Tara Brach - Meditation: Refuge in Presence (2021-12-08)

Episode Date: December 9, 2021

Meditation: Refuge in Presence (2021-12-08) - We arrive in presence through the gateway of the body, scanning through with awareness, and then resting with the breath and body sensations. As we include whatever arises with a gentle and kind attention, our inner refuge becomes increasingly stable and openhearted. This meditation ends with a brief loving-kindness prayer.

The following meditation is led by Tara Brock, meditation teacher, psychologist, and author. The way to wake up presence is through the gateway of the body, letting the awareness gently scan through the body. We begin by bringing awareness to the region of the eyes. I'd like to invite you to soften your eyes. You might imagine that you could smile into your eyes. Let the outer corners lift a bit. Just relax the flesh around the eyes, let the brow be smooth and feel the sensations that live in that region.

The tingling or vibrating, perhaps the light and darkness flickering. In a similar way you can bring a slight smile to the mouth. Let the inside of the mouth smile. Let the tongue fill the lower, palate, relaxing to the root of the tongue, and just receive the sensations and aliveness that live throughout the mouth, the lips, the tongue, the gums. And imagine a smile spreading through the whole chest, the heart area, sense the curve of a smile, then feel into the heart, the sensations and aliveness that's there, very receptive,

Open attention. The eyes are smiling, mouth, the heart, allowing the shoulders to fall away from the ears. Let the awareness fill the shoulders so you can feel from the inside out the movement of energy and perhaps the places that feel stuck or blocked. Let whatever feels tight or tense. float in awareness, allow the hands to rest in an easy and effortless way and let the hands fill with awareness so you can feel them from the inside out, softening the hands and noticing the aliveness it's there, and again sensing that openness in the chest, relaxing down

the torso, letting this next breath be received in a softening belly. this breath and now this one. And again, you might imagine that curve of a smile spreading through the belly, feeling from the inside out the aliveness, the energy, the sensations. And imagine that same curve of a smile and the felt sense of a smile filling the pelvic region, relaxing and opening in a receptive way to the flow of energy, the sensation,

that are there, relaxing very deep in the torso now, relaxing the anal sphincter, the perineum, imagining that smile right at the base of the spine like a vase, curve vase and just allowing the earth energy to flow up through you now, just to flow into you and fill you, receptive and open so that if you widen the lens you can sense this whole field of awareness and aliveness, sensations, tingling, vibrating. You might discover in the midst of these sensations the simple movement of the breath, not controlling the breath, but more receiving it as if you're listening to sound, receiving the delicate currents of the breath, the inflow and the outflow,

noticing how much you can relax with the breath, letting the breath and this field of sensory life be a kind of home base, so that you know that you're here. You might mentally whisper the word here. I'm just sensing this refuge of presence so that when the mind wanders, which it naturally will, you can find your way back, you can relax back. You can move from that world of thoughts, a kind of virtual reality, back into this living field and again relax.

with the movement of the breath. If the mind's been wandering, it's helpful to gently relax back and re-establish presence. You might relax open the attention and just listen for a moment, just hearing the sounds around you. The sense as you scan through your body

if there's some place that wants to let go a little, Usually when we're often thoughts our body re-contracts into tension, the shoulders perhaps. Just let go, soften, let the hands be soft, might want to loosen the belly, let there be that slight smile at the mouth, and again smiling into the heart, relaxing your heart, and reconnecting with the inflow and outflow of the breath, with that sense of heerness of being right here moment to moment. And if there's something difficult that you contact in the present, some physical discomfort or some strong emotion, to bring a gentle presence to that, to breathe with what you experience,

it be there, meeting it with kindness, noticing what happens when you meet difficult experience with a gentle heart. As you close this meditation, taking some moments to sense whatever wish or prayer you'd like to offer to your own being right now and offering that with sincerity with kindness and sensing the awake heart space that includes all beings that we hold this earth, our mother in our lap and all beings in our heart, closing and sensing your prayer for all beings, that all beings everywhere may be filled with loving kindness and held in loving kindness, that all beings might touch a great and not

peace that all beings everywhere might awaken and be free. Namaste.