Ep. 296: Sitting on 9-22-26

So there, you know, the practice that we're going to do tonight is really one of our most sort of basic foundational ones is mindfulness of breathing.

So we're going to bring our awareness to the breath.

And it's the breath understood as a physical phenomenon, you know, not some like ethereal idea of the breath, but really just how does the breath actually feel in the body, the breath, in the belly, the rise and fall of the chest, really that, you know, just sort of you know parking our awareness so to speak with the breath um and you know even as i'm speaking for the next few minutes you might just use the breath right now as an anchor because this is actually something that ideally we do not just when we're formally meditating as we are tonight But actually like in our everyday lives, meditation practice is most powerful and transformative when we can bring it off the cushion, out of the meditation hall and into the world.

That's really the idea with this.

What we do in these formal meditation sessions is kind of training.

to extend the practice to the whole of our lives.

And if we don't do that, it's a little bit of a shame.

So it is not incompatible with listening to someone speaking as I am now.

So just like feel the breath.

And even right here, there can be a risk of holding onto the breath too tightly.

It's interesting, like when we bring awareness to something, we are learning something about the quality of our awareness.

And if our awareness is tight, if our mind is tight, then the breath will feel that.

Our awareness of the breath will also be tight.

It's not unusual.

So it's one of the things to sort of just be curious about, like as you bring your awareness to the breath, you're probably breathing just fine, quite freely before you sat down.

Is there now some tension accumulating around the breath? Is the chest getting tighter? Is the belly getting tighter? And if you notice that, Let me invite your awareness just to relax, to let the breath just come and go.

There's no need to manage or control the breath.

We can just let the breath be.

And nevertheless, as we attend to the feeling of the breath going in and out of the body, we may feel some tension that persists.

You know, we may say, okay, breath, you can relax.

Or awareness, mind, you can relax.

And yet you may still feel some tension around the breath.

And then that's okay.

Let that be part of your experience of the breath.

You know, I think, so it's like, it's like, you know, I often use the example of, you know, sometimes we can realize that for whatever reason, maybe we're rushing around kind of our shoulders to become hunched up.