Tara Brach - Guided Meditation: Connecting with Aliveness and Openness

Episode Date: April 5, 2014

2014-04-02 - Guided Meditation: Connecting with Aliveness and Openness

As you close your eyes, you might just sense the possibility of making yourself at home right in this moment. Kind of relaxing back, perhaps sensing the movement of your breath, with the simple intention of just noticing it and relaxing with your breath. Letting your senses be awake so you're aware of the sounds around you, a receptive, listening kind of attention. With that same kind of listening, listen inwardly just to sense the life inside you, aware of the sensations of sitting here right now, how your body feels, bringing a gentle listening attention to the heart. You might notice what is the state of your heart right now.

It may have been a while since you really listened inwardly. It's a kind of intimacy with our heart. Just sense what's it like? Is there a numbness? Is there anxiety and tightness? Is there tenderness or openness? Not to add any judgment, but just to notice the felt sense of the heart area.

That's part of homecoming. And as you listen to and feel the heart, you might sense what your intention is tonight for being here. Sense from the most sincere place in you, what matters to you. We'll join our voices together with a simple chant,

letting that chant come from this place of caring and sincerity. The mantra is oom, which is the sound current of connectedness, being one with. If you'd like to bring the palms together to center more fully, the tension in the heart area,

receptivity and care. We'll chant three times. So please inhale deeply. We'll take some moments to just scan through the body, waking up, bringing a mindful presence to the life that's right here. You might begin though by imagining great blue sky, great space around you. And just sense the curve of a smile spreading through that space. It's to connect with the reality of openness, receptivity. You might sense that same curve of a smile spreading through the eyes, letting the corners of the eyes be lifted a bit,

softening the eyes, letting the brow be smooth, and smiling into the eyes, letting the lips be in a slight smile, the inside of the mouth smiling. I'm just feeling through the face a sense of flow and aliveness and openness, sensing the mind filled with a smile, wide open. Letting that smile spread through the chest and the heart area.

Not to cover over anything, but rather to help connect with a space that really has room, for what's here, the curve of a smile spreading through the chest and just sense the openness extending outward and outward so that the shoulders are free to relax back and down just a bit. You feel the breath filling the chest as you're breathing in just sensing the sensations and the aliveness filling the whole chest area and with the out breath just sensing the space inside and around you that this sensations float in, breathing in, opening to receive, contacting, sensations, aliveness, and breathing out. Kind of a stillness and alertness, sense of space,

letting this breath help you on the inflow to contact the aliveness that fills you and on the outflow. A sense of stillness and alertness and space. You might feel the shift. shoulders from the inside out, let the breath be received in the shoulders, feeling the aliveness in the shoulders, on the in-breath, on the out-breath, the space, interior space, the space that everything floats in, space and aliveness, filling the shoulders, feeling the arms, again, this flow, aliveness of energy, the space that, the space that it fills them right into the hands. See if you can feel the hands from the inside out.

You might soften them a bit so that they're resting in a very easy, effortless way. Sense if you can receive the tingling and vibrating, sensing the aliveness in the hands, and also the sense of space, openness. Again, the breath can guide you, breathing in, feeling the hands filled with awareness, Aliveness, vibration and breathing out and just sensing the space inside and around the hands.

Letting everything float. Again, feeling great openness at the chest and scanning down, softening the belly. Letting this next breath be received in a softening belly. This breath and then this one and again. So as the breath is received in the belly, you can feel the aliveness sensation there. And as you breathe out, just letting it all float, sensing space, stillness, letting the breath you receive deep in the torso, opening up to the sensations that fill, hips, buttocks, genitals, the whole pelvic area. You're breathing in and letting the attention and awareness and aliveness be felt there and breathing out and breathing out and again sensing the space that's here, within and around us, aware of the

sensations and aliveness through the legs, filling the legs from the inside out. This is a cup can be filled with water, this whole body can be filled with awareness right into the feet, placing the whole awareness inside the feet. See if you can sense the tingling and vibrating, perhaps pulsing. warmth, coolness, pressure, this whole dance of sensation and the space, its interior, the space around it, so that if you widen the lens, you can experience this whole body as a dance of sensation, space that's interior, space surrounding, continuous space, changing flow of aliveness, playing out in continuous space.

listening to the sounds that appear and disappear. A global kind of listening, taking everything in, letting sound wash through you. You're listening to and feeling the whole moment, perhaps sensing in the foreground the changing sounds and sensations. And in the background, this alert, inner stillness, this awake space, which is the formless dimension of our being. And when you notice the attentions drifted from this living presence into thought form

with a quality of friendliness, interest, no judgment. Just simply notice that and pause and gently re-arrive right here, listening to and feeling the changing moment-to-moment experience. And if it's a support to you to let the breath help you stay connected, feeling with the inflow, exactly what's here, these sensations or sounds, and perhaps with the outflow sensing the space within and around, just letting go, receiving the truth of the moment

and letting go. The pathway back is a relaxing. Just to relax, open the attention from thoughts to the aliveness that's here, listening to sounds, perhaps re-relaxing, letting go of it in the shoulders, softening the hands, and feeling the breath, opening to receive the inflow, and with the outflow, that alertness and stillness, sensing the sense, the space of awareness. We close in a simple way by bringing mindful attention to the heart.

And just offering whatever blessing, whatever wish most resonates in this moment to your own heart, and widening your attention to sense the world, close ones, those you know, in the larger world around you, offering your prayer, your blessing to our world.