Tara Brach - Meditation: A Listening Presence (20 min.)

Episode Date: July 11, 2024

The receptivity of listening awakens us to the living stream of life. This meditation guides us in listening to sounds, and then listening to and feeling the aliveness of our bodies and the movement of the breath. We close with a simple offering of lovingkindness to our inner life and our world. 

The following meditation is led by Tara Brock. To access more of my meditations or join my email list, please visit tarabrock.com. Find yourself into a posture that is upright. So you're sitting tall and in a way that can help you to feel alert. And also sitting in a way that's balanced. You're not leading to either side, forward or back. and then a way that's relaxed. So while you're holding yourself upright, you're letting whatever can relax, relax.

As you close your eyes and let your attention go inward, you might feel the movement of the breath at your heart. Become aware of whatever you notice in the heart area and listening inwardly. Ask yourself what really brings me here right now. to meditation. What is it I'm longing for? What's my deepest intention in meditating? And listen for what feels most sincere. What is it your heart is longing for? What's the quality of presence or way of being in the world that matters to you? Invite you to continue listening. And just sense what happens in your bodies, you listen to the sounds around you, including the alarm,

including other sounds you might detect, a listening attention. So you're listening into the space around you, aware perhaps of the soft sounds in the room, listening in a global way, letting everything wash through you. See if you can listen not just with your ears, but your whole awareness, noticing how sounds appear spontaneously

and there's nothing to do with listening. listening, completely receptive, listening to the sounds of these words and the spaces between the sounds, receptive, open, listening, listening to the most distant sounds you can detect. Sensing the vastness of awareness that includes even the most distant sounds. with that same listening, receptive attention. You can listen inwardly, listen to and feel the sensations in the body, listen to and feel the movement of the breath, not controlling anything, simply resting in that listening presence, receiving moment by moment the changing flow of experience. You might explore how intimately you can listen to and feel the breath, choosing

to attend where the breath is easiest to feel. It might be the inflow, outflow, the nostrils, or perhaps it's the rising, falling at the chest, or maybe you feel the breath most distinctly a kind of expanding and releasing at the belly. Maybe you're feeling your whole body breathing even in a cellular way like a balloon that expands, collapses some, that receptivity of listening, experiencing the moment to moment flow of the breath and notice the possibility of relaxing with the breath that as the breath is the breath comes in, you can open to receive. And as it goes out, there's a relaxing outward, a letting go. A relaxed, receptive, interested attention. Resting with the breath as a raft might rest

and move with the waves. At some point you might notice the attention has drifted. And rather than that receptive listening attention that rests with the breath, you might notice The mind is off in thoughts about the future or the past, some commentary, not a problem. The noticing is part of waking up. And the pathway back home to presence is a kind of relaxing back, reopening the attention from the thought and listening again, listening to the real sounds that are coming and going right here instead of the sound bites in the mind, the thoughts, re-relax open, perhaps letting go a little through the body, softening the shoulders a little,

letting go there, softening the hands. So they rest in a very easily, effortlessly relaxed way, letting the chest be open and the belly soft so the breath is free to go deep into the torso and resting again in the next in breath or out breath with the receptivity of listening, with the intimacy of close in contact and as you rest with the breath, notice the quality of presence that's here. It's a sense of heerness, a note. knowing that you're right here in the center of now. It doesn't matter how often the mind drifts. Each time there's an awakening from thought and a returning, a gentle shepherding of the attention

back to the breath. You're deepening your familiarity with the pathway home. open again, listening, relaxing through the body to see what wants to let go a little right now. Relax your heart and then gently arrive again with the inflow and the outflow of the breath. Breath is a kind of home base to help you develop a steady presence. And if the breath is in any way difficult, you can rest with sounds, just listening to sound

I can rest the attention with the sensations in the body, the hands, the feet, rest of the body. The point is to know that you're right here. You might sense the quality of heerness, senses awake, listening to and feeling your moment-to-moment experience, this breath and now this one, and again. relaxed and alert. A relaxed, receptive attention, sensing the quality of heerness, what's right here. These sounds, feeling the aliveness in the body, and sensing that background of presence. And for these last few moments, letting everything be just as it is. no need to rest in the breath,

just allowing the life to come and go. Relaxed and alert is a way of ending our meditation together. You might feel the quality of presence that's here as heart presence or heart space and by listening to and feeling the area of the heart. and sense as you listen inwardly whatever prayer or wish or blessing most resonates to offer to yourself right in these moments. You're offering care from this heart space to your own human heart. And sensing this heart space is boundless, extending in all directions everywhere,

feeling all beings as part of your heart and offering your prayer, your wish, for all these.