Tara Brach - 2015-02-18 - Meditation: Body Scan - Living Presence

Episode Date: February 21, 2015

2015-02-18 - Meditation: Body Scan - Living Presence

The following meditation is led by Tara Brock, meditation teacher, psychologist, and author. Sitting in stillness and awakening mindfulness as you feel the body from the inside out, the aliveness that's right here. It takes some moments to scan through the body in a way that can bring both presence and ease. You might start by sensing the eyes and letting you might start by sensing the eyes and letting the eyes be soft and receptive, the brow be smooth, you might sense that the corners of the eyes are lifted up a bit in a smile, feeling the sensations of aliveness and ease in that region of the face, a slight smile at the mouth, letting the inside of the mouth smile. So the jaw's unhinged, relaxing down to the root of the tongue, and feeling the whole constellation of

sensations through the mouth area, feeling the back of the head, the skull and scalp. And then scanning down into the neck, sense that the throat can fill the whole neck area, and just feeling the life that's there, letting the shoulders gently fall away from the neck, relaxing back and down some, and feeling the shoulders from the inside out. You might sense a kind of melting from ice to water. Melting. Ice to water. Water to gas.

Feeling the shoulders from the inside out and sensing the movement of sensation. The aliveness that's there. Feeling down the length of the arm, feeling the volume of the arm, right into the hands. Letting the hands rest in an easy and effortless way. You might soften the hands a little on purpose and then feel from the inside out the aliveness that's there. Do you notice it tingling or vibrating? You can experiment and soften even a little bit more. Fingers, the hands, intimate presence, feeling the life that's there.

just as a cup is filled with water, this whole body can be filled with this intimate presence, this awareness. Let the chest be open. And again, feeling from the inside out, the heart area, with a very gentle, close-in attention, sensing areas of tightness or tension, of flow, of openness of space, continuing to scan down the torso, feel. feeling the belly, softening the belly. And see if you can let this next breath be received in a softening belly. This breath, now this one, and again, letting the awareness fill the area of the belly,

sometimes described as the dantien, soft, open attention. Just feeling the life that's here, deep in the torso. And continuing this scan downward feeling into the whole, pelvic region, the hips, the buttocks, the genitals. Again, feeling from the inside out, the whole dance of sensation, letting the attention move down through the legs, feeling the volume and the length of the legs, right into the feet. So the feet are filled with awareness. Now widening the lens so you can feel simultaneously, this whole body as a field of energy, a field of sensation. Just let everything happen, not opposing any experience.

You might discover the inflow and outflow of the breath as sensations within this whole play of aliveness. And gently rest the attention and the movement of the breath. Completely relaxing as the breath comes in. the out breath, completely letting go, releasing, sensing in the foreground this life breath and the background, this whole field of sensation, resting in living presence, moment after moment. You might notice that the mind has drifted quite natural that this mind leaves presence, as often thoughts. And if that's the case, consider this a moment of waking up,

just to appreciate coming back again, noticing thoughts as thoughts, and reconnecting with this living presence right here. You might gently re-relax in the body a bit. Just loosening and softening the shoulders, softening the hands, feeling that soft belly. and gently arriving with the next in-breath or out-breath, relaxing and resting in the movement of the breath, knowing that you're here, right here.

So we close in a simple way by bringing the attention to the heart to feel that living presence at the heart, the felt sense at the heart, and to offer to your own being whatever wish, right this moment most resonates for you. And then to feel that heart space that includes loved ones, those that you know but not well, and really all beings, all beings everywhere. Just close with your prayer, your blessings to life everywhere.

Namaste.