Tara Brach - Meditation: Relaxed and Awake

Episode Date: December 21, 2023

Meditation: Relaxed and Awake - This guided meditation helps us find ease and wakefulness in our body and mind. With the breath as our home base, we offer a gentle and full attention to the changing waves. We close with a beautiful poem, "Walk Slowly," by Danna Faulds.

The following meditation is led by Tara Brock. To access more of my meditations or join my email list, please visit tarabrock.com. Let your attention really rest in the area of the heart, breathing in and out of your heart, sensing really what brings you here, what your intention is, for coming to meditation practice, for the spiritual path, What is it that matters to you? The invitation is to feel your own sincerity, what you care about. It's from that caring and our shared aspiration that our practice of meditation

might awaken these hearts in a way that really helps heal our world. In the stillness, you might sense that you can soften your eyes, let your brow be smooth, and let a sense of a smile spread through the eyes, as if the outer edges could be lifted slightly. You just feel a softening that can happen in that region of the face. A slight smile at the mouth. And sense the inside of the mouth smiling. Notice can you let the tongue fill the lower palate?

And can you relax the tongue down to the root? opening to the sensations that fill the mouth, gums, the teeth, the lips, and feeling the whole face, perhaps the light and dark at the eyes, the quivering, tingling, vibrating through the face, the scalp and the skull, and feeling inside the whole brain, face and down to the neck, waking up, allowing the shoulders to fall away from the neck. You see if you can feel the shoulders from the inside out, and just sense that whatever tightness or tensions there can float a little in awareness. And begin to untangle and soften.

You might even sense ice to water melting and water to gas. letting the hands rest in an easy, effortless way. You might notice what happens if you intentionally soften the hands and then soften again. And see if you can feel from the inside out the energy and aliveness that's there. Let there be an openness to the chest. Let the awareness fill the whole chest area

so you can feel from the inside out, the heart, whatever sensations, whatever energy's there in the heart area, letting be, letting everything float in awareness, scanning down the belly, letting this next breath be received in a softening belly, this breath, and now this one, and again, letting the awareness fill the belly as you can feel from the inside out, the energy, the life, the whole, abdominal area, aware of inhabiting this body with awareness, letting that extend to the pelvic region, feeling from the inside out the aliveness and energy that's here. The eyes are soft, smile at the mouth, hands are soft, the chest is open, the belly soft,

awakening through the whole torso, where the legs, the length, volume, the weight, right into the feet, feeling the aliveness, tingling, vibrating in the feet, noticing what happens if you widen the lens now and feel this body like an energy body, a field of sensation, and just let everything Everything happens. Feeling in the midst of this field of sensation, the river of the breath, the natural movement of the breath without controlling it, the inflow, the outflow. See how much you can relax with the movement of the breath. It doesn't take long for the mind to drift away from the breath.

When we notice it, there can be that sense of the breath. of, oh, waking up from thought and gently arriving again. So much of our meditation is realizing we've been lost and arriving again. Right back into this next inflow or outflow of the breath, you can let the breath be a kind of home base place to gather and collect the attention. And if something else calls your attention strongly, it might be a strong feeling or emotion, some strong sensations, kind of like strong waves that are right here. And you can let that be in the foreground.

The practice is, for instance, if there's some anxiety or some discomfort in the body, to say yes to it. to allow it to be there, to notice what it's like as sensations in the body. Notice how it changes. Sense what happens when you let it be there. Let it belong. Let it come, let it go when it's no longer calling your attention and gently shepherd the breath back to rest with the breath, the in-flow, the outflow.

One of the most valuable parts of practice is the moment we become aware we've been lost in thoughts. We've been in a virtual reality. When you realize that, just pause for a moment. You appreciate waking up again. Reopen the senses. Listen to the sounds that are right here. You can re-relax in the body a little, letting the shoulders, relax back and down. softening the hands again, relaxing your heart.

Be aware of the quality of presence that's right here, kind of the immediacy and vividness and mystery. You might compare that to any thought, the virtual quality of any thought, and just sense the realness when we wake up out of thought that really is our home. moment to moment presence, feeling the inflow, the outflow of the breath, whatever feelings, motions are calling your attention, offering your presence. We close with a poem that is beautiful for entering a new year or a new moment by the poet Dana Falls. It's called Walk Slowly. It only takes a reminder to breathe.

a moment to be still, and just like that, something in us settles, softens, makes space for imperfection. The harsh voice of judgment drops to a whisper, and we remember again that life isn't a relay race. We will all cross the finish line, that waking up to life is what we're born for. As many times as we forget and catch ourselves charging forward without even knowing where we're going, that many times we can make the choice to stop, to breathe and be, and walk slowly into the mystery.