Resting Body, Speech and Mind in its natural state by Dr. Alan Wallace
Let your awareness descend into the body, right down to the ground. Attend to those sensations of firmness and solidity where your body is in contact with your chair, cushion and floor and rest your awareness in a witnessing mode, the quiet attentiveness, the closest approximation to bare attention.
Attend quietly, not conceptually to the sensations of the earth element, sensations of firmness and solidity, your body in contact with the earth.
Let your awareness rise up and fill the whole space of your body, right up to the top of the head, like a frequency filling a room. Let your awareness fill the space of the body, taking note of the sensations arising on the interior and from the interior as well as on the surface.
There is no need to visualize the body or think about it. Simply be aware of the sensations arising in this tactile field.
As you are mindfully aware of the sensations arising throughout this field, you may note areas that feel tense, tight, contracted. Gently focus your attention upon this area as you breathe in, and as you breathe out, surrendering your muscles to gravity. As you breathe out you may feel your shoulders drop, the muscles around the base of the neck soften and loosen up.
Bring awareness to the face and soften, loosen the muscles around the mouth, the lips, the jaws, the temples.
Bring awareness to the forehead, let it feel opened, spacious, relaxed, let it be opened between the eyebrow, soften all the muscles around the eyes and finally soften the eyes themselves. Soften your whole face and feel relaxed, soften and loosen.
In this way settle your body in a posture of ease and comfort and insofar you do it and feel relaxed and comfortable you should find it easy to let your body remain still with no unnecessary movements, just the movement of the breath.
If you are in a supine position, lying down, then your body should be fully relaxed, let still, psychologically you can adopt a stance, an attitude, a posture of vigilance. This is a formal meditation posture to use only for practicing. And if you are sitting upright, let your spine be straight, slightly lift your chest so you are sitting with very much attention, keep your abdomen muscles lucid and relaxed so as you breathe in, the sensations of the breathe go right down to the belly that is expanding when you inhale and falling back as you exhale.
In this way settle your body in its natural state imbued with the qualities of relaxation, stillness and vigilance.
Settling your speech in its natural state is quite straightforward, not difficult, it simply means to rest silently, in effortless silence, the silence of a guitar with the streams cut. But together with settling the speech in its natural state, you settle the respiration in its natural rhythm, this is crucially important. In short, this involves breathing effortlessly without forcefully drawing the air in as you inhale or forcefully expelling it as you exhale. Allow the breath to flow in and out effortlessly without constraint.
The key is the out breathe, with every out breath relax more and more deeply in the body, releasing most of the tension, tightness, stress, with every out breath simply release the breath without holding it back or forcefully expelling it.
And with every out breath simply release any thoughts, memories and images that may come to mind as if the out breath is gently gust of breeze loading away easily. With every out breath as if with a sign of relief, just let go of any thought that may come to mind and return your awareness to a non-conceptual flow.
The key to the out breath is at the very end of the out breath. Each time, be mindful as you approach the end of the exhalation. See if you do release fully without expelling the breath. Simply do not hold any back, release it fully, release, release until the next breath flows in, effortless like a wave washing upon the shore, just let it flow in, and whether the breath is short or long, deep or shallow, whether the cycle of respiration is rhythmic or not-rhythmic, let your body breathe without intervention, without regulation, without control.
Allow your body to reestablish in its own equilibrium, its own balance, energetically by way of the breath.
In this way, settle your respiration in its natural rhythm, which is bound to shift to change as your body sorts itself out and finds its own equilibrium.
And finally settle your mind at ease by releasing all concerns, all hopes and fears about the future and the past.
For the brief duration of this session settle it all aside, let your mind be careful and free, untroubled by what is going by and by what is yet to come.
And in this way allow your awareness to come to rest in stillness, hovering motionless in the present moment.
Awareness is by nature luminous, it is clear, it is bright, so let the natural luminosity of your own awareness illuminate the field of the body and attending especially to those sensations associated with the in and out breath.
Relax deeply with every out breath.
Settle your mind in its natural state, imbued with the qualities of relaxation, stillness and clarity
.
And in this phase of relaxation, the challenge is to balance an ever deeper sense of relaxation, of lucidness, of ease, without losing the degree of clarity with which we began the session.
