Tara Brach - Meditation: Arriving in Presence

Episode Date: June 3, 2014

2010-02-03 Meditation: Arriving in Presence

It can be interesting to let these moments be ones of conscious arriving so that right from the start there's a sense of inviting your attention to be right here. So finding your position, your way of sitting, and check to see if the posture is one that lets you be upright, alert, awake, and also as comfortable as possible. as you come into stillness let your attention and your senses be awake so that you can feel the

physical sensations of sitting right here and also be aware of the sounds that are here the sense of the space you're in you might take a few full breaths to help further collect and gather your attention inhaling fully filling the lungs and exhaling, letting go, relaxing, releasing the breath. And again, consciously breathing in, filling the lungs, full in breath,

and then a slow out breath, gently releasing, consciously relaxing. And again, let's breathe in together, filling our lungs. And then noticing with the out breath that it's possible to soften, and to feel very physically a letting go. Letting go. So as the breath resumes a natural rhythm, you can sense yourself more here, relaxing as it comes in,

relaxing as the breath goes out. With more presence, you can begin to listen to your heart and sense what brings you here. You can begin to connect with that sincerity, sincerity that longs to be present, that sincerity that wants to live our lives fully, that wants to love fully, that wants to be free, to be what we are. Just sense in your own words, your own language, what your prayer is this evening. The chanting is a way of bringing our prayerful hearts together with sound current. We'll chant the simple mantra oom.

the sound current of connectedness, if you'd like to bring the palms together and feel that heart connection and really senses you chant that your prayer and your sincerity are being expressed directly. We'll chant three times. Let's inhale together. Arms letting your hands rest in an easy, effortless way in your lap, perhaps touching each other, sensing this body as a gateway to presence and taking some moments to very consciously soften and let go through the body.

You can let the image of a smile help you to relax, smiling into the eyes. Sensing the corners of the eyes uplifted some, the flesh around the eyes relaxed. the brow smooth a slight smile at the mouth let the inside of the mouth be smiling the jaw unclenched this image and sense of a smile

actually helps to counter the conditioning of fight-flight connect us with a natural kind of benevolence or kindness the eyes are soft the mouth and a slight smile and let that curve of a smile spread through the chest, not to cover over anything but just to allow you to

feel what's there to give the space that's needed. See if with a little more openness in the chest you can let the shoulders naturally relax back and down some, feeling the shoulders from the inside and perhaps sensing a little bit of a melting ice to water, water to vapor. just letting what's there float in awareness, the energy moving in the arms, placing the awareness inside the hands and softening a bit more so that you can feel the life directly there,

feeling that openness in the chest that lets you then move the attention deeper into the torso, softening the belly, letting this next breath be received in a softening belly. this breath and this one and this breath, letting the awareness fill the belly, the attention scanning through the hips in the pelvic area, relaxing and letting go, and then moving down through the legs. See if there's a natural unclenching or softening of the muscles,

the thighs, the calves, place the awareness inside the feet and feel the aliveness there, the tingling or vibrating, places of pressure, warmth, widening the lens of attention now in a comprehensive way so that you can feel this whole body as a field of sensation, a global sense of aliveness, just not stopping anything, letting this life live through you,

Sensations received in awareness, pulsing, vibrating, heat, cool, tightness, looseness, light or heavy, fully allowing this dance of sensation. You might sense in the foreground the stream of the breath in the midst of sensations, this inflow and outflow of the breath, letting this anchor be a way of staying connected with presence, with aliveness. You might notice that pretty quickly the mind drifts away from presence, losing itself in thoughts, plans, worries, images, sound bites. When you're aware of thinking, that's a moment of waking up.

Just pause for a moment. It helps to mentally note thinking, thinking, to let you really reconnect with all, back to presence. That was a thought. Here I am again. You can do that. But most important, just to pause. Be aware of the sounds that are here,

perhaps soften again in the body a bit, relax the heart, gently arriving again right here with this next inflow of the breath or outflow of the breath, feeling the aliveness of sensations, relaxing with your moment-to-moment experience. You can begin fresh in any moment, just simply noticing what's happening,

where your attention is, and re-relaxing, reconnecting with the life that's right here, just very gently opening and listening again to the sounds and with the same receptivity of listening to sounds listening to and feeling the life of the body listening to and feeling your heart and if you notice something strong that's calling for your attention

to really offer a kind presence allowing what's here to be here to express itself experiencing life as sensations in the body, noticing how they change, get more intense, less intense. And if whatever was calling your attention subsides, to arrive again in the inflow and outflow of the breath, to arrive right here in this moment,

sensing the now-ness, the immediacy and mystery of what's right here.