Tara Brach - Meditation: Cultivating a Mindful Awareness

Episode Date: May 22, 2025

Mindfulness means paying attention on purpose to our moment-to-moment experience. This meditation invites us to collect our attention with the breath and use the breath as a home base for mindful presence. We then include whatever is predominant, recognizing and allowing the changing flow. The blessing of this practice is simple and beautiful: We are learning to be here for our life.

The following meditation is led by Tara Brock. To access more of my meditations or join my email list, please visit tarabrock.com. I'm closing your eyes, letting the attention go inward. You might feel the movement of the breath at the heart. So you just become aware of the area of the heart. And we start by bringing attention to the heart so that we can get in touch with our intention for being here.

You might want to just ask yourself, what really brings me to meditation, to practice? What is it that most matters to me? Sense with a kind of sincerity, what your heart longs for. It might be that you're looking for more peace and ease or maybe you really want a more open-hearted quality in your life, more intimacy. And maybe a deeper realization of who you are, a kind of awakening,

a sense what matters. The most direct gateway to a presence is to be awake in the senses, to listen and to bring that listening attention right into the body so that you're listening to the life of the body, scanning through the body. You might bring the attention to the area of the eyes and the brow. Just soften the eyes. You might imagine a smile spreading through the eyes so the outer corners are lifted up somewhat.

The brow is smooth. Let the mouth be relaxed, a slight smile at the mouth. the jaw unhinged. So you might have sense a smile on the inside of the mouth. This sense of message to the whole nervous system to relax, fight, flight, freeze. So you can really attend and befriend the life that's here. The eyes are smiling, the mouth. And you might smile into the heart. Let a smile spread through the heart. This is not to cover over any. but rather to make space for the life that's here. Sensing a smile spreading through the heart area and that heart space opening, spreading outward. You might sense that the shoulders are free

to relax back and down. You might allow the awareness to fill the area of the shoulders. So there can be a natural untangling and loosening and softening. Let the hands be soft resting in a very easy, effortless way. Let the awareness fill the hands. So you can feel the life from the inside out, tingling, vibrating. Let the chest be open. And see if you can soften down the torso so the belly's soft.

Let this next breath be received in a softening belly. belly. This breath and now this one and again, letting the awareness fill the belly. You feel the life there from the inside out, continuing to scan down the torso, feeling the pelvic region, filling that area with awareness. You feel the aliveness and let that spread down through the legs. Feel the awareness filling the feet. and then just widening the lens of awareness, so you can feel the whole body simultaneously as a field of sensation.

See if you can let life just totally live through you, not stopping anything or opposing anything. This whole field of tingling and vibrating, places of tightness and places of flow. Notice what happens when you let everything be as it is, discover within this whole field of sensation, the movement of the breath. Just receive the breath wherever you feel it most pleasant or distinctive. It might be the inflow, outflow at the nose, the tip of the nostrils,

perhaps the rising, falling at the chest. Maybe it's the belly expanding, deflating. Or you might sense the whole body breathing. even in a cellular way, the inflating and the settling, letting this life breath be in the foreground, resting, the attention with the breath, still aware in the background of sound, other sensations. Once you notice the mind has traveled, gone into the future, the past,

That's an opportunity to practice homecoming, gently relaxing back, coming home into the moment. Let's relax the mind open again, re-relax the body, and gently land on the next in-breath or out-breath. So we let the breath be a kind of home base that helps us be mindful of when the mind has drifted. And if the breath is a difficult home base for whatever reason, you can let sounds be in the foreground instead. Or for some, perhaps the whole feeling of the body, the sensations of the sitting posture as a home base. So know that you're here, right here.

You might even mentally whisper the word here and feel the vibrancy and mystery and immediacy of Heerness of being present. To be mindful means to be aware of what's happening in the present moment without any judgment. Just recognizing and letting be, be mindful of this life breath. What does it feel like moment to moment? And if some other strong experience calls for your attention, Perhaps something very unpleasant in the body, ache or pain, twisting, burning, or perhaps

something pleasant in the body, tingling, vibrating flow. Then let that be in the foreground. You might still breathe with it but feel it fully. This practice is to be mindful of whatever appears if it's fear or sadness, exciting. joy, anger, again, let those ways of experience be in the foreground, recognizing moment to moment what's right here and saying yes to it, letting it be here. And if nothing strong is calling the attention, then continue to bring that mindful presence to the movement of the breath, or to whatever your home base is, sounds or sensations.

There are two questions that can deepen your mindful presence. The first is, what is happening inside me right now? Let the attention be directed inward, noticing whatever is predominant, whatever calls your attention. The second question is, and can I be with you? with this? Or you might prefer. Can I let this be? And sense how deeply allowing you can be. How much you can say yes to the sensations and feelings and life of this moment. You might notice where your attention is. The mind is drifted. Can take the opportunity to relax back at yourself gently arrive again right here. Let your senses be awake, open to the sounds,

the sensations, the feelings of this moment. It's resting in the awareness that recognizes the changing flow and allows everything to be just as it is.