Tara Brach - Meditation: Receiving Life in Open, Awake Awareness (20:34 min.)

Episode Date: January 21, 2026

This meditation awakens a receptive attention to the senses, starting with physical sensations and opening to sound. Then we sense how open awake awareness is receiving the moment to moment arising and passing life. In the final part of the practice, we explore how awake awareness is receiving the experience of our heart and offer blessings to our inner life and all living beings.   Our introduction music is from "Opening" by Adrienne Torf, © 2025 ABT Music

Welcome, friends, to the Tara Brock podcast. I'm so glad you're here. Each week, I share teachings and guided meditations to help us awaken our hearts and bring healing to our world. You can learn more or support this offering by visiting tarabrock.com, where you can also join our email list. Now, let's explore together the many ways we can live from the love and presence that's our deepest essence. Namaste. This fall we experimented for about six weeks with including an ad before this podcast,

and we've decided not to move forward with any more advertising. Many of you shared that it disrupted the flow of your listening, and I really understand it didn't feel aligned with the spirit of this offering. These teachings and meditations will continue to be freely available and your support truly makes that possible. Thank you, friends. Thank you for whatever you've offered and for your continued generosity

in whatever form feels right to you. We begin in a simple way our practice by listening inwardly to our hearts and sensing our intention for practice. What it is that brings you to practice, what it is that your heart might long for. And take your time, just inquiring and listening, until you feel that sense of sincerity about what matters to.

One of the most direct ways to awaken presence is by scanning down the body and really waking up from the inside out. You might feel the region of the brows, the eyes, and just soften your eyes a bit. You might sense a smile spreading through the eyes, lifting the outer corners, let the brow be smooth, simply receive the sensations and aliveness in that area. In a similar way, a slight smile at the mouth. Let the tongue relax, let it fill the lower jaw, relaxing down to the root of the tongue,

and letting yourself open to the whole play of sensation in the mouth, the gums, the tongue, the lips. You might sense the curve of a smile at the throat, and perhaps the breath as it comes in and out at the throat, letting the throat fill the neck and feeling the sensations from the inside out that arise, smiling into the heart, letting a smile spread the neck, through the chest. This isn't to paper over what's there, but really to make space for the life that's there. You might sense a widening of that field that the smile is in so that

it says if there's widening ripples, there's some ease that you can feel in the area of the shoulders, letting the shoulders fall away from the neck, a little back and down, and feeling them from the inside out, receptive. to the sensations inside the shoulders, sometimes it can help to purposely let go a little more in the area of the shoulders because we carry so much tension, imagining the shift of ice to water, sense of melting, and then water to gas, receiving the sensations of aliveness and sensing the space that fills the shoulders, aware of the light, and the light of the light, length the volume of the arms, sensing the hands resting in an easy and effortless way.

Explore softening the hands, softening and feeling from the inside with real receptivity, the aliveness of sensation. See if you can imagine the space that fills the hands and this living dance of energy that's here. Sensing an openness in the chest and from the inside. out, feeling the aliveness, the space it fills the chest. ...of the abdominal region, letting this next breath be received in a softening belly, this breath and then this one and again, feeling the belly from the inside out, receptive attention,

aware of the sensations and the space. that fills the belly, scanning down into the pelvic region, again experiencing from the inside out the sense of space and aliveness that fills the pelvic region. ...of the length and the volume of your legs, gilling the feet from the inside out, the tingling and vibrating and aliveness that's there, imagining and sensing the feet rooted deep in the earth's energy flowing up through your feet, filling your whole body. So it's a really felt sense of the expression of the earth energy flowing through and expressing through you.

You might sense that in all directions. You can feel this bodily being as a field of sensation. Sensing the open space of awareness that this energy is... dancing and unfolding in. From that openness, just listening to sounds also, this play of sound, appearing, disappearing, sensing moment to moment how open awareness experiences this changing dance of sensation, sound, feelings. It's very natural that the mind will contract away from this openness and presence and

enter into a thought form, the future, the past. Not to judge, but rather when you become aware of this kind of trance of thinking, just relax back again, reopen the attention. You might relax the body a bit because the body tends to contract in correlation to the contractions in the mind, the thoughts. So just re-relax, softening the shoulders, the hands, the belly, the heart. You might sense that curve and felt experience of the smile. It's regarding with kindness, whatever's going on.

Relax back and listen again to the sounds that are here. Relaxing back and sensing the openness and wakefulness. of the awareness that everything's happening inside of. And again, just discover how wakeful awareness is experiencing this moment to moment flow of sound and sensation, feeling, life, letting your practice be simple to notice when the mind drifts into thoughts and gently relax back, connect with the senses of the sense of what's right here, sensations, aliveness, sound, and then relax back some more and sense the wakeful openness, the awareness that's all happening in, it's resting as awareness,

discovering how awareness is experiencing moment to moment, this changing play of life. And for the last part of this meditation, sensing whatever's going on in your life, heart right now, whatever movement of emotions, feelings, sensations. Sensing how open awareness is receiving and experiencing your heart. Sensing the capacity for an infinite kind of tenderness and presence with whatever's here. The heart space where whatever arises is held with kindness. Sensing if there's any blessing or prayer or wish you'd like to offer to your own heart right now.

And then widening to sense how this open-hearted awareness is all-inclusive, sensing your prayer for all beings everywhere. May we realize and trust the loving awareness that's our true home.