Hello and welcome to Mindfulness Plus.

I'm your host Thomas Mconki and I want to thank you so much for joining today.

The topic that we're working with today, relative to the mindfulness practice, is the breath, the all-important

breath.

Why do we hear about the breath so much when we talk about mindfulness?

I've noticed that many people think that mindfulness means paying attention to

the breath, that those are one and the same thing. And there's actually a good reason for that.

Historically, virtually all of the traditions that practice meditation,

that develop mindful awareness,

they make use of the breath because it's this ready-made object of meditation.

It's with us all the time.

In this moment, wherever you are, whatever you're doing,

you're doing it in a body, and that body is breathing.

So we notice that the breath is here, and it's actually easy to notice the breath is

intuitive for us to contact with our awareness. It moves slowly enough. Most people immediately, without practice are able to just start to track it, start to pay attention to it.

And depending on how we pay attention to the breath, over time the breath can open up different opportunities in awareness.

It can be a really powerful tool

in developing mindful awareness.

So we're actually going to work with the breath today.

We're going to do a guided meditation

and give you a tool to work with the breath

in a particular way.

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