Tara Brach - Meditation: From Head to Full Being

Episode Date: July 3, 2025

When we are lost inside thoughts we lose connection with our heart, aliveness and spirit. This meditation guides us to a wakeful presence and invites us to return over and over from virtual reality into the mysterious, tender vastness that is our true being. 

The following meditation is led by Tara Brock. To access more of my meditations or join my email list, please visit tarabrock.com. So today's practice really is this movement from virtual reality to living presence. Take some moments, find the posture that most supports you as you're settling in, just sense that you're in a position that allows you to feel safe and grounded.

as at ease as possible, also awake. And as you come into stillness, you might collect your attention a bit with your breath, lengthening the in-breath to a count of four or five, so breathing in, and then a slow out-breath, matching the out-breath to the in-breath, a count of four or five, releasing the breath. And again, a long, deep in-breath, slow, smooth-out,

out breath, even out breath, letting go, letting go. And again, inhaling very consciously, slowly bringing in the breath, filling the chest and the lungs. And that slow out breath, releasing the sensation of letting go, letting go. And again, inhaling deeply, slow out breath, softening down the length of the body, letting go, letting go, and then letting the breath resume in its natural rhythm, observing and feeling the breath, just as it is. Noticing the quality of presence that grows with just a little bit of conscious attention. And you can deepen that presence as you establish awareness throughout the body.

You might begin with the crown of the head and the scalp and the skull, just sense if you can feel an aliveness or tingling there. Letting the attention flow down, across the brow, smoothing the brow, relaxing and softening the eyes. You might sense a slight smile at the mouth and let all the little micro-muscles in the face smooth out. feeling the inside of the mouth smiling. Letting the tongue fill the lower palate. You might sense if you can relax right down to the root of the tongue. Letting the mouth fill with sensation with awareness, with presence. You might sense that the shoulders can relax back and down some.

That you can fill the shoulders with awareness, feeling both sides, both shoulders, both shoulders, equally from the inside out. And if there's tightness or tension, you might imagine a kind of melting or dissolving of ice to water and water to gas, feeling the life in the shoulder, the awareness in the shoulder, and letting that flow right down through the arms

so you can sense the weight and volume of the arms, energy flowing through the arms, into the hands, aware of the thumbs from the inside out, four fingers, from the inside out, and the space between them. And feeling the middle finger, inside out, the ring finger, and the pinky. And sensing the flesh and bone, the fingers and the spaces between them, and the spaces between the palm and the back of the hands. So you can feel the aliveness and awareness spreading through the hands.

You might bring an openness to the chest. And feeling from the inside out, the region of the heart, perhaps feeling the breath at the heart. And feeling the sensations there. Relaxing the back, the upper back. Just letting go a little. the mid-back and the lower back, bringing the attention to the midsection and letting this next breath be received in a softening belly. This breath and again, sensing awareness filling the torso

now, spreading through the pelvic region, letting the breath be received deep in the body, increasingly feeling that aliveness and awareness you might imagine in sensitive. flowing through the legs into the feet so the hands are soft and alive. The feet, perhaps you can sense tingling, vibrating, and widening even further to sense this whole body simultaneously as a field of sensation, vibrating, pulsing, heat, cool, letting everything happen. You can continue to wire it in the lens to include sound listening to the sounds

in the room and my voice coming and going. Listening into the space that's here into the silence so that you're listening to and feeling the whole moment aware in the foreground changing sounds

sensations, feelings and in the background. And in the background, this open field of wakefulness that everything's happening in. Let this be your home base, this wakeful openness, receiving the changing experience moment to moment that's right here, sounds, sensations. At some point you'll notice there's been a drifting from this living reality into a virtual reality of thoughts. Not a problem, it's really natural.

And as you notice, you can choose to come back home again. You might simply start listening. So you're opening the attention to the sounds that are here and then listening to and feeling the aliveness, the tingling and vibrating in the body. the movement of the breath, relaxing with what's happening, relaxing your heart, finding your refuge in living presence in this beingness right here. Noticing what's happening, the veil of

thinking can be thick like clouds covering the sun. It can be sometimes subtle. And if there's been thoughts to gently reawaken, reopen to what's right here. And if the thoughts have been anxious thoughts, thoughts that contract in a real way, gently come back, bring a very soft, kind attention to living presence right here, this body, this moment. You might even offer a gesture of care. Be here. Be right here. The poet Rumi writes,

Be empty of worrying. Think of who created thought. Why do you stay in prison when the door is so wide open? Move outside the tangle of fear thinking. Live in silence. flow down and down in always widening rings of being.