Tara Brach - Meditation: Loving This Life – Happiness - a Metta Practice

Episode Date: May 9, 2019

Meditation: Loving This Life – Happiness - a Metta Practice - This meditation turns us toward naturally arising happiness with the image of a smile, welcoming the aliveness and presence of each moment with the spirit of "yes" and then closes with a brief lovingkindness practice. NOTE: a favorite retreat meditation from the archives. Lama Gendun Rinpoche writes, "Happiness cannot be found through great effort and willpower, but it is already there, in relaxation and letting go." Free download of Tara's 10 min meditation: "Mindful Breathing: Finding Calm and Ease" when you join her email list.

The following meditation is led by Tara Brock. To access more of my meditations or join my email list, please visit tarabrock.com. The attitude that really supports us in presence is one of friendliness, this quality of saying yes regarding whatever is arising with a quality of kindness, of care.

It can be helpful to begin a meditation by sensing the curve and shape of a smile. And you might sense sky, great open sky, with a smile filling the space of the sky, and let your mind merge with that, with that great open sky. So you can feel your mind filled with that benevolence, that receptivity of a smile,

sensing smile spread through the eyes so the eyes soften sense a slight smile at the mouth let the inside of the mouth be smiling for the softening or relaxing of the jaw you might sense the curve of a smile spreading through the heart and the chest area not to cover over but to make space for what is here

you can sense the heart the tenderness of heart floating in the space of a space of a smile, letting the chest be open, feeling the shoulders free to relax a bit, a kind of melting or dissolving from the inside out in the shoulders, letting go, arms hanging easily, the hands soft. Feeling with that openness of the torso, the chest that you can relax down through the stomach area, softening the belly, letting the breath be received deep in the torso, still sensing that smile, the eyes, the mouth, the heart, smiling in the belly, just loosening, letting there be some space, feeling the aliveness there.

Letting the sense of aliveness, awareness spread down through the legs, feeling the feet from the inside, widening the attention to feel this whole body, this energy body, this living, dancing, energy body. field of sensation, free to move, express in the space of a smile, in that allowing open space, that field of awareness, feeling the dancing sensations, tingling, vibrating, pressure, openness, flow, heat, cool, and including in that open receptive awareness, the sounds that come and go, listening, listening to and feeling the whole moment, sensing the quality of presence, of heerness.

For some you might find that you can stabilize in this presence by very carefully sensing the inflow and outflow of the breath in the foreground, still aware of the whole dance of experience that's going on. For others, letting sounds be primarily in the foreground can help you to remain here or to come back easily when you leave. So sensing a home base if it helps, the breath, sounds, maybe the sensations of the body sitting here. Letting your practice be very simple tonight, noticing when you leave presence, when you can. Just choose a sense. to be here, inviting yourself back into this moment, listening to these sounds, opening receptively to this swim of sensation, letting yourself be attached to receive these feelings in the heart,

noticing what's happening and saying yes in the most radical and energetic way possible, allowing what's here. Give yourself permission to start fresh whenever it might be helped, You might simply open the attention again to sound. Just listen. You might relax through the body, perhaps sensing a slight smile at the mouth. Just feeling that quality of gentleness, relaxing the shoulders, softening the hands, relaxing the heart, and with a receptive inner listening, just to notice what's going on. the experience of this moment.

Just receive it energetically with a yes, noticing if the mind has drifted, without judgment, with friendliness. Just inviting yourself right here, seeing if it's possible to relax just a little bit more. Exploring in these last few minutes, the offering of the loving-kindness prayer, to ourselves, just in a very simple way, feeling your own body, feeling your heart, just offering

the words, may I feel happy? And imagining and sensing what that means to you. It might be that you feel the smile a bit again, that there's some colors, some image, some feeling in the body. May I feel happy? May I feel safe and at ease. Just whispering that to yourself and imagining, visualizing and feeling what that means to you. May my heart and mind feel and be free.

Again, imagining, visualizing, sensing, freedom in a cellular way. You might imagine the heart mind of an awakened being, just filling you, permeating every part of your being, that radiance, that alive, that lucidity. May I be free, awake and free. May I feel happy. May I feel safe and at ease. May this heart and mind be free, awake and free.