Tara Brach - Meditation: Cultivating an Intimate Presence

Episode Date: August 13, 2020

Meditation: Cultivating an Intimate Presence - This guided meditation cultivates a relaxed, gentle presence with whatever expressions of life are arising in the moment. We begin by releasing and opening through the body, and then include all sensations, feelings and sounds in an intimate, allowing presence.

The following meditation is led by Tara Brock. To access more of my meditations or join my email list, please visit tarabrock.com. You come into stillness, let the attention come to the heart area. And just feel the breath gently in that region. Noticing the state of your heart right now, where of whatever mood or emotion might be here, what level of sensitivity,

or maybe there's a quality of numbness or cut-offness, without any judgment, just with kind of a curious, friendly attention, noticing how it is. As you continue listening inwardly, listen for what your heart's intention is, What is it your heart longs for, your heart's purpose or aspiration for practicing right now, for meditating?

As you inquire, you might have a prepackaged response, just a bow to that and then listen even more deeply. Just keep asking yourself, what's most true? Is it for increased presence in your life? More open-heartedness? more realization of what's truth, our true, more peace. What is it your heart most longs for? Right in these moments, the attitude that most supports awakening

is a quality of friendliness and interest, a real gentle attention. You can establish that as an atmosphere in your body with the image of a smile. You might smile into your eyes. Let the outer corners of the eyes lift up a little. Let the curve of a smile spread through the eyes. Flesh around the eyes soften, the brow be smooth.

A slight smile at the mouth, feeling the inside of the mouth smiling. See if you can relax right down to the root of the tongue. The eyes are soft. the mouth smiling, and then smiling into the heart, letting the curve of a smile spread through the heart so you visualize it and feel it. This isn't to paper over what's there, but to create a space that allows whatever feelings are moving through you just to be as they are, letting that space in the heart area

widen and open so that you can feel the shoulders naturally relaxing back and down, just letting go a little, falling away from the neck, and see if you can feel inside the shoulders. Sense the space inside the shoulders, the sensations. You might imagine that the sensations can float in awareness, naturally untangling and loosening. You might sense a dissolution, ice to water. See if you can imagine and feel that melting. And water to gas, letting the hands rest in a very easy, effortless way.

Explore what happens if you soften the hands and then feel the life from the inside out. Feel the hands from the inside out. Can you receive... the tingling or vibrating that's there. Heat or cool. Pulsing. This is an intimate attention.

Intimate with the aliveness that's right here, letting the chest be open. And then from the inside out, feeling the aliveness and space in the heart region, just noticing and allowing the life to be just as it is, but with an intimate attention, scanning down the body, relaxing in the abdominal area, letting this next breath be received in a softening belly.

This breath, and now this one, and again, feeling from the inside out the life in this region, sometimes described as the Don Tian, the navel area, the belly, a relaxed, intimate attention, Feeling the sensations from the inside out, by breath. To scan with awareness, letting the awareness fill the pelvic region. Again, from the inside out, feeling the aliveness and space, the energy that fills you. Standing down, feeling sensations through the upper legs, thighs, the hamstrings, the region of the lower legs, the region of the lower legs, the calves,

shins, dealing the feet to places of pressure, warmth, contact, where you touch the floor. And then from the inside out, feeling the aliveness, the movement of sensation inside the feet. Now in a simultaneous way, opening the lens of attention to include this whole field of bodily sensations. just feeling the whole dance all at once without stopping anything, without resisting or opposing, an intimate presence saying yes to this whole field of sensation, noticing how this field of aliveness includes a play of sound, the whole symphony of sound, an intimate presence listening to and feeling this changing life,

You might find as a way to steady this presence that you can discover the movement of the breath in the foreground wherever it's easiest to feel, perhaps at the nostrils, the inflow, outflow. There might be the rising, falling sensations at the chest or belly. Or maybe it's the feeling of the whole body breathing, even in a cellular way, expanding and settling, resting that intimate attention with this changing breath.

It's natural that your attention will drift. When it does against that attitude of friendliness and interest, just relaxing back, aware of the sounds, relaxing with the play of sensations in the body, sensing the movement of the breath in the foreground, and also where in the background, of this alert, inner stillness, the light of awareness, that which is aware, that presence, which is our own awakening spirit, just travel to.

You can find the pathway home by simply pausing and with a gentle, interested attention. Awakening your senses, just listen. open through the body, feeling what's here. Feel the movement of the breath. And let that sense of intimacy and presence be right here. It's the light of your own awareness. In the same spirit of friendliness that we opened, our meditation will close by sensing that you can just turn to your own heart, your own life,

and honor your experience. bowing to and offering care to the life that's right here and bringing that same respect and tender-heartedness to your world, feeling the world in your heart, offering whatever prayer resonates as we close this meditation.