Don't Know

Whatever supports your practice, you know.

Of course, traditionally it's recommended that you sit upright, but it's also, um...

You know, the traditional postures include sitting, standing and walking.

Oh, lying down, right, four.

So pick one and stick with it, if you can.

And you can close your eyes or just lower your gaze.

And turning inward, first just connecting with the body, with feeling your body.

You know, this alone is a, is an entire practice, just awareness of the body.

So it's not something you have to skip over to get to the real stuff.

Can just work with awareness of the body.

And if you're not experienced with this, even that simple idea or instruction might, might be confusing.

What does it mean to feel my body? So you can direct the attention to different areas of the body, really just feeling sensations.

Maybe your hands or your feet, your face.

You can feel your butt on the cushion or chair.

Or you can more broadly have a sense of the whole body.

When our awareness is focused on the sensations of the body, it naturally takes us out of the thinking and proliferating of the mind.

This is why it makes such a good focus for meditation.

And then if you like, you can use the sensations of breath as a central focal point.

The breath always moving.

Breathing in, breathing out.

Seeing if you can follow that entire process breath by breath.

Feeling the breath either at the nostrils, the touch of air, or being with the movement in the belly, the chest, diaphragm.

And even as there's a rhythm of the breath moving in and out, so too there may be a rhythm of the mind drifting off and then noticing and coming back.

It's natural for the mind to wander, so it's not a, a flaw or a failing in our practice, but something we work with.

Each time you come back to the breath can be a moment for a little bit more settling.