Tara Brach - Meditation: Path of Love

Episode Date: April 21, 2022

Meditation: Path of Love - This heart practice opens with the intention to bring a kind presence to whatever arises. After arriving with a body scan, we are guided to meet all experience with an open tender awareness. The practice ends with a poem by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer called "Is this the Path 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. Let's start with a practice. I invite you wherever you are to adjust how you're sitting, what posture you're in in any way that allows you to feel awake and at ease. Once you find the posture that serves you, settle in, invite yourself into presence. And that might mean that you close your eyes or lower your gaze. Feel your intention right

from the start to relate to whatever arises in your inner life with a quality of kindness, a kind a presence. And just notice what happens when you sense right in this moment that that's the intention. With that in mind, you might collect your attention some with the breath. You might feel the breath as it comes in and lengthen the breath, perhaps counting to five. So it's a long, full in breath and then matching it with an exhale at five counts, a sense of letting go. And again, a slow, long deep in breath, opening to receive the breath. And with the out breath, slow, releasing, aware of the sensations of letting go. And again, breathing in, filling the chest, the lungs and that slow out breath, really feeling the release of the sensations,

letting go, letting go. One more time, inhaling deeply and feeling a real presence with the out breath, releasing, letting go, and then allowing the breath to come back into its natural rhythm, noticing the quality of presence that even in a few moments can become stronger. You can notice presence deepening as you gently scan through the body, bringing awareness and ease to different parts of the body. It helps to sense the eyes as soft and let the brow be smooth. You might even sense the outer corners of the eyes are smiling.

They're pulled up in a smile. Let all the micro muscles of your face relax. You don't have to have any expression, perhaps just the slightest smile, which actually sends a message to the whole nervous system, to relax, to be at ease. and maybe you can feel that smile the inside of your mouth and let the tongue relax and fill the lower palate, filling the tongue all the way down to the base, noticing how the sensations in the mouth can come alive with presence.

You might imagine and feel the throat filling the neck. you might sense the length and the volume and the weight of the arms and allow the shoulders to relax let them fall away from the neck feel the sensations inside the shoulders and if there's tightness just imagine and sense a kind of dissolving a letting go bring the whole awareness inside the hands softening the hands softening again and then noticing the sensations Is there tingling, vibrating? And just as a glass can be filled with water, this whole body can be filled with awareness.

Tingling, vibrating, sensation. You might feel the chest, the fullness, the openness of the chest. You might let the belly soften. You might sense this next breath received in a softening belly. this breath and this one and again. Noticing how fully you can sense sensation deep in the torso. Relaxing through the whole pelvic region, relaxing down through the legs.

So you can sense the length and the weight, volume of the legs. Feeling where the feet contact the floor, the sensations inside the feet, and then widen the lens. wide in the lens so that you can feel all the sensations in your body at once, this field of aliveness. Not stopping anything, not controlling, not opposing, this ever-changing flow, this life living through you.

Part of this life is the play of sound, letting the sounds wash through, sensing the space of awareness that's listening, that's feeling, the whole moment. From this space of awareness, the changing streams of the breath, sensations there, aware and receiving the sensations through the whole body, receiving and allowing the mood, emotions, states of the heart, receiving everything with a kind presence. a presence. You might scan your body, your heart, and sense if there's anything asking for attention, asking for acceptance, anything perhaps that you've been unwilling to feel that's calling to you. And if there is, sense what it means to include whatever's here with a truly

tender quality of attention with interest with care. If there's difficulty it might help to put your hand on your heart and to sense the care of the whole universe, the sensitivity and tenderness and presence of the universe, bearing witness, holding, here and letting be. Letting life be. just as it is. Sensing how life might want to untangle in this field of caring. Sensing how life might be if all that arises is met with a loving awareness. And you might for these moments just come into a real listening presence as I read a poem called The Question by Rosemary Oetola Traomer.

All day I replay these words. Is this the path of love? I think of them as I rise, as I wake my children, as I wash dishes, as I drive too close behind the slow blue Subaru. Is this the path of love? I think of them as I stand in line at the grocery store. Think of them as I sit. them as I sit on the couch with my daughter, amazing how quickly six words become compass,

the new lens through which to see myself in the world. I notice what the question is not. Not is this right, not is this wrong. It just longs to know how the action of existence links us to the path of love. Is it this? Is it this? All day I let myself be led by the question. All day I let myself not be too certain of the answer. Is it this? Is this the path of love?

I ask as I wait for the next word to come. Sensing for yourself that question. Right now, Is this the path of love?