Chapter 1: What is outer attention and why is it important?
Welcome back. In today's meditation, we're going to look a little more at outer attention.
Chapter 2: How do I choose an object for meditation?
This is the ability to bring our inner awareness into full consciousness of an experience, a moment, or a thing outside of ourselves. This is a skill that is worth building.
Chapter 3: What techniques help in grounding awareness during meditation?
as it allows us in the present moment to do two things.
Chapter 4: How can I engage my senses with the chosen object?
To become more aware of the world that we live in, the life that we're having, the experience we're going through.
Chapter 5: What reflections can I make about the object's history?
And also, more importantly, perhaps, it can be an anchor of compassion and calmness, particularly when we're feeling stressed or anxious.
Chapter 6: What significance does the object hold for me?
So for this meditation, I'd like you to choose an object that's around you or that belongs to you. An object that you're used to seeing. It can be small or big, but something that you pass by or use every day.
Chapter 7: How do I return to my breath and body after meditation?
Have you got it? Once you've chosen, stick to it. You can picture it in your mind's eye, or if it's small enough, you can even hold it in your hand. And so now, now that you've chosen it, let's begin. Because we're doing something new, because you've chosen an object in an unusual way, your mind will want to jump to that immediately.
But it's important that first we stabilize ourselves in the usual way. So for a moment, just put the object out of your mind. Come instead to the usual way we sit in stability. Bring your awareness to your feet flat upon the ground. Your back supported by your chair or cushion. Your breath open and free. Come into the rhythm of the breath as you breathe in and breathe out.
Breathing out all tension, all stress, all anxiety or worry. Breathing in peace, gentleness, calm, and healing. Breathing out from every pore of your skin. Breathing out like watching your breath on a winter's morning. Seeing it as fog that dissolves in the air and disappears. Breathing in only the peace, the gentleness, the light of your in breath.
Resting in the breath. Resting in the present moment. Resting in the stability of the practice.
resting in the gift that you are giving yourself of these few moments of stillness this day. And as you breathe, if there is any particularly taut or stressed or even sick places in your body, breathe especially into those areas now, feeling them loosen, relax, become spacious and clear.
Breathing in, we follow the breath to that moment when the in-breath becomes the out-breath, when the out-breath becomes the in-breath. That sacred moment in which the present moment arises, in which we encounter divine love. And as you breathe, Aware of the breath as that anchor that is always there. Bring to mind or simply look at the object you have chosen.
An object that you are used to seeing. An object that is daily in your presence, or at least very regularly so. Begin by really examining the object through your senses. If you're holding it, bring in the texture, the touch. If you're imagining it, see can you revolve it in your mind's eye. Can you remember its texture, its weight? Notice it through all of your senses.
Does it make a sound when it's touched? Does it have a particular smell? It may not be something you've ever wanted to taste, but perhaps you can ask yourself if it had a flavor or a taste, what do you think it would be? In your mind's eye, get as close to it as you possibly can. Imagine yourself magnifying the object.
And as you look at the object, realize that this object has come to be in some way. There was a time when it was not. There was a time before you knew it. There will come a time when it passes out of your knowing. there will come a time when it passes into nothingness again. Whatever its constituent parts are, currently they are holding together as this object in this time.
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