Tara Brach - Guided Meditation: Beingness and Aliveness

Episode Date: July 5, 2013

2013-07-04 - Guided Meditation: Beingness and Aliveness

So please come into stillness and close your eyes. And we'll begin together in the simplest, quite powerful way of breathing together. So taking in a nice full deep breath more than you might normally breathe in, filling the lungs, and then a very slow out breath. So slow that you can feel the sensations of releasing the breath. and then inhale again a nice deep, full in-breath. You might hold for a moment, feel the fullness in the chest, and then a very slow, conscious out breath,

letting go, letting go, letting go, letting go. And again, inhaling deeply, filling the lungs, and a slow out breath, feel the sensations of releasing, relaxing, relaxing outward, letting go, letting go, so that as the breath resumes its natural rhythm, you can continue to bring a very relaxed attentiveness there, sense the possibility with the in-breath of opening to receive, like a balloon might expand everywhere in your body, opening to receive.

and the possibility with the out breath of this, that gentle settling, relaxing outward, letting go. Let your senses be awake so you can be aware of the sounds around you. Also listening inward, listening and feeling the sensations in the body, listening to your heart, sensing the state of your heart right now. Whatever mood is here, without any judgment, just noticing it. and continuing to listen and sense into your intention for tonight. So you're listening inward and sensing what matters to you,

what really brings you here? What is it your heart longs for? Contacting the sincerity of your heart. And it's from that place of caring, of aspiration, of sincerity, that we bring our voices together collectively in a chant of oom. This is that sound current of connectedness. If you'd like to bring the palms together gently, just sensing that quality of devotion or dedication,

please do. We'll chant three times. So please inhale deeply. Oh, the awareness scan gently through the body now to awaken a mindful presence from the inside out, beginning with the area of the eyes and the brow. Just letting the brow be smooth, relaxed. It can help to soften the eyes to sense that you're smiling into the eyes. So there's a kind of curve and receptivity of a smile that spreads through the eyes.

The brow is smooth. You might sense the jaw relaxed, slight smile at the mouth, the inside of the mouth smiling, letting the root of the tongue be relaxed, just feeling the sensations and aliveness spread through the mouth, muscles of the face at ease. You begin to feel in a subtle way the tingling and vibrating there through the face. In the same way, smiling at the mouth, you might smile into the heart area, even visualize and sense a curve of a smile spreading through the heart and chest. It's not to cover over but to help connect with a space that naturally can hold what's here.

Sort of sense an openness to the chest area and let the shoulders relax back and down a bit. Awareness inside the shoulders, sensing the space and the aliveness there. You might even sense a dissolving or melting ice to water, loosening more water to gas. You can feel the shoulders and the arms also from the inside, the movement, the aliveness, energy flowing, bringing the awareness inside the hands. and explore letting the hands rest in an entirely effortless, easy way. It can soften the hands and feeling them from the inside out just to notice. Is there tingling, vibrating aliveness that's easy to detect?

Softening more, bringing a very receptive attention to the hands. Continuing to sense and openness through the chest. and then gently lowering the attention down into the belly, softening the belly. You might even sense you can smile into the belly, letting the curve of a smile spread, loosening, softening, letting this next breath be received in a softening belly,

this one and again. So there's a gentle attention deep in the torso, So movement of energy, the aliveness there, scanning down through the hips and the legs, receptive, close in attention, bringing the awareness right down into the feet, filling the feet with awareness, just like the hands you can soften, very, very receptive to the tingling, the vibrating. You might open the attention and sense the earth beneath you, the whole earth as a vibrating, tingling, energetically alive organism that you're a part of. This whole living field of the earth is including this body, animating this body. Just feeling this body. It's feeling this body.

is a field of sensation, including an awareness of sounds that appear, disappear, those that are close in, the more distant sounds, there's nothing to do. Sounds just appear and disappear on their own, sensing the vastness of awareness that includes even the most distant sounds you can perceive. through the same receptivity of listening that you can listen to and feel the aliveness of the body. Receptive, open, there in the foreground of this changing dance of sound, sensation, feelings, and in the background that alert inner stillness, our beingness, pure, awareness that's our most original and true home. Just be that presence, spontaneously recognizing

the changing dance that arises and disappeared in awareness. Sooner or later you'll notice that the mind has pulled away from presence and sometimes. some way drifted into thoughts about the past or the future. So just to appreciate when you notice that, no judging necessary. In fact, judging gets in the way. Just notice when you've gone into a virtual reality and left that quality of beingness, of open presence. And gently invite yourself back right here.

You might check with your senses. notice the sounds, listening to the sounds that are actually occurring moment to moment. Recheck with your body and sense the aliveness of sensation. There might be in the heart, some feelings, mood, some inner weather to notice. And as a way to help stabilize presence, you might let the inflow and outflow of the breath be a kind of home base when you sense you've left the aliveness and mystery of what's right here, gently pause and invite yourself back, listening again, not just with your ears but with your whole awareness,

relaxing a little in the body, perhaps the shoulders, loosening, softening the hands, softening the belly, opening again when at the receptivity to this aliveness of the body, body, relaxing your heart so that in the foreground, again, you're aware of this changing play of sound, sensation, feelings. And in the background, you can sense your own presence, that which is aware, this wakeful openness, to sense that beingness, your own beingness, and rest in it. is a homecoming.