Tara Brach - Meditation: Letting Life Live Through You (2020-10-21)

Episode Date: October 22, 2020

Meditation: Letting Life Live Through You (2020-10-21) - We unconsciously tense against the energetic life of the present moment. This meditation guides us in relaxing and opening to the full aliveness and awareness that animates our being.

The following meditation is led by Tara Brock. To access more of my meditations or join my email list, please visit tarabrock.com. Your sitting posture and then make whatever subtle adjustments you'd like to make with your eyes close, you're feeling your way into a sitting posture that allows you to be balanced where there's a sense of sitting upright, so you can be alert, and also at ease, and sense the at ease, you know, letting things relax,

noticing the settling as you come into stillness, becoming aware of your breath of this body breathing. And you might take a few moments to extend the breath so that this next breath is a long, deep in-breath, perhaps to a count of four, and then a slow, even-out breath to a count of four. Breathing in, counting, filling the chest and the lungs. And again, that slow release, letting go with the release of the breath, any tension or tightness that possibly wants to release. And again, breathing in, exhaling, letting go. and then allowing the breath to come back into a natural rhythm as you do becoming aware of the presence that's here,

noticing how just a few moments of intentionally arriving brings more presence. And you can deepen that presence with a conscious scanning through the body. so awareness becomes embodied. It's living inside you and you can feel that. You might start with feeling the brow and the eyes and softening the eyes. It's helpful to imagine and sense a smile spreading through the eyes, lifting the outer corners,

letting the brow be smooth, and opening in a receptive way to all the eyes, the sensations and the whole region of the brow. Whatever tingling or vibrating you're aware of, perhaps a flickering of light at the eyelids, waking up awareness. You might bring that smile to the lips, a slight smile, and see if you can sense a smile filling the mouth, letting the tongue be relaxed, relaxing right down to the root of the tongue. And then opening the attention to the sensations in the mouth. The tongue, gums, teeth, lips.

Again, feeling the aliveness and the awareness right here. You might let it spread through the face so all the little micro-muscles in the face can relax a bit. and so you can feel and receive the sensations of the face with awareness, including the scalp and the skull now, sensing inside the field and space of the brains. Your heads waking up with awareness right down now into the throat. You might sense the throat filling the neck. Sometimes imagining, visualizing and sensing a smile through the throat can increase the

receptivity to sensation. Let the shoulders relax back and down some and sense awareness filling the shoulders. So you can feel from the inside out the movement of energy, perhaps the places of tightness are flow, tension, our ease. You might sense the length and the volume and the weight of your arms. And then from the inside out, feel the aliveness that moves through the arms. So your awakening awareness from the inside out, let that awareness fill the thumbs.

So you can sense the space inside your thumbs, the aliveness, the tingling, the forefinger. Perhaps soften a little feeling the middle finger, fourth finger, and pinky. and then the spaces between the fingers, awake awareness. And see if you can imagine and feel the space between the palm and the outside of the hands, top side. So you can feel the whole hands at once, filled with awareness and aliveness.

Where attention goes, energy flows. You can sense the intimacy and aliveness that's right here in the life. the hands. And in the same way, wake up that sense of presence through the whole body. Let your chest be open and feel the space inside the chest. Feel the heart. Opening to whatever sensations, whatever energy is here right now. And again, it can be helpful to visualize and sense of smile spreading through the heart, through the chest, and increase receptivity to the aliveness that's actually right here, scanning down the torso.

You might visualize and sense a smile through the belly and let this next breath be received in a softening belly, this breath, and again, feeling the aliveness and awareness that fills the belly, down through the pelvic region, again, allowing that smile to spread through, visualizing and feeling it, creating a receptivity to the sensations, the aliveness in the pelvic region, becoming aware of your legs, the weight of your legs, the length, the volume.

And again, feeling from the inside out, letting the legs be filled with awareness, letting that awareness fill the feet, the toes, and then. Feel yourself opening and allowing the whole energy of this earth to flow through you. Just imagine and feel that. Receiving with an embodied awareness, this aliveness. So you're feeling, sensations, energy all at once throughout the whole body. Letting everything move as it is, express as it is. See how fully you can allow.

this life to express through you, to live through you, not resisting anything, just allowing the tingling, the vibrating, places of coolness or heat, the tiredness or alertness, tightness or flow, pleasant or unpleasant, rasting in the awareness that can include this whole dance, letting it move and change. You might include the sounds that you're hearing, the sounds in the space of your room, or if you're outside, the immediate surroundings, including the most distant sounds, resting in that awareness that includes the sounds and sensations, the full aliveness of this moment.

And when you realize you've been inside a thought, let that be an invitation to reopen the attention, to listen, to feel, to let the full aliveness of this moment live through you. Notice what happens when you consciously say yes to what's here, when there's a kind of surrendering presence that allows life to be just as it is. We close with a poem from Roger Keys. Hokusai says, look carefully. He says, pay attention, notice. He says, keep looking, stay curious.

He says, there's no end a scene. He says, everything is alive. Shells, buildings, people, fish, mountains, trees. wood is alive, water is alive. Everything has its own life. Everything lives inside us. He says live with the world inside you. It matters that you care.

It matters that you feel. It matters that you notice. It matters that life lives through you. look feel let life take you by the hand let life live through you