Transcription
I'm a little bit wondering what to do now as well. We could do a guided meditation on the breath. It's one option. Or I could just kind of, each person fend for themselves, and do whatever you want to. I'm just wondering about working with what I've just talked about, but it's a little difficult to manufacture anger if it's not there. What would you like?
Yogi: I'd like guided.
Rob: A guided. Should we work with the breath and do that? Yeah? Is everyone happy with that, a guided breath meditation? Yes? All right, let's do that. Okay. Let me offer a few different ways of working with the breath as well, by the time we end today. So I'll do a guided now, and then offer some different possibilities for later. So this is just one possible way of working with the breath, but let's try this.
[1:04, guided meditation begins]
So, if you want to establish yourself in a posture that feels comfortable for about half an hour. And so with the back upright but not tense, not rigid. I wonder if you can feel, in the very posture, this kind of balance between uprightness that's kind of expressing a wakefulness, on the one hand, and that balanced with a quality of openness and softness and receptivity. So the posture is actually reflecting an ideal balance of the consciousness. I wonder if you can just feel that as you settle into the posture, or find a way for the posture to express that a little bit.
And just take a moment, and feel into how your face feels right now. And particularly tuning into any tension that you can feel. Might be around the eyes. Just noticing. Or around the jaw, in the jaw, around the mouth. Just noticing any tension that you can feel there. Just relaxing it with the mind, as much as you can right now. It's okay if some remains. Really just tuning into how the body feels, and relaxing it.
[3:06] And then similarly with the neck and the throat. Just feeling into any tension there. So feeling how it feels, and just seeing if just a little bit of relaxation can come. Just relaxing. And the shoulders. Just feeling and allowing them to drop down towards the floor. The arms and hands. Tuning in. Relaxing. The upper back. How does that feel? And again, just relaxing any tension, just as much as is possible.
And the chest, and then the belly, and particularly the lower belly. Just really feeling in and releasing, releasing, softening. Bringing attention to the sensations, the simple sensations of the legs or the feet on the floor, making contact with the floor. How does that feel right now? Pressure or warmth, that experience. Really putting the attention intimately, very, very simple, to those sensations.
[5:46] And then similarly, the sensations of the backside or the back on the chair, on the cushion or bench. How does that feel? Really close and intimate and simple, the attention. Now, is it possible to become aware of the whole body at once, and how it feels to sit? So the whole body and the experience of sitting. And I would actually say, is it possible to expand the awareness so that it's even a little bit bigger than the whole body? In this space of awareness, you're just sensitive to the whole feeling of what's in the space, the whole thing at once, globally, the totality of it, as if there's a bubble or a balloon of awareness that's inflated and expanded to cover this whole area. And you're just sensitive to the feeling, the vibrations, the texture of that whole space.
[7:46] Open to the whole thing, opening, opening. So this more open awareness will keep shrinking every time you get distracted, or it will shrink anyway, and you keep expanding it, keep stretching it out, extending it to really fill the space bigger than the body. And then just sensing in and feeling, over and over again, filling that space with awareness, with presence. How does it feel, whatever you feel?
So, no problem when the mind gets distracted. Just bringing it back and re-extending, reopening that space and filling it again with presence, bright mindfulness and sensitivity to the whole feeling of that space of bodily aliveness, energy.
[10:24] Now, within that space and the feeling, the vibration, the texture of that whole space, you might notice how the whole space feels with the in-breath and the out-breath, how the breath ripples through the whole space or makes it feel. Just noticing the experience of breathing in the whole space of the body. Opening and inhabiting that space with sensitivity.
It can actually be very, very useful to let yourself, let the breath become longer and slower. Comfortably long, comfortably slow. This can very much help to energize the mind. How does that feel, this long, slow, comfortable in- and out-breath in the whole space? Keep opening up the awareness when it shrinks.
Now, some people, with the in- and the out-breath, they feel the whole space of the body, the whole body, expand a little bit with the in-breath. And with the out-breath, there's the kind of reversal of that expansion. Maybe you notice the expansion and contraction, can feel into, tune into the feeling of that with the breath, in and out.
[14:39] Actually, whatever is helpful for you to tune into, in this whole body breathing. Some people, with the breath, with the in-breath, feel the whole body, the whole space of the body is energized slightly. There's a feeling of being energized. And with the out-breath, there's a very natural, organic feeling of letting go, of relaxation. So maybe you could tune into that, if you could feel that. Working in a very open way, and somehow getting the whole body involved. This long, slow breath.
[17:07] So it's really okay when the mind gets distracted. It's really okay when the awareness shrinks. Just re-extending it to cover this whole space of the body, and really inhabiting it, filling it with bright, luminous awareness. Whatever's helpful for you to notice, to feel into.
Is it possible to get a sense of opening the body to the breath? Opening the body to the breath. Or opening the body with the breath, using the long, slow breath to open up the whole space, the whole sense of the body. And opening the mind to the body, opening the awareness to the whole space of the body.
[21:45] So whatever is helpful to you, for you, right now, to tune into in this whole space. But really getting the whole body involved. It might be this expanding and contracting of the whole space. It might be the feeling of energization and relaxation. Some people feel currents of energy with the in- and out-breath, for instance up the front of the body. Maybe you can notice how that feels as the breath goes in and out, up into the throat and face. Or perhaps up the spine. Some people feel a current up the spine or down into the legs. Whatever works for you.
Now, is it possible to keep this more open, whole-body bubble, balloon, or area of awareness? Really keep that expanded in that way, and filled with mindfulness. Let's see if you can get a sense of what way of breathing feels best right now. So not just the ordinary, default breath, but what does it feel like the body and the mind need?
Maybe it is to keep the breath long and slow. There's a kind of energization with that. Maybe that's what it needs. That's what feels best. Maybe a much shorter breath or a very short breath. So is it possible to care for the body through the breath? Tend to the body through the breath. What does it need? Energization, calming, soothing? Can you let yourself play with this, this whole-body awareness? Let the breath help the mind.
So just trying to make the body as comfortable as possible through the breath, with the breath, with the help of the breath, and feeling how that feels in the whole space.
[31:21] Within this whole-body awareness, tending to any even slight sense of well-being, just tending to the body, to the sense of well-being through the breath, with the breath.
[33:26, guided meditation ends]
