Tara Brach - Guided Meditation: Continuous Space, Filled with Awareness

Episode Date: November 8, 2013

2013-11-06-Guided Meditation: Continuous Space, Filled with Awareness

If you're new to this, begin by closing your eyes and feeling your sitting posture. And with your eyes closed, see if you can make the adjustments to sitting so that you feel yourself sitting upright and balanced. And what that means is you might experiment by leaning to the left, leaning to the right, perhaps forward, backwards. And then sense what really feels. stable, centered, gravitationally aligned, sitting tall and then just sense you can relax your body around that tallness, allowing the breath to deepen.

And so that you extend the in-breath now, take a long, full in-breath and then breathing out slowly, slow out breath so that you can feel the sensations of letting go. And again, a very deep, full in breath and a slow out breath. Letting go. Letting go. And again, inhaling deeply, filling the lungs. And exhaling slowly. Letting go.

Letting go. Let the breath resume in its natural rhythm. But feel that sense of collectiveness when you begin to deepen the attention. of the quality of your own presence right here. Feel with that presence an invitation to sense what your intention is. What your intention is for being here tonight.

Continue to pay attention as you ask yourself what really matters to me. So you're listening to your heart just to feel your own sincerity about what calls you. And as you sense that that heart longing. You might bring the palms together and we'll chant together from that shared sense of caring.

Just a simple mantra ome, three times, beginning with a full in-breath, deepening the relaxation and presence in the body by gently scanning through. You might begin by simply softening the eyes, letting the brow be smooth as if you could let a smile spread through the eyes with the corners of the eyes up a bit

that same sense of a smile a very slight smile at the mouth so the inside of the mouth is smiling jaws relax just allow yourself to feel the small muscles of the face alive yet at ease feeling the awareness fill the shoulders. So you feel the shoulders from the inside out,

sensing the space and aliveness inside the shoulders, sense if there's a natural relaxing, loosening, softening there, feeling the volume of the arms, the awareness inside the arms, the flow of energy there, and right down into the wrists and the hands. See if you can let the hands rest in a very effortless way, a very easy way, perhaps softening the hands, very light,

and then feel them from the inside out. Can you sense the tingling or vibrating in the hands? You might soften even a little more, see if you can sense a pulsing movement of energy inside the hands. You might even sense as you breathe. breathe in that there's an expanding right in the muscles, the joints of the hands. And when you breathe out, a settling, a stillness, feeling the breath in that gentle way through the chest and heart area, feeling from the inside out, energy, movement, let the chest be wide open, filled with awareness. Perhaps you can still feel with the in-breath a slight expanding.

expanding the hands, the chest, and with the out breath, a settling, a stillness, loosening down the torso, letting the belly be soft, letting this next breath be received in a softening belly, this breath, and again and again, continuing to sense with the in-breath and expanding hands, chest, shoulders, belly, And with the out breath, a settling, a stillness, opening, settling. Letting the awareness fill the whole torso, belly, down into the hips, buttocks, and genitals. You're receiving the breath deep, deep into the body, opening to receive with the in-breath, settling, releasing, stillness with the out-breath.

letting the awareness fill the legs, aware of the energy and the space through the legs, right down into the feet, sensing the whole field of sensation, tingling, vibrating that fill the feet, and widening the lens so that you can simultaneously feel the entire body. This energy body is a field of sensation, sensing with the breath that comes in,

that opening and expanding, loosening, and with the out breath, that stillness, settling. Loosing loosely, sensing the space that fills you. You might imagine and sense that space extending in front of you as far as you can imagine past the most distant stars, space, and the space that extends behind you, infinitely out. out, past the distant stars, the most distant stars you can imagine. Space that extends to the left, out and out, and to the right, out and out. Open space. The space that extends beneath you past the most distant stars and the space that extends above

you, out and out, past the most distant stars. definitely out, imagining and sensing that vastness of space that equally vast is the space inside you, inward and inward. It's the space that everything arises from. And sensing this is continuous space, the inside and outside, sensing how this life arises and dissolves in continuous space. You might still feel with that inhale that expanding outward, loosening, and opening.

And with the exhale, just resting in that continuous space, sensing how that continuous space expresses in the heart region as a pure kind of tenderness. Space is filled with the light of awareness. When you sense yourself drifting into thoughts, you might just pause and relax back to this changing flow of sound and sensation and to the space within,

and around that's effused with awareness. If it's helpful, letting the breath reconnect you to the aliveness and the space that's here, inhaling, opening to receive, experience the fullness of what's right here, and exhaling and resting in the space that's within and around everything. This awake space, continuous space. fresh in any moment, in a meditation in life, just pausing this sacred pause and noticing what's happening. And if the mind's been often a virtual reality, then just to gently invite yourself

right here, listening to the sounds that are here, letting them wash through, relaxing open to the sensations in the body. can re-relax as many times as you want. Softening the shoulders, the hands, the belly. Relax your heart. And again, just with the in-breath opening, receiving the life that's right here, with the out-breath,

letting go into that space that's intrinsic to everything, that holds everything, aliveness and space.