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(fifth class) Put your attention *inside* your left foot and focus your attention on a small spot anywhere inside your left foot there. And feel whatever you can feel of sensation that is happening at that spot as clearly as you can for about ten seconds.
Whenever you see the line break across the screen, please take the time to get your focus away from this computer screen (and reading/thinking), and really get into experiential feeling for any sensations you can discover in the part of your body there that you are working at as we go on through the body here. Try to "let thinking drop" for a little while during these exercises and just focus on *experiencing*. And do each of these steps for about ten or fifteen seconds, thanks. Let whatever you find "come into high relief in awareness" for you. Now, place your awareness in your left ankle, and notice whatever sensation you can feel in the bone of it there.
It may seem rather subtle, or vague. In some places along the way you may not be able to feel anything. Probe with your awareness for any sensation that you can perceive in each of these areas of your body. Take what you get. Yet, press into it, so to speak. "Sift for it." This is NOT about imagination! It's about subtle sensations that you can *actually* feel. Bring your awareness up your left leg and notice the flesh of the large muscle in your calf. Find a small place in there where you can feel some sensation, and focus on that.
You can close your eyes if you'd like to. Yet these exercises can be done with the eyes open. They'll be easier if you aren't locked into the computer screen with your attention. And they'll be easier if you aren't looking at the places where you are sifting to find these sensations. Just *feel for it*, from within. Now place your attention in your left knee. Feel what you can, *perceptibly*, around the bone in your left knee.
When you feel these sensations, don't "do anything about them." Simple be aware of them. Experience them. Bring your awareness up into your left thigh. Feel around, as best you can, in the areas of the two large muscles on the top and on the bottom of your left thigh, and feel *inside them*, resting there in your chair.
Now, for about fifteen seconds, please feel your left leg as a whole. With your awareness of it, sense with your sense of touch the experience of your whole left leg *being there*.
Okay, you've "given" yourself a left leg with mindful awareness, so to speak. :-) Now shift your focus over to your right foot, and search about in there for a spot where you can feel some sensations inside there in any part of the foot.
Focus closely on your right ankle. See if you can feel the bone structure being in there.
Sometimes you may notice that after you are watching for awhile, the sensations disappear. Sometimes you may notice that you feel nothing for awhile, and then some subtle sensation appears at the threshold of your perception. Take it as it comes. Please move your awareness up into your right calf, and notice that the large muscle there (as you are sitting upright here at your computer) is soft. You can clutch your right calf muscle up for a second to verify this. Then see if you can spot a small point in there where you can feel some sensation of some kind.
Again, with all of these places, please, maintain your attention for ten or fifteen seconds. Now check out your right knee. Feel around in it with your awareness and be as aware of what it feels like being there, as you can.
Bring your awareness up into your right thigh, now. Again, feel around the large muscles at the front of it, and underneath it where you can feel it rests upon your chair. But try to get your focus *on the inside*.
Now, part by part, you have "given" yourself a right leg with awareness. Feel your whole right leg at once, as one piece, so to speak.
Now see if you can feel both of your whole legs being there.
Okay, we're going to shift now up into your trunk. First, bring your attention to the groin area, and see if you can notice a tiny point anywhere in that area where you can feel some sensation.
Now, please bring your awareness up into your belly, *on the inside*. Feel what you can of your abdominal area on the inside of your body. In addition to what it feels like, you may also see some of the movements of your breathing going on in this area.
See if you can find a single small point somewhere in your abdominal area where you can feel a sensation, and focus on that for awhile.
Now, bring your awareness up inside the trunk of your body, and feel for whatever you can feel--on the inside in there--in the area where you know that your heart muscle is.
If you don't seem to feel much of anything in your heart area, it may only mean that you are at peace! When a person starts getting sad about something, this is one of the areas in the body where one can feel subtle tinges of that "wanna cry" feeling that people get when they are being sad. See if you can both feel the inside area of your upper chest, and the movement of the breathing that is going on in there.
See what you can feel of it as your lungs fill several times very fully with air, and you press the air out again.
Now, by feeling around inside your whole trunk, in both the abdomen, and the heart and lung area above it, you can give yourself a mindful trunk, if you will, please.
