Tara Brach - Guided Meditation: Choosing Living Presence

Episode Date: October 4, 2013

2013-10-02 - Guided Meditation: Choosing Living Presence

So please, if you will, close your eyes and with your eyes closed, adjust your posture so that you find your way into sitting upright. There's a quality of sitting tall and alert. And then notice what you can relax in the posture. Optimally, we want the sitting posture to support the inner qualities of being away and at ease. Awake and at ease. Let's breathe together,

collecting the attention, inhaling deeply, more of a fullness to the in-breath than normal, breathing in. And a slow out breath, slow, slow release, letting go, letting go. And then again, inhaling deeply,

filling the chest and the lungs. You might even hold for a moment. even hold for a moment, feel the fullness, the chest open, the shoulders back, and then a slow out breath. So slow enough so you can feel the sensations of releasing the breath and inhaling again, filling the lungs and then a slow out breath, softening down the length of the body, releasing, letting go, letting go. and then allowing the breath to resume its natural rhythm

and sense the quality of presence with the breath allowing, intimate, awake, and letting this presence include whatever experience you're having in the heart, whatever mood, whatever the state of the heart is right now. So you're connecting with yourself. taking a few moments to come home to what's going on inside you. With the attention at the heart, sensing what your intention is for tonight.

This is the listening in with the quality of real sincerity, touching what matters to you, recognizing what matters, letting what matters inform your evening, sensing yourself here with others, with others who are also feeling into aspiration. And with people all over the world who are trying to live their life aligned with heart. And it's with that wider consciousness that we chant together tonight.

You might bring the palms together to really connect with the innocence and purity of heart. We'll chant the mantra, Om, this sound current of connectedness, feeling our share, shared intention to wake up our hearts and minds. Please inhale deeply. Arriving in presence by scanning through the body with your awareness, taking some moments to soften or relax areas that might be habitually tight. It helps to soften the eyes. We're not always aware of the tensing in the brow area.

Let the brow be smooth, at ease. You might even sense a smile spreading through the eyes. Receptive and open. Relaxing in the jaw area, slight smile at the mouth, letting the face be relaxed. No need to make an expression. Just receptive, sensitive, awake. You might sense a smiling into the heart,

area. Not to paper over, but to just connect with the space that's there that has room for whatever's happening. So you can relax open the heart, letting that space spread out, allowing the shoulders to gently relax back and down, feeling the shoulders from the inside, perhaps sensing a kind of melting from ice to water, water to gas. See if you can begin to feel a natural flow of aliveness inside the shoulders. Similarly, you can bring the whole awareness inside the hands. Let the hands rest in a very easy and effortless way, softening the hands. And then notice if you can receive a flow of aliveness in the hands, perhaps a tingling, and the feeling, a pulsing, a sense of temperature, a vibration.

Again, feeling that openness at the chest, feeling the chest from the inside, the heart from the inside, a flow and aliveness and space. And then loosening down the torso to soften the belly, letting this next breath be received in a softening belly this breath and then this one and again feeling the body from the inside out deep into the torso aliveness space flow of energy feeling the legs from the inside and hanging down right into the feet so you can feel the places of pressure warmth where the feet might contact the floor and feel from the inside, the aliveness inside the feet, and opening the lens of attention

to feel simultaneously this whole field of aliveness. Just receiving as this life lives through you. You might include the sounds around you. This play of sound, letting that live through you. nothing to do, resting as awareness, as that openness that this aliveness plays through. Sensation, sound. For some having the breath in the foreground,

just a gentle relaxing with the inflow and outflow helps in remembering this presence that's here. When you have an anchor like the breath, or perhaps sounds or could be the sensations in your body. And it's easier to notice when you've left and gone into a virtual reality of thoughts. So let your practice be very simple. Know this presence as home

when you notice you've left to just appreciate that waking up and gently come back to the sounds that are here to this play of sensations, these liveliness that's here, to this inflow and outflow of the life breath. Again and again, choosing this living presence that's right here and then relaxing into it, moment by moment. Even if this presence sits here feels difficult,

physical and pleasantness, emotional pain, you can still choose to be here and offer a very gentle attention. Bring the softness and heart of kindness to what's here. You might name the experience, breathe with the experience, offer a phrase of comfort to yourself as you open to what's real, what's here with loving kindness.