Tara Brach - 2013-05-29-Meditation-Just-This-Breath-TaraBrach-hq.mp3

Episode Date: September 8, 2014

So you might close your eyes and then once your eyes are closed, adjust your posture and let your posture be one that's very conscious so that you're sitting tall. There's a quality of uprightness that supports awake, alert awareness. So you're sitting tall, but within that tallness, see how much you can, from the inside out, relax. Just to be at ease. We open together as we often do

with the simple attention to the breath. I'd like to invite you to inhale deeply a more exaggerated in breaths. You're taking in more air than usual. Inhaling, filling the lungs, and then a very slow out breath, so slow that you can really feel the sensations of letting go.

And again, inhaling deeply, filling the chest. chest, filling the lungs. You might even hold for a moment, sense a stretch or an open hand across the chest, and then a very slow out breath again. Gently releasing, letting go, letting go. And again, inhaling deeply, filling the lungs. Hold for a moment, let the chest be open, the shoulders back and down a bit, and a slow out breath, releasing, relaxing outward, letting go. And then let the breath in a relaxed way resume in its normal rhythm. But keep the attention resting with the breath, relaxing with the breath.

So the breath is in the foreground, yet the senses are awake. You're aware of the sounds around you. of the sensations of the sitting posture, this play of aliveness, and with a kind of listening, bringing your attention close into the heart. Just notice the state of your heart right now, whatever mood or emotions is here, without any judgment, just being aware of your experience. As you listen inward, you might sense what you might sense what you what your intention is for tonight, what it is that most matters to you, what allows you to feel most sincere, taking these moments to align yourself with what you care about.

The main portal to presence is awakening, relaxing through this body. So just to invite you to scan through the body with awareness, you might let the body. the brow be smooth, softening the eyes, the jaw unhinged. You might have a slight smile at the mouth, sometimes described as the half-smile of the Buddha. Our Ticknat-Han says, smile yoga. Slight smile, the inside of the mouth smiling. This sends a message to the whole nervous system to relax the fight-flight conditioning.

conditioning. So the eyes are soft, slight smile. You can imagine, visualize and sense of smile spreading through the heart area, not to paper over anything, but to help connect with some sense of space and openness, letting that sense of openness spread and widen out so that the shoulders are free to relax back and down just a bit. See what happens if you bring your awareness inside the shoulders. You might imagine a dissolving of ice to water. See if you can feel that from the inside, ice to water, and then water to vapor or gas, sensing movement, sensing space, loosening, feeling the energy and the aliveness inside the arms, right down into the hands. Let the hands rest in a very easy and effortless way.

You might intentionally soften the hands and then feel the hands from the inside out. See if you can detect tingling or vibrating, perhaps soften a little bit more. Maybe you can send some pulsing, places of warmth or pressure where the hands touch your legs or each other. Very intimate attention. So you can feel the dance of aliveness inside the hands.

As we relax and deepen our attention, you can begin to feel this aliveness throughout the whole body. Again, an openness at the chest and see if you can loosen and relax down through the belly, letting this next breath be received in a softening belly. This breath, and now this one, and again, you can begin to feel the aliveness deep in the torso. spreading down through the hips, the legs, feeling the feet from the inside, placing your awareness inside the feet. Again, feeling the tingling and vibrating. Feel the pressure or warmth where the feet contact the floor.

And then widening the lens so that in a simultaneous way you can feel this whole field of sensation, this whole energy body, tingling and vibrating. vibrating, heat, cool, flow or tightness, maybe pleasant or unpleasant, just letting it all happen, receiving this whole moment through the senses because we so quickly leave this presence and go off into thoughts, it can be helpful to have a home base in the senses. You might relax with the inflow and outflow of the breath for some feeling that flow at the nose and nostrils. For others you might feel the breath as the expanding and deflating at the chest or abdomen, or perhaps the whole body breathing, even the cells

expanding, settling. It's quite natural that the attention will get distracted. So not to judge. just the nature of the mind to go off into thoughts into a virtual reality. When you notice that's happened and simply practice coming back, gently inviting the attention, back into this awake, alive, changing experience of the here and now. You might listen again to the sounds around you, just so you know you're here. You can re-soften the shoulders, the hands, and gently arriving again, feeling this next

in-breath or out-breath, a light, relaxed attentiveness, moment to moment. It doesn't matter how many times the mind wanders. With patience, you'll learn the pathway to homecoming. this gentle noticing, relaxing open again to sense what's going on right here. These sounds, these sensations of this moment, landing again gently with your home base, feeling the breath with an intimate attention, appreciating the quality of heerness that includes the sounds, this whole moment to moment experience, relaxed and a way, and a way, from the poet Dana Fawls.

Settle in the here and now. Settle. In the here and now. Reach down into the center where the world is not spinning and drink in this holy peace. Feel relief flood into every cell. Nothing to do.

Nothing to be but what you are already. Nothing to receive but what flows effortlessly from the mystery into form. Nothing to run from or run toward. Just this breath. Awareness knowing itself as embodiment. Just this breath. Awareness waking up to truth.