Tara Brach - Meditation: Pathway to Inner Peace (20:41 min.)

Episode Date: July 17, 2025

"Peace is this moment without judgment," writes poet Dorothy Hunt, "this moment in the heart-space where everything that is, is welcome." This meditation is a guide to opening to the truth of what's here, and meeting it with a gentle, allowing presence. As we do, we can touch the inner peace of non-judging awareness, and source our actions in that balance and wisdom. https://www.tarabrach.com/meditation-pathway-to-inner-peace-2/

The following meditation is led by Tara Brock. To access more of my meditations or join my email list, please visit tarabrock.com. As a way of starting our reflection, I'd like to read you a verse from the poet Dorothy Hunt. She writes, Do you think peace will come some other place than here? some other time than now, in some other heart than yours?

Peace is this moment without judgment, that is all. This moment in the heart space where everything that is is welcome. Peace is this moment without thinking that it should be some other way, that you should feel some other thing, that your life should unfold according to your plans. Peace is this moment without judgment, this moment in the heart space where everything that is is welcome.

So you might sense that intention to open to what's here with an allowing presence. And you can begin that by bringing the attention to the body, feeling your face, feeling the area of the eyes and the brow, letting the eyes soften, just being very receptive to the sensations. Perhaps you're noticing light and darkness flickering at the eyelids, tingling or vibrating around the eyes and in the brow. In a similar way, you might bring a slight smile to the mouth, and then feel that smile in the inside of the mouth, a relaxed,

receptive attention to the sensations in the tongue, gums, teeth, lips. You might allow the shoulders to fall away from the neck, and feeling the shoulders from the inside out with that same allowing presence, simply noticing what's here. Perhaps there's a tightness, tension, letting the life that's there be there, perhaps letting it float in awareness, sensing if there's a natural untangling, dissolving, letting the hands rest in an easy and effortless way, softening a bit, softening again, And then feeling from the inside out, the aliveness in the hands, just letting life be as it is, meeting this life with an intimate, receptive presence, bringing the attention to the region of the heart. And sensing the state of your heart right now, what you're aware of physically, the sensations, whether there's tension,

numbness, aliveness. There's fear, our openness. Letting it be just as it is, noticing what happens when there's a really allowing presence, letting yourself scan down into the belly,

perhaps receiving this next breath and a softening belly, this breath, and now this one. Letting the belly be, filled with awareness, noticing the experience from the inside out, whether it's numbness, agitation, fullness, whether there's fear. And again, meeting what's here with a receptive, allowing presence, letting that awareness fill the pelvic region. Again, a receptivity, opening to the life that's here. You might feel the plane of the back, the whole back, upper, middle, lower back,

sensing pleasantness or unpleasantness, tension or flow. Again, meeting what's here with that allowing presence, aware of the legs, length, the weight, the volume of your legs, feeling where the feet contact the floor, perhaps a sense of warmth, their pressure, feeling inside the feet, feeling the aliveness is there. And now as if you could widen the lens of attention, opening to this body all the sensations of the body at once, this energy body, this field of sensation and not stopping anything, not resisting anything. Notice what happens when you let life be just as it is. Let this whole life live through you, tingling, vibrating, places of pressure, places of flow, warmth, cool, pleasant, unpleasant.

this whole field of aliveness unfolding just as it is meeting this life with an intimate receptive allowing presence including the play of sounds the close-in sounds listening into the space that's here receptive to even the most distant sounds

resting in that vast awareness that includes the most distant sounds, that includes this whole dance of aliveness, so that you're listening to and feeling the changing flow, allowing life to be just as it is, moment to moment. You might check and sense if you're here, or if instead the attention has drifted into a thought, the future, the past, some image, some commentary. And if there's been that drifting, let this be a moment of arriving again, without any judgment, simply reopening the sense doors so that you can listen to the actual sounds of the moment, reopen the attention to bodily sensations. So you can feel from the inside out,

the shoulders, the hands, softening the belly a little, relaxing your heart, arriving right here, noticing what's happening, meeting the moment with that receptivity, that allowing presence. You're saying yes to the life that's here, honoring what's arising moment to moment with a gentle and interested attention. And for some, if you find what's right here is challenging, perhaps feeling physical sensations of pain, unpleasantness, perhaps difficult emotion like fear,

then let the yes become even more tender. Let the presence be even more receptive and gentle. So there's actually a sense of kindness. meeting what's here with kindness. You can start fresh in any moment, the meditation and your life. Just with the simplicity of asking, well, what is happening right here, right now? And can I be with this? Can I meet this moment with a receptive, gentle, interested attention? Explore what it means to truly say, yes to the moment, energetically to not resist but rather allow life to be just as it is. Peace is this moment without judgment. That is all. This moment in the heart space where everything

that is is welcome. For these last few moments you might explore what that means to you. inhabiting that heart space where everything that is is welcome.