Tara Brach - 2014-12-17 - Meditation: Light of Awareness

Episode Date: December 19, 2014

2014-12-17 - Meditation: Light of Awareness

The following meditation is led by Tara Brock, meditation teacher, psychologist, and author. The gateway to presence is through an awakeness in the body. So just to relax and open up the attention through the body, you might begin in the face by softening the eyes. Let a smile spread through the eyes, the corners of the eyes up a bit, let the brow be smooth let the jaw be relaxed slack

feeling the tongue relaxed right down to the root see if you can fill the lower jaw tongue really relaxed slight smile at the lips so the eyes are soft slight smile at the mouth and just feel the sensations in the face

the aliveness there sense the possibility of the throat filling the neck, relaxing and feeling the neck from the inside out. Sense of space and aliveness. See if you can let the shoulders fall away from the neck area, relaxing back and down. Bring the awareness inside the shoulders. See if you can notice from the inside out,

the sense of sensations moving, and the space, the volume, inside the shoulders. Let the hands rest in a very easy, effortless way. Place the awareness inside the hands. You feel them from the inside out. Can you notice tingling or vibrating? You feel the aliveness inside the hands. You might experiment with softening them even a little more. If you notice that the more you relax, the more you perceive the aliveness of sensation, Let the chest be open

and sense the possibility of smiling into the heart area, relaxing the heart area, and then feeling the experience of sensation in the heart area, the felt sense there. Still feeling an openness at the chest softening down into the belly. See if you can let this next breath be received in a softening belly. This breath and now this one and again. letting the awareness fill the whole pelvic region, feeling from the inside out, the aliveness of sensation, scanning down through the legs, relaxing, softening any tension, feel the feet from the inside out, sensing the space, the aliveness there.

And see if you can now feel the whole body simultaneously, sensing a field of sensation, a dance of sensation. See if you can sense this field of sensation extending outward in front of you infinitely far past the furthest stars. See if you can feel this field of sensation opening out behind you infinitely far beyond the most distant stars. Imagine and sense extending to either side out and out this field of sensation out beyond the furthest stars.

Imagine this field extending beneath you beyond the furthest stars and extending upward and out beyond the most distant stars, sensing that this infinite vast space and inner space and aliveness is continuous, all continuous space, and it's filled with the light of awareness. The sense the possibility of relaxing back over and over again into this. this vast sea of light, of wakefulness. At some point, you'll notice that the mind has done what it habitually does, which is contract into a thought form, an idea, a voice in the mind, images.

Not to judge, but rather just notice, oh, okay, we're back in a virtual reality. And then pause and relax back again, sensing the aliveness of the body. tingling, vibrating, sensing the sounds around you, most distant sounds, sensing that vast space of awareness that everything arises out of and dissolves into. Continuous space filled with the light of awareness. It's distracted. Simply reopen the attention, sensing the different experiences of the moment, sound, the aliveness of the body,

laxing and opening to the changing flow. It's different waves of experience in the ocean of light. The way of closing this sitting, you might imagine how the light of awareness is experienced in the domain of the heart. Just sense the heart lit up by the light of awareness, allowing it to be as vast and luminous as it actually is, and letting go into that heart space.

The radiant, empty heart, may we realize the loving and luminous presence that's our true home. May these lives be guided by, shaped by, an expression of the purity of that loving presence. Namaste.