Tara Brach - Guided Meditation: Letting Life Be As It Is

Episode Date: May 9, 2024

When we learn to listen to our inner life without interference, we open to a tender and full experience of presence. This meditation guides us in awakening an intimate quality of listening, as we attend to sensations, moods, sounds and the entire dance of life.

The following meditation is led by Tara Brock. To access more of my meditations or join my email list, please visit tarabrock.com. I want to close your eyes and take these first moments feeling your sitting posture from the inside out and then making any subtle adjustments that allow you to be sitting in a way that's upright so that it brings on the quality of being alert.

You can feel your posture supports being alert. You might also perhaps lean a little bit to the left or to the right, forward, backward, and then sense really what is center. So there's a feeling of balanced, supported. Notice if it's possible to sit tall, but also begin to relax the limbs, relax whatever parts of you aren't having to tense in any way to keep you upright. Then allow your attention to rest in the most simple way on the inflow and outflow of the breath.

And notice that your senses can be awake, so you can feel the breath in the foreground and still be aware of sounds around you and still be aware of other sensations, throughout the body, and to notice just by simply bringing your attention to the breath, to the body, there's more presence, it's more of a sense of being right here, letting the attention come to the heart and asking your own heart what it is that brings you here tonight, what is your deepest intention? What's the intention that allows you to feel most sincere, most truthful with yourself,

most genuine, sensing yourself in community with many others who are in some way getting in touch with that longing to be present, to open our hearts, to live more fully, to realize really the wholeness of who we are. And in that spirit of community, of a shared heart space, we do some chanting together. You might bring the palms touching lightly at the heart area just to really connect with the heart space as we chant the mantra Ome, which is a sound current of connectedness and we'll chin it three times. So we begin by taking a deep in-breath. Whenever we're tensing in the body, we're in some ways.

tensing against presence, tightening against what is. So there's a real healing that comes in moving through the body with our awareness and softening and just noticing the life that's right in our body from the inside out. It can be helpful to soften the eyes and let the brow be smooth, the image of a smile can deepen that sense of ease of letting go of tension, to sensing a smile spreading through the eyes and just feel the light or space or aliveness in the brow area, relaxing the jaws, slight smile at the mouth. You might feel the tongue from the inside out, feel the inside of the mouse smiling. as you start noticing the sensations and aliveness as you relax any part of the body.

You might sense a smile spreading through the chest so that you're not covering over anything but sensing the openness, a sensitivity to the sensations in the heart area. It's letting life be as it is. Feeling the shoulders from the inside out. And just softening, softening, so that you can feel whatever sensations are there. As you relax, you begin to feel more,

letting the hands rest in a very easy, effortless way, softening the hands, and then feeling them from the inside out, seeing if you can notice the tingling, tingling and vibrating, perhaps the feelings of warmth, the feelings of pressure where your hands touch your legs or each other. So just relaxing and letting the life play itself just as it is. This is an intimate attention, sensing an openness at the chest, and then softening and

loosening the belly. You might sense that this next breath could be received in a softening belly. this breath and then this one and then sensing the space and aliveness in the region of the belly and just letting life play itself letting life be as it is relaxing the genitals anal sphincter relaxing through the buttocks I'm just feeling again the life in the lower torso in the pelvic area receiving the play of life allowing it, feeling the legs from the inside out, thighs, the calves, feeling the feet from the inside out.

It's letting them relax be at ease. So as you soften, you can feel the feet, the sensations, the tingling, the vibrating, the sense of pressure where there's contact with the floor. And then notice what happens when you widen the lens and just simultaneously feeling this whole body as a field of sensation, completely relaxed, allowing awareness, letting this life live through you, letting everything be just as it is, widening out the attention to include sounds. There's nothing to do. sounds are known spontaneously by awareness, listening in a global way, not just with your ears

but with your whole awareness, listening to and feeling the whole moment. You might have noticed that the mind quite naturally and regularly leaves this living reality. goes off into that trance of thinking, remembering past, future. Whenever you notice that the mind's drifted, let that be an opportunity to re-relax, relax open out of the thought, perhaps re-relax the body, and reopen to this living presence that's right here. Relaxing with the play of sensations, with the inner weather systems, the moods, that arise with this whole symphony of sound, rest as the awareness, the vastness that includes and recognizes this changing dance. And it helps to tether your mind to the present a bit, to

stabilize your attention by resting with the breath, then that can be a very skillful practice. Just to let the breath be in the foreground, still aware in the world. the background of this changing play of sound and sensation. You might get curious about where the attention is. Just notice if you're really here or is there some film of thoughts of conceptualizing between you and this vividness and mystery. It's right here. Gently invite yourself back. The pathway is to re-relax. Relax, open the attention so rather than listening to the thoughts in your mind, you're listening

to the actual sounds that are right here, relaxing in the body, perhaps softening the shoulders, softening the hands, relaxing the heart. So you're listening to and feeling the whole life of the moment, moment to moment right here. If you find the life of the moment is difficult or painful in some way, you might include in your attention a gentleness, a kindness. You'll find that even the slightest gesture of kindness, just the intention to regard with kindness what's happening, to befriend, helps to make room, helps you to allow this life to be just as it is. You can start fresh in any moment, just noticing

what's going on. Without any judgment, inviting yourself back, relaxing your way back, bringing a very gentle attention to the experience of this moment.