Tara Brach - Meditation: Refuge in Presence (2020-09-23)

Episode Date: September 24, 2020

Meditation: Refuge in Presence (2020-09-23) - The movement from virtual reality – thoughts - to the awareness of sense-based reality is true homecoming. This meditation guides us in awakening our senses, and returning again and again to the freedom of embodied presence. We close with part of a poem "Come Home" by Jane Hooper.

The following meditation is led by Tara Brock. To access more of my meditations or join my email list, please visit tarabrock.com. Take a nice long, deep breath right now as a way of collecting the attention, inhaling and filling the lungs. And then let the out breath be slow enough that you can sense a kind of releasing, a letting go. And again, another long, deep in-breath.

And with the out-breath sensing that you can, let go and relax any unnecessary tension or tightness. Let go, let go. One more time, a nice full in breath, then a slow, even out breath, releasing and letting go. Then as your breath now resumes in its natural rhythm, feel the quality of presence that's right here and sense a quality of heart presence. Feeling your intention for the meditation, the intention to be here with your senses awake, in touch with aliveness. And feeling this body breathing, we begin to scan down the body to increase that sense of refuge and presence. You might soften the eyes and let the brow be smooth and feel the aliveness in that region of the eyes, a receptive presence to what's

right here. You might bring a slight smile to the lips and then feeling the inside of the mouth, letting the tongue fill the lower palate and then relaxing down to the root of the tongue and feeling the sensations through the teeth, the gums, the tongue, the lips. Again, connecting with the aliveness that's right here and letting that aliveness spread through the whole face, perhaps feeling tingling in the scalp and the skull. So you can feel the whole face, the head, the insides of the scalp and the skull, everything awake. Here, you might feel your throat and imagine and sense the throat filling the neck, opening to the sensations there, allowing the shoulders to relax back and

down a bit, perhaps tucking the chin slightly, and then filling the shoulders with awareness. See if you can feel from the inside out, the aliveness in the shoulders, and where you feel tension or tightness because we carry so much in our shoulders to let that float a bit in awareness. Allow the hands to rest in an easy, effortless way. and then intentionally soften the hands and softening again and again and feeling from the inside out the fingers, the palms, feeling the tingling and vibrating that's here, the aliveness, an intimate, receptive presence with life. Just as a cup is filled with water, this whole body is filled with a aliveness, awareness. You might let there be an openness to the chest and feel the region of the heart.

Sometimes it's helpful to smile into the heart, to visualize and sense the felt sense of a smile spreading through the heart and the chest. And that's not to cover over, but rather to create space to really connect with the life that's here, feeling intimately. the sensations, the energy, emotions in the region of the heart. As if you could both listen to and touch what's there. Scanning downward, letting this next breath be received in a softening belly. This breath and now this one. And again, waking up the quality of presence in the belly,

letting the belly be soft and feeling that receptivity to whatever's there, extending the scan through the pelvic region, letting that whole area be filled with awareness, a receptive presence with aliveness. Noticing what it's like this moment's experience as awareness fills the whole torso down through the legs, filling the feet, and then widening and opening to experience this whole body as a dance of sensation, a field of sensation, noticing tingling, vibrating, areas of warmth or coolness, tightness or flow, pleasantness or unpleasantness. this whole dance of life. Notice how the more you let this life be just as it is, the more full and intimate, the more awake and alive it is, including the appearing and disappearing of sound, the sounds that are close in and perhaps the most distant sounds you can hear. So you're listening not just with your ears but your whole awareness, resting in that open space of presence

that's listening to and feeling this whole moment to take refuge in presence in truth. It's to take refuge in this changing dance of aliveness, this changing stream of sound, sensation, feelings, relaxed open presence that relaxes with the changing stream, allowing everything to be just as it is. And when the mind goes off as it naturally will into static thought forms, a virtual reality, when there's a noticing of that, relax open again into your senses, listening to the sounds that are actually here rather than the sounds in your mind. listening to and feeling the aliveness in the body, the feelings in the heart. You might explore each time you awaken from thought to notice the difference between any

thought form, being in any virtual reality of the present, thinking of the future, the past, images, ideas, the difference between that and the image. immediacy and vitality and mystery of right here, this changing stream of experience. Let the noticing of being often thought be a kind of invitation to take refuge in presence. Each time you move from thoughts back into this immediate sensory reality, you're deepening your knowledge of the pathway home. Again, listening, listening to and feeling the body, perhaps relaxing a bit in areas that have recontracted, letting go through the shoulders, softening the hands, loosening and softening in the belly, letting the breath be received

deep in the body, perhaps smiling into the heart, relaxing the heart, and with an intimate presence, feeling the life that's here, listening to and feeling the whole moment. The poet Jane Hooper writes, Please come home. Please come home. Find the place where your feet know where your own walk and follow your own trail home. Please come home into your own body, your own vessel, your own earth. please come home into each and every cell and fully into the space that surrounds you.

Please come home to trusting yourself and your instincts and your ways and your knowings. Please come home and once you are firmly here, please stay home for a while and come to a deep rest within. Please get a deep, deep sense of what it's like to be truly. home. For these last few moments you might explore what it means to be at home in this body and this life, relaxing with what's arising, letting everything be just as it is. After you hear the sounding of the gong, opening your eyes, and sensing that you can continue to take refuge in presence, that you can take in whatever you see with this present heart, with your senses awake, seeing, hearing, and feeling this world with an open-hearted awareness.