by Meditation Teacher Training student Clare Kite

Welcome to this ‘Opening to life - exploration of the senses’ - meditation. 

Before we start, I invite you to consider changing your perspective. Perhaps turn your chair or find a different viewpoint than you’re used to. Make yourself comfortable, either seated on the floor, or in a chair. If you’re seated with legs crossed, gently uncurl them and place your feet on the floor. Perhaps slip off your shoes, feel the Earth beneath you.

For the first part of this meditation, we are going to keep the eyes open. Take a moment now to release the space between your brows and unclench your jaw. Perhaps allow the tongue to slip away from the roof of the mouth. Inch your shoulder blades slightly closer together, sitting up nice and tall through the spine. Allow the weight of your bones to sink into your seat, and feel the Earth support you in return. 

We will start by bringing bare attention to the breath. If you can, breathing in through the nose, out through the nose or mouth. Each inhale drawing deep into the belly, feeling the lower ribs expand, the chest rising least and last.

Our journey of the senses begins with sight.

I invite you now to soften your gaze to a spot somewhere in front of you, and with the curious mind of a child exploring somewhere for the first time, allow your attention to lightly dance across the view, without looking to judge or label anything. Notice any movement - however small - highlighting the simple impermanence of everything. Perhaps you’re looking out at the World; to gardens or streets. Instead of putting names to what you see, start to lightly explore the varying shades of colour around you. The light and shade. If you’re looking at a plain wall, you may start to notice shadows falling in different spaces, little marks that you’ve never noticed before. 

As with all mindfulness & meditation, the mind has a tendency to wander and sprawl, and this is perfectly normal. Every time we bring our focus and our attention back to the moment, back to the object, we’re flexing that ‘mindful muscle’, making it stronger. 

On this whirlwind tour of the senses, I now invite you - if you feel comfortable to do so - close your eyes. What can you hear?

Without assessment, without labelling, just see how many sounds you can notice around you. As with everything else in our life, this is ever changing. Perhaps you can hear traffic passing you by, or birdsong. Maybe water trickling? If you are inside, can you detect the gentle creaking of your building, settling.  If there’s no sound, perhaps you can hear your own heartbeat - the blood pumping past your ears. Once more, you may find that the mind wanders to events in the  future or past, concerns of tasks yet to be completed. This is A-OK. Just as you notice, bring it back to the point of focus right now. To sound. 

But we move on once more, starting to observe our sense of touch. Explore any sensations on your skin. Perhaps it’s a light breeze blowing across your face, the soft depth of a cushion beneath your seat. Perhaps it is simply one finger touching another. Bring all of your focus, all of your awareness, to where you feel this tactile sensation the strongest. It is a mindfulness of the senses drawing our attention right here, right now, to the very present moment.

We move now to our sense of taste; inching curiously over the surfaces of your mouth. The tongue, the cheeks. What do you notice here? Perhaps you can still sense faint notes of your recent meal or drink, perhaps a lingering minty fresh taste from your toothpaste. If you notice nothing, what you taste is just you. The unique flavour of your mouth. 

We have one more stop on this exploration of our senses, and that is scent. What can you smell? Was it there all along as we breathed through our journey? What do you notice here, if anything? Scents of nature or traffic? Perfume? Perhaps a canine companion lying at your feet? Perhaps nothing. Just focus your attention on your nostrils.

We finish right where we started - breathing in through the nose, deep into the belly, and out through the mouth or nose. Start to deepen that inhale slightly, feeling the belly rise and fall without effort. As you do so, start to bring some awareness, perhaps a little movement, back to fingers and toes. Once more becoming aware of the seat beneath you and the space around you. 

Before we end this meditation, just a reminder to train that ‘mindfulness muscle’ by tuning in and focusing on our senses every day, keeping us grounded firmly in the present. Thank you.

You can find Clare on Instagram (@clarekite) and Facebook (Clare C Kite). She is currently in our April Meditation Teacher Training cohort and will graduate this summer.