Tara Brach - Meditation: Reconnecting to Silence and Presence

Episode Date: May 23, 2024

Only in silence and presence do we realign with what matters to our hearts. This simple practice of arriving in an embodied awareness supports us in touching the grounds of true transformation and healing. It closes with a powerful poem by Gunilla Norris, "Sharing Silence."

The following meditation is led by Tara Brock. To access more of my meditations or join my email list, please visit tarabrock.com. We'll begin as we do with a meditation, and I invite you to find the posture that will most support you in being relaxed, being at ease, and being awake. Take some moments as you set up.

in, to just feel that you can let go, let go of anything that wants to be more at ease through your body. Just scan and relax some. Your eyes might be closed or downcast. Take some moments to grounds yourself. Just feel the weight of your body on this earth, the experience of gravity, of belonging to this earth. Sense a kind of safety. Some find it's helpful to imagine yourself as a mountain with that stability and strength. Surrounded by sky,

there's room for the different weather systems that flow through. As you feel yourself in this safe and stable position, becoming aware of the movement of your breath. You might extend the breath, taking a nice long, deep in-breath to the count of five. In an out-breath, matched counting to five. And again, breathing in, filling the chest in the lungs. Slow out-breath, releasing, relaxing outward.

And once again, inhaling deeply. Slow, smooth out-breath, softening down the length of your body, letting go, letting go. And then as your breath comes back into its natural rhythm, feeling the sense of presence that's right here. Deepening that presence as you scan through the body, perhaps softening the area around the eyes so the brow is smooth. You might sense the lips and a slight smile.

Relaxing the inside of your mouth, letting the tongue fill the lower palate. relaxing down to the root of the tongue, and feeling the sensations that arise throughout the mouth, receiving the sensations, aware of the sensations through the face, the expression relaxed, feeling the scalp, the skull, and then allowing the shoulders to relax away from the neck, letting the awareness fill the shoulders. And if there's any tight, or tension that you're aware of. You might see if it can naturally relax, dissolve some so you begin to feel the movement of energy through the shoulder area.

Feeling the movement and flow of energy through the arms right down into the hands. You might explore relaxing, softening the hands, then feeling from the inside out, softening again, feeling the tingling, the vibrating. Just noticing that the more you relax, the more you can feel. Aware of the chest and feeling from the inside out the area of the heart. Again, relaxing and opening to the sensations that are there. Scanning down so that you soften a bit in the area of the belly, letting the next breath be received. in this softening belly. This breath and now this one and again. The feelings of

aliveness wake up deep into the torso, relaxing down into the pelvic region, receiving the aliveness that's here. Breath by breath. The sensations through the legs, relaxing the feet, feeling the contact with the earth beneath you, the presence. pressure, the temperature, and feeling from the inside out the sensations and the feet. Then sensing that you can simultaneously feel all the sensations throughout the body, this whole dance of sensation. And again, discovering within this field of sensation the movement of the breath, letting yourself rest with the breath wherever it's most predominant.

perhaps at the nostrils, the inflow, outflow, the rising, falling at the chest, perhaps expanding and settling at the belly. Maybe it's the feeling of the breath being received throughout the body, aware in the background, this whole field of aliveness, the simple movement of the waves of the breath in the foreground, receptive, present. It's quite natural that the mind will take you off into the future or the past. And just let your intention be to relax back when you notice that. Come back to your senses. Listening to the sounds that are right here, reawakening in the body, you might scan again, just relaxing the shoulders, softening the hands.

hands, feeling the movement of the breath through the body, relaxing your heart, resting in what's right here. Let your practice be simple, coming back to the senses again and again, feeling the breath, feeling whatever feelings or emotions might be asking for your attention, bringing your care to the changing flow of experience that's right here. It doesn't matter how many times the mind drifts. The pathway home becomes easier and easier to find and follow when you come back with kindness, with interest.

Just notice what's right here. The sounds, the sensations of aliveness in your body, feeling the move. of the breath, resting in what's right here, breathing, feeling, caring about the life of the moment. This poem is called Sharing Silence by Ghanela and Aris. Sharing Silence is a political act. When we can stand aside from the usual and perceive the fundamental change begins to happen. Our lives align with deeper values and the lives of others are touched and influenced. Silence brings us back to basics, to our senses, to ourselves. It locates us.

Without that return, we can go so far away. away from our true natures, that we end up quite literally beside ourselves. We live blindly and act thoughtlessly. We endanger the delicate balance which sustains our lives, our communities, and our planet. Each of us can make a difference. Politicians and visionaries will not return us to the sacredness of life. That will be done by ordinary people who together or alone can say, remember to breathe, remember to feel, remember to care. Let us do this for our children and ourselves and our children's children. Let us practice for lives' sake. Remember to breathe, remember to feel, remember to feel,

to care.