Tara Brach - Meditation: Letting Life Be, Just As It is

Episode Date: July 20, 2013

2013-07-17 - Guided Meditation: Letting Life Be, Just As It Is

sitting in a way that's at ease, so you relax whatever can relax, taking a few full breaths together to collect the attention. So inhale deeply, filling the lungs, and then a slow-out breath so that you're consciously releasing and feeling the sensations of letting go. And then again another full in-breath, more full and deep than normal. normal and slowly breathing out, softening down the length of the body as you release the breath.

And again, inhaling deeply, exhaling slowly, feel the sensations of letting go, letting go, letting go, letting go. And then as the breath comes back to its normal rhythm, let the attention rest there in a gentle way. So you can feel the possibility of relaxing open with the in-breath, like a balloon inflating, opening to receive, yielding, and exhaling, settling, settling, releasing. Sensing the quality of presence sits here in just a few short moments of intentionally paying attention. Sense the presence at the heart.

So you can listen and feel the heart. And sense into your intention for tonight. To tune into what matters to you. And the way you know you've connected with a, very, an alive aspiration is you'll feel a quality of sincerity, a kind of of genuineness. What is it that matters? What is it you want to connect to or remember or touch into or discover? So we bring our attentions together as community with the simple chanting of om, which is the sound current of connectedness. If you'd like to bring the palms together,

just to gather and center at the heart and we'll chant three times. So begin by again filling the lungs, breathing in deeply. Just a direct way to awaken presence for most of us is by waking up awareness in the body. And an image that can serve that, that relaxing and waking up is the image of a smile. So you might first sense the space around you, a great blue sky extending an all day, extending in all directions that is filled with that curve of a smile and with it just to sense the receptivity and openness of space, letting your mind merge with that open awareness so that the smile is spreading through a very spacious, edgeless mind.

And then sense the smile spreading through the eyes, the corners of the eyes, slightly up, the eyes soft, receptive, the brow smooth, slight smile at the mouth, relaxing the root of the tongue, let the jaw be unhinged, sensing a smile on the inside of the mouth, and then just widen the attention to feel the sensations and aliveness through the face. open. You might sense the curve of a smile spreading through the heart and chest area. Sense the openness that that allows to just feel what's there and let that space and openness widen so that the shoulders can more naturally relax back and down. I might bring the whole awareness inside the shoulders.

and just sense the space inside the shoulders and a natural untangling that's possible more flow more movement, more aliveness see if you can feel the energy in the arms be aware of your hands making sure that they're resting in a very easy way

and then just softening the hands and feeling the life inside the hands Can you detect the vibrating or pulsing? Maybe soften a little more. See if you can notice tingling the movement of energy, openness at the chest, and then loosening down through the torso. You might imagine that same curve of a smile through the navel area,

softening the belly, letting this next breath be received in a softening belly, this breath, and now this one, and again noticing a sense of aliveness, energy deep in the torso. Just as a cup is filled with water, this body can be filled with awareness, air of aliveness sensation through the hips, buttocks, genitals, and letting your awareness be inside the legs so that you can feel the sensations, the movement of energy through the legs. Just as you soften the hands and feel the life there, you can bring a very intimate attention to the feet, feeling tingling and vibrating, places of pressure.

and warmth, opening the attention so that you can simultaneously experience this whole body, this field of dancing energy. And notice what happens when you let everything just play through you, not opposing, not controlling. Let this life live through you. As Rilke says, let everything happen to you. receiving this life in an open awareness, including the play of sound. So you're listening not just with your ears but with your whole awareness,

listening in a global way. Notice in the foreground this whole play of sound and sensation, stance of aliveness, and also be aware in the background of that alert, inner still, stillness, that which is aware, your own presence. You can be aware of this formless dimension, this wakeful openness, and also the play that arises in it of sound and sensation and feeling, and you're resting in a wholeness of being. It's quite natural that you'll leave this living presence and go off into thinking. When you become aware of thought, that's the moment of awakening to really appreciate

to gently come back through the senses to what's right here. If it helps to have the breath and the foreground as a way to stabilize that presence, that's quite fine. Continuing to include the sounds, other sensations, this whole changing flow. The two questions that serve presence, what is happening right now? And can I be with this? Can I let be exploring what happens when you truly allow the life that's here to be just as it is?