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How to Meditate: Meditation 101 for Beginners
10 Science-Backed Benefits of Meditation
What is Meditation?
How to Meditate: Meditation 101 for Beginners
10 Science-Backed Benefits of Meditation
What is Meditation?
Benefits of Mindfulness: Mindful Living Can Change Your Life
Mindfulness 101: A Beginner's Guide
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Let yourself be guided in a practice intended to reveal how to skillfully and compassionately meet what happens in your life with awareness and presence.
Welcome.
Let's start by finding
a comfortable posture.
So this means you're
both alert and relaxed.
You may be seated with your feet
firmly rooted on the ground, your
hands on your lap, your eyes perhaps
gently lowered or your eyes closed.
The theme of this meditation is
to meet yourself with presence.
And so many of us don't meet
ourselves with presence, with a
kind, loving, curious attention.
Rather, we meet ourselves with judgment
or we don't even meet ourselves.
Uh, we may be checked out of
our bodies and minds and just
navigating life on autopilot.
And this practice will help you
to learn ways to meet yourself
with something that is already
naturally there, your own presence.
It's important to recognize
it first and then learn how to
meet what comes in your life.
You know, a situation, a
thought, a difficult emotion,
happiness pain in your body.
All of it.
You get the point here.
So let's get into the practice.
First, noticing the flow
of the breath in and out.
No need to change your breath.
Simply bringing attention to your breath.
Opening your senses.
Feeling your body.
Now become aware of your own presence.
So this is a quality of being that
you already have and already are.
It may be a felt sense in your
body actually, a global felt
sense of being here, being alive,
of noticing your experience.
There are a few qualities to your own
presence that when you're out of your
own way, you can deeply experience.
So welcome in these qualities now, like
kindness, love, a kind, curious attention.
The part of you that isn't judging.
That isn't refusing your experience.
That isn't avoiding your experience.
Get in touch more deeply with this
part of yourself that is open to
what comes with curiosity, actually.
Not with fear, but with curiosity and
love, can you invite in this aspect
of who you are, your very presence?
And for those of us who have
a judging mind, it can be hard
to find this in ourselves.
So give yourself some time to explore.
And looking for my own presence
that's always here it's
actually loving and caring.
And when you come across it, simply
acknowledge it and deepen into it.
So this means let go of your
thinking mind, let, go of trying
to figure this out and just be.
Just rest here in an open way, curious,
and kind about what comes including
your judging mind, that's something
that your presence can meet and welcome.
Okay.
Now that we're in touch with the
quality of presence in ourselves,
it's naturally here that we.
Really just need to tune into.
Well, let's turn toward our experience
with this presence and meet ourselves.
One phrase I like to
say is, 'Oh, this too.
This too.' In other words,
deeply acknowledging.
Oh, this is here.
This too is here.
This joy, thi sadness, this
pain, this pleasure.This too.
When we can orient to our experience
from a sense of wholeness and of
presence, our lives can change.
We begin to learn and understand what
it means to meet ourselves deeply.
And this translates out into being able to
meet others, but first we meet ourselves.
So let's practice bringing
this presence to our body.
First, sensing your whole body, all
the way from soles of your feet,
hips, shoulders, crown of the head.
Welcoming your whole body as
it is in this moment, with no
agenda to change, fix, improve.
But just being with yourself as you are
with a quality of curiosity, of kindness.
How is it to meet your body from presence?
Now bring attention to the breath,
the flow of the breath in and out.
Meeting your breath from presence.
Again, no need to change,
alter, make better.
Breath has simply flowing in and out and
here you are from a sense of presence
and wholeness meeting what's arising.
So it's very relational, this practice.
Okay.
Now let's meet any emotion
that is present from presence.
Noticing is there an emotion
that I have that's here now?
Maybe peace or a frustration or something
that I've experienced recently that I can
take one moment to meet from presence.
What if this emotion of disappointment,
sadness, whatever it is, what if this
emotion didn't need to be different?
You didn't need it to go away.
Just as my body is here, my breath
is here, my emotions are here as
they are, and I'm meeting them with
a quality of kindness, of curiosity.
What's here?
Oh, this too.
This too is here.
Notice the impact on your body when
you meet yourself with presence.
Now meeting any thoughts,
memories, images with presence.
Noticing.
Have you been having any troubling
or challenging thoughts lately?
Or is there a memory or image
that keeps coming to you?
Maybe a challenging situation that
you're replaying in your head?
If so, can you turn toward this thought,
this image, this memory, and simply
bring your kind, loving attention to what
you're seeing, experiencing in your mind?
As with the breath, no
need to change, get rid of.
It's just arising and returning toward
in this gesture of meeting, of welcoming
what's here with our own presence.
How is it to meet yourself in
this way, this too, this too.
You can use this practice where you
focus more on the presence in you
that's meeting what's arising than
you're focusing on what's arising.
So there's this attitude of
curiosity, of kindness, of love,
care that you'd have for, uh, for
instance, a little newborn child.
This is your own presence that
you're meeting yourself with.
Your body, your breath,
emotions, thoughts, memories,
images, joys, challenges, the
whole mess of life as it were.
The good and the bad and the ugly.
When we're able to connect with our own
presence, it radically changes the way
that we move through life because we're
not living in refusal, denial, ignorance.
We're actually, we're living a life that
is far more vibrant and alive and willing
to meet all that arises in our experience.
This is one of the deep
foundations of mindfulness.
I appreciate you taking the time to be
here and thank you for your practice.
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