Tara Brach - Meditation: Entrusting Yourself to the Waves

Episode Date: August 22, 2024

By not resisting, by letting the waves wash through us, we begin to relax. Rather than fighting the stormy surges, we rest in an ocean of awareness that embraces all the moving waves. We arrive in a sanctuary that feels large enough to hold whatever is going on.

The following meditation is led by Tara Brock. To access more of my meditations or join my email list, please visit tarabrock.com. Take a moment to find a sitting posture that can really support you. Recommend sitting upright as tall as you can without being tense or stiff. And the reason for sitting tall is you'll be more alert.

See if you can find in that tall a quality of ease. So just take a moment to let go a little, sitting tall and then letting go. You might take a few full breaths to collect the attention, inhaling deeply now, and exhaling slowly, and again inhaling deeply, filling the chest and lungs, and then a very slow out breath so you can feel the sensations of the breath as it's released. One more time, inhaling deeply. Letting go now, the breath slowly. Just feel letting go through your whole body. Letting go, letting go. And then let the breath resume its natural rhythm. And just notice the quality of presence that's here. Notice if you feel a little more here, mindful,

In this presence you can let the attention come to the heart and take a moment to sense your intention tonight for being here, what it is that matters to you, what it is in the most sincere way that that's important, that really brings you to meditate. Letting yourself feel that sincerity of heart we do a bit of chanting as part of opening our evening with the simple mantra ome, which is the sound current of connectedness. So you might bring the palms together, this gesture of prayerfulness or reverence helps to bring more energy to the heart area. And we'll chant three times together.

Let's start by inhaling deeply. Let the senses be awake, where the sounds in the room, soft sounds around, and the sound you and aware of the sensations in the body as you're sitting here. You can gently scan through the body, waking up the awareness from the inside out. You might soften the brow area, let it be smooth and relaxed. The eyes soft. For some it helps to sense that you're smiling into the eyes. So there's that receptivity and openness.

A similar way you can have a slight smile at the mouth, even since the inside of the mouth smiling, and feel the life that's there. Feel the sensations inside the tongue, letting the tongue be very relaxed, the jaw relaxed, where of sensations and the gums, the teeth, the lips, and spreading through the face,

so the face is awake, receptive, soft. You might imagine your throat expanding to fill the neck and just feel the space and aliveness in the neck area. See if you can detect the flow, the movement of energy and sensation. The space that's there. You might feel the shoulders from the inside out, imagining a melting ice to water. See if you can feel that. Water to gas. Can you soften and feel the sensations moving inside the shoulders? And if there's tightness, just letting it float in awareness. Feeling the length of the arms, the volume inside the arms,

allowing the hands to be resting in a very easy way, very effortless. And see what happens if you soften the hands and feel them from the inside out. Feeling the space inside the thumbs, the space between the palms and the backs of the hands. and the movement of energy there. Let there be an openness to the chest. You might sense you can smile into the heart area, sensing the curve of a smile spreading through the chest.

This isn't to paper over what's there but rather to create a space that allows the life that's here. Feeling the heart from the inside out, sensations that are there, the space that's there, scanning down the body to the navel area, see if you can loosen and soften the belly some so that this next breath is being received in a softening belly. This breath and this one and then this one. Beginning to feel from the inside out the aliveness in the belly. Sometimes describes as the dantien, this is an energy chakra or center.

that we often tighten against and close off. You can explore smiling into that area, letting a smile spread through that naval area. And again, feeling from the inside out, the space that's there and the aliveness. And the awareness scan down deep into the torso, sensing awareness filling the whole pelvic area, feeling from the inside out,

hips, buttocks, genitals, opening to the aliveness, sensing the energy and space that's there, feeling the legs from the inside out, sensing the length of the legs, the volume that fills the legs, the aliveness there, and letting the awareness fill the feet. You might feel the pressure and warmth where the feet are touching the floor. You might feel from the very inside out, the mood. movement of energy and aliveness, sensing your connection to the earth. And sensing the earth itself, the earth body deep and vast and filled with space and aliveness. So you can imagine and sense the earth body's aliveness energy flowing up into you,

that you are an extension and part of this earth body, filled with aliveness. It's feeling this energy body simultaneously all parts at once, not stopping anything or controlling anything. Entrusting yourself to the waves. It's letting go into aliveness, including in this dance of aliveness the play of sound. So you're listening to and feeling the whole moment, noticing how much you can surrender into or relax into.

this changing stream of sensations and feelings and sounds. At some point you'll notice that you've left this flow of aliveness and awareness and gone into a thought form about the future, the past, some commentary, some kind of removing into a virtual reality. It's not a problem, it's the nature. of mind. But when you notice it's an invitation to re-relax back into this living reality. You notice thinking, you might just simply note that, okay, thinking, thinking. And then pause, reawaken the senses, know the sounds that are happening at this moment, let them wash through

you. Know the sensations that are happening in the body. Really relax with them, let go into them. There's a mood, a strong emotion, a deep way saying yes and opening to that, letting the winds move through and once back right here, just sensing how much you can rest, letting go, surrendering into this changing flow and trusting yourself to the waves. Notice reactions that arise when you hear sounds. And just let them be another wave.

You might even mentally whisper the word here, letting the senses be wide awake and relaxing again with the changing life of the moment. What's right here in the foreground, the changing play of sounds, this dance of sensation, feelings. Aware of these waves and relaxing, with them and also where in the background of this alert, inner stillness, your own presence.

This is the formless dimension. It's the ocean that's aware of the waves, letting go into this wholeness of being. Sin Master Ria Khan writes, if you want to know the Buddhist way, drift east, drift west, come and go. entrusting yourself to the waves.