Tara Brach - Meditation: Relaxing Back into Awareness (20:12 min.)

Episode Date: October 24, 2024

When we fully inhabit our body, we discover the space and wakefulness of awareness itself. In this meditation, we rest in this open awareness, and when the attention narrows into thoughts, we practice relaxing back into the openness that includes passing sounds, sensations and feelings. We close with a brief offering of lovingkindness to our own hearts and our world (with community OMs - no bell at end).

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, be aware of this body breathing, feel the breath in the area of the heart, lets yourself sense you're listening to your heart right now. Listen in and sense what is your intention for being here right now? for joining in to practice meditation, for gathering in this way, for teachings and practice.

What's your intention? Listen into where you feel most sincere, a sense of what really matters to you. If you could, at the end of the time this evening, feel something shifted, something awakened, something fresh, something new. some sort of homecoming, what would it be like? What does your heart long for? Just to feel what you care about and sense our shared caring for waking up our hearts, waking up what sometimes described as the all-inclusive heart,

the heart that's free to love without holding back. You might gently bring the palms together in front of the heart as we chant together together as Sangha, our community. I'll chant the mantra Ome, simple, beautiful, sound current of connectedness. We'll chant three times. So begin by taking a nice full in-breath. One of the most direct gateways to presence is by awakening awareness through the body. You might scan through the body and sense if there's any places where there can be a natural

letting go, places that want to let go, noticing where there's really predominant tension or tightness and softening. And I consciously let the eyes soften, let a smile spread through the eyes lifting the outer corners, letting the brow be smooth and sensing the flicker of light and dark. sensations and vibrations in the whole area of the brow, killing a slight smile at the mouth, letting the tongue fill the upper palate, relaxing down to the root of the tongue,

and opening to the sensations that fill the mouth, the teeth, the gums, the tongue, the lips, relaxing the shoulders back and down, perhaps sensing the dissolving of ice to water, Feeling the shoulders inside out, ice to water, water to gas. If you notice tension in the shoulders, it feels persistent, sense you can let it float in awareness. Feeling the insides of the arm as if you could sense the length, the weight, the volume of the arms. Let the hands rest in a very easy, effortless way.

Now what happens when you soften the hands? And then soften again, what do you notice from the inside out? Can you feel the space and aliveness that fill the hands, the vibrating and tingling? Just as a cup is filled with water, this whole body can be filled with awareness, feeling the chest and inhabiting the chest and the inside out, sensing the distance between the sides of the chest, the distance between

the front of the chest and the spine. You're inhabiting the chest and in the same way softening and relaxing through the middle section, perhaps letting this next breath be received in a softening belly. this breath and again and again inhabiting the torso from the inside out, perhaps sensing the distance between the sides of your waist and between the navel and the back of the spine, feeling the space and aliveness inside. In the same way letting awareness fill the pelvic region or the movement of sensation and aliveness, space, letting the breath you receive deep in the torso.

This breath and now this one and again. Where of the legs from the inside out, the length, volume, the weight and the feet from the inside out. So you can feel the places of warmth and pressure where the feet contact the floor and and the inside, the tingling and vibrating. Again, softening the hands, feeling the aliveness there, slight smile at the mouth, and widening the lens so you can feel this whole body simultaneously as a field of sensation, posing anything or stopping anything, just letting everything happen, including sound in awareness,

disappearing and disappearing of these words, the sounds, the soft sounds, the background sounds, in the room, listening to the space in the room, more distant sounds. I'm sensing the vastness of awareness that includes all the sounds, that includes this play of sensation, that awareness, that silence that's listening to and feeling the moment-to-moment experience. Resting in this wakeful openness, receiving the senses very receptive, boundless awareness. When the mind drifts into thoughts and you notice, let the pathway home be a relaxing back, aware of the sounds, aware of sensations or emotions at home in this changing flow of sound and sensation.

If the mind's drifted into thoughts, it's an opportunity to practice that gentle, liberating shift of simply noticing and relaxing back. Okay, thinking, thinking, gently reopening the attention to hear the sounds that are right here. Be the silence that's listening. The stillness that's aware of sensation, the open space that's all happening in, relaxing your way home. You might sense what wants to let go in this moment and what happens when there's truly a letting go into presence. closing in a simple way by feeling your human heart, feeling the breath at the heart,

and offering whatever wish, whatever blessing, expression of self-care most resonates in this moment, sensing the goodness of just simply being kind to the life that's here, and widening to sense this world that lives in your heart, all beings, offering your wish or your blessing. to all beings. Namaste.