Tara Brach - 2014-09-17-Meditation - Opening to Aliveness

Episode Date: September 18, 2014

2014-09-17 Guided Meditation: Opening to Aliveness

The following meditation is led by Tara Brock, meditation teacher, psychologist, and author. Take a moment to set yourself for the sitting, find a way of sitting where you're upright. So you feel a quality of alertness, sitting tall, and sense of balance so that if you, for a moment, lean forward, and then lean backwards, then lean to your left, lean to your right. If you move around a bit and then come center and really feel that quality of sitting in a way that's balanced. Center. Let your breathing deepen, expanding, extending the in-breath so it's fuller and a slow-out breath. And again, inhaling deeply and fully, slow-out breath.

One more time, nice, full in-breath, filling the lungs. And a slow-out breath. and letting the breath resume in its natural rhythm, being mindful of the inflow, outflow, and relaxing with that. And sensing increased quality of presence as you begin to slow down and pay attention to what's right here,

to your senses, letting the attention come into the heart area so that we together can reflect, as we do most weeks, on what brings us here, taking some moments to feel the sincerity of your own intention. What is your intention tonight? From the deepest, wisest, most sincere place in you, what most matters? You might sense this as a longing or a prayer, perhaps for presence, for open-heartedness, to realize the more full truth of who you are, to touch people.

peace. Just sensing the flavor of caring as you bring your palms together, letting them touch lightly at the heart area. And we'll chant the mantra om. Chant it three times. Please inhale deeply. Attention into the body. First by simply softening around the eyes as if you could smile to the eyes, let the brow be smooth, relaxing in the whole forehead area and just feeling the sensations of life that are there as you relax, receptive, present, relaxing the jaw, relaxing down to the root of the tongue, letting the tongue spread, feeling it in the lower jaw, soft. You might sense a slight smile at the mouth and smile in the inside of the mouth. and feel the sensations that wake up as you relax through the mouth area,

feeling the life inside the shoulders, sensing the possibility of softening, relaxing there. You might imagine a melting or dissolving, a letting go. And as you do, notice in an intimate way the play of sensations in the shoulders, feeling the length of the arms, letting the hand, hands rest in a very easy and effortless way, softening the hands. And again, with a receptive attention, feeling the life, the play of the sensations, inside the hands, from the inside out.

Notice that if you soften the hands even more, there's even more sensitivity to sensation. and in the awareness to the region of the chest and the heart. You might imagine smiling into the heart, putting a smile spread through the heart in the chest area. This isn't to paper over what's there, but rather to make space for it, relax presence, feeling from the inside out,

the sensations and aliveness in the heart area, scanning down the torso, relaxing, the belly, you might again sense that curve and sense of a smile at the belly, visualizing and feeling that, letting this next breath be received in a softening belly, this breath, this breath, and again, relaxing and sensing the aliveness and sensation in the belly,

scanning deep into the torso, relaxing the whole body, pelvic region and the inside out allowing yourself to feel the sensations and aliveness that's there. It spreads through genital region, the hips, the buttocks. Scanning down, feeling the length of the legs, right into the feet so that you feel the feet from the inside out, softening, relaxing, feeling the play of sensation in the feet. It allow the awareness to sing deep into the earth, sensing the whole field of aliveness of this earth body, feeling it flowing through the feet, through our bodies, animating in a dynamic moment-to-moment way our forms.

Simultaneously, this whole body has a field of sensation, not stopping anything. or opposing anything. So letting this life live through you, including the dance of sound, so that you're listening not just with your ears, but your whole awareness, letting sounds wash through you, listening to and feeling the whole moment,

sensing the sounds, sensations, feelings, right here. And also aware in the background of, this presence, this alert, inner stillness that's aware, that beingness, which is the very essence of what we are. At some point you'll realize that the mind's drifted and quite naturally just left that quality of beingness contracted back into a narrative, a story, a comment, the future, the past. And without any judgment, see if you can simply notice that that's happened and pause. Then just arrive again.

Come back to noticing the aliveness that's right here. This play of sensation, letting sounds wash through. For some, the mind will become more steady and quiet if you notice the sensations of the breath, the in-flow outflow, perhaps at the nose or the chest or the belly, or even feeling the whole body breathing, expanding, settling. So we bring the attention back to what's right here in our senses. And in that way we come back home to the presence,

that awakeness and space and tenderness that's our deepest nature. Notice that you can start fresh in any way. start fresh in any moment. If the mind has gotten lost in virtual reality, gently come back to your senses. Right here, right now. Ask yourself if it's possible to relax just a little bit more right now. Let go a little bit more. And as we explored earlier, to let your awareness descend and immerse deep into the earth, feeling this earth body, this extension of our body, its full aliveness and

creativity flowing through us. You are earth in this particular, vibrant, vital form, sensing the whole play of tingling and vibrating, pressure, flow, light, dark, sensing the play of sound, washing, washing, through in the vast, awake silence that's aware.