Transcription
We're going to sit together now, but if you want to stretch for thirty seconds, or just whatever your body needs to do.
[00:09, guided meditation begins]
[beginning of meditation missing] ... the upper back. Again, just tuning in, feeling, letting go. The upper chest. The belly. Just feeling in. Often a place where there's holding. And just relaxing as much as you can.
Now, is it possible to bring the attention to the sensations of contact, of the backside with the cushion or the bench or the chair? What does that feel like? Just those simple sensations of contact. And then bringing the attention into the legs or the feet, or whatever part of the body is contacting the floor. What does that feel like, the contact with the floor? Just the simple attention to the sensations there. How do the hands feel right now? What are the sensations in the hands? Just feeling. Don't have to put words to it.
Now, is it possible to open up the sense of the attention, open up the field of awareness, to encompass the whole body at once? So it's a field, a space of awareness, that's perhaps even just a little bit bigger than the physical body. Stretching out the space of the awareness, filling that space with presence, aliveness of awareness, bright mindfulness. Sensitive to what that whole space feels like -- the texture, the vibration, the energy, if you like.
This space is going to keep shrinking. It will shrink many times, especially when the mind gets a little bit distracted, or it shrinks anyway. So you notice that, and you just expand it again. Just fill out that space again, a little bit bigger than the body, and fill it with awareness -- bright, sensitive presence, permeating the space. Open, open, sensitive. Just feeling how that space feels. Open. Let the attention be delicate, sensitive, alive.
Some of you may not want to pay attention to the breath. You might be quite happy just with that sense of that space, and the texture and the energy of it. If you are, just leave it at that, and keep bringing the attention to that space, and opening it out, feeling into it. Or you may want to just notice how the breath feels in that whole space, how it ripples through the whole space. The breath, in and out, how does it make the space feel? Whole-body awareness.
It will keep shrinking. Keep opening out, expanding, inflating this space of awareness, inhabiting the whole space with awareness. If you are using the breath, it can actually be really helpful to just gently encourage the breath to be longer and slower, in and out, than your normal breath. Not forcing anything, not yanking anything. Letting the breath, encouraging, helping the breath become long and slow and smooth, in and out. Filling that whole space with the breath, the energy of the breath. How does it feel?
Some people can feel the whole body, the whole space, expand a little with the in-breath, and shrink a little with the out-breath. You can feel into how that feels in the whole space, the whole body, if that feels helpful. For some people, they notice a sense of energization. It's like the whole space, the whole body, is a little bit energized by the in-breath, with the in-breath. It feels a certain way. We can tune into that. And with the out-breath, there is a feeling rather of relaxation, letting go. You can tune into that, these energetic qualities in the space, with the breath. Find what's helpful for you right now.
Gently opening the breath by helping it to be long and smooth. You're opening the body in this way, opening the energy of the body. Feeling how it feels in the whole space. Big awareness. It might just be this sense of this space, a little larger than the body; I'm not really paying attention to the breath. It might be that's helpful for you. It might be the sense of the energization and the relaxation with the in- and the out-breath. It might be this sense of expansion and contraction. Some people notice currents of energy in the body space with the in- and the out-breath, for instance up the front of the body, up the torso. How does that feel as you breathe in, as you breathe out? Keeping the awareness wide, encompassing the whole body. Some people notice a certain sense of energy move up the back, perhaps. What's helpful for you? Or maybe you can feel something in the legs. Or rather, how do the legs feel with the breath coming in and out in the whole body, the whole body breathing?
No problem when the mind gets distracted. It will get distracted. No problem when the space shrinks. Just opening it up again, like inflating a balloon, filling it with presence, with awareness, bright and sensitive.
Opening the body with the breath. Letting the breath, helping the breath to open the body. And opening the awareness to the body and the whole space of the body.
Now, if you've been using the breath and keeping it long, perhaps seeing if you can get a sense of what kind of breath, what way of breathing, feels the best right now. What does the body need? Not just the default, ordinary breath, but feeling: what really feels the best? What gives any sense of well-being, even just a little bit, in the body space? Perhaps it feels good to keep the breath long; it feels energizing, opening. That's what the body needs. Perhaps there's a way of breathing that feels soothing. That's what the body needs. Or calming. Let yourself find that, find what's helpful, what feels even just a little bit good. And keep the whole-body awareness, whole space, alive.
[25:39, guided meditation ends]
