Tara Brach - 2014-02-19 - Guided Meditation: Into Stillness

Episode Date: February 21, 2014

2014-02-19 - Guided Meditation: Into Stillness

And as you let your attention go inward, just notice what it's like right now for you. With a gentle attention, just notice whatever feelings are here, whatever thoughts are been moving through. See if you can notice what it feels like inside your body to be sitting in this posture, in this stillness. with an interested listening attention, just come close to your heart, bring your attention right close to your heart

and sense for yourself what it is that really matters to you right now, what you'd like to experience or touch or remember tonight as you move through our time together. What's your intention? See if you can feel your own sincerity, as you listen in to what matters to you. And as we touch in together to that place of caring,

we'll chant the mantra om, the simple mantra, a sound current of connectedness to our bodies, our hearts, each other, this world. And if you'd like to begin by just bringing the palms gently together, it really helps to, as the palms come together,

to feel that sense of heart, We'll chant three times. Please inhale deeply. One of the most direct gateways to a full presence is waking up through this body. I'd like to invite you to wake up in a way that brings a kind of gentleness and kindness through the whole body and begins with visualizing the curve of a smile and visualizing wide open space and letting that curve of a smile spread through space. So you imagine the sky, great blue sky filled with a smile.

Just sense that your mind and awareness can merge with that great sky, so there's an openness, a vastness to the mind, and it's filled with that openness and receptivity of a smile. Feel the flickering and sensations at the eyes and sense a smile spreading through the eyes.

The corners of the eyes uplifted a bit. Let the brow be smooth. You might sense a slight smile at the mouth. Let the inside of the mouth be smiling. So the jaws relaxed, cheeks at ease. You might sense that you could smile into the heart, the curve of a smile spreading through the heart in the chest area. This is not to paper over what's there,

but rather to sense the space that can hold the life that's here. Smiling into the heart, sensing space, aliveness and letting that space widen out and widen out so that the shoulders are free to relax a bit, perhaps back and down at ease. Since you could bring your whole awareness inside the shoulders, feeling from the inside out the sensations that are there and the possibility of loosening and softening, feeling the region of the upper arms, the lower arms, right down to the wrists and the hands. Now let the hands rest in a very easy and effortless way and see if you can bring the awareness inside the hands so you can feel the life that's there, softening the hands a little more now.

Can you perceive the tingling or the vibrating inside the hands? noticing that as you relax, you can actually feel more aliveness. Feeling an openness in the chest. And then scanning down a bit, you might sense that save curve of a smile at the belly. Kind of a sense of receptivity and openness. See if you can let this next breath be received in a softening belly. This breath, and now this one, and again, and again. letting the awareness go deep into the torso,

relaxing through the hips, the buttocks, the genitals, letting yourself sense the aliveness and space and scanning down through the legs, the upper legs, the lower legs. Can you feel your left thigh, your right calf? Can you feel the legs from the inside out, right down into the ankles, and then the feet, Just as you feel the hands and soften them, you can sense a softening in the feet, feeling the tingling and the vibrating that's there.

And opening the attention so you can feel simultaneously in this whole body, the whole field of sensation, and just let go, let everything happen. Places of pressure, tension, flow, tight, loose. loose, tingling, vibrating, pulsing, heat or cool, not opposing anything. Noticing, again, if you relax a little more, let go a little more, how much aliveness, this whole dance of sensation happening, living through you, including in awareness the play of sound. See if you can listen not just with your ears, with your whole awareness, a global kind of listening, listening to and feeling the whole moment.

She can sense in the foreground, this changing flow, sounds and sensations, feelings, and also into it in the background, this alert, inner sense, stillness, this presence, always here, your innate awakeness, that which knows moment to moment what's happening, relaxing back and just being presence. At some point you'll notice that the mind has left this wakeful openness. Instead, there's a listening to the voice in your mind or on a story of the future or the past. The moment of noticing is a very special moment. Appreciate it.

It's a waking up from the trance. It's a given that we go into trance. And in that waking up, the practice is simply to pause. You can just register, oh, okay, thinking, thinking. And in that pause, just re-open the attention, perhaps listening to the sounds that are actually right here, and relaxing a bit in the body again, and feeling the sensations, the aliveness that's right here,

sensing the difference between this hereness and any thought, any comment, any idea or image going on in the mind. And as we continue in silence now, if it supports you in staying more present, You might let the breath, the inflow, outflow of the breath, be a kind of anchor or home base, like a friend that reminds you where you really want to be right here, right now. Notice if it's possible to let go, to just let go a little more right now, relaxing the mind open in a way,

so you can just receive and listen to the sounds of the life right here, relaxing the shoulders, softening the hands, relaxing the heart, resting in the presence that's right here, just recognizing and allowing this changing flow of life, letting it be just as it is.