Tara Brach - Meditation - Receiving Life in Open Awareness (2016-10-05)

Episode Date: October 6, 2016

Meditation: Receiving Life in Open Awareness (2016-10-05) - Our habit is to try to manage our experience from a mental control tower. This meditation awakens us through the body, and then invites us to rest in that vast presence that includes the changing flow of life. When we inhabit that openness, there's a natural arising of peace, wakefulness and tenderness. Your support enables us to continue to offer these talks freely. If you value them, I hope you will consider offering a donation at this time at www.tarabrach.com/donation/. With gratitude and love, Tara  

The following meditation is led by Tara Brock. To access more of my meditations or join my email list, please visit tarabrock.com. Please be aware of your body sitting here, breathing. It will take some moments to scan down through the body, relaxing and waking up from the inside out. You might feel the region of the eyes, softening the eyes

letting the brow be smooth and just feel the aliveness the tingling and vibrating perhaps a sense of darkness and light through the lids let your senses be awake letting the jaw be unhinged

the tongue filling the lower jaw relax down to the root of the tongue You might sense a slight smile at the mouth, a smile in the inside of the mouth, and receiving the sensations in the region of the mouth, the gums, the teeth, the tongue, the lips, letting the shoulders fall away from the neck,

allowing the shoulders to be filled with awareness so that whatever you feel inside, whether it's a tightness or twisting or pressure, whatever's there, not. Just letting it float in awareness. Loosen loosely. Sense a gradual dissolving and a movement of sensation.

Sometimes it's like ice to water. I'm melting. Just letting the light of awareness do the work. Ice to water. Water to gas. Noticing if you can sense more space inside the shoulders. Space and aliveness. Let's the air.

hands rest in an easy and effortless way, softening the hands. Again, feeling the hands filled with awareness, receiving the aliveness of tingling and vibrating, and also the space that it's happening in, let there be an openness to the chest. Feel the whole region of the heart, filled with awareness, again receiving the sensations of aliveness, sensing the interior space that they arise from and that they're happening in, scanning down and letting this next breath be received in a softening belly. This breath and now this one and again, feeling the region of the belly,

letting sensations be received, by awareness, the tingling, pressure, vibrating, squeeze, flow, whatever's there, sensing the space it's happening in, the interior space that it rises from, the space and aliveness, standing down into the region of the pelvic area that you can feel again filled with awareness, receiving sensation, sensing the space, sensation, sensing the space, are happening in, the interior space they arise from, aliveness and space in the pelvic region, sensing around you and beneath you the aliveness and space of Earth.

This body is part of that energetic expression so that this whole body can be experienced as a field of sensation, including an awareness, the appearing and disappearing of sounds. So you're listening not just with your ears, but your whole awareness, listening to and feeling the whole moment with awareness. Continue to sense in the foreground,

the changing dance of sensations, feelings, sounds. We're in the background of this alert, inner stillness, the awake space that everything's happening in, arising from, dissolving into, noticing the quality of presence, it's right here, that sense of heerness, open wakefulness, receiving the changing play of sensation, sound. If the mind feels very activated, going off into a lot of thoughts, and if it's helpful to keep in the foreground, a sense of the breath moving in an act,

Now, to steady the mind, please feel free. Or for some, the anchor or home base might be sounds. Or the sensations of the whole body sitting here. Let your practice be simply noticing when the mind's drifted. When you do notice a relaxing back, relaxing back to just listen again to the sounds that are actually here, the feel the sensations, the aliveness that's here, listening to and feeling the moment-to-moment experience, resting in that vast background of presence of awareness

that's your true home. If the mind has drifted, you might appreciate this as a moment of awakening, of relaxing back home again. And simply listen, listen to the sounds that are right here. See what might want to let go a little in the body. Just receive sensations, feelings, relaxing the heart.

So again, you're listening to and feeling this moment, the whole moment, with an awake presence. And as you and this formal part of the meditation invite you to explore bringing forward this awake presence, receptive presence, that awareness that recognizes the sounds and sensations and feelings and the aliveness that's here, just to bring that into what's next as you move out of the still sitting posture,

as you open your eyes, as you re-engage to let there be a continuity in presence. It's a great gift to your life. Taking some moments to have a few full breaths as part of the transition. And in your own way, with the intention towards presence, opening your eyes and slowly moving around, re-engaging with the life that's here. Namaste.