Keeping the forehead open, spacious, relaxed, loose.
Let your awareness descend into the body, right down to the ground. Attend to those sensations of firmness and solidity where your body is in contact with your chair, cushion and floor and rest your awareness in a witnessing mode, the quiet attentiveness, the closest approximation to bare attention.
Attend quietly, not conceptually to the sensations of the earth element, sensations of firmness and solidity, your body in contact with the earth.
Let your awareness rise up and fill the whole space of your body, right up to the top of the head, like a frequency filling a room. Let your awareness fill the space of the body, taking note of the sensations arising on the interior and from the interior as well as on the surface.
There is no need to visualize the body or think about it. Simply be aware of the sensations arising in this tactile field.
As you are mindfully aware of the sensations arising throughout this field, you may note areas that feel tense, tight, contracted. Gently focus your attention upon this area as you breathe in, and as you breathe out, surrendering your muscles to gravity. As you breathe out you may feel your shoulders drop, the muscles around the base of the neck soften and loosen up.
Bring awareness to the face and soften, loosen the muscles around the mouth, the lips, the jaws, the temples.
Bring awareness to the forehead, let it feel opened, spacious, relaxed, let it be opened between the eyebrow, soften all the muscles around the eyes and finally soften the eyes themselves. Soften your whole face and feel relaxed, soften and loosen.
In this way settle your body in a posture of ease and comfort and insofar you do it and feel relaxed and comfortable you should find it easy to let your body remain still with no unnecessary movements, just the movement of the breath.
If you are in a supine position, lying down, then your body should be fully relaxed, let still, psychologically you can adopt a stance, an attitude, a posture of vigilance. This is a formal meditation posture to use only for practicing. And if you are sitting upright, let your spine be straight, slightly lift your chest so you are sitting with very much attention, keep your abdomen muscles lucid and relaxed so as you breathe in, the sensations of the breathe go right down to the belly that is expanding when you inhale and falling back as you exhale.
In this way settle your body in its natural state imbued with the qualities of relaxation, stillness and vigilance.
Settling your speech in its natural state is quite straightforward, not difficult, it simply means to rest silently, in effortless silence, the silence of a guitar with the streams cut. But together with settling the speech in its natural state, you settle the respiration in its natural rhythm, this is crucially important. In short, this involves breathing effortlessly without forcefully drawing the air in as you inhale or forcefully expelling it as you exhale. Allow the breath to flow in and out effortlessly without constraint.
The key is the out breathe, with every out breath relax more and more deeply in the body, releasing most of the tension, tightness, stress, with every out breath simply release the breath without holding it back or forcefully expelling it.
And with every out breath simply release any thoughts, memories and images that may come to mind as if the out breath is gently gust of breeze loading away easily. With every out breath as if with a sign of relief, just let go of any thought that may come to mind and return your awareness to a non-conceptual flow.
The key to the out breath is at the very end of the out breath. Each time, be mindful as you approach the end of the exhalation. See if you do release fully without expelling the breath. Simply do not hold any back, release it fully, release, release until the next breath flows in, effortless like a wave washing upon the shore, just let it flow in, and whether the breath is short or long, deep or shallow, whether the cycle of respiration is rhythmic or not-rhythmic, let your body breathe without intervention, without regulation, without control.
Allow your body to reestablish in its own equilibrium, its own balance, energetically by way of the breath.
In this way, settle your respiration in its natural rhythm, which is bound to shift to change as your body sorts itself out and finds its own equilibrium.
And finally settle your mind at ease by releasing all concerns, all hopes and fears about the future and the past.
For the brief duration of this session settle it all aside, let your mind be careful and free, untroubled by what is going by and by what is yet to come.
And in this way allow your awareness to come to rest in stillness, hovering motionless in the present moment.
Awareness is by nature luminous, it is clear, it is bright, so let the natural luminosity of your own awareness illuminate the field of the body and attending especially to those sensations associated with the in and out breath.
Relax deeply with every out breath.
Settle your mind in its natural state, imbued with the qualities of relaxation, stillness and clarity
.
And in this phase of relaxation, the challenge is to balance an ever deeper sense of relaxation, of lucidness, of ease, without losing the degree of clarity with which we began the session.
Keeping the forehead open, spacious, relaxed, loose.
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