Tara Brach - Introductory Meditation Instructions - Guided Practice from Retreat

Episode Date: January 3, 2020

Introductory Meditation Instructions - Guided Practice from Retreat - This guided session includes an overview of the primary components in meditation practices, and then guidance in awakening the senses, collecting the attention, and opening mindfully to changing experience.

The following meditation is led by Tara Brock. To access more of my meditations or join my email list, please visit tarabrock.com. We're settling in together this morning. I'll speak a little bit more about the landscape of our meditation. I often think of it as we offer so many different bits of guidance that ultimately each one of us has to be. to customize the instructions, not just in general, but even moment to moment to sense what

most fits the moment in a deep and big way, the goal or purpose of practice. It's kind of an undoing of the conditioning that keeps us from being, from pure being, from being that awareness, that loving awareness, that's our nature. So we're undoing conditioning. And the approach is to that undoing, and the Buddhist tradition are described as skillful means and there are supposedly 84,000 skillful means, you can in some way group them and the main kind of clusters of skillful means that we teach at these Vipassan retreats, I think three main clusters and one of them is concentration, which is where we choose a place to bring our attention over and over again so that we can develop a more sustained attention, a steadier attention.

By, let's say, concentrating on the breath, the mind begins to quiet. There comes some space between the thoughts so we can actually be present. So, concentration gathers and collects and quiets the mind. But it's not the goal of the practice. The goal of the practice is not to be with the breath. That is a quieting, a deconditioning of that kind of busy, distractedness that allows us to actually connect with reality. That's the goal, being the reality.

So we begin with concentration, because all of us... us are in this society and beyond are living in very distracted minds and we gather and collect some. Then mindfulness is purposely noticing what's here and we notice what's here, we notice the domain of sensations and feelings and thoughts and even the more subtle domains of how everything's changing. We notice what's here. So there's concentration to quiet and the mindfulness to actually notice what's here. And then there are the heart practices, which are ways of directing our attention, that open

our hearts. And what they actually do is dissolve the sense of separateness. They dissolve separation. They open us to the natural and whole experience of belonging, oneness, love. So when there's a lot of fear, the metam meditation actually helps to soothe and calm because fear comes from feeling separate. As you practice here, we encourage you to let right at the ground level, let that concentrating, that coming back again and again be there because we all need that.

We also each day deepen the attention to what's actually happening in the moment. the sensations, the emotions. And we invite you to weave in the heart practices throughout however you see fit. So you'll sense that progression as I guide you now in the meditation where we'll use a kind of a body scan to help gather and collect the attention where the concentration isn't on one thing but we are paying attention on purpose in a in a steady way and then we'll open it mindfully to our changing experience, sense if there's any difficult emotions and how to be mindful of them. So you'll see that progression.

It's good to re-arrive again just sensing the body posture and if there's any subtle adjustments that will allow you to have a posture that supports alertness. So you're sitting upright and there's a balance to that uprightness. So if you leaned a little to the left or to the right and then came center you'd really feel yourself aligned. Feel in that tallness, perhaps the chin tucks a little to allow a real, a straight line from the base of spine right up to the top of the head and beyond. Slight arching in at the lower back to find that back.

balance, the shoulders relax back and down. And then within that uprightness for alertness, see how much you can relax. So it's alert and relaxed and become aware of your body breathing and gently beginning to scan through the body. I often like to start with the area of the eyes, softening the eyes. And there's a lot of thinking, there's a real tension of those micro-muscles around the eyes, so softening the eyes is a kind of outside-in way of calming the mind. It helps to actually imagine and sense the eyes smiling.

The outer corners lift it up a bit. Let the brow be smooth. A slight smile at the mouth. You might even sense the inside of the mouth smiling. META Warrior. Really giving that message to relax, fight, flight, freeze, letting the tongue fill the lower palate and see if you can relax down to the root of the tongue, feeling all the sensations of the gums and the teeth, the lips, tingling and vibrating through the face, feel the scalp

and the skull, back of the head, perhaps sense the volume, the space inside of the your head, the brains, the whole head filled with space, awake. I might imagine and sense the throat filling the neck and feel from the inside out sensations in the neck and see if it's possible to let the shoulders fall away from the neck a bit. And as you do, just notice what opens up or changes. S sensations of the back of the neck through the shoulders. Feeling the shoulders from the inside out.

