Tara Brach - Meditation: Collecting and Quieting the Mind (2021-12-15)

Episode Date: December 16, 2021

Meditation: Collecting and Quieting the Mind (2021-12-15) - Our conditioned mind is filled with distractions, including worry-thoughts that continually create anxiety in the body. This meditation guides us in relaxing the body, and then establishing the breath as a home base. By gathering and collecting the attention, the mind can settle and allow for a relaxed, wakeful presence.

The following meditation is led by Tara Brock. To access more of my meditations or join my email list, please visit tarabrock.com. Let the attention gently scan through your body. Just to notice if there's any part of you that wants to let go a little right now, any part of the body that's in some way tense, tight, holding. See if it's possible to relax. in the shoulder area. You might place your awareness inside the shoulders and just let whatever tightness is there float

in awareness. See if there's a natural loosening, releasing. Let the hands rest in an easy and effortless way. You might soften the hands. And again, having the awareness on the inside, Just feel the life that's there. Let there be an openness to the chest. Feeling the area of the heart.

Again, from the inside out, feeling the sensations there, loosening, relaxing through the abdominal area. And let this next in-breath be received in a softening belly. This breath and now this one. noticing if there's any reaction in the body. And continuing to scan down the body, aware of the sensations in the pelvic region, where of the places of pressure,

warmth where there's contact, your hands on your thighs, your bottom on the cushion or chair, your feet on the floor, opening the attention to feel simultaneously this whole body is a field of sensation, and discovering in the midst of this field of sensations, the simple movement of the breath.

Wherever you feel the breath most distinctly, or wherever the breath feels most pleasant, let that be the place that you pay attention. It may be the inflow, outflow at the nostrils, it may be the rising, falling at the chest, maybe the expanding and deflating at the belly, Or perhaps you're feeling the whole body breathing, even in a cellular way, letting the moving sensations of the breath be in the foreground, relaxing with the breath.

See if you can notice the beginnings and endings of each breath, noticing if there's a pause between, not in any way controlling the breath. It's more like you're listening to and feeling the breath with a very soft, attention. It's the nature of mind to get lost in thoughts. And it's also our capacity to notice at some point. So when you notice that the mind has been off on a train of thought, let that be a wake-up to pause. You might even note thinking, thinking, and gently relax back, landing on the next in-breath or out-breath, rising, breath or falling breath. Notice the difference between being here, feeling the sensations

of the breath and often any thought doesn't matter how many times the mind drifts off. You're building a muscle for homecoming without any judgment just noticing when there's been planning or worrying thoughts of the future or the past. And gently relax open again. perhaps aware of the sounds around you, maybe re-relaxing a bit, letting the shoulders go, softening the hands, relaxing the belly, relaxing your heart, arriving again with the movement of the breath, a relaxed, soft yet clear attention moment to moment, still mindful of the breath, also including other senses and awareness, aware of the sounds around you, aware of the play of sensations in your body, where of whatever mood or emotions might be predominant, an awake

awareness, including whatever is calling for your attention, moment by moment, and if the mind drifts off into a virtual reality, when you notice it, Just gently reawaken, reopen back into your senses. The poet Wu Man writes, 10,000 flowers in spring, the moon in autumn, a cool breeze in summer, snow in winter.

If your mind isn't clouded by unnecessary things, This is the best season of your life.