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Guided Meditation: Relaxing with Breathing

Since the time of the Buddha, one of the most common forms of meditation in the Buddhist tradition is mindfulness of breathing. Of course, it doesn't always work for everyone all the time; there are other ways of meditating and other appropriate objects of mindfulness. But it is a very common one, and it is well worth taking the time to develop familiarity and comfort with our own breathing. We can learn its ins and outs, discover how we react and respond to the world through our breath, notice how breathing changes, and see how we can focus on breathing in order to change ourselves. Breathing is a dynamic and very important area of our lives. We take something like 23,000 breaths a day, and breathing sits at the nexus of so many different aspects of our life. To study the breathing is a doorway to understanding so much about ourselves.

For this meditation, I'm going to focus on breathing as an object of meditation, but primarily to associate breathing with relaxation. When I say "relaxation," it sometimes implies going limp or perhaps being too relaxed. What we are talking about here is releasing unnecessary tension—the ways we hold ourselves tightly in the body where muscles are tense. It's not necessarily about being completely limp; rather, it is about releasing the unnecessary tension we carry with us. This tension often represents our reactions to life, our desires, or our emotional life—how we are caught or involved in ways that are not necessary as a way of using our body.

So, take an upright posture, whether literal or metaphoric, and close your eyes. Notice your breathing the way it is now. Begin without any special attempt to meditate with the breathing, to accomplish anything, or even to concentrate on it. Simply begin by being curious. How is it for you to be breathing right now? What parts of the body are engaged as you breathe? Where is the movement in the body? In what parts of the body is the movement the greatest, and where is the movement of breathing subtle? For example, in the back rib cage or the spine, there might be subtle movements, while the front rib cage, diaphragm, or belly might have bigger movements.

Then, expand the awareness to your body as a whole. Again, without meditating per se, trying to be in a meditative state, or accomplishing anything, just notice what it is like to be in your body today. Have a gentle, relaxed, curious exploration. If parts of your body are tense, in pain, or uncomfortable, and you can easily adjust your posture to make it more comfortable, please do. If it's not going to go away by adjusting the posture, just let it be. Treat this as an exercise in being curious about what it's like to be in a body. Our physical, bodily experiences are constantly changing, sometimes in big ways and sometimes in subtle ways.

If there is tension in your body for these next moments, do not try to change it or do anything about it. Just notice: this is how it is. Maintain a relaxed awareness of how it is to be in your body, as if you are becoming a friend to your body. Listen to your friend carefully as your friend is, not how you want or expect them to be, but just listening and allowing your body to be as it is. Feel this precious body, noticing where the sensations are strong and where they are weak.

Now, center yourself on your breathing. Experience where breathing is clearest in your body, or where the body's experience of breathing most calls attention to itself, or where it is most pleasant and enjoyable.

As you exhale—with each exhale—relax different parts of your body. As you exhale, soften and relax the muscles of the face. Our face does a lot of work all day long with expressions. Relax and soften around the forehead, the eyes, the cheeks, and the jaw. Do not be too ambitious about relaxing. Sometimes it is enough just to create space around tension—to relax about being tense.

As you exhale, soften the shoulders. Not as a big, ambitious task, but gently soften or open, making space for how the shoulders are. Soften around the chest; with every exhale, let something in your chest release, soften, and let go. Perhaps there can be a softening around the diaphragm. Maybe just at the end of the exhale, there is a moment where the diaphragm can rest. Then, soften and release the belly.

Take the next couple of breaths just to feel your body in a global way, with the breathing at the center of it. As you exhale, relax the whole body. Any ways that you are bracing yourself against life, or activated and reaching forward to get something, settle back. Relax the whole body as you exhale.

If it is accessible, relax any physical tension associated with thinking. Relax, perhaps, in the area of the brain under the skull, behind the forehead. Maybe relaxing here means to expand or open, to have a sense of lots of space for the mind. As you exhale, release the mind into that space.

Also, relax any tension associated with being aware or being mindful. Rather than "doing mindfulness," allow yourself to be aware. Allow awareness to receive the experience of the body breathing. It's not so much you directing attention to the breathing, as you allowing the experience of breathing to arrive in awareness. Ever so gently relax with the breathing. Ever so gently appreciate the inhale, taking in life-giving air. Relax the mind, quiet the mind, and gently let go of your thoughts through a kind of relaxing of the thinking mind. Relax into an intimacy with the body breathing.

In the last little time here, you might look around your body and see if there are any subtle places you can relax, release, or soften, especially if it is connected to thinking. Take a moment or two also to soften the eyes so they rest in their sockets, without the active work of looking. Even with closed eyes, meditators are sometimes "looking" at their experience. Soften the eyes.

With the relaxation you have and soft eyes, imagine you are looking out upon the world and seeing the challenges the world is facing. Imagine looking at it with relaxed eyes and a relaxed body, recognizing that for a few moments, there is nothing you need to do or to fix. Just gaze upon the world and the suffering of the world without getting tense.

Imagine or consider that relaxed eyes, a relaxed heart, and a relaxed body act as an open conduit—an open door for kindness and care. Tension and contraction narrow that door, that conduit. Keep the door open. With a relaxed, open awareness and presence, looking upon the suffering of the world with the conduit open and clear, let your care and kindness spread out into the world.

May you have the wish that all beings benefit from the practice we have done this morning. That all beings will feel safer because we have relaxed the tensions of our bodies, our hearts, and our minds. To whatever degree the doors of our hearts are open, may we wish that all beings be relaxed. May all beings be peaceful. May all beings be happy. May all beings be free.