You might imagine and sense a kind of melting of ice to water, from water to gas, and from the volume of your arms, hands resting in a very easy, effortless way, and softening the hands. So if you feel from the inside out, there's a real intimacy with the sensations, tingling, vibrating.

Let the chest be open. Again, feeling from the inside out, the whole cavity of the chest, the volume, the space, and aliveness in the chest. Feeling the belly, softening the belly, letting this next breath be received in a softening belly. This one, and now this one, and again, sensing the growing presence, it's filling the whole body, pelvic region, feeling from the inside out, where of the legs, the length, the volume of the legs, and killing the energy and sensation, the liveliness, and the feet.

So that if you widen the lens, you can feel this body as a field of sensation, including in that feel the sounds, soft sounds in the room. There's the listening to and feeling the moment. I find in the midst of all the sound and sensation a gentle resting in the movement, of the breath, the stream of the breath, very receptive presence with the breath, not controlling, as if you could listen to and feel the breath. Perhaps the in-flow outflow at the nose, the rising falling at the chest, maybe the expanding, deflating at the belly. For some might be the whole body breathing. Right here right now, breath by breath. And if the breath isn't

the best home base for you might be moment to moment that's changing sounds are for some certain parts of the body, perhaps feeling the sensations in the hands or the feet, electing your home base, letting it be in the foreground with the intention of arriving again and again as the mind naturally moves away. senses sound or sensation, the aliveness right here, be our portal to presence, intending to notice when the mind drifts and the moment of recognition is actually a very poignant and valuable moment. And you either come in with judgment which actually plants a seed of more thinking and tightness, or appreciate waking up.

And pause then and just notice the difference between being inside a thought, between a virtual reality and the vividness and immediacy and mystery of this heerness of being right here. No need to race back to the breath. wake up and notice what's happening and then very gently re-arriving, sometimes maybe re-relaxing a little. You can't re-relax too much really. You might find just releasing again in the shoulders, softening the hands, relaxing your heart and then again in a receptive way.

feeling the movement of the breath. So it's a relaxing back to presence. Vipasana combines mindfulness and concentration. You might keep your anchor in the foreground, continue to steady and quiet the attention, and be mindful of what you're attending to, mindful of the breath, noticing, noticing, what's it really feel like? What's the temperature of the sensations of the breath as it comes in and out? The feeling in the body as the breath moves through you.

If you're paying attention to sound, noticing the sounds and the silence between sounds close in and more distant sounds, you're attending to sensations in the body, that receptivity that stillness that can feel the aliveness in an intimate way, mindful and concentrated. Vapasana when some other strong experience calls something different than our home base. You let go of the focus on the breath or sound and open to what arises, open to the waves that are calling our attention. So if you're feeling some strong unpleasant sensations in the body, if you're feeling some strong emotion, it could be unpleasant or pleasant to open to that.

If it's not a strong pangle, the practice is quite simply to recognize what's arising. Let's say there's some anxiety to sense that clutch a bit. You might breathe with it, totally allow it to be there. As I mentioned earlier, you might say this belongs. Be the ocean that can include the waves. Notice what happens. Notice how they change.

Get stronger, weaken. When they no longer call your attention, then you might gently arrive again. at your home base. If the waves are really strong, intense, sticky, then you can explore practicing rain as part of your sitting meditation. You're not only recognizing and allowing them and saying this belongs,

but very purposely investigating, feeling where they are in your body, sensing what most wants attention. You might sense what they need. Where the vulnerability is, how it wants you to be with it, and offer nurturing, metta, kindness. Then notice what happens after you've nurtured. Just rest in that presence and notice the shift when you felt caught in something or when you felt like the fearful self.

or the angry self to the presence and tenderness that can arise. Just notice that, be that. And again, when you're no longer called by strong waves, and letting in the foreground the movement of the breath, the inflow, the inflow, or the sounds or the sensations that are your home base, if there's anything between you and full, presence. Often there's a veil of concepts that we're not even aware of. And if so, just to relax

back. Relax back. And you might, for these last couple of minutes, instead of resting in an anchor, explore not doing anything. Just letting everything be as it is. Relaxing with the changing flow. as it is.