Tara Brach - Guided Meditation: Relaxing Back into Presence

Episode Date: November 3, 2013

2013-10-30 - Guided Meditation: Relaxing Back into Presence

And as you turn your attention inward, just with some curiosity, scan and sense what it's like to be sitting here right now, what it feels like in your body to be in the sitting posture. You might notice that you do some subtle adjusting right now to sit in a way that really allows you to feel upright and alert and also balanced at ease. and in the sitting still to scan inwardly and just sense whatever mood or emotion what the inner weather is right now. Just listening to your heart for a bit. It might have been a while since you purposely listened inwardly.

Just simply noticing how life is for you right now, how it feels inside. As you listen, sense what... your intention is for being here tonight. What is your heart's intention? Take your time with that sense. What is it really that matters to you? Touching into the sincerity that brings you here and it's from that place of caring about waking up, about touching peace, opening your heart, presence, that we chant together, a very simple chant, the mantra oom, which is the sound current of connectedness. You might gently bring the palms together and just let the touch of

the palms together connect you with really this heart essence. I will chant three times, beginning by inhaling deeply. In presence, you might scan through the body a bit to soften and open wherever there's habitual holdings. You might sense the eyes and sense the kind of softening. Let the brow be smooth. We tend to tighten in the brow area. It's part of thinking. So softening that area, relaxing the jaw.

You might let a slight smile appear at the mouth. Just kind of sends a message inwardly to the nervous system to relax, to trust, to rest. So the eyes are soft, jaw relaxed, slight smile. And then notice if it's possible at the shoulders to just let them relax back and down a bit. Feel the interior life within the shoulders. whatever aliveness is there.

Let the attention be soft, inside out. Just feeling whatever might want to relax, dissolve, loosen. Sensing your awareness can fill and inhabit the arms right down into the hands. So you're feeling from the inside out and let the hands be really at ease. soft so that as you feel the space inside the hands you can receive the life that's there. Very close in intimate attention. Let there be an openness at the chest. You might feel the breath filling,

the chest a bit and settling, filling and settling. And just open to the life inside the chest area, the heart, softening, relaxing. Just feeling what's there. In a similar way, you can scan down into the belly. Just soften a little, loosen, let your awareness fill the belly, and then deep into the torso, hips, buttocks, and genitals. Letting the breath go deep inside you.

I'm just feeling the aliveness that fills you. a receptive, open presence, feeling the body from the inside out. Awareness, fill the legs, inhabit the legs, right down into the feet. See if you can feel the feet from the inside out, places of pressure, warm, tingling, vibrating, and including the hands.

And then sensing the possibility of including the whole body all at once, sensing a field of sensation, sensing this whole play of tingling and vibrating, warmth and cool, firmness and flow. If you can just let everything happen, including in this dance of aliveness, the sounds that appear, disappear. So you're listening to and feeling the whole moment. Soft attentiveness, noticing the changing sound. sensations, moment to moment.

Can you also notice in the background the alert inner stillness, the presence it's aware of all that's happening. At some point you'll notice that the minds drifted into a thought, a comment, memory, planning. It's quite natural. and the opportunity is just to notice that without any judgment and choose to pause so you can re-relax open

to what's right here move from virtual reality and relax back into this living vivid flow sounds back into sensation just soften a little in the body again and perhaps the shoulders, the hands, the heart area. Just feel yourself right here. It can be helpful to have a home base in the senses.

It helps you to know when you've left and to deepen the stability of presence. And for many that's the breath, perhaps the inflow, outflow at the nose, rising, falling at the chest, expanding, settling at the abdomen. abdomen or you might choose to feel the whole body breathing. For others a home base is the sensations of sitting here or perhaps sounds. Just know that you're here. You might mentally

whisper here, here. You feel that radical awakeness and presence. And when you've noticed the mind drift, it's an opportunity to relax back again. Come back home to this present. It's right here. And drifts and you notice it. It's an opportunity to deepen your capacity for relaxing back. You can do it in a meditation, you'll do it more in daily life. Just to reopen the attention, letting these sounds wash through you,

sensing if there's somewhere in the body that naturally wants to let go a little more right now. that there's something difficult going on, some physical unpleasantness, a strong emotion. Just letting your attention be with that. Just noticing and saying yes to the life that's here. Gentle attention. Just notice what the sensations are like. It helps to breathe with what's going on to keep the attention there in an easy, supported way.

You can do that. when the sensations or emotion are no longer calling your attention. Back to your home base or to whatever is predominant in the moment. Sounds, feeling, sensations, this flow of experience. A relaxed, easy attention.