Tara Brach - Meditation: Loving What Is

Episode Date: June 29, 2023

Meditation: Loving What Is - While we might not directly love what is, there is a pathway to this inner freedom. As we explore in this meditation, we begin with allowing the changing sensations and emotions to move through us, just as they are. As this allowing presence deepens, it becomes suffused with the tenderness of love.

The following meditation is led by Tara Brock. To access more of my meditations or join my email list, please visit tarabrock.com. Feel your body sitting here. Feel your body breathing and let this life breath further gather and collect you. Sensing that as the breath comes in, you can relax and open to receive it. As the breath goes out, there can be a bit of letting go so that with each, out breath you might sense you can let go of any thoughts that were sticky and without breath

you can let go of any obvious tightness in the body and with the out breath any unnecessary holdings in the heart the poet dorothy hunt writes in this choiceless never-ending flow of life there's an infinite array of choices one alone brings happiness to love what is. One alone brings happiness. To love what is. As we know, often we're not able to love what's arising in the moment, but there is a pathway to that open-heartedness, to that heart space that can include with tenderness what's here. And the first step to loving what is, is letting what's here be here, allowing. And then as we deepen that allowing presence, our hearts become increasingly tender.

So the title of this meditation is Loving What Is, and we begin by bringing our care and our attention through our bodies to both the pleasantness and the unpleasantness, to the numbness, to the aliveness. And I like to start with the image of a smile because that creates the attitude, the tenderness. You might imagine that big curved smile in space, filling the space around you. Receptivity, warmth, letting it fill the mind and then imagining and sensing that curve of a smile spreading through the eyes. And so you're bringing a friendly, gentle attention to that whole region of the brow, softening, receiving the life that's there.

You might notice a flickering of darkness and light at the eyelids. You might let the brow be smooth. I just sense the sensations throughout that area, a gentle attention. And in the same way, you might bring a slight smile to the lips. You feel the inside of the mouth smiling. with receptivity, feeling the aliveness inside the mouth, the gums, the teeth, the tongue, and also lips, letting that gentle attention spread through the whole face, scalp and skull. May you visualize and sense the curve of a smile in the throat, letting it create some space,

letting any tightness in the throat float in that space. gentle, kind of tension, letting the shoulders fall away from the neck, letting the shoulders be full with awareness. And sensing that awareness is very soft, allowing, so that any tightness or tension in the shoulders can begin to dissolve a little naturally, sensing perhaps a melting, a really and that whatever is there that's tight or clenched can float if need be, just float in awareness. Allowing what's here to be here with a gentle attention. Be aware of the hands, let them rest in an easy way, an effortless way.

Soffening the hands, softening again. Then feeling from the inside out the aliveness that's here. allowing presence, letting the life express right in the inside of the hands. Perhaps it's tingling or vibrating receptive and allowing to what's right here. Notice that it's an intimate quality of presence. The more we allow what's here, the more intimate the presence. Let there be an openness to the chest and you might visualize and have the felt sense of a smile, the curve of a smile, spreading.

through the heart and the chest. And as you do, become aware of the space that creates for the life that's right here, allowing whatever feelings, emotion, sensations are in the heart area to be there just as they are. You might even mentally whisper this belongs, that whatever here is here is a wave in the ocean, let it move through with an intimate presence, scanning down, feeling the abdominal area and letting this next breath be received in a softening belly. This breath and now this one and again, letting the awareness fill the belly. And you might again visualize and have the felt sense of a smile, spreading through the belly and sense the space of presence that's here.

An intimate presence allowing the life inside you to be a as it is, extending the scan down into the pelvic region. Again, relaxing, opening, receiving with presence, the life that's here. Aware of the legs, the length, the volume, the weight, and then the feet, feeling the feet filled with awareness. Again, that intimate presence and receptivity, allowing life to be just as it is, and opening the lens of attention now. So you can feel this whole body at once as a field of sensation, exploring what it means to let life be just as it is, a whole dance of sensation, including in that vast receptive presence, the sounds that come and go. So there's a listening to.

and a feeling, the whole changing flow, a profound yes to the life that's here, letting life live through you just as it is. And the mind moves away from this living experience to virtual reality to thoughts. Simply notice that and gently reopen the attention, relaxing back into your senses, back into that intimate presence with the life that's here. Let your intention be to say yes, which is means to energetically allow. Whatever arises, you might let your breath be in the foreground. What if there's a strong emotion or sensation?

Let that wave be in the foreground. Let it belong. Explore what it means to allow it to be just as it is. Notice how it changes. Let everything be received in that tender allowing presence. In these last few moments, explore deepening that yes, sensing what it means for this heart space that's here to tenderly embrace. all of life, whatever's arising, meeting it with a gentleness and a care.

In this choiceless, never-ending flow of life, there's an infinite array of choices. One alone brings happiness to love what is.