Tara Brach - Meditation: Being a Kind Witness

Episode Date: August 24, 2023

Meditation: Being a Kind Witness - Learning to witness what is going on inside us is the gateway to inner freedom and deep realization. This meditation guides us in witnessing our experience with a non-judging and kind awareness. "A witnessing awareness like a kind grandmother watching children - that simply notices what's happening without judgment."

The following meditation is led by Tara Brock, meditation teacher, psychologist, and author. In this particular meditation, just to find a posture that supports you and lets you feel stable, lets you feel safe, you might sense a groundedness, kind of like a mountain, really connected to the earth and yet open. And as you'd like, you might let the eyes either be closed or downcast so your attention can be inward and feel awake, at ease. You might become aware of this body breathing and perhaps extend the breath so it's a long, deep in breath and then a slow release of the breath and feel the sensations of the air as it

leaves the nostrils. And then another long deep in breath. a slow out breath, smooth, even release. One more time, inhale deeply. Release the breath slowly, letting go, relaxing outward, and then allowing the breath to come back into its natural rhythm. And sensing that you can relax with the movement of the breath, feel the presence that's right here.

Deepening that presence by scanning through the body and noticing where there might be some habitual tightness or tension. And just sense that by bringing your awareness to those places, there can be some natural releasing. You can bring the awareness to the area of the brow, the eyes. And just sense a natural calling to soften. Let the brow be smooth. the eyes soft. You might unhinge the jaw, relax the mouth, relax the tongue so that it can fill the lower palate, perhaps a slight smile. And just feel the sensations that become apparent when you start

relaxing, softening through the face, scalp, skull, letting the shoulders relax back and down. and feel from the inside out, whatever's there. Noticing if there's tightness or knots that you can sense that floating in awareness, perhaps dissolving or melting some in awareness. You might soften the palms of the hands, the backs, feel the space between the palms and the back of the hand. You might sense an openness of the chest and then loosening down the torso, letting this next breath be received in a softening belly.

This breath and now this one and again the belly is soft. The awareness spreading through the torso, just feeling the back and sensing as you scan down the back the possibility of letting go, softening, releasing. of the legs, the length, and the volume, and the weight of your legs. You might sense if you can soften the feet and feel the sensations from the inside out and then widening the attention. I'm sensing this body energetically as a field of sensation. Noticing how everything's moving, pulsing, vibrating, tingling.

feelings of numbness or feelings of flow. Everything's moving. Including in awareness the changing sounds, close in sounds, the distant sounds, sensing the awareness that's listening to and feeling the whole moment. Let your intention be to rest in this witnessing awareness, this non-judgmental awareness, that notices the changing experiences of thoughts, sounds, sensations, a witnessing awareness

like a kind grandmother watching children that simply notices what's happening without judgment. And at some point you'll notice that there's no longer that witnessing, but rather your attentions inside thoughts, feelings, in those moments to come back to the witness. And you might ask yourself the question, what is happening inside me? And that begins to bring back the witness. What is happening inside me? And can I let this be reopening to being the kind witness? aware of being aware, of being right here now.

You can return home to the clarity and presence of the witness in any moment to simply ask what is happening inside me, listening to the sounds that are here, feeling the feelings, sensations of the moment. What is happening? And can I let this be? Again, being aware of being aware of that heerness, relaxing open again and again to simply witnessing this changing flow of experience, discovering

through witnessing the true nature of who you are. You might listen to these words from the Indian teacher Srinargarata as you watch your mind, as you witness thoughts, sound, feelings. You discover yourself as the watcher when you stay motionless, only watching. You discover yourself as the light behind the watcher. The source of light is the source of all-knowing, of loving. That source alone is. Relax in that source, in that beingness, and abide there. Thank you.