Tara Brach - Meditation: Relaxing Back and Saying Yes to the Moment (2016-10-19)

Episode Date: October 21, 2016

Meditation: Relaxing Back and Saying Yes to the Moment - When we are stressed, our conditioning is to tighten our body, and tense against our moment to moment experience. This meditation is a powerful practice of de-conditioning this reactivity by learning to relax back into presence, and to respond to difficulty by  saying "yes." Through relaxing back and saying "yes," we discover our heart's capacity for unconditional love.  

The following meditation is led by Tara Brock. To access more of my meditations or join my email list, please visit tarabrock.com. As you come into stillness, you might begin with an inquiry that we invite each time we gather, which is to sense what really brings you here to practice. and take your time, just feel your heart, feel your presence, and sense from the most sincere place in you what most matters, what is it that you long for, that you, really that longing that this practice will awaken, whether it's the longing for being more present or perhaps more open-hearted, to touch a deeper realization or truth, to live with more ease or peace,

or it might be all of that, to just sense what matters. The power of touching into your aspiration is it brings you to a more receptive and present place, it allows your aspiration to actually manifest, just to feel what you care about. Be aware of simply sitting here, this breathing body, taking some moments to scan through the body with awareness, softening, relaxing, wherever there might be habitual tightening. And you might begin with the eyes, softening the eyes and letting the brow be smooth. Letting the jaw relax open some. Tongue fill the lower jaw.

So you can relax right down to the root of the tongue. And you might sense a slight smile at the mouth. This helps to activate the parasympathetic nervous system. It brings more ease, well-being to the whole system. You might sense if the shoulders might fall away from the neck some, relaxing them back and down. Bring the awareness to fill the shoulders so you can feel from the inside out. And if there's areas of tightness or clenching, any knots, see if they can just float

a bit in awareness. The more you feel from the inside out, the more you might be able to detect the movement of energy, some dissolving of tightness. Kind of melting from ice to water and then water to gas. Let the hands rest in a very easy and effortless way. softening the hands. And again, feel the life from the inside out in the hands. Notice as you soften that there's more receptivity.

You can feel the tingling and vibrating that's there. You might sense an openness to the chest. And again, let the awareness fill the heart, feeling that region from the inside out. Very receptive to the energy and the aliveness that's right here in the heart area. relaxing down the torso, letting this next breath be received in a softening belly. This breath and now this one and again, letting the awareness fill the belly. Again feeling from the inside out the play of energy.

Places of tightness, places of flow, warm. Just letting the life be just as it is, received in awareness, You can be continuing to scan down, let the pelvic region be filled with awareness. And that same receptivity, aware of the dance of sensation, energy, movement. I feel where your bottom touches the cushion, the chair, just a sense of weight and pressure, the weight and pressure where your feet or ankles touch the floor. Feeling inside the feet, the aliveness that's there. See, feeling the feet, feeling inside the hands.

You might sense this whole earth that's under you and around you, this whole field of energy that's flowing through you, through the feet, filling the torso, filling the body. So you feel the whole body as a field of sensation, a dance of energy, and just let everything happen along with sensation. along with sensations, the aliveness of sensations, aware of the sounds that appear and disappear, close in sounds, the more distant sounds. You're listening in a global way with your whole awareness,

listening to and feeling the whole moment, listening to and feeling the whole moment. Just let everything be just as it is. You can sense in the foreground the changing sounds and sensations and feelings, perhaps thoughts, and sense in the background this open, awake awareness, the stillness that experiences movement and aliveness. And just silence is listening to sounds. Just inhabiting that awareness, that openness, that openness,

that's including everything that's happening. It's the habit of mind to contract and leave the openness of awareness, go off in thoughts. And it's also, there's this natural remembering. You'll notice at some point that the mind's drifted. When that happens, to simply pause and re-open, relax back into presence again. Just listening to the sounds right here. Listening to and feeling this changing dance of sensation. Listening to and feeling this tender-heartedness that's here.

Whatever movement of emotion might be appearing. The other practice is again and again to notice when there's a contraction of mind into thought and relax back, listening to and feeling the life that's right here. No matter how many times the mind gets lost, each is an opportunity to experience this pathway home of relaxing back, reopening the attention to the sounds that are right here, reopening in the body to feel the life. perhaps softening the shoulders, feel the energy there, softening the hands, relaxing the heart to feel the realness, the energy, the feelings that are there.

And if what's arising is challenging, then you can deepen that relaxing back with that intention in some way to say yes, to allow with gentleness and tenderness the life that's here to be just as it is. So you can practice that, mentally whispering yes to whatever's difficult. That yes is a very honest acknowledgement of this is what's here in this moment. Let it be. In these last few moments, exploring what it means to understand. unconditionally say yes to the life that's here.

In the moments when that yes becomes full, our hearts awaken in love. Just letting go into that loving, being the loving.