Tara Brach - Meditation: Filling Our Body with Love (2021-11-17)

Episode Date: November 18, 2021

Meditation: Filling Our Body with Love (2021-11-17) - When we are fully awake, love shines through our entire body and being. This meditation awakens that embodied love through the image and felt sense of the smile, scanning through the body, resting in loving presence and offering loving prayer.

The following meditation is led by Tara Brock. To access more of my meditations or join my email list, please visit tarabrock.com. You might begin with the simple intention of bringing friendliness, kindness, to the life that's right here. Noticing what happens when you, on purpose, regard to the life that's right here, noticing what happens when you, on purpose, regard your inner life with a gentleness and a care. We can let the image of a smile help to embody that care. You might start by imagining or visualizing a smile that spreads through a great open sky.

It's the curve of a smile and with that an openness and a recepta positivity, a benevolence in the whole atmosphere. Imagine that your mind can merge with that great open sky. So the smile is filling your mind, brightening your mind. I'd smile into the eyes and sense the outer corners of the eyes lifted up a bit in a smile. The eyes are smiling. flesh around the eyes, smooth brow, just sense that you're opening to and bringing kindness and care

to that whole area of the brow, relaxing, soothing, gentle presence. Let your jaw be unhinged. Slight smile at the mouth. You sense the inside of the mouth smiling. Let the tongue fill the lower palate. relaxing down to the root of the tongue. Again, let the kindness, the gentleness of the smile fill the very cells and spaces between the cells and the mouth.

The eyes are smiling, the mouth. It might visualize and feel a smile in the throat. Sometimes we don't even realize that tightness in the throat. Just letting that smile spread through the throat, feel the ear. bringing a very kind energy there. Notice the experience, the cells, the sensations, the energy that's there. The eyes are smiling, the mouth, the throat.

You might smile into the heart. Visualize and sense a smile spreading through the whole heart and chest area. That smile bring a sense of kindness, care to whatever's in the heart area, creating that space that allows whatever's there to be held very gently. Imagine that smile in the heart and chest just spreading out and opening more, as if in concentric circles there can be a widening of the field of that smile to include the shoulders. So the shoulders can relax back and down. Whatever tightness or tension, might be there, can float in this field of gentleness and kindness, letting the hands rest

in a very easy way, effortless, soft. You might feel the hands from the inside out, again letting there be that space of gentleness and care, just receiving the sensations. of that openness at the chest and softening and relaxing the belly. You might visualize and sense the curve of a smile through the belly, bringing care and gentleness, a very kind presence, the aliveness in the belly, as if you could fill the belly with loving presence. The eyes are soft and smiling, the mouth, the throat, the heart, the belly. You're continuing to scan down the body, visualizing and sensing the curve of a smile,

spreading through the whole pelvic region, filling that region with the warmth and the care of a gentle presence, length and the volume of the legs, sensing the feet from the inside out, filled with aliveness and energy, and widening the lens to sense this whole body as a field of sensation. And notice if there's any where in that field that's asking for kindness, for care, the energy or sensation that feels difficult or unpleasant, that you'd like to bring that atmosphere of kindness, this smile to help comfort, hold,

so you can sense the smile and the care of a smile illuminating every part of this field of energy when you become aware of the mind drifting, not to judge in any way, but rather gently arrive again, Feeling the aliveness that's right here. Perhaps relaxing the shoulders, softening the hands, relaxing your heart, feeling this body sitting here and breathing, letting this body, this energy feel, be filled with loving kindness, with the light and gentleness and kindness of a smile.

The eyes are smiling, soft, the mouth is smiling. letting a smile spread through the heart. Feeling that heart space that's tender and inclusive, that heart space that's luminous with care. And sensing from this heart space, whatever wish or prayer you'd like to offer to yourself, perhaps to the parts of yourself that struggle or get lost, whatever prayer you'd like to give in these moments,

mentally whispering and offering with kindness, including in this heart space someone you know who may be lost or struggling in some way, caught in suffering, offering your prayer, your whispered prayer of care, taking some moments, widening the circles to sense those in this world that we're aware of that are struggling, suffering. They're caught in anger, hatred, or rage, are caught in fear, oppression, justice, violence, sensing them held in our heart space, sending our prayer of care.

And feeling this heart space as edgeless, boundless, extending in all directions, luminous, all-inclusive. It's feeling yourself and all of us, all beings everywhere, held in that tenderness. May all beings everywhere realize their very essence as loving presence. Feel held in loving presence. Dwell in loving presence.

May all beings everywhere live their lives from loving presence. May all beings everywhere touch a natural and great peace. May there be peace on earth. May there be peace everywhere. May all beings awaken and be free. Namaste.