Tara Brach - Meditation: Awake Awareness is Our Home (19:08 min)

Episode Date: June 5, 2025

This meditation guides us in awakening our awareness by opening to all our senses and recognizing the alert presence that is always, already here. By relaxing back into the presence over and over, we become familiar with the reality that is truly our home. 

The following meditation is led by Tara Brock. To access more of my meditations or join my email list, please visit tarabrock.com. In the stillness, we will breathe together, gathering our attention, collecting with the breath, begin with a very long, deep in breath, inhaling, filling the chest and the lungs. And then a very slow out breath, slow enough so you can feel the sense, sensations as you release them. And again, a long, deep in breath. A very slow, conscious out breath, releasing outward, letting go, letting go, letting go. And again, breathing in fully, filling the chest and the lungs.

A slow, long out breath, breathing in, long deep in breath, and a slow, long, deep in breath. And a slow out breath, feeling that when you release the breath you can soften down the whole length of the body, letting go, letting go. And then allowing the breath to resume in its natural rhythm, relaxing with the inflow, and relaxing with the outflow. It's noticing the quality of presence that's right here, deepening this presence as we scan through the body, beginning with the region of the eyes, just softening the eyes, noticing the sensations, quivering, trembling, lights flashing, vibration in the whole area of the eyes,

letting the jaw be unhinged, slight smile at the mouth, and feeling the tongue, right down to the root of the tongue, letting the tongue spread through the and fill the lower jaw, feeling the sensations that fill the mouth, the aliveness that's there, allowing the shoulders to relax back and down some, letting awareness fill the shoulders so you can feel them from the inside out. You might imagine a dissolving of ice to water. See if you can feel that kind of melting, releasing. Ice to water, water to gas, sensing the space inside the shoulders. Space and aliveness.

Let the hands rest in a very easy and effortless way, softening the hands, softening a little more. And again, letting them be filled with awareness. so you can feel from the inside out, the vibration and aliveness that's there. See if you can sense the space and aliveness inside the hands. Feeling the region of the chest, letting awareness fill the heart area. Feeling the heart from the inside out, areas of pressure, squeezing, flow and aliveness. So again, you're feeling the space inside the heart, the space,

and the aliveness, loosening and relaxing the abdominal area. Let this next breath be received in a softening belly. This breath, and now this one, and now this one. Since the area of the belly filled with awareness, you feel the space and aliveness inside the belly, tingling, vibrating, movement of energy, scanning down in the same way, relaxing through the pelvic region. And sensing that whole area filled with awareness,

feel the space inside the pelvic area and the aliveness that's there. Sense the length of the legs, let the legs be filled with awareness. You can feel from the inside out the space and aliveness that's there and sense the feet filled with awareness. feeling from the inside out, the vibration, tingling aliveness, the space inside the feet. Just as a cup is filled with water, this whole body is filled with awareness, widening the attention.

You feel this body as a wake space, a whole field of aliveness, just letting everything, everything happen, sensing how the aliveness includes not just sensation but also sound. Sound, sensation, feelings, all appearing, dissolving in this open space of awareness, noticing in the foreground this changing flow, sensation, sound, feelings. And in the background, this awake space, this inner stillness, that which is aware, let your intention be to notice when you leave home and move off into thoughts of the future or the past. When you become aware that you've been time-traveling, simply pause

and have that intention to relax back into presence, relax open the attention. so you can listen again to the sounds that are here, re-relaxing the body, so you can sense the space of aliveness that's here. Relax your heart. Receptive to the different changing weather, the inner weather of mood and emotion. It's resting in this awake, open presence. And when the mind contracts and leaves, just gently returning again, and again, getting increasingly familiar with presence as home. You might sense if it's possible

to let go just a little bit more right now through the body and to relax with the heart, bringing a gentle attention to the state of your heart right now. We close with a simple loving-kindness practice. Just witnessing and feeling this human heart and sensing whatever wish or blessing you'd like to offer to yourself and offering it with gentleness. Sense the possibility of this heart feeling bathed in the light and warmth and tenderness of your own care. Sensing the heart space, the awareness filled with tenderness that's really quite edgeless and inclusive sensing and imagining all beings, all of life included. and offering your prayer of care to this living world.