Standing Meditation

Who is aware of standing

Please get up. Make sure that you have enough space around you and that you are standing balanced,  feet  in line with your shoulders.

Please close your eyes, and if you can keep them shut until the bells goes.

Breathe in deeply and while the breath is filling your body, allow your whole body to stretch a bit upright. And breathing out, let your body relax, still upright but settled and comfortable in yourself. the arms , loosely at your sides.

Breathing in, direct your attention to the area where your body is expanding. Breathing out to where it is contracting. Do it a few times until you get a good sense for your inner space, expanding and contracting with your breathing. Let it happen naturally...

Now expand that spacious awareness down to your feet.
Can you feel your feet touching the ground?
Can you feel the pressure on your toes and soles, the whole weight of your body pressing against the ground?

Now try to imagine that you are breathing in through the soles of your left foot, drawing the breath from there up to your chest area, and there, while breathing out, you send your breath down to your right foot, down into the earth. Just imagine that you have nostrils at the soles of your feet, so that you could draw in the breath from the ground under your left foot, filling your chest area, and then breathe out down into the earth underneath your right foot.

Do the whole cycle a few times, feeling the energy moving through your body as you direct the breath with your awareness in this cycle.

And then reverse this cycle: now drawing the breath in from under the sole of your right foot ; imagine you have nostrils there ; letting it flow up into your chest, and then with the outbreath down through your left foot into the earth. Be aware of the whole cycle. Do it a few times.

So with this exercise ; what is now subject and what is now object? Who is aware of what?... What does your awareness include? - The body standing? - You breathing in and out? - The breath energy flowing in a cycle? - The sound of my voice? - Your own thinking? - The space in which all this happens? All that which you are aware of can that be the object of your awareness? Everything which is arising in the space of your awareness right now would be the object. - Right?

What the is the subject? - Is it you? The person you are? Or is it awareness itself? Think about it. And remember: every thought arising in awareness would be an object? Wouldn't it? So what is the subject? Don't forget to breathe. Just stand for a while, eyes still closed and let the answers to this question arise in awareness...

If you are the subject are you able to choose the object? Can you decide what object you want to choose? Like now: Can you decide to stay with the breath as the object of your awareness?

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