Tara Brach - Guided Meditation: Relaxing into Presence

Episode Date: March 29, 2014

2014-03-26 - Guided Meditation: Relaxing into Presence

The following meditation is led by Tara Brock, meditation teacher, psychologist, and author. So we'll sit together now. We'll do a guided meditation. And it's just a few words on posture. It really helps to sit in a way that you're feeling upright, which means that you might have, if you're sitting in a chair, both feet flat on the floor,

and just closing your eyes, feel the base of your spine, as if you can root into the earth, but then there's like a tree that's rising up to the heavens. You can feel right from the top of your head as if a string's pulling upward. The chin is slightly tucked, so it's a straight line base of the spine to the top of the head.

Sitting tall. You might notice also a sense of balance so that you're not leaning to the left or the right, forward or backward. rooted in the earth, rising up to the heavens. And then allowing the body to relax around that posture so you can just let go a little, the shoulders, the arms, the hands. You might let the breath deepen a little so that with the in-breath,

it's a little fuller than perhaps normal. And the out-breaths slower, slow enough so you can feel yourself releasing the breath. So inhaling a nice, full, deep in-breath. And then a slow out breath. Letting go. Again, deep, full in breath. And a slow out breath. Releasing.

Letting go. And continuing to relax with the natural rhythm of your breath. Notice the quality of presence right this moment. And sense of presence in your heart. Tension at the heart. A kind of inner listening. So that we take a few moments to, connect with our intention for being here.

You might ask yourself, what really brings me here tonight? This is sometimes called setting your aspiration. It's a connecting in a sincere way with what matters to you, aligning with that, letting your attention scan through your body. And just notice if there's any places of obvious tightness, holding. And sense that you can

let that area fill with awareness and let whatever's tight or tense float in awareness. You might feel the shoulders from the inside. Just notice there's often a habitual tensing there.

Just a sense that tension can float, can untangle in awareness, melting or dissolving. You might feel the hands from the inside. God, letting them soften. Let the awareness fill the hands. As you soften the hand, you might feel the tingling and vibrating there, sensing the awareness filling the chest, openness

of the chest. And just notice if there's any tightness, the heart, see if you can let it float, untangle naturally. If it helps you, you can bring the breath to areas of the body that you feel tension or tightness, you might breathe right into the heart, contacting and feeling the aliveness there, sensation, with the in-breath. And then with the out-breath, just letting whatever's there float in the space of awareness, stillness. So breathing in and contacting sensation and breathing out and just sensing the space, the stillness that everything's arising in.

You might let the attention scan down into the belly. Just loosen as you breathe in. Letting the breath be received in a softening belly, scanning down through the hips and the legs, relaxing, opening, feeling the feet, places of pressure where the feet are contacting the floor. Feeling the feet from the inside,

the tingling, vibrating. Feeling the feet, again, feeling the hands, soft, awake. And then just sense as you widen the attention, this whole body as a field of sensation. Breathing in, just sensing the aliveness that's everywhere. Breathing out, sensing the space this life is happening in, including the play of sound, listening not just with your ears, but with your whole awareness.

Sensing sounds and sensation. It's filling this field of aliveness. Just letting everything happen. So you can begin to sense this openness and receptivity of presence. Awake and allowing. Let your practice be quite simple, resting in this presence. Right here, these sounds, this aliveness of sensation. And then when the mind, as it quite naturally,

does, leaves presence. And when you notice that, just simply pause and then gently relax back again, listening to and feeling the whole moment right here. Every time you notice you've left and you relax back, you're strengthening that capacity. capacity for presence. So no judging of the leaving, rather an appreciating of when you notice you've left and a reopening of the sense doors. For some you might find it can help to stabilize your attention right here by having the inflow and outflow of the breath in the foreground. No need to control the breath, just receiving the inflow noticing what it feels like as a stream of sensation and experiencing the outflow receptive

interested friendly attention moment to moment right here minds drifted into thoughts this is a moment to explore relaxing back relaxing open the attention to listen to the sounds that are right here letting them wash through re-relaxing through the body, perhaps relaxing, softening through the shoulders, letting go, softening the hands, relaxing your heart. Just noticing the difference between any thought form and the immediacy and vividness and mystery of the aliveness that's right here. Relaxing with your moment-to-moment experience.

Ask yourself if it's possible. to relax just a little bit more, let go just a little more right in this moment. It's resting wakefully, this changing river of experience, sensing the aliveness that's here and the space of presence that's aware. And it's from that space of presence that you might close the meditation in a very simple way with Meta, our loving kindness, by just offering some blessing, some wish to your own heart,

for your own will-being, and a blessing to this world that belongs to your heart.