Tara Brach - Meditation: Being Here (2019-05-01)

Episode Date: May 2, 2019

Meditation: Being Here (2019-05-01) - This practice sets the atmosphere of loving presence with a smile-down and waking up all the senses. We relax into open awareness, receptive to the breath or whatever waves of experience are calling for attention. The invitation is to rest in Hereness, fully awake in presence. The meditation ends with a short offering of blessings. Your support enables us to continue to offer these talks and meditations freely. If you value them, I hope you will consider offering a donation at this time at www.tarabrach.com/donation/. With gratitude and love, Tara

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 with your eyes closed, find yourself sitting tall, upright, sense like a tree that your spine can go deep, deep into the earth, rooted and yet rising up into the heavens. So there's that quality of tallness, let the chin come parallel to the ground, so there really

is a straight line to the spine, or allow the shoulders to relax back and down, and then within that tallness and uprightness, see what else can relax, finding a balance and ease, letting the posture really be conducive to relaxed and alert. relaxed and alert. You might become aware of the breath at the heart and paying attention to the heart and the energy around the heart. We begin with a simple reflection on intention. What is your deepest intention for this meditation practice right now?

What is it that your heart really longs for in meditation? what matters to you? There's an inner listening to what you care about and feeling a sense of sincerity, of openness and availability. And it's from this caring presence that we'll chant together, a very simple mantra om, it's the sound current of connectedness and you might bring the palms together. So you're centered fully at the heart, chanting from the heart, we'll chant three times. You might take a nice, long, deep in breath as a way of sensing the heart space that can hold your meditation.

You might bring a slight but real smile to the lips. Notice that your eyes can soften, almost as if there's a smile spreading through the eyes, lifting the outer corners of the eyes up a bit. Let the brow be smooth, becoming aware of the sensations that move through the whole face, the lips, letting the tongue fill the upper palate and seeing if you can possibly relax down to the root of the tongue, letting the awareness extend to the back of the head, the skull, the scalp. You might imagine the throat can fill the neck and feel from the inside out, sensation there,

allowing the shoulders to fall away from the neck and placing the awareness inside the shoulders, balanced and even, and feel from the inside out exactly what's there. There may be tension or tightness, heat, cool, there may be some movement or flow, sense that you can allow whatever the experiences and the shoulders to float in awareness and perhaps invites invite a bit of dissolving, releasing, extending the attention through the arms, sensing the flow of energy right down into the hands. Noticing if you can let the hands rest in a very easy and relaxed way, effortless. Noticing if you can soften the hands, filling

the hands with awareness. So you're receiving from the inside out. the sensations of life. Are you aware of the pulsing, the tingling, the vibrating? Let there be an openness to the chest. You might sense that smile at the mouth, the eyes and then sense it spreading through the heart and chest area. Just visualizing and feeling that curve of a smile. And feeling from the inside out, the aliveness that's there, scanning down the body to the

midsection, letting this next breath be received in a softening belly, this breath, and now this one and again, smile at the mouth and eyes, hands soft, smile at the heart, and perhaps you can visualize and feel the curve of a smile spreading through the belly, and belly, feeling from the inside out, the aliveness there. Feeling the whole volume, distance between either side of your waist, distance between the navel and the spine, the whole volume filled with awareness, aliveness, presence. Again, sensing that smile and visualizing and feeling that felt sense of a smile as it spread through the pelvic region, allowing an access to the felt sense of aliveness that's there,

relaxed and alive. You can feel the aliveness filling the whole torso. Aware of the legs, the length and volume of the legs, and feeling the feet from the inside out. Can you feel the tingling there, the vibrating? Noticing what happens if you widen the lens and feel this whole body all at once, as a field of sensation, letting this life live through you, not opposing anything, including

in this field of aliveness, the coming and going of sounds. It's relaxing back into the awareness that's listening to and feeling this whole changing flow. As you continue, you might allow the attention to mainly rest with the waves of the breath. Just receiving the inflow and outflow of the breath in that open awareness. No controlling, nothing to direct, letting the breath move naturally and if any other strong wave of experience arises and wants your attention, strong sensations of pleasantness or unpleasantness, emotions, then releasing the breath as the center place of attention and opening to what arises

with interest and with care when it no longer calls the attention. You might gently arrive again in that awareness of the breath. You may notice at some point that the attention has left presence and that you're inside some virtual reality, a thought cloud of the future or past. And with that recognizing there's a choice to relax open the attention again, to notice the sounds that are actually here rather than the sounds in your mind, listening to and feeling the aliveness that's in the body and perhaps again resting with the in flow and outflow. Knowing that you're right here, sensing the quality of heerness.

You can start fresh in any moment during your meditation and in your life, simply pausing, just noticing without judgment what's happening and choosing to gently arrive right here, sensing the quality of heerness that comes. when there's a listening to the sounds that are coming and going, when there's a relaxing in the body and an opening to the sensations of aliveness that are here, when we relax our hearts and become intimate with our moment-to-moment experience. As you close this sitting, you might deepen that listening to your own heart and sense what wish or blessing you'd like to offer to your life right now.

And then feeling into the heart space that's here, that heart space that includes all of those who are practicing, all of those who are on this earth planet, those that are struggling and those that are flourishing. All beings, the earth are mother, in our hearts, offering your prayer. Namaste and blessings.