Tara Brach - Meditation: Relaxing Back into Living Presence

Episode Date: February 15, 2019

Meditation: Relaxing Back into Living Presence - When we are lost in thoughts our mind contracts, our body tightens and we disconnect from true openheartedness. The pathway home is through "relaxing back" and reopening our attention to our senses, relaxing through our body, and gently contacting the felt sense in our heart. By repeatedly relaxing back, we become increasingly familiar with the vibrancy, tenderness and openness of true presence.

The following meditation is led by Tara Brock. To access more of my meditations or join my email list, please visit tarabrock.com. Let yourself be aware of this body sitting here, breathing, feeling the awareness inside the body, scanning through, so you can relax and open what might be tight or tense. You might soften in the region of the eyes as if you could sense the curve of a smile spreading through the eyes,

the outer corners of the eyes lifted a bit, the brow smooth, and sense the tingling and vibrating and aliveness in that area of the eyes, a slight smile at the mouth. You might even feel the inside of the mouth smiling. This image and felt sense of a smile sends a message to the nervous system to relax, to be at ease. See if you can relax the tongue right down to the root of the tongue. Let it fill the lower jaw.

And see if you can feel the aliveness, the tingling and vibrating that fills the whole area of the mouth, letting the shoulders fall away from the neck, sensing the awareness that fills the area of the shoulders. and see if there's a natural relaxing or loosening there, as if you could let any tightness or tangle float in awareness, letting the hands rest in a very easy and effortless way. And feeling the hands from the inside out, softening, and just receiving the tingling and vibrating in aliveness that's there. Let there be an openness in the chest, sensing the awareness that fills the chest, feeling

the heart, the area of the heart from the inside out, sensing the sensations and vibration that's floating in that heart space, scanning down, softening the belly. See if you can let this next breath be received in a softening belly. this breath and now this one and again and again, sensing the space of awareness in the belly and the whole play of vibration and sensation there, continuing to scan down the torso, feeling the awareness in space that fills the pelvic region, relaxing, receptive to the sensations, vibrations, aliveness that's there, be aware of the length and the volume of your legs, right down into the feet, feeling the feet from the inside

out, sensing the space that's there and the aliveness and sensations floating, unfolding in that space, widening the field of attention now to include this whole energy body, this whole dance of sensation, sensing, vibration, aliveness, this whole dance of appearing and dissolving in the space of awareness, including the vibrational frequency we call sound, the close-in sounds, the more distant sounds, and sensation, feelings, this whole realm of phenomena unfolds unfolding, flowing, playing out in the space of awareness. You might find it helps you to stabilize in this open living presence by letting the attention rest gently with the movement of the breath.

The particular sensations of the breath, receptive, close in attention, feeling the inflowings and the outflow of the breath with a relaxed, caring presence, gentle presence. Just this moment, this breath, you might rest with the inflow, outflow at the nose, or maybe the rising falling of the chest or the expanding and deflating at the belly. Wherever it's most easy and relaxing to rest in this life breath, to stay connected with the presence, it's really our very essence. It's quite natural that the attention will drift. So in the moments that you notice you've been off in thoughts, the future, the past, just

appreciate that as a moment of waking up again. and gently relax back into this next inflow or outflow of the breath, sensing the breath in the foreground. This whole play of sensation and sound all happening in the space of awareness. You might pause to deepen your attention and just to notice if the mind has been really right here or if there's been a veil of thinking and if you've noticed that you've been off a bit, let it be a time to practice this beautiful pathway of relaxing back. Just relax open the attention again, moving from thoughts to listening to the sounds that

are right here, letting them wash through you, re-relaxing open in the body, perhaps soft softening in the shoulders, softening the hands, relaxing the heart and receiving in an intimate way the aliveness that's right here. We relax back into this heerness, this immediacy of presence. And again as a support to gently notice in the foreground the inflow and outflow of the breath and in the background this vast stillness that's aware. relaxing back. It's fine to pause and arrive again and again, really learning this pathway home to presence. It's from a relaxed presence that we can most feel the tenderness

of our hearts. We'll close with a simple prayer just to feel your heart right now. Let the breath be felt at the heart and just sense whatever blessing or wish you'd like to offer to your own heart, your own life right now. Whatever most resonates in this moment and just sense how this heart space that's here intrinsically includes all beings, feeling your prayer and your care, reach out to all beings.