Tara Brach - Meditation: Befriending and Opening to Life

Episode Date: July 28, 2022

Meditation: Befriending and Opening to Life - This meditation establishes a gentle and caring presence through bringing the image and felt sense of a smile to various domains in the body. We deepen the intention to befriend and relax with whatever arises moment-to-moment, letting life be just as it is. We offer a brief lovingkindness reflection, sensing our heart and mind, and offering whatever wish most resonates right now to ourselves and others.

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 close your eyes and then from the inside out make those subtle shifts in sitting so that your posture is upright, so you're sitting tall, sitting in a balanced way, and sense a possibility of relaxing in this uprightness. Just see what will naturally let go and soften and be more at ease.

As you come into stillness, you might let the attention move to the heart area. Just feel your breath at your heart. Very simple inquiry. What is it that brings you here tonight, really? What is your intention? And as you check, check for the quality of sincerity. because the more you feel sincere about your intention, the more you know you're really contacting your heart, what really matters?

We open together as a community with a very simple chant. The mantra oom is the mantra of connectedness. You might want to bring the palms together to deepen that sense of heart connection. We'll chant three times. Please inhale deeply. The two wings of a full attention are the wing of mindfulness of recognizing what's happening right here in this moment. What is happening?

And the wing of compassion or love that creates a tender space, a friendly way of relating to what's happening. It can be helpful in beginning, a meditation to create the inner experience of friendliness with the image of a smile. You might imagine a smile spreading through space. Filling the whole of the sky, the curve, the receptivity, the openness. Let your mind merge with that sky

so that the whole mind is filled with the luminosity and openness of a smile. Feel that you could smile into your eyes so that it spreads right through the eyes, letting the corners of the eyes be lifted up a bit. that slight smile at the mouth. You might even sense the inside of the mouth smiling and smile into the heart. Imagine so that you're visualizing and feeling that curve of a smile spreading through

the heart in the chest area. Helping to create the space for whatever's there to be there, letting our intention be to befriend the life that's right here, moment to moment. You might relax the shoulders and feel the shoulders from the inside out, a gentle presence that senses whatever life is inside the shoulders. There may be tightness or tension, pressing, squeezing, movement, flow, just filling the shoulders with awareness. Can you imagine your whole arms filled with space of awareness?

awake, alive, present, right into the hands you might consciously soften the hands and then feel them from the inside out, filled with awareness. Can you sense the aliveness inside the hands? Perhaps the vibrating, pulsing, tingling. What's it like to feel the hands filled with awareness? an openness at the chest, letting the chest be filled with awareness, the heart filled with awareness. You're aware of the actual flow of sensation, the space that's here, a friendly present attention,

scanning down the torso and relaxing the belly. See if you can let this next breath be received in a softening belly. breath, now this one, and again, let the belly be filled with awareness, feeling from the inside out the life that's right here, scanning down to feel the whole pelvic region, filled with awareness, from the inside out, feeling the aliveness, the flow of sensation. Perhaps you can be aware of the contact points where you're sitting on your cushion or chair, where your hands touch your legs or each other, where your feet touch the ground, places of pressure or warmth, and feel inside the legs, inside the feet, feeling from the inside

out the play of sensation. Simultaneously feeling this whole body, this whole energetic form filled with awareness, sensing this body as a true field of sensation. there's any places that can relax even a bit more right now, let go even more into this dance of sensation, including sound, sensing the space around you and listening not just with your ears, your whole awareness. You might sense that vast curve of a smile spreading through awareness, great sky of awareness, feeling a profound receptivity to this day.

dance of sound and sensation, sensing how it springs out of awareness, dissolves back into awareness. When the mind contracts into thoughts, a practice is simply to notice that without any judgment to pause and re-relax back into this awareness, really the essence of what we are, wakeful, open. For some it can be helpful to use the anchor of the breath, the flow of the breath as it comes in and out of the nostrils or perhaps the rising falling at the chest or expanding and settling at the belly as a sensory anchor to help remind us and collect us right here, right now. You might notice that your mind is drifting.

did into thoughts about the future or the past commentary. Just pause and relax back again, letting your senses help to bring you into full presence, listening to the sounds that are actually here, opening to the felt sense of sensation in the body. If there's tightness re-relaxing the shoulders, softening the hands. loosening and softening the belly. Again, feel all the bodies filled with awareness, feel from the inside out, this aliveness that's here, relaxing and smiling into the heart.

Give yourself the gift of re-relaxing. Whenever you notice contraction or tension, whether it's the contraction of thinking in the mind or tightness in the shoulders, fear in the the heart, re-relax, bring a gentle, clear attention to what's right here and soften. See if you can let the life that's here be just as it is, deepening the intention to be friend and relaxed with whatever arises moment to moment. sensing how your body experience is sound and holding that with gentleness. It flows in a simple way with a brief loving-kindness reflection. Just sensing your own heart and mind and offering whatever

wish most resonates right now to yourself and bringing to mind someone dear who could use your energy or prayer and offering some wish, offering some blessing. to that person. And sensing your heart space including all those who've gathered here, all those who might be practicing or listening in our cyber world, all those beings everywhere, the earth, our mother, all of life. And just offering your prayer to all beings.