Tara Brach - Guided Meditation: The Dance of Aliveness

Episode Date: June 29, 2013

2013-06-26 - Guided Meditation: The Dance of Aliveness

And as you officially pause right now, just let your eyes close and notice with a kind of gentle attention, what's going on inside you? Just notice. Notice what happens when you come into stillness and on purpose relax just a little bit right now. Notice what happens when you send some gesture of kindness to yourself, some wish for the evening. that it might unfold in a way that's alive and good for you. Some gesture of kindness.

Notice what happens as you just begin to listen to your heart and sense what the state of your heart is right now. As you begin to open up a kind of intimacy with yourself where you're really paying attention. Just notice. And as you attend and listen, you might sense what it is you really really, are wishing for, what really brings you here tonight, what it is even this very moment you wish

you could touch or experience or inhabit. See if you can feel your own sincerity, kind of stripping away the layers of being automatic and just feel sincerity. There's something innocent and real that brings you here and brings you into stillness. Just feel that. And it's from this deepened presence that we chant together in a simple way, this mantra, Ome. You might bring the palms together and really feel your heart as you chant. We'll just chant it three times, inhaling deeply to begin.

Deltness, we begin to scan through the body. So wake up that presence right inside our bodies. It's very helpful to feel the area of the eyes and just let the brow be smooth, the eyes soft, sometimes imagining a curve of a smile spreading through the eyes. So the corners are lifted up a bit. Light, soft, easy, in a similar way letting the root of the tongue be relaxed, a slight smile at the inside of the mouth. and an actual but small smile at the lips.

And just feel the aliveness, the sensation through the mouth and jaw area. You can invite that same curve and receptivity of a smile at the heart. Just smiling into the heart and in the space of that smile sensing the life that's actually there, and the eyes are soft, slight smile at the mouth, feeling a smile at the heart, letting that space of receptivity and openness enlarge and expand so you can feel the shoulders included, let the shoulders relax back and down, let the awareness be inside the shoulders so you can feel the life that's there. Perhaps imagine a melting or dissolving inside the shoulders, ice to water. See if you can feel that, that loosening. And water to water to

gas. If you can feel the movement, the space opening up there. So you can feel liveliness down through the arms, letting the hands rest in a very easy and effortless way. Softening the hands, feeling the life inside them. Very receptive. See if you can feel the tingling and the vibrating there. There's an intimate attention at the hands. Maybe softening a little more. and notice that as you relax, even more life is experienced. Feel that openness spreading through the chest, opening down into the belly, softening the belly. See if this next breath can be received in a softening belly. This breath and now this one and again.

You begin to feel the aliveness deep in the torso. So, hands are soft, belly soft, waking up through the body, continuing to scan down the hips, buttocks, genitals. It's relaxing, opening. Just feel the life, the spaciousness, right down through the legs. So you can feel the feet, the pressure, temperature, where the feet contact the floor and the aliveness inside the feet, tingling, vibrating. Perhaps you can feel through the feet a connectedness deep into the earth. This earth is a living, vibrating body of aliveness that includes you,

that pours into you, so that this whole body, if you widen your attention, is a living dance of sensations, vibrating, tingling, warmth. Aliveness, including in your awareness the play of sound. Very receptive, there's nothing to do. It's letting the sounds wash through you. That you're listening to and feeling this entire moment. See how fully you can relax with this dance of aliveness. Letting it be just as it is.

At some point you'll notice the mind has drifted off into a virtual reality, thoughts, thoughts, future, past. It's quite natural. The practice is simply to notice when we can. And then to gently invite the attention right to this moment. Relax open again the senses. So you're listening to these sounds right here. Relaxing in the body so you're opening to these sensations. Relaxing the heart open. So there's an intimate presence with what's real. And If it gives you more stability or steadiness in the present, you might let the breath be in the foreground. Just a gentle receptiveness to the inflow and the outflow, a kind of relaxed attentiveness that

senses in the background, the play of sound, other sensations. See if you can appreciate the moments that you notice the mind's been in a trance Meditation is really this over and over again, just realizing, oh, okay, mind's been inside one of those thought clouds. Let's open up again and sense the wholeness of what's right here. Relax open. Maybe take a few full breaths. You can start fresh in any moment, your meditation, your life.

I'm just open to this mystery of what's right here. You might see if it's possible to just relax a little bit more right now, let go a little bit more. And just notice what happens when you bring a relaxed attention to the life that's right here. These sensations, these sounds, and this heart will close in a simple way by just offering some gesture of kindness. inwardly, some appreciation, some way of bowing to the life that's right here.