Tara Brach - Meditation: Coming Home with the Breath

Episode Date: August 3, 2023

Meditation: Coming Home with the Breath - Our breath is always available as a pathway back to presence. This simple meditation guides us to relax and awaken in the body, and then establishes the breath as a home base for our attention. Our practice is to notice when the mind becomes distracted, and gently return to our breath and senses. This helps the mind to become increasingly settled, calm and clear. We close with a short heart blessing.

The following meditation is led by Tara Brock. To access more of my meditations or join my email list, please visit tarabrock.com. As you let your attention go inward, you might ask yourself a very simple question. And that is, what is most important to me? What is it that brings me to practice right now? This is really what does your heart long for? It takes some moments to sense your deep intention. Takes a kind of inner listening where you feel most sincere.

Feel your heart with its wish or prayer that may these moments of practice serve awakening or freedom, touching peace, working with fear, feeling more at home in myself, opening my heart in the quietness, gently scanning through the body and noticing if there's any obvious areas of tightness or tension, taking some moments to allow yourself to soften. It can help to pay attention to the area of the eyes, softening the eyes and all those micro-muscles around the eyes, letting the brow be smooth, unhinge the jaw, perhaps allowing a very slight smile to spread across the lips, allowing the shoulders to relax back and down a bit, feeling from the inside whatever tightness or tension might be there, just allowing it to float a bit in awareness, to

naturally soften, loosen. Let the hands rest in a very easy, effortless way. Softening the hands, noticing from the inside out the aliveness that's there. And softening again, sensing how when you relax, you can connect with a lot more aliveness. Let the chest be open. Loosening the belly, letting this next breath be received, in a loosening belly, in a softening belly.

This breath and now this one and again and again, letting the awareness wake up deep in the torso, spreading down through the legs, that awareness, that wakefulness, through the legs, right into the feet, and widening the lens of attention to sense this whole body. As a field of sensation, aware of the changing experience of cool or heat, tightness, or flow, tingling, vibrating. Notice what happens when you just let it all be. Just as it is, you might notice within this field of sensation the natural inflow and

outflow of the breath as a stream of sensation. receiving the breath just as it is, letting your attention rest gently in the movement of the breath. Might be the in-flow-outflow at the nostrils, it might be the expanding and deflating of the chest or belly, or perhaps you're feeling the breath throughout the whole body, even in a cellular way, letting the breath be a kind of home base and what happens when And you relax even more fully with the breath. For many you might notice your mind is flipped into another channel, been pulled into some thought

or commentary. Totally okay. Part of practice is just realizing, oh, the mind's drifted. And that's a moment of mindfulness. And then the opportunity is to re-arri-arise. to explore that pathway back home again. Hmm, just resting again in this breath, this in breath or out breath, rising breath, falling breath.

Noticing the difference between being right here with the aliveness of the breath and sensations, sounds, the difference between that and any virtual reality of thinking. Keeping your meditation simple right now, noticing when the mind's drifted and gently shepherding the mind back home right here, relaxing with a breath like a raft in the waves, moment to moment. When you notice the mind is drifted, it'll help you arrive home again if you pause and re-relax to see what wants to let go. Perhaps soften again the shoulders and the hands. Loosen the belly.

Relax the heart. Allow the awareness to come back into this body and this breath, gently. Sensing the quality of heerness that you know you're right here. Sensing behind the sounds, sensations, feelings, the presence that's here. We close by letting that presence and have it and fill the heart, taking some moments to feel your life right now

and sense whatever blessing or prayer you'd like to offer to yourself, whatever most resonates, offering that inward. And sensing this heart space that's very edgeless, open, inclusive, feeling the world in your heart and offering whatever prayer or blessing naturally arises for our world. Namaste.