Tara Brach - Meditation: Entering the Flow (2015-05-20)

Episode Date: May 23, 2015

Guided Meditation: Entering the Flow (2015-05-20) - "Letting go over and over into this changing flow - the river of aliveness."

The following meditation is led by Tara Brock, meditation teacher, psychologist, and author. You might let yourself be aware of the sitting posture. See if it's possible to sit in a way that's upright. So you feel a quality of sitting tall and alert. And also sense if it's possible maintaining that alert quality to be at ease, to relax some. just notice what wants to let go a little right now, bringing a gentle awareness to the movement of the breath, just taking some moments to collect and quiet the mind, feeling the sensations of the inflow and the outflow. You might sense that you can feel the breath at the heart,

waking up the attention, the awareness in the heart area, and with a quality of listening, Ask yourself what it is that really brings you here to practice, to meditate. What's your intention for tonight? Listening to your heart and sensing the most sincere intention or longing, what really most matters to you? Very direct gateway to presence is letting the awareness fill the body. feeling the body and the aliveness from the inside out. I'd like to invite you to begin by having the image of a smile in your mind,

as if you could sense a great open sky and let that smile fill the sky, a great receptive curve of a smile, bright blue sky, vast smile. And then let that smile fill the mind, as if the mind in the sky could just merge. So the mind is filled with the curve, the uplift of a smile,

and just sense the openness and the receptivity of that. And sense a smile spreading through the eyes, lifting up the outer corners of the eyes, softening the eyes, letting the brow be smooth. Can you sense the awareness filling the brow, the brow, the farhead area, receptive, sensitive. You might let there be a half smile at the mouth, a very slight smile at the mouth, and the inside of the mouth filled with a sense of a smile. Relax down to the root of the tongue. And then again, can you feel the awareness that fills the mouth, the whole mouth, the space of awareness, the tingling, the vibrating, sensing the scalp and the skull,

Just feeling the whole head filled with aliveness with sensation. You might imagine the throat filling the neck area. And again, letting awareness receive the sensations in the neck. What are you aware of? Letting the shoulders fall away from the neck, relaxing back and down some. And sense awareness filling the shoulders. Can you imagine the space and the aliveness inside the shoulders? receiving those sensations with a receptive present.

You might sense what might want to let go a little more in the area of the shoulders, increasing the awareness of life there, sensing the length and the volume of the arms, bringing the awareness inside the hands. What's your experience of the hands from the inside out? What do you notice? You might explore softening the hands, a little and again noticing the experience of the hands from the inside out, tingling, vibration,

pulsing, perhaps places of warmth or pressure. Just as a cup can be filled with water, this whole body can be filled with awareness. Let the chest be open and just sense from the inside out, the aliveness in the heart area, sensing the aliveness it fills the whole chest, scanning down and feeling the belly, softening the belly so that you receive this next breath in a softening belly. This breath, and now this one, and again, doing the whole belly from the inside out, the play of sensations. Again, re-softening. the eyes and feeling the smile through the eyes. So you're smiling into the eyes. Brow is smooth. Half smile at the mouth. You might sense a smile spreading through the heart

and chest area. Imagine a smile spreading through the belly. Loosening, opening, softening. You might sense what can relax just a little more in the belly. Letting the awareness now scan down and fill the whole pelvic region, hips, buttocks, genitals, feeling life from the inside out, fully receptive and present, sensing the length and the volume of your legs, right down into the feet, placing the awareness inside the feet, receiving the life there, the energy, the sensations in the feet. And now opening the attention so that you can feel. simultaneously this whole living body, this whole dance of sensation, and just let everything happen. Not opposing anything, not controlling. Notice how everything keeps moving, changing. A dance

of sensation, including sound, nothing to do, a simple receptivity to the appearing and disappearing, of sound. Noticing how nothing holds still, an ever-changing dance, a symphony of sound, dance of sensation. So you're listening to and feeling this whole changing flow. You might sense if it's possible to let go a little more and be the changing flow. So there's simply the knowing of this river of aliveness when the attention drifts as it quite naturally does. We go back into the trance of thinking and when you notice that you can arrive again in your senses. Just wonder what am I hearing right this moment? What are the actual sounds right here? Then open to the life of the body re-relaxing a little, receiving the

dance of energy, letting go over and over into this changing flow, this river of aliveness, and closing this meditation by bringing presence to the heart area, just sensing how the river of aliveness expresses in the area of the heart. You might smile into the heart or sense of a smile spreading through the heart area again, not to cover over, but but to really create space for whatever's here right now. A gentle, kind presence. And as you listen and attend, just sense whatever wish or blessing you'd like to offer to your own heart,

to your own being. It might be the wish for happiness or more peace, to be more awake, more loving, to discover real freedom. And just sense that tenderness and the space of heart, as vast and open, including all beings, all life, feeling your wish or your prayer for all beings.