Gary Heads

“The breathing space (tickety-boo realignment) Step 1 – Acknowledging The practice begins by adopting the usual dignified posture; however, sometimes when you are out and about, you might just need to stop and do it in whatever posture you happen to be in. When you are settled, it’s time to check in with whatever is going on, right now, in this moment. Noticing and acknowledging any experiences that are arising, even the difficult ones if you can. It’s the mindfulness attitude of acceptance we are endeavouring to bring to this practice. Being with all our thoughts, emotions and physical sensations as they come and go, and allowing them to be just as they are. Step 2 – Gathering It’s now time to move the attention to the breath. You can do this from wherever you can sense the breath entering and leaving the body. This could be the chest, abdomen or mouth. If you are a dog, it could be a big shiny black nose. Be with each breath from the very beginning to the very end, breathing in and breathing out. This helps to keep bringing us back to the present moment when we are distracted or hijacked by Wandering Mind. Step 3 – Expanding awareness Finally, we expand awareness around the breath to encompass the whole body, including the space it takes up, as if the whole body were breathing. The whole sequence takes about three minutes, but as we don’t have watches in spaniel time, it takes as long as it takes. After completing the practice, and with everything now realigned on the tickety-boo scale, it’s over to The Bookshelf to continue the study session.”
― Gary Heads, The Enlightened Spaniel - A Dog's Quest to be a Buddhist