Tara Brach - Meditation: Portal to Sacred Presence (22:01 min.)

Episode Date: July 4, 2024

This meditation includes a full body scan, and then opens the senses to all experience, allowing life to be just as it is. Awakening to the life of our body reveals the mysterious formless presence that is our source. We close with a poem from Danna Faulds.

The following meditation is led by Tara Brock. To access more of my meditations or join my email list, please visit tarabrock.com. In the quietness, you might begin to scan through the body with your awareness. And notice where there's areas of real tightness or tension. Just take a moment to see if it's possible to soften a little. to just see what wants to let go. You might scan slowly through the body, starting with the area of the brow,

letting the brow be smooth and the eyes soft. You might even sense you can smile into the eyes, letting the outer corners lift a little, explore having a slight but real smile at the mouth. And the Zen Master Ticknaan describes us as smile yoga because it sends a message to our whole nervous system to relax to be at ease. You might sense the inside of the mouth smiling. You feel all the little micro muscles around the eyes through the face, relaxing, letting

the tongue fill the lower palate and see it. if you can relax down to the root of the tongue. You become aware of receptive to the feelings through the mouth, the gums, the teeth, the lips, aware of the tingling or vibrating of the scalp, the skull. You can sense the head filled with awareness, aliveness. You might imagine and sense the throat filling your neck and allow the shoulders to relax back and down some. and then feel the shoulders from the inside out.

And see if you can soften, let whatever tightness or tension is there, float in awareness. Aware of the length and the volume of your arms, the weight, letting the hands rest in an easy and effortless way, and explore softening the hands. What do you notice when you soften? and then feel the hands from the inside out and soften again. And then with an intimate attention.

See if you can feel the tingling and the vibrating in the hands. Just as a cup is filled with water, this whole body is filled with awareness, aliveness. Waking up through the body is a direct portal to presence. Let there be an openness to the chest. You might feel the area of the heart. From the inside out, be aware of whatever energy is there, fresher, tightness, flow.

Sometimes it can be helpful to smile into the heart or to visualize and feel the curve of a smile spreading through the heart, not to cover over what's there, there, but to really create a space, a kind of benevolent presence that has room for the experience directly of the energy and aliveness of the heart, scanning through the upper back and midback, doing the rib cage, letting this next breath be received in a softening belly, this breath, and now this one and again and again. letting the abdominal area be filled with awareness, belly soft.

So you feel from the inside out the movement of energy and aliveness. In the same way, feeling down through the pelvic region, receptive, the aliveness and energy that's here. The hands, relaxed, soft, the eyes, soft, belly soft, aware of the body, and the legs, length, volume, the weight, right down into the feet so you can feel the places of pressure, warmth, contact, where the feet touch the floor, you feel from the inside out, vibration, tingling, and the feet. Noticing what happens when you expand the lens of attention to feel this body all at once, sensing this field of aliveness, letting everything happen,

allowing the full play of tingling and vibrating, pressure and flow, heat and cool, perhaps pain or pleasure, just letting everything happen. And you might continue widening in an inclusive way. to the sounds that are coming and going. You're listening not just with your ears, but your whole awareness. You're listening to and feeling the changing flow of experience. This moment and this moment and now, in the foreground,

the movement of sensation, energy, sound, and in the background, that alert in the background, alert inner stillness, that formless presence, that which is aware, resting in this stillness, this awake, inner stillness, receptive to the changing sensations, aware of the movement of the breath, feeling that mystery of heerness of being right here. You'll notice before too long that the attention drifts and that leaves this more open mysterious presence and gets confined inside thoughts of the future, the past, commentary. And so our practice is when we notice to simply relax back again, relax back and gently

come home again to the senses, opening the attention to listening, when there's a lot of thinking, the mind then gives a kind of directive to the body to contract. So we re-relax in the body. Just try it right now, softening the hands, slight smile at the mouth, relaxing your heart and settling back again, listening to and feeling the changing moment, resting again in this mystery of presence,

sacred presence. It's a gift to your soul to wake up from thoughts and choose to relax back into presence, feeling the aliveness in the body and feeling the movement of the breath, where of the sounds around you, and in the background that alert inner stillness, that which is aware,

and sensing the difference between any thought, that we're inside and the immediacy and vividness of this mystery, this presence. We'll close this meditation on embodied presence with a poem by the poet Bannifalds called trusting prana. Trust the energy that courses through you. then take surrender even deeper. Be the energy. Don't push anything away.

Follow each sensation back to its source in vastness and pure presence. Word so new, so fresh that you don't know who you are. Welcome in the season of monsoons. Be the bridge across the flooded river and the surging torrent underneath. Be unafraid of consummate wonder. Be the energy and blaze a trail

across the clear night sky like lightning. Bear to be your own illumination.