Tara Brach - Meditation: A Welcoming Heartspace

Episode Date: February 22, 2024

Our pathway to peace and happiness is through opening, with tenderness, to our moment-to-moment experience. This meditation guides us first to be awake in our body and senses, and then to include the changing flow of life in a spacious, kind heart. We close with a short verse from poet Dorothy Hunt - Peace Is This Moment Without Judgment. 

The following meditation is led by Tara Brock. To access more of my meditations or join my email list, please visit tarabrock.com. Let's take a few moments to find whatever posture serves you. Whatever way of sitting, standing, lying being allows you to feel a sense of presence and ease, to also feel a sense of safety. Do you feel grounded, feeling perhaps yourself the gravity and the sense of being on this earth, rooted belonging, kind of like a mountain sitting with strength

and balance, and also feel a spaciousness around you, that there's room. There's room in this world for whatever arises. One of my favorite translation, of mindfulness is from the Chinese, that it means present heart. So we feel our intention to bring that presence, that heart presence, to whatever arises. And we begin in a simple way, breathing together. You might very consciously extend the in-breath now to a count of five. So breathing in, inhaling, filling the chest and the lungs, and a slow, you know, and a slow, out breath to the count of five, letting go, letting go.

Breathing in, nice deep in breath. And then a slow out breath so that you can feel the sensations of the exhale as the breath leaves the nostrils. And again, inhaling deeply, filling the chest and the lungs. And then as you exhale, feel a sense of letting go. Letting go. Letting go. And then as the breath comes back into its natural rhythm, just notice the quality of presence that's here, the sense of being right here, right now, that we can touch into even with

just a little bit of focused attention. We can deepen that presence as we bring that gentle attention to the body, that heart presence to the body. You might begin to softening the eyes and letting the brow be smooth, receptive to the sensations that wake up as you relax in the region of the brow, perhaps a flickering of light and dark at the lids. You might bring a slight smile to the mouth which sends a message to the whole nervous system to relax, to let go of fight, flight, freeze.

So it's possible to feel more of a sense of that benevolence towards whatever's arising. Let the jaw be unhinged. Perhaps the tongue fill in the lower palate, maybe relaxing down to the root of the tongue, and then opening in a receptive way to the sensations in the mouth. Just noticing as you relax that you can be more intimate with sensations. Allow the shoulders to drop away from the neck. Let the awareness fill the shoulders. So you can feel from the inside out, including whatever tension or tightness is there with a gentle presence, a soft attention.

Notice if there's any natural letting go, releasing, relaxing. Let the hands rest in a very easy and effort. effortless way and you might explore softening the hands and softening again and feeling the awareness fill the hands so you can feel from the inside out the aliveness there perhaps the tingling or vibrating maybe pulsing warmth or coolness again noticing how as you relax, there's more access to sensation, to aliveness, bringing the awareness to fill the chest, the chest cavity, feeling the upper back, filling that whole space with awareness and then feeling from the inside out, feeling the movement of the breath, feeling the area of the heart.

You might visualize and sense a smile spreading through the heart area to create space for the life that's right here. Breathing with and feeling your heart, a soft, gentle attention. Scanning down, feeling the belly, letting this next breath be received in a softening belly, this breath. And now this one and again, feeling the movement of the breath deep in the torso. with the intention of softening, relaxing with experience, a gentle attention, scanning and filling the pelvic region with awareness.

Again, feeling the breath deep in the torso, receptive to the aliveness that's right here, aware of places of sensation and the legs right down into the feet, feeling the tingling and vibrating, places of pressure and warmth where the feet contact the floor, and opening wide the attention. To feel this body as a field of sensation, let everything move, let the sensations dance as they do, tingling, vibrating, flow or tightness, heat or cool. What happens if you let everything be just as it is? And you might include sound.

So the play of sound is moving through, washing through. Sensing how sound and sensation and feelings are unfolding in a very vast openness, very allowing, boundless space of awareness. Resting in that openness, that wakefulness. perhaps with the breath in the foreground, the stream of sensations of breathing. But sense that whatever arises can be included in this open-hearted space of awareness. Let that be your intention. If something difficult arises, let's say a physical discomfort,

explore what happens if you meet it with a soft attention. a kind attention, perhaps breathing with it and relaxing with it in a similar way if there's emotional difficulty, fear, anger, hurt, that gentle attention saying yes to what's here, breathing with, unconditionally welcoming what's here, moment by moment. Let your present heart be like a vast sea of kindness. The poet Dorothy Hunt writes about the deep peace that comes when this heart space that's here is unconditionally welcoming. Do you think peace will come some other place than here, some other time than now, and some other heart than yours? Peace is this moment without judgment. That is all. This moment in the heart space or everything that is is welcome.

Peace is this moment without thinking that it should be some other way, that you should feel some other thing, that your life should unfold according to your plans. Peace is this moment without judgment. This moment in the heart space where everything that is, is welcome. In these last few moments you might explore what it means to truly say yes to just what's here with your body, heart, and being. Peace is this moment without judgment, this moment in the heart space where everything that is is welcome.