Tara Brach - Meditation: Know That You're Here (2016-06-22)

Episode Date: June 24, 2016

Meditation: Know That You're Here (2016-06-22) - We spend many moments in a trance, time traveling to the past and future, lost in a virtual reality. This meditation helps us collect our attention with our breath, awaken through the body, and open the senses. We then rest in the wakeful openness that includes changing experience, aware of the mystery and vividness of being Here.  

The following meditation is led by Tara Brock. To access more of my meditations or join my email list, please visit tarabrock.com. With the attention on the breath, you might extend the breath, lengthening the in-breath, so it's deep and full, and a slow out-breath to help collect the attention, a count of four with the in-breath, Slow, full and deep.

And a matched out breath, a count of four. Slow release. Continuing with this long, slow, full breath. Feeling the breathfully, filling the chest and the lungs with the in-breath, releasing slowly with the out-breath, and then shifting from directing the breath to simply witnessing the breath.

allowing the rhythm to be natural, no controlling of the breath. And with that more collected attention now, scanning down the body, relaxing, releasing areas of tightness or tension. You might feel the region of the brow, just letting the brow be smooth, the eyes soft, letting the jaw be unhinged, allowing the tongue to fill the lower jaw, relaxing the root of the tongue, aware of the sensations that arise, filling the mouth. You might sense the throat filling the neck, feeling the sensations in the neck area, allowing the shoulders to fall away from the neck and placing the awareness inside the shoulders, You might imagine the dissolving of ice to water,

that kind of melting sensation from the inside out. Ice to water and water to gas. You're feeling inside the shoulders the movement of a sensation and the space it's happening in, aware of the length and the weight of the arms, feeling the hands from the inside out, Now soften the hands a bit and feel with a very intimate attention, the play of sensations inside the hands, inside the fingers, between the palms and the backs of the hands.

That tingling, the vibrating, let there be an openness of the chest and feeling the region of the heart from the inside out now, sensing the sensations, the inner, the inner, and the energy flow, the space that's happening in inside the chest, scanning down to feel the abdominal region from the inside out. You might soften and relax the belly and see if you can feel this next breath received in a softening belly, this breath and now this one and again, sensing the belly filled with awareness and bringing the attention to the pelvic region and feeling from the inside out the movement of sensation, the aliveness that's there and the space that it's appearing

in. Be aware of the length and the volume of the legs and then feeling the feet from the inside out, aware of the tingling and vibrating and aliveness that's there. You're feeling the feet, the hands from the inside out, and widening to feel simultaneously this whole energy body, this whole body, this living field of sensation. Just let everything happen. Sense how this dance of energy has no real boundary. There's no real inside or outside.

appearing and dissolving sensation, all occurring in the space of awareness, including the sounds that appear and disappear. These words, the spaces between sounds, soft sounds in the room, the close in sounds, the more distant sounds, sensing into the vastness of awareness that includes even the most distant sounds, this resting in this wakeful openness that receives the changing sounds and sensations, letting life be just as it is. If the mind is busy drifting off into thoughts, it's helpful to select an anchor or a home base to help you come back again into the present.

It might be the movement of the breath, the nostrils, of the chest, belly, feeling the whole body breathing. Or it might be the particular perception of sound. Or you might choose as an anchor of the sensations in the body or in particular area of the body like the hands. When thoughts come up and you recognize, oh, thinking without any judgment, simply pause and reopen the attention to the senses, to what's right here, sounds, the sensations. You might have in the foreground your home base or anchor so that you know that you're right

here. Every time you notice the mind is drifted is an opportunity to practice and deepen this pathway of arriving again. relaxing open the attention, again aware of the sounds that are right here. Relaxing in the body and feeling the sensations and the shoulders, softening the hands and feeling the aliveness there, relaxing your heart and connecting with the energy, the life, and the region of the heart. Know that you're here.

You might even mentally whisper the word here. and sense the mystery and aliveness and awareness that's right in this present moment. It's from presence, from being right here, that you can offer a prayer or blessing to your own being. So taking a moment to sense whatever message and offering of care you'd like to offer inwardly. In a similar way, it's from being right here that you can sense this heart holding the world, offering your prayer for the well-being and healing and freedom of all beings.