Can you feel both your inner trunk and inside both your legs being there as a piece?
Now, please, bring your attention to your left hand. Feel your left hand being there. Get a sense of the bones in it.
Focus now on your left wrist. Feel your left wrist being there.
Remember, we are talking about the *inside* of these parts of the body, all the way along. Place your awareness in your left forearm. Find a small space in there where you can feel some sensation in it.
Bring your attention to your left elbow, and feel it as perceptibly as you can.
Come upward with your awareness into your left upper arm, and feel the bicep on the front in it and the tricep on the back in it. Notice, if you can, the difference in the way these two large muscles feel.
Place your awareness in your left shoulder and sense, by feeling it, that your left shoulder is being there.
Now, see if you can feel your whole left arm and left shoulder as one piece, so to speak.
Okay, shifting your attention over to the right side, now, focus your awareness in your right hand, and see if you can find a small spot in it where you can feel sensation there.
Now, be mindful of your right wrist, and sense its presence being there.
Bring your attention up into the inside of your right forearm. See if you can feel that there are bones that are running through in it.
Become aware of your right elbow, and feel around in it with your focused attention.
Now check out your right upper arm. Feel the bicep in front, and the tricep in back. Sense the strength that is in that upper arm, strength that is being at rest.
Become aware of your right shoulder. Feel your way through it patiently, in feeling that it is being there.
Now, "give" yourself a whole right arm and shoulder in your awareness of it as one piece.
Now we're all the way up here to your neck. Feel around the outside of your neck this time, and then feel the inside of your neck, inside in there where your throat is. Take whatever you can perceive.
Feel whatever you can of the bones that are inside your neck there. Feel for it, at least. You know they are there. And then, with as much focus as you can muster, feel your way down along your spine, from your neck to your tailbone and back up again, and see if you can register any sensations as you are mindfully checking along that path. Now, move your face around a little bit in random directions, and then feel inside your face.
Feel the inside of your mouth being there, and what your mouth is doing from the feel of it in there.
Be as aware as you can that you have a skull inside there in your head. Check it out, all around. (Not with yourhands, of course--*from within*.)
Place your awareness in your left eye-socket, and feel whatever you can feel around there.
Shift to being mindful of your right eye-socket. Notice any small point where you can feel sensation there.
Now feel inside your scalp, at the top. Sensation may be especially subtle here.
Now, give yourself a whole head and neck as one piece, and feel it being there.
Give yourself a whole head and neck, two shoulders and two arms--feeling it together as a piece.
Give yourself a whole head and neck, two shoulders, two arms, and a trunk. Feel this all together as one segment. See if you can feel everything that is going on inside there by feeling around throughout there.
Give yourself a whole head and neck, two shoulders, two arms, a trunk, and your two legs that are being there--all at once.
Just feel your whole body, as one piece, *on the inside*, *being there*.
Can you feel it sitting there?--*on the inside*, throughout your whole body as one piece?--being sensitive to the sensations that are going on throughout the whole of your body at one time? See if you can do this for a little longer period time--twenty to thirty seconds, say. You can do it for a minute if you feel like it.
Feeling your whole body inside like this at once is the awakened inner posture of mindfulness. If you will *continue feeling* the whole inside of your body like this and "peek out the windows" of your eyes, you will see that the whole world is *outside there* and you are feeling your being there within, on the *inside*. It is an "inward-outward" realization. This is the posture of mindfulness in the world. *You are aware of being here within*, vividly, while you are also aware of the world being there all around. This is "being here and now." This is "presence." This is "aware presence." You can see how these terms *fit*, in your experience of it. It is "being centered," "being awake." You can use being in touch with your presence in this inwardly experiential way as an "anchor" to help you *remain in mindfulness* for prolonged periods of time. Puh-leze, kiddies, if you practice anything, this is the one. This realization is at the heart of playing the awareness game. It is "the key," "the secret" that has to be learned and practiced in order to use mindfulness as a practical tool in your everyday life. Questions any body? (Post questions in Classroom Talk, if you will.) Coach Have a good one! ContactWebmaster 
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