Tara Brach - Guided Meditation: Stand Still (standing meditation instructions)

Episode Date: June 13, 2014

2014-06-11 - Guided Meditation: Stand Still (standing meditation instructions)

The following meditation is led by Tara Brock, meditation teacher, psychologist, and author. Take a moment, if you will, to let your attention go inward and just feel your heart. And as if you're just asking a question to your heart, ask yourself, what really brings me here? What is it I'm really wanting or longing for? What is my intention? And as you sense that intention, sense your own sense. Because sincerity is the energy that'll bring your intention alive. What really matters to you, whether it's presence, open-heartedness, clarity, and feeling

your breath, feeling yourself sitting here. And then gently open your eyes so that you can do this without losing any balance. Come standing up if you will. Just come standing up. find the right distance, your feet are apart, maybe hip width apart, let your arms relax, and then close your eyes again. Just close your eyes. I'm going to invite you to just pay attention to standing for a few moments, be aware of the fact of standing, and if for whatever reason you can't stand, then just be aware of the fact of sitting in your chair, knowing

that meditation is independent of posture. So feeling even through your shoes, if you have them on, the connection with the floor, feeling sensations in the body as it elevates itself from the gravitational field. So perhaps feeling the feet, the legs, pelvis. You might let the sense of a kind of a softness to the back of the knees feel the lower torso. You might put your right hand on your belly, the left hand behind the small of the back, and just let your belly loosen. Soft belly, undefended belly, perhaps a slight lowering of the base of the spine. Yeah, and then as you slowly relax the arms back down, you might feel them floating through the air back to the sides. and just sensing as you stand how your back is held up by the spine by those vertebrae

vertebrae by vertebrae sense of the breath moving through the body arms kind of hanging off the rib cage just really letting gravity do its work so you're effortless as the arms hang feeling the palms floating the hands floating in space You might sense how the neck is elevating right out of the torso, ups the chin a little bit down, softening at the back of the neck, the occipital ridge. There's a sense of a human being standing, completely here, completely awake. You're in touch with the sensory field of the body moment by moment.

You might be aware of areas of tightness or tension. Just let the awareness be. in that region, sense the possibility of those areas untangling, loosening, softening. So you can feel what is here to be felt right now. Maybe that there's areas of numbness where you feel nothing. That's still feeling. So you're just standing and breathing and resting in the knowledge of standing and breathing. knowing we refer to as awareness. This is not conceptual, it's something much bigger.

Just check and sense if you're really relaxed, effortlessly standing. Just aware of whatever sensations are predominant. See if you can simply rest here moment by moment. In the only moment we're alive, this one. While we're standing, I'm going to share a poem and just see if you can let the words wash through you. This is by David Wagoner. And he writes that it's the response of an elder when the children in his community in the Pacific Northwest come and ask what to do when they get lost in the forest. Stand still. The trees ahead and the bushes beside you are not lost. Wherever you are is called here. and you must treat it as a powerful stranger.

You must ask permission to know it and be known. The forest breathes. Listen. It answers, I have made this place around you. If you leave it, you may come back again saying, Here, stand still. The forest knows where you are. You must let it find you.

Bring awareness to the spirit. space around you, the sounds, small sounds in the room, more distant sounds. Be that silence that's listening and with that same pure receptivity, become aware of the little micro-movements happening in the body, all the sensations of aliveness, of flow, the movements that help us maintain balance that are associated with standing in the gravitational field. You might exaggerate the movements a little bit by lifting your arm up and just letting the hand move through air. Just feel the sensations of moving through air

as you might moving through water. Any pace, slow, just play with the air, just feeling the fluidity of the body, maybe moving a bit more of the body, just to feel the sense of sensations from the inside out. Just explore a little, and because you're right near another person, be aware of the space that allow you not to be injurious to who's near you.

Feel that fluidity, that flow of sensation that arises with movement. And as you come into stillness again, just feel this body as a living field of sensation, noticing the flow of the breath, as sensation, as it moves in and out. And still, the forest knows where you are. You must let it find you. If you notice the mind drifts,

just simply bring it back to the sensations of standing, to this body that's standing here and breathing. And when you're ready, bringing awareness and curiosity to moving back to your seat in a seat of. position to sense the possibility of moving mindfully and taking a seat again. And sitting in a posture that really expresses an inner sense of dignity, whatever that is meaning to you, and bring your awareness to your body to sitting and breathing, relaxing with this movement of the breath that continues to flow in, flow out, relaxing with this whole universe,

of sensation. We can simply rest in the awareness of sitting here. Fully attentive, fully awake to this moment as it is. It's quite natural that thoughts move through. There may be some strong emotional tone. Awareness, that's the knowing faculty, holds it all like clouds moving through sky. Just be that sky like awareness. It's a kind of wakefulness, a space of silence, of presence. Thoughts and feelings arise and disappear. Minds wandered off. It's nowhere near your body.

Just notice very gently and kindly escort your attention back right here, dealing this life breath, feeling the sensations of sitting here, resting in the presence that's open, wakeful, tender, right here. And as a way of transitioning from stillness, I'd like to invite you to take a nice full, deep in-breath, hold it in for a moment. And when you're ready, let it be released slowly. Feel that letting go, the sensations of letting go, letting go. And one more time, nice full in breath, fill the lungs, hold for a moment, and just enjoy

that releasing, that slow out breath, letting go, letting go, letting the breath be natural in its rhythm again, and gently opening the eyes, mindful of the colors and shapes and forms. So you're just right here present. taking in with your eyes, soft gaze, noticing in the room that you're in a space with others. Perhaps taking a moment, just feel energetically. Person on either side of you, perhaps behind or in front. This heart space that we all come together with some intention towards presence, towards waking up. And then continuing to be with your senses awake, just explore again as we did before,

standing and stretching, just moving naturally, mindfully with your eyes open, continuing in mindfulness even after the bell is rung. Namaste.