cultivation patience then we're opening to the experience without trying to to shift it to change it with less struggle and then in moments when we find that we are distracted which you know may happen pretty guaranteed to happen to all of us when we notice distraction we'll bring in the way of relating which i'm pretty sure we've already mentioned the aha yeah the celebration so moments when we notice ah the mind is moved it's not with the object yeah it's not with the breath it's not with the body it's not with the metaphrases um just pausing there yeah pausing knowing okay the mind is moving sometimes we'll just what we'll notice is actually the movement sometimes we'll notice where it's moved to the destination um and see if we can relax there yeah so that we're not caught up in rejecting rejecting the mind that wanders rejecting the object that's tempting us whatever it is so we're not caught up in rejecting um but actually we turn our attention we bring into the relationship the sense of um appreciation that right now we're present because in that moment we are present again yeah even if what we're present with is the movement of distraction or towards distraction but there's presence here there's knowing of experience here and then generally opening out the awareness yeah coming back um and this is this can also be interesting i'll just say this and if it's confusing forget it but um sometimes we have a sense when we notice distraction um that we're then kind of coming back to the object there's a sense of like you know the object is somewhere here and now i'm over there my hands keep kind of escaping from the screen um so there's an object here and i'm i'm kind of moving away from it and what i need to do is i need to bring the awareness back to the object okay so that's one way that we can relate to the experience of distraction or see it and it's a perfectly good way there's nothing wrong with it but we'll just explore another possibility which is to actually widen out so if i'm here with this object and i'm expanding out my awareness to include the object of awareness which may feel like it's somewhere else it's not somewhere else but yeah so we're opening out the awareness and as we open out the awareness we're back with the breath we're back with the body yeah and there can be less of a sense of a movement that needs to be made but rather of an opening and an inclusion um in that if that didn't make sense don't worry about it okay it may be just too com too complex right now and um kind of the last thing in a whole barrage of um of detail yeah so don't worry about it it may kind of clarify itself later on and it might not and that's absolutely fine nothing to worry about so yeah so in those moments of distraction kind of that taking the time to recognize taking the time to appreciate that right now actually we're not distracted and then finding our way back to the object yeah whether it's that movement back of the awareness of the attention or the opening out to include that the original object the object of our choice um and then letting that take the prominence as as we do that okay so that's what i wanted to say before we practice i'll just check if there's any questions relating to how to practice this i will guide the practice but just if anything is unclear it'll be good to to clarify it before we begin okay so let's um let's find our posture okay i'm taking a few moments to settle into your posture checking in with the body that our posture is supportive and body feels stable steady making any adjustments that you need to make so that there's a good balance of uprightness and then gently bringing the attention to the contact areas of the body with the seat and the body with the ground grounding the sensations of contact support the gathering of attention and awareness in the body feeling those sensations and as you do so grounding the awareness in the body anchoring it in the body particularly in that contact you can explore a little bit pausing with those sensations of contact and relaxing more fully with the sensations into the sensations adjusting awareness into the body into the contact of the body with what supports the body so.

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Grounding stabilising awareness in the body.

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Feeling.

The support rising up from the seed from the ground.

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Through the contact areas into the body.

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And as the body rises up from the contact from the support with the earth and the seed.

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Tuning in particularly to any steadiness.

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That is there in the body.

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And a sense of balance.

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Of stability.

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And simply rising up through the legs,

Through the back.

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The support of the contact flowing up the body.

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Whole body.

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If it's helpful you can use the image of a tree.

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Contact areas being where the tree roots into the ground.

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And the legs and the torso and the back.

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Like the trunk of the tree growing up.

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Into the world.

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Supported.

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Steady.

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Stable.

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And balanced.

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And with that upward movement.

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Upward flow.

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Also an opening.

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Rooted and balanced in the contact.

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Steady and stable in the contact.

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And also opening out to the whole body field.

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Away the branches and the leaves of the tree.

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Open out into the world.

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And feeling the stability and steadiness of the body rising up.

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And then opening the awareness into the whole body space.

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And the field of the body.

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Including the whole body.

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Like a cocoon or a balloon of awareness.

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Spread through the whole body open.

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And then open the awareness into the whole body.

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And within this wide open body space.

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Field of awareness.

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The breath too moving.

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Flowing.

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Arising.

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And disappearing.

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And the awareness wide and open.

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And the breath fluid.

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Flowing.

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Take a moment to pause and acknowledge.

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Appreciate and rejoice.

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Right now you are present again.

Pause and relax with that movement of distraction.

And gently open,

Open the body awareness.

And include or come back to the breathing or the sense of the body that was your primary object.

All parts of this dance of meditation.

Space of the body wide and open.

And the attitude,

The atmosphere of awareness welcoming.

Welcoming the breath.

Welcoming the body life.

Allowing the breathing to be fuller and longer if that feels soothing or comfortable.

And as you breathe opening awareness in the body.

Letting the whole space of the body be filled with the breath.

Opening up the whole body space as it feels with the breath.

Letting the whole space of the body be filled with the breath.

The whole body open,

Sensitive.

Receiving and welcoming the breathing.

Receiving and welcoming the body sensations.

Letting the breath be nourishing and soothing.

Steady and stable in the body.

Supported by the contact.

Supported by the uprightness.

Supported by the whole field of awareness.

Spread through the body.

Alive and sensitive.

Letting the whole body feel safe and relaxed.

Letting the whole body feel safe and relaxed.

And this may be enough for this practice.

Keeping the awareness wide and open in the body.

Welcoming and attuning to a soothing,

Nourishing aspect of breathing.

But if you wish you can gently open out awareness even more.

To include sounds.

Gently opening out the awareness.

Staying receptive and sensitive.

And welcoming the sounds to arise within a wide open space.

As you open the space out to the sound and receiving the sound,

If it feels larger,

Seeing if you can fill up that space too with the breathing.

With a soothing,

Comfortable breath energy.

Filling up the whole body,

Filling up the space beyond the body.

Noticing what is appropriate for you right now.

Wider,

More open,

More large space of awareness.

Or a bit more specific.

In the body perhaps or in a particular part or aspect of the body.

Allowing yourself to play with the opening in a way that feels supportive.

And space of awareness is wide as feels appropriate.

The breathing filling up the space of awareness.

The rootedness in the sensations of contact,

Supporting,

Stabilising,

Steadying.

Capacity to open to the whole body or beyond the body.

Finding your way right now with it all.

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