Tara Brach - Guided Meditation: Refuge in Living Presence

Episode Date: January 11, 2014

2014-01-08 - Guided Meditation: Refuge in Living Presence

So closing your eyes, coming into stillness, and just sensing your sitting posture from the inside out, making the subtle adjustments that allow you to sit in a tall kind of way so that your body supports being alert, upright, so with the dignity of a Buddha, and also relaxed, Just see if you can take a moment to just loosen and soften some. Collecting the attention, we'll breathe together in a very conscious way. Let's take a full extended in breath, breathing in,

and a slow out breath, letting go, letting go very consciously, breathing out. And then again, a full in-breath, filling the chest, filling the lungs, and then a slow out breath so that you can feel the sensations of releasing the breath. And again, inhaling deeply, fully, slow out breath, allowing in a gentle way for the breath to resume in its natural rhythm. And just notice the increase in presence right now. That you're a bit more here and appreciating that.

simply relaxing as the breath comes in, like a balloon, inflating to receive, yielding, open, and settling and releasing with the out breath, bringing a gentle listening attention to your heart. And taking some moments at the beginning of this meditation, at the beginning of this new year, to sense what your intention is for being here tonight. And as you listen, notice what comes up, see you're sensing the deepest, most sincere aspiration that you can detect. What is it that really matters to you? And it's from this presence of heart, of caring, that we bring our voices together, chanting

the simple mantra, Om, which is a universal sound current of connection, coming into oneness. I'd like to bring the palms together to help center the attention in a gentle way to sense that heart energy, please do. And we'll chant three times, beginning with a deep in-breath,

making some moments to scan through the body with our awareness, relaxing and waking up from the inside out. It can help to bring a real quality of friendliness and gentleness. And I like to often begin with the image of a smile. As if you could sense the curve of a smile spreading through the sky. So you sense that openness, that receptivity, that upliftment. And then letting the sky and the mind murkyy. verge. So you just sense that smile spreading through the whole mind, filling the mind,

feeling an openness that you can actually feel behind the eyes, spreading through the eyes. You might sense the corners of the eyes soft, turned upward a bit, the brow smooth, a very slight smile at the mouth, and the inside of the mouth smiling, inviting all the muscles in the face to be at ease. Ticknadhan calls this smile yoga, sends a message to the whole nervous system, to be at ease, to relax the fight and flight and just rest.

Smiling in the eyes, the mouth. You might sense that curve of a smile spreading through the heart area, and with it, sensing the space for whatever is there just to be there, to float in a receptive process. presence, sensing an openness in the chest that extends upward and outward so that the shoulders are free to relax back and down a bit, letting the awareness fill the shoulders so you can feel them from the inside out. See if you can notice perhaps a melting ice to water, a movement from the inside, ice to water and water to gas, letting there be a kind of a kind of

easing, softening, wherever there's tension, dealing the region of the arms. Again, letting the awareness from the inside out so you feel it inhabiting the arms. Notice if the hands can rest in a very easy way, an effortless way. And what happens when you place the awareness inside the hands? And just soften the hands a little, what's that like? Can you begin to feel the tingling? and the vibrating and the aliveness of energy that's there,

try softening a little more in the hands, sensing in the subtle way, the energy that's dancing there. Again, feeling that openness in the chest, feeling the heart area from the inside out. Again, seeing if you can sense the play of sensations, pulsing, tingling, tension, cool heat, letting the attention scan downwards, you can feel the belly and softening, softening the whole stomach area, whole abdominal area.

And see if you can let this next breath be received in a softening belly. This breath, and then this one, and again. You might sense the curve of a smile in the belly, the don't-tien. It's an energy vortex, and when you sense that smile, there's a softening and opening that's possible. So you can feel the space and aliveness that's there, letting the awareness fill the whole pelvic region down to the pelvic floor, just opening to the dance of aliveness.

It's a play of sensation, feeling the awareness inhabiting the legs, right down into the feet. So you might feel where the feet are contacting the floor, places of pressure, of warmth. and also feel from the inside out, tingling and vibrating, exploring, widening the lens of attention so you can feel this whole body simultaneously. Feel this whole dance of sensation, not stopping anything or opposing anything.

Just letting everything happen to you. Letting this life flow through you. You might include the play of sound so that you're living, listening not just with your ears, but with your whole awareness, just letting the sounds wash through, listening to and feeling the whole moment, this changing river of experience, sensing in the background, this alert, inner stillness, this presence that's aware, resting in the flow of experience. It helps you to stabilize presence, to feel more anchored in the moment. You might let the movement of the breath be in the foreground, or for some to have primarily the

attention on sound. Others might find it easier to feel the sensations in the body or just certain places in the body as a kind of home base. Just know that you're here. You might mentally whisper the word here and sense this living presence that's your refuge, your true home. One of the key moments in practices when you notice that the mind's been drifting, often thought. And it's a critical moment because that's when you have the opportunity to start really learning the pathway back to refuge and presence. So far from judging it, it's a moment to just appreciate. When you wake up from a thought, just notice the difference between any thought

and starting to come back into this heerness, just noticing the sounds that are actually arising and passing right now. You might let the awareness scan through the body and feel the sensations that are actually here, here, this living, vibrating body. You can re-relax as much as you'd like. Taking refuge in presence is a relaxing back from a place of tension to a place of ease-filled presence. Let go in the shoulders again, perhaps soften the hands. You might feel that slight smile, relax the heart, resting in this living presence. It's helpful to feel gently that movement of the breath,

tending to the sounds, sensations. Whatever helps you to have some continuity in being right here. The mind is in that trance of thinking. There's some contraction, tightening in the mind and the body, just to explore gently. waking up from thinking as a way of relaxing back, reopening into this heerness, this presence, listening to the sounds,

softening any areas of the body that might be obviously tense, contracted. And if it's helpful to gently relax with the breath, re-arriving.