Tara Brach - Meditation on Intention

Episode Date: December 8, 2010

2010-12-08 - This guided meditation was given as a prelude to the December 8th talk on "Ask the Friend for Love." Find more of Tara's guided meditations on www.tarabrach.com. Sign up for her new email list there, too.

Let your attention go inward a bit, and let's begin tonight with the breath. Very simple, very beautiful gateway. Inhaling deeply, filling the lungs, and then a very slow out breath. And sense with the out breath very consciously a letting go. Letting go. Inhaling deeply again, filling the lungs, holding the breath for a moment, and again, a slow out breath, sense a relaxing outward, letting go. It's all through the nose unless you're clogged up, inhaling again deeply. Full breath, hold for a moment. With the out breath, again,

slow exhale, sense that you can soften down the length of the body, letting go, letting go. So as the breath now resumes its natural rhythm, sense that you could really, Relax with the inflow, as if with the balloon filling up, just opening, relaxing open, letting the breath be at the center of the attention, but also aware of the sounds around you, a sense of the space around you, a sense of the space and the aliveness inside you, just feel the body from the inside out, the sensations, see if it's possible to relax just a little bit more right now. still feeling that life breath, that inflow and outflow, sensing the increase of presence, just of awareness in the last few moments, gathering and collecting and arriving.

Just bring that presence to your heart right now, a committed kind of listening to your heart. It may be the first time that you've just in a very conscious way said to yourself, okay I'm going to really just pay attention to the state of my heart right now. And it may be that you bring your attention in a very physical way to the heart area. But let the intention be to energetically bring this receptivity to the feelings of your heart center. So that as you listen, you're listening for what really matters to you right now. Now. The inquiry is really what is my intention right now for being here, for coming to this gathering tonight? What do I really want? What matters? And if you've asked yourself this

many times at these classes, imagine this is the very first time with that kind of fresh quality, what really matters to me, what really brings me. And with whatever comes up, you might even deepen the inquiry. What is it about that that really matters to me? Usually what brings us in a deep way is what's important to us in our whole life, as if we're at the end of our life looking back, what would have mattered. You can sense your sincerity, so you can sense the heart in a kind of prayerful manner, open and receptive. So we bring this sense of aspiration of caring to the chant of ome, this simple sound current of connectedness, to allow us to connect even more energetically with the truth of our hearts and with each other

and with this life. If you'd like to bring the palms together, please do and we'll chant three times. Please inhale deeply. Bodies relax. The mind tends to relax and quiet. So it's very helpful just to scan through the body and take your time letting go wherever there's a kind of habitual tightening or tension. Sometimes we don't know it but the brow is tight and it helps to soften the eyes. You might smile into the eyes. Feel the corners of the eyes up a little. Let the flesh around the eyes be soft, a brow smooth. Slide smile at the mouth. It's smile into the heart. Imagine visually and kinesthetically feel. Smile there. Relaxing and widening rings out from the heart area so that the shoulders can naturally fall back and down a bit, relaxing,

feeling them from the inside, a kind of melting, dissolving there. You might soften the hands and just feel the hands from the inside and let the chest be open. and then loosening and relaxing down the abdominal area, softening the belly. Just feel an opening at the navel area. You can visualize a smile there too and let this next breath be received in a softening belly. This breath and this one and again.

So the shoulders relaxed, the hands, the belly. and just feel the awareness moving down through the hips and the legs. If there's any loosening or softening, letting go and letting go. Feel the feet from the inside, the tingling, the vibrating. So that if you enlarge the scope of your attention now, you can feel the body in a comprehensive way all at once. Not stopping anything, just this field of sensation. You really let it happen.

and you can feel the subtle energy body, just this aliveness, like dancing light that's empty, awake, vibrant field, including the sounds, symphony of arising, passing sounds, and the vast space it's all happening in. You're listening to and feeling the whole moment for many, It can be helpful to stabilize the attention by feeling in the midst of all this the simple inflow and outflow of the breath. Sensing the background of presence itself, just this innate wakefulness and openness.

At some point you'll notice that the mind's drifted, maybe even right now. And when you notice it's an opportunity to practice this coming back, this arriving again in presence. To strengthen that pathway is really a gift that you give to yourself of just choosing to come back. It's out of a love or caring for reality, for being here.

You might listen again to the sounds that are actually happening right now. Let them wash through a little. Be relax a bit in the body if the shoulders have tightened just to loosen them, to soften the hands, soften the belly. Arrive again in this aliveness of the body. It might soften the heart, just smile into the heart, not to cover over anything, but to create a space that allows what's here to be here,

listening to the life that's here, feeling and receiving the life that's here in awareness. We'll be closing our meditation much in the way that we opened it tonight which is again to listen to your heart

a real receptive presence sensing the state of your heart tonight and maybe in the season of your life if your heart could communicate very directly what would it be expressing as its longing or its want as its prayer

right now What is your heart really longing for? Is it to be free from fear? Is it to touch peace? Is it to live more open-heartedly? Is it to realize the truth of who you are? Is it for happiness? What is your heart really wanting?

Offering an attention to this aspiration or longing or prayer in a way that's respectful, just bowing to the sincerity of your own heart that this is what matters