Tara Brach - Meditation - Listening to and Feeling the Moment

Episode Date: April 25, 2014

2014-04-23 - Meditation - Listening to and Feeling the Moment

The following meditation is led by Tara Brock, meditation teacher, psychologist, and author. And as you close your eyes and come into stillness, see if you can really make yourself at home right in this moment. Relax back a bit. So it's kind of an invitation to yourself to just be at ease. Notice if there's any parts of the body you can just, just by noticing let go a little. Perhaps extending the in-breath some so it's more full, breathing in deeply, and breathing out slowly. Feel the sensations of releasing the breath.

And again, let's do an extended, nice deep, full in-breath. And release the breath slowly, relaxing, outward, letting go. And once more, inhaling deeply. And releasing, letting go. letting go and then allowing the breath to come back into its natural rhythm, letting the senses be awake, aware of the sounds around you, aware of the aliveness in the body, the sensations, and with a kind of gentle, listening attention,

come close into the heart. And if you can feel into whatever the state of your heart is right now, just notice what it's like, listening to it. feeling your heart. With that listening, let your heart communicate whatever want or longing or intention is here right now for this evening. So you're really listening to what matters to your heart. What is it that brings you here? What do you want to experience or touch, open to, realize, trust? The portal that's so powerful for a full presence is to really wake up. up inside the body. Wake up our awareness. So you might scan down the body. We begin, perhaps

in the area of the eyes and the forehead, just relaxing the brow, softening the eyes. For some, imagining that you're smiling into the eyes, helps to release the habitual tension that's there from overthinking and worrying, just smiling into the eyes, feeling behind the eyes, feeling the scalp and the skull, and just softening, relaxing, receiving the sensations that are there, letting the jaw be unhinged, perhaps a slight smile at the mouth. You might sense the inside of the mouth, and just receiving again the sensations in the mouth, the tongue, the gums, sensing the neck, letting the throat fill the neck, smile through the throat area.

Again, just to create that receptivity, you'll have to receive the sensations there. Feeling down into the shoulders, placing the awareness fully inside the shoulders. So you can feel from the inside out the life that's there, letting whatever tightness or tension you experience float. And just notice even when there's a lot of stuckness, that there's a sense of movement and loosening and flow

as we allow what's there to float in awareness. And the whole region of the arms, the upper arms, the lower arms, the liveliness and space inside the arms. right down into the hands. And just check to see that your hands are resting in an easy, effortless way. You can even soften the hands a bit. And then feel them from the inside out,

inside the palms, inside each finger, a sense of space and aliveness, a vibrating, tingling, dance of sensation. Feeling the chest area, you might let a smile spread through the heart, heart and chest area, smiling into the heart. Let there be an openness that allows whatever sensations or feelings that are there just to be, unfold naturally. Can you feel the space and aliveness inside the chest and heart area? Scanning down, you might smile into the belly,

let a smile spread through the navel area or even bit lower the dantian, loosening, and and softening the belly. So you can receive the aliveness that's there. And the whole torso fill with awareness deep into the pelvic regions, receiving the aliveness that's there, through the hips, the buttocks, the genitals, letting the awareness be inside the legs. Again, feeling the sensations and the space

that fell the upper leg, the lower legs, and see if you can place the awareness inside the feet. feet, aware of the space and the energy that's there. Then in a comprehensive way, see if you can sense this whole body simultaneously as a field of sensation. Nothing's opposed. Just letting life be exactly as it is. It's changing dance, like points of light in the night sky.

You get appearing, disappearing. You might feel areas of density or weight or tightness. weight or tightness, and others current of flow, tingling, vibrating, cool, heat might be pleasant or unpleasant, just allowing this whole dance, including the play of sound, sounds of rise and pass spontaneously, and they're known just by awareness. There's nothing to do. You're listening to and feeling the whole moment, sensing in the foreground, this changing flow of sound and sensation feelings.

And in the background, this alert, inner stillness, that which is aware, space of knowing, that's the formless dimension of our being. It's quite natural leave presence and recontract into thoughts about the future or the past. So when you notice that, that's an opportunity to practice arriving again. Just to simply note, okay, thinking, thinking, and relax back again. Reopen the senses, listening to the sounds that are here, receiving this place. of sensation and it helps you to stabilize your attention, letting the breath, the inflow and outflow of the breath be in the foreground, knowing that you're here, right here,

awake and open. When it's drifted, the pathway back is really one of re-relaxing back into your natural presence, re-relaxing the attention open. When you're thinking the mind contracts and you're not so aware of the sounds that are here, as you re-relax open and listen, sense the space that's here. Re-relax in the body you might soften again, relaxing the shoulders, making sure the hands are at ease and soft. You might sense a slight smile at the mouth and smile into your heart.

Just relaxing the heart open and resting back. and letting this life live through you, listening to and feeling the whole moment to moment experience that's here. The way of closing the meditation, just bring that listening attention to the heart, offering yourself any blessing or wish that most resonates in this moment, sensing the heart space that really holds and cares about this world and offering your blessings to all beings.