Tara Brach - Meditation: Letting Life Be (from 2010-09-22)

Episode Date: December 30, 2015

Meditation: Letting Life Be (from 2010-09-22) - Tara is teaching retreat this week, so wanted to share this meditation from 2010 with you.

The following meditation is led by Tara Brock. To access more of my meditations or join my email list, please visit tarabrock.com. The gateway to presence is an alert, wakeful, relaxed attention in the body. You might sweep through the body with awareness, perhaps beginning at the eyes, just softening the eyes. We have a tendency to tighten there. letting the brow be smooth

as if you could smile into the eyes let a smile spread through the eyes slight smile at the mouth might feel the inside of the mouth smiling it's a direct way to relax the fight-flight reactivity and really create an energy or spirit of ease and benevolence

eyes smiling the mouth and just imagine and sense that curve of a smile at the heart smiling into the heart not to cover over anything but to relax that space within us that can include whatever's here letting that space open up so that the shoulders are invited to relax

back and down a bit just feel the sensations inside the shoulders, a kind of letting go or dissolving there. Feel the hands resting in an easy, effortless way. Softening so you can feel the inside of the hands, the tingling, vibrating, aliveness there. Still aware of the smile at the heart, that openness in the chest area. And see if you can relax and loosen down through the torso, softening the belly, as if that smile could reside there too and with that

an openness and invitation for the natural aliveness in the body to be expressed relaxing through the hips and down through the legs so that you can place

your awareness in the feet and feel the tingling and vibrating there and then widen the attention to feel this whole body as a field of sensation of aliveness as if the smile now is so vast

as to fill space in this body is vibrating and tingling in that openness listening to and feeling the whole moment because our tendency is to drift very quickly from this presence you might find it helpful to let the breath

the inflow outflow of the breath be in the foreground a very light, relaxed attentiveness with the breath. For some, it's helpful to attend to the breath at the nostrils, sensations of air coming in and out. And for others, it's the rising, falling of the chest, are the expanding, letting go the belly. And for some, rather than the breath sounds, come an anchor, a gateway to presence.

And for some, it's the whole field of sensation. When you notice the minds drifted, there's no need to race back to the breath. Just take your time. Pause. Open the attention again to the sounds that are right here, to the sensations, this moment. Re-relax the heart and feel the life there.

And if you find there's something, strong or compelling going on in your body, in your heart, your mind, then rather than the breath, let that be in the foreground, recognizing what arises and allowing it, saying yes, feeling it fully in the body. And when it's no longer compelling, coming back to the breath, or to whatever in the moment calls your attention. Sometimes we don't know it when we're in a different,

dream of thoughts. But when you do notice, let that be a moment of waking up. Just to give yourself that gift again of pausing with the intention to come back in a very gentle, friendly way with interest. What is happening right here? Opening the attention. To be aware of these actual sounds right here. Open the attention in the body, relaxing and feeling the life, perhaps softening in the shoulders again, relaxing your heart. This practice is a courageous presence, just noticing what's it like this moment right here and letting this life be just as it is. These last few moments, see if it's possible to relax just a little bit more. And you might inquire,

is there anything between me and full presence? Right in this moment.