Tara Brach - Guided Meditation: Breath and Awareness

Episode Date: September 14, 2013

2013-09-11 - Guided Meditation: Breath and Awareness

Let your attention come gently to the breath and we'll just take a few moments together to breathe in a way that allows us to collect our attention. So breathing in, a full deep in breath, a little bit more full than you might normally breathe in. And then a slow out breath, a consciously slow letting go of the breath. So you feel the sensations of letting go. And again, inhale deeply, filling the way. the chest, filling the lungs, and then a slow out breath, letting go, letting go, letting go, and again, inhaling deeply, and then releasing the breath slowly, consciously,

and then noticing as your breath resumes in its natural rhythm that you can rest with the breath. Relax as the breath comes in, opening to receive. And relax with the out breath, releasing, dissolving outward, letting go. Also notice the quality of presence that's here just from a few moments of intentionally gathering. Notice that your senses can be awake so that sounds are included. that you can open to the whole sensations of the body all at once, the whole field that's here, and that you can bring your attention to the heart area

and just notice whatever mood, whatever emotions are currently here, not adding any judgment, just noticing. The beginning of intimacy with the life that's here is simply to notice without judgment how it is. As you're attending to the heart, you might listen inwardly to sense your intention for tonight. The inquiry is what really matters to me? What is that I really care about? And we bring these caring, awakening hearts together with a simple chanting of oam. You might bring your palms together as a way of further collecting and resting

at the heart. We'll chant three times. You might inhale deeply to begin, gently letting your awareness scan through the body and just notice if there's any areas of obvious tension or tightness and bring a soft awareness to wherever there's a tangle wherever there's tightness in the body for many of us the shoulders carry a lot of our stress and you might sense as you bring a soft attention there that there can be a natural dissolving or softening or loosening. You might bring your awareness inside the hands and just soften a little.

And notice the aliveness there. Tension is our way of resisting the moment and it covers over aliveness. So see what happens when you soften. Can you feel the tingling and vibrating inside the hands? Perhaps softening a little more. Just noticing if there's pulsing or warmth. warmth. Whatever vibratory experience, the movement and aliveness of sensation, just feel it.

Often there's tightness in the chest. We're not even aware of it. So you might sense a softening, a smiling into the heart area. So you can imagine and feel some openness, just allowing whatever tension's there to release some. What happens when you smile into the heart? When you imagine the curve and the mood of a smile there, the idea is not to cover over but to make room for the life that's here. Sense the possibility of softening in the belly. You can even imagine that curve of a smile there, deepening your attention and sensing the aliveness inside the torso, feeling inside the legs, noticing if there's any tightness or contraction

and the thighs and the calves. It's softening, loosening, feeling this feet from the inside out. Again, with a relaxed attention, just receiving the sensations there, the tingling and vibrating in aliveness in the feet, opening the attention and sensing if you can feel simultaneously the aliveness throughout the body,

this whole living, dancing field of the body, sensation. Let everything happen. Noticing in the midst of this field of sensation, the sensations of your breath, not in any way controlling the breath, but just notice what the feeling of the breath is like. It's as if you're listening to the breath, the body breathes itself. You might find it easiest to receive the sensations as an in-flow, outflow at the nostrils. Or maybe a rising falling of the chest, inflating and then settling at the belly. Or you might explore what it feels like to have the whole body breathing, the whole body expanding or inflating and settling, relaxing, resting with the breath as a raft might rest

with the swells in the ocean so that you're relaxing with them. Relaxing. relaxing with the inflow, relaxing with the outflow, and also noticing, what's this like? A soft, intimate attention. You might even notice the beginnings and the endings of each breath. You might notice the pauses between the breath. No need to get tense or tight if you find that there's some tension. Just re-relax.

Relax with what's happening. happening, interest and ease. Just this moment, the inflow, the outflow, many of us will soon find the minds drifted off quite naturally fixing on ideas, thoughts of the future, the past, some commentary. Not a problem, not to judge in any way, rather when you notice, just appreciate, oh, this is a moment of waking up. noticing that trance of thinking and relax open again. Notice that you're here with these sounds that are actually happening right here. Notice that you're here and you can relax and discover whether there's an inflow

coming in right now of the breath or whether the breath is going out. Just taking your time to gently rest again in the simple movement of the breath. breath be in the foreground and if you find that some other experience is calling your attention, some other sensations in the body, mood, emotion, sound, and to gently let the breath recede as your focus and let whatever is calling your attention, strong sensations that are pleasant or unpleasant, a particular sound or a mood like fear or sad. sadness or excitement, whatever it is, let that be in the foreground. You might sense that you can breathe with that, bring an interest and a gentle attention

to whatever is prominent. Know that you're here, moment to moment with whatever most strongly calls your attention. And if nothing is predominant, then again to rest, to relax with the breath, to bring an easy, close-in, interested attention to the inflow and outflow, moment to moment. In these last minutes, not trying to make anything happen. Let go of directing the attention and simply rest as awareness, open, awake, recognizing the arising the arising and passing of experience. fully here.