Tara Brach - Meditation: A Listening, Receptive Awareness (2018-04-11)

Episode Date: April 12, 2018

Meditation: A Listening, Receptive Awareness (2018-04-11) - The capacity to truly listen allows us to realize the vast and sensitive awareness that is our true essence. This meditation focuses on listening to sounds, and then listening to and feeling the whole changing flow of life. When carried off by thought, we notice and then relax back into a receptive and listening presence. There's nothing to do, simply letting life be as it is, and resting in the freedom of awake, open awareness.  Tara's website: www.tarabrach.com Join Tara's email list: https://eepurl.com/6YfI - get a free download of Tara's new 10 min meditation: "Mindful Breathing: Finding Calm and Ease".  

The following meditation is led by Tara Brock. To access more of my meditations or join my email list, please visit tarabrock.com. You might let the attention come to the natural movement of breath in your body and sense that you can feel the breath coming in and out of the heart. You're bringing your attention to the domain of the heart. And with an inner listening, is if you could listen to your heart, just pose the question, what really brings me right now

to meditation practice? What's my deepest intention? Listen and sense what matters to you. Listen for what feels most sincere in you. We begin our practice with a simple chant of the mantra oom. It's a mantra of connectedness. It's a way that kind of goes past all our thinking and allows our heart to feel awake, full. You might bring the palms together gently in front of the heart, so you're bringing your energy there

with your attention and with the chanting. And we'll chant it three times. Please begin by taking a nice full in-breath. In this stillness, you might scan through your body and sense. whatever wants to let go in these moments. Noticing where there may be some habitual tightening, holding, you might sense a tension in the area of the shoulders and sense if it's possible to just soften a little. Whatever's tight float a bit in awareness. You might sense it's possible to soften the hands a little.

to let them rest in a really easy and effortless way. Perhaps to loosen the belly, soften in the belly. You might find if you feel the face, let it be expressionless, and then bring a slight smile to the mouth, perhaps smiling into the eyes a little. You can begin to sense the flesh around the eyes, softening, the brow, smooth, to explore a listening attention,

opening the awareness to sound, sense that you can listen in a global way, taking everything in, letting sounds wash through you. You might be aware of the close-in sounds, sounds in the room. You might be aware of the space between sounds, listening to the arising and the disappearing of sound, the sound of these words, the space between sounds, listening to the space in the room, listening to the furthest sounds you can hear, the most distant sounds, sensing the spaciousness, the listening, spacious awareness that includes all sound. You're listening not just with your ears, but your whole awareness, noticing that with listening there's nothing to do.

sounds just arise and they're known spontaneously, effortlessly. Sensing this open, receptive presence that moment to moment knows sound. Sense how you can bring this same listening presence to perceiving sensations, aware of the sensations, the tingling and vibrating in the face. receiving, listening to, feeling the sensations just as they are, listening to and feeling to and feeling the sensations inside the throat, places of pressure or movement, flow, listening to and receiving sensations inside the shoulders, letting everything be just as it is received in awareness.

known by awareness, listening to and feeling the sensations inside the hands, nothing to do, and bringing that listening and receptive presence to the area of the heart, feeling from the inside out, letting life be just as it is, receiving the sensations in the area of the belly in awareness, listening to and feeling the life that's there, just as it is, listening to and feeling the sensations in the pelvic region, and then the energy and aliveness in the legs, the feet, widening the lens so that you're listening to and feeling this whole dance of aliveness, the whole body, the energy body, not stopping anything,

not controlling anything, just letting this whole life live through you, receive you, in an open, awake awareness, resting in that relaxed, wakeful openness that's listening to and feeling this changing life, moment to moment. And the mind drifts in thought and then there's awareness of that. The practice is to simply relax back again, listening to and feeling the changing flow. of what's right here. The movement of the breath, sounds, tingling, vibrating, pleasantness, unpleasantness, listening to and feeling the whole moment.

Mind contracts and thoughts gets lost in thoughts. The body tends to tighten in habitual ways too. So when you realize there's been the drifting into thinking, You can always re-scan the body and sense what might want to let go right now, perhaps softening the shoulders and the hands, a slight smile at the mouth, relax your heart. Again, listening to the sounds that are actually right here instead of the thoughts, letting them wash through you, listening to and feeling the changing flow, not controlling anything. receiving this life in a relaxed, wakeful openness of the play of sounds,

coming and going, letting them wash through, listening to and feeling the aliveness of sensation, sensing in the background, that which is aware, that which is listening, relaxing back and being that awareness, knowing that wakeful openness as your home, Thank you.