Tara Brach - Meditation: Letting Life Be

Episode Date: October 20, 2022

Meditation: Letting Life Be - This meditation establishes an atmosphere of loving kindness with the "smile"; relaxes and awakens through the body; and guides us into a spacious presence. We then rest in that presence, letting go of any controlling, and simply allow life to be as it is. It's in "letting be" that we come home to the luminosity and tenderness of natural awareness. We close with a verse from Mary Oliver…

The following meditation is led by Tara Brock. To access more of my meditations or join my email list, please visit tarabrock.com. So wherever you are, you might let this be a real pause, a sacred pause, and invite your attention right into the moment, right here and now. As you come into stillness, begin bringing a kind of listening attention to your heart.

Feel the breath at the heart. And you might ask, what is my deepest intention for being here right now? And as you ask, listen for what feels most sincere. What is your heart's longing? What is it that most matters to you? And as you feel into what you care about, whether it's more presence in your life or more open-heartedness,

open-heartedness, really understanding truth, living from truth. Whatever it is, just feel the actual experience of caring about this, your aspiration, that it matters. Being aware of this body sitting here and breathing, noticing if there's any areas of obvious tension or tightness. And see if there can be a little natural letting go, loosening, softening. One of the most powerful ways of creating an atmosphere of friendliness befriending ourselves is through the image of a smile.

You might sense wide open space extending in all directions, a great open sky and just And just visualize and sense the curve of a smile spreading through that sky, receptive, open. Imagine your mind mingling and becoming that great open sky, filled with the curve of a smile, wide open as if there's no longer a roof on the room. merged with that open sky filled with the luminous, receptive energy of a smile. And you might sense the smile spreading through the eyes so the outer corners of the eyes are lifted a bit and the eyes are soft, kind of floating in that open space. The brow is smooth, the lips in a slight smile, the inside of the mouth smiling.

waking up to the sensations inside the mouth, the tongue, gums, teeth, feeling the aliveness all floating, playing out in open space. You might visualize and feel the curve of a smile spreading through the throat. I'm just sensing a softening and space opening up. The sensations in the throat floating, vibrating in space. allowing the shoulders to fall away from the neck and feeling the shoulders from the inside out and sensing whatever tightness or tension, whatever movement of energy is inside the shoulders. Just letting that float in awareness, softening the hands and soften again feel from the

side out the hands as sensations, vibrating, tinkling. The eyes are soft, smiling, the mouth, the throat and smiling into the heart, visualizing and feeling the curve of a smile spreading through the chest and the heart area, not to cover over but to help you connect to the space that's here. that has room for whatever is felt in the heart area. Feeling from the inside out, the space between the chest bone and the spinal column, between the two sides of the chest, you can feel the volume of the chest, the smile filling the heart and chest area,

aware of the aliveness inside you, sensations, vibration, feelings, relaxing down through the midsection of your body, letting this next breath be received in a softening belly. This breath, now this one, again, you might visualize and sense the curve of a smile spreading through the belly, feeling more intimately the aliveness inside you. You might imagine the distance from the navel to the spinal column. and then the distance between the two sides of the waist,

feeling the volume of the belly, the aliveness, sensation, vibration that fills you. Visualizing and having the felt sense of the smile spread through the pelvic region, bringing you to the aliveness and sensation that's there. You might imagine the atmosphere of the smile spreading through the whole body now. opening you down in through the legs, the feet, the arms, the hands, the torso, the head,

all filled with the receptivity and aliveness of a smile. Then you might sense this field of aliveness extending in all directions in front of you as far as you can imagine beyond the most distant star and behind you as far as you can imagine, beyond the most distant stars, and out to either side, beyond the most distant stars, and below you and above you, beyond the most distant stars. Vast, endless, living presence filled with the benevolence and the light of awareness and relaxing back into this openness, this luminous wakefulness, just letting everything happen.

There of sound, sensation, feelings, this whole dance of aliveness, not controlling anything, not opposing anything, letting everything be just as it is. It's the natural conditioning of the mind to contract from that, that openness to take the shape of thoughts, leaning into the future, past, commentary. So when there's a recognition of that, just gently reopen the attention again. You can relax open by listening, listening to the sounds that are right here rather than the sounds of your thoughts. to sense the space they're happening in.

The sounds come and go in an open field of awareness. It's helpful to re-relax the body if you notice tightness. You might sense what wants to let go right now. You can reopen by gently smiling again into the eyes, the mouth, the heart. how that friendly quality of presence softens and frees up the energy and the heart. The relaxed attentiveness, just letting everything happen, relaxing any sense of controlling the meditation, and just letting life be as it is in the foreground, the changing sounds, and sounds, sensations, feelings.

And in the background, that alert inner stillness, that which is aware, we close with a verse from the poet Mary Oliver, I lounge on the grass, that's all, so simple. Then I lie back until I'm inside the cloud that is just above me, but very very very, very high and shaped like a fish, or perhaps not. Then I enter the place of not thinking, not remembering, not wanting. When the Blue Jay cries out his riddle in his carping voice, I return. But I go back, the threshold is always near, over and back, over and back. Then I rise.

Maybe I rub my face as though I've been asleep. I have not been asleep. I have been, as I say, inside the cloud, or perhaps the lily floating on the water. Then I go back to town, to my own home, my own life, which has now become brighter and simpler, somewhere I have never been before, taking a few moments before you open your eyes,

sensing the possibility of returning and sensing what's here as being brighter and simpler, perhaps somewhere you've never been before, taking a few moments before you open your eyes, sensing the possibility of returning and sensing what's here as being brighter and simpler, Perhaps somewhere you've never been before. Namaste.