Tara Brach - Meditation and Short Talk: Basic Elements of a Mindfulness Meditation Sitting (retreat)

Episode Date: March 22, 2018

Meditation and Short Talk: Basic Elements of a Mindfulness Meditation Sitting (from the 2017 IMCW New Year retreat) - This short talk and guided meditation offers an overview of what many people find a natural unfolding within a meditation sitting. It includes the process of arriving in an embodied presence, learning how to come back from thoughts, and then opening the attention mindfully to the changing flow of experience.

The following meditation is led by Tara Brock. To access more of my meditations or join my email list, please visit tarabrock.com. At these retreats, we usually offer the instructions built into a guided meditation. And often people wonder, well, what's the actual pith of the instructions and what am I really supposed to be doing because the guided meditation has a lot in it. So what I wanted to do this morning is first off say that because we're not clones of each other,

we each have to customize the instructions to match, you know, really where we are. And not only, and it doesn't even stay static, even in any given sitting, we might want to be adjusting how we're paying attention and sometimes focusing more on the anchor and other times and more open awareness. But I'd like to give you the basic elements that we include when we give instructions before I do a guided meditation. So you have a sense of the lay of the land. And the first piece is usually a piece of arriving.

How do we arrive in our senses, really get in our bodies? And often that includes a body scan where we take the time to wake up awareness in the body. And that arriving piece also includes establishing the attention at an anchor. And the anchor or the home base is really whatever works for you.

The most common is the breath, but I know many people that don't use the breath. So you don't want to spend too much time, you know, like at a banquet testing and trying different things because you won't really

establish a strong anchor unless you really let yourself spend time with it. But typically the breath or if not the breath, the feelings and sensations of the whole body breathing, or it might be your hands, just feeling the sensations in the hands. If there's been a lot of trauma, the hands and the feet can be useful places for coming home again.

For some people, it's sound. And sound can really be helpful. So we take the arriving portion of the guided instructions to really get here in our senses, wake up our senses, know that we're here. And then we move into really what I sometimes think of as collecting or coming back over and over again so we really have enough sense of presence that we can notice what's going on. And coming back means noticing if you've drifted and gently arreact. arriving again with your chosen anchor. The goal of meditation is not to be with the breath,

or the anchor even. The goal of meditation, if even it's appropriate to use that terminology, is to rest in awakeness and awareness, to know what's happening, to be here with an open heart and open mind. So after there's some stability in coming back, the heart of the practice really is being here. And that's a mindful attention to whatever arises, a mindful attention to the anchor, but also to the different sensations in the body as they become more predominant,

mindfulness of emotions, the changing inner weather system, mindfulness of the thoughts, noticing, oh, thinking's happening. So in that being here, which is really the kind of heart of the practice, we're really opening to whatever is calling our attention. Finally, I like to call it as a phase because in a way we need to consider it as truly non-doing,

is to if it gets quiet enough and you're stable in your attention, to just stop making any effort at all. be the awareness and the fruit of realization is that that being awareness, being love, being the presence. So with this in mind, we'll arrive together and often a very simple way to collect and arrive is to start with just feeling the breath and extending the breath. So the in-breath is longer than usual. You might sense that you're breathing in and counting to five. So it's a long, full in-breath.

And a slow-out breath, slow enough so you can feel the sensations of the breath as it leaves the nostrils. Letting go. And breathing in a long, deep in-breath, touched-out breath. Again, a slow release, relaxing outward, letting go.

continuing in this way for a few moments a long full in-breath, a slow conscious release, since you could soften down the body with the release, allowing the breath to resume in its natural rhythm, relaxed attentiveness to the experience of the breath, feeling this breathing body, just as it is, and deepening presence by gently scanning through the body, relaxing and waking up attention as you do so. I often start with the area of the eyes because the more thinking there is, the more of the micro muscles and the eyes contract. So you just to soften the eyes, let the brow be smooth. You feel the sensations in that region. By bringing a slight smile to the mouth, you help.

to create an attitude or quality of heartfulness that can hold your meditation, the kind of benevolence or kindness towards whatever arises. Slight smile and feeling the sensations in the mouth, relaxing the jaw, letting the shoulders relax back and down some. As you feel from the inside out, just notice if there's any tightness or tension there I find it helpful to just let it float. Sense of space of awareness inside the shoulders can help a natural dissolving to occur. The movement of energy and the space inside the shoulders, making sure the hands are resting

in a very easy way, very effortless. You might consciously soften the hands and then sense if you can feel the sensations and aliveness inside the hands. Receptive attention. Let there be an openness at the chest. I'm feeling the heart area from the inside out. You can sense the aliveness of energy and sensation there, letting the breath be received deep into the torso,

softening the belly, and the aliveness that's in the belly. We tend to tighten against it. softening and receiving, the length, the volume of the legs, the sensations in the feet. See if you can open the attention so you feel simultaneously the whole play of sensation, this field of sensation. You might include the play of sound, the soft background sounds in the room, so that there's a listening to and feeling the whole moment, sensing in the background.

that wakeful presence, that space of awareness that everything's happening in. I would allow your chosen anchor home base to be in the foreground, the movement of the breath, the nostrils or the rising, falling at the chest, expanding, deflating at the belly, or the whole body breathing, or it might be sound, or it might be sound, or particular area of sensation. So there's a relaxed attentiveness, resting with the movement of the anchor, like you're resting in a wave in the ocean, relaxed and aware. Natural of the mind drifts. And there's an art to the coming back. The trick is not to immediately race back to the breath or the anchor, but rather to relax open, perhaps listening

to the sounds that are actually here instead of the sounds in the mind, re-relaxing open in the body, to feel again the sensations of aliveness in the body. Take your time, maybe re-relaxing areas of tightness so that you really feel yourself inhabiting your body. again because we leave. You're relaxing your heart and with that relaxed attentiveness again resting with your chosen home base. Never be in the foreground and then if something calls your attention, some other strong experience, allowing that to be fully here, bringing a presence that's both gentle

and allowing, clear, kind to whatever arises. So if your anchors the breath and some anxiety arises, some fear, including the fear, you can breathe with it that's sometimes helpful to steady the attention with what's arising, to feel it fully as sensations in your body. What's this like? is it? Letting it be as full as it is. Noticing how it changes. Maybe that what arises is calling for a really kind or forgiving or loving kind of attention, in which case to bring that wing of care fully there, actively offering kindness. And when whatever arises

some, then letting the anchor again be in the foreground. In this way, we are cultivating a very inclusive presence. If as you're practicing you encounter a real tangle, something that feels really sticky, difficult, it's fine to bring the acronym rain, really walk through it, really investigating very consciously. And the caveat is to not get caught in a lot of mental interpretation. Keep it very physicalized with the felt sense. Boxing open from virtual reality, from conceptual mind, opening to and saying yes to the reality that's right here. These are words from And Dana folds the poet. She says, go in and in and be the space between the cells,

the vast resounding silence in which spirit dwells. Dive in and in as deep as you can dive. Be exactly what you seek. The beloved singing yes, embracing yes, until there's only essence, the all of everything expressing through you. Go in and in and turn away from nothing that you find. Noticing where your attention is. I'm gently relaxing back if the mind's been drifting. If there's relative quiet and stability, you might want to explore,

just letting go of any controlling at all, discovering what happens when you let life be exact, Cleat as it is.