Tara Brach - Meditation: Relaxing Back into Wakeful Openness

Episode Date: May 1, 2014

2014-04-30 - Guided Meditation: Relaxing Back into Wakeful Openness

The following meditation is led by Tara Brock, meditation teacher, psychologist, and author. So we'll do a guided practice and take some moments to find your way into a sitting posture. Sit in a way that lets you be upright so that you feel a quality of sitting tall. And then in that upright posture, take a moment to sense what muscles you might relax. See if there's a little letting go that's possible. As you start relaxing, become aware of your breath and deepen the in-breath. Make it a little fuller so you're breathing in and filling the chest and lungs. And then a slow-out breath.

So you can feel the sensations of the breath leaving. That's it. Inhaling deeply again. And a slow-out breath. One more time, nice deep in-breath. And breathing out slowly. slowly letting go, letting go, letting the breath resume in its natural rhythm, a gentle attention, sensing the sensations and aliveness inside your body, and bring a listening attention to the heart.

Just notice whatever the state of your heart is right now, without any judgment, just with some curiosity and a gentle attention, just the felt sense of your heart right now. now. Maybe open or close, tight, flowing, excited, at ease, fearful, peaceful, whatever. Still listening with a curiosity sense what it is from your heart's perspective that most brings you here, what your intention is for this evening. A mindful attention is is an attention that both notices what's happening in the moment, and also regards that with a gentleness, a kindness. And to establish that quality of being friendly towards our experience, you might sense the image of a smile, the curve of a smile spreading through space, just imagine great blue

open sky, and a smile spreading through space, receptive, open, open, and the smile spreading through space, receptive, open, And then just to sense that same smile spreading through your whole mind, letting the mind merge with that open space. So there's a real openness to your attention with that receptivity of a smile. I allow the eyes to soften. You can sense that you can smile into the eyes. An uplift at the corners of the eyes. The brow is smooth.

Sense a slight smile at the mouth. Ticknod Han calls this smile. yoga because it sends a message to your whole nervous system to relax the fight-flight-flight freeze, just be at ease, a slight smile. You might feel the inside of the mouth smiling, jaws relaxed. You might sense this curve of the smile at the heart, just spreading through the heart area, as if you could smile into the heart. And sense the openness and receptivity their smile can bring. Not to cover over anything, but to make room for what's here. The eyes are soft, slight smile at a mouth, and that receptivity of a smile at the heart. Sensing

that heart space open and expansive so that the shoulders are free to relax back and down some, feeling the shoulders from the inside. And just imagine the space and aliveness that's there, letting there be a natural dissolving of tightness, letting whatever tensions there float in awareness, letting the hands rest in that easy, effortless way, and then softening the hands and noticing the aliveness and space inside the hands, feeling the openness at the chest

and noticing the space and aliveness there. It's feeling the body from the inside out. letting life move, unfold, express. And scanning down, you might imagine and sense the curve of a smile through the belly, the don't tan, right below the belly. Just softening and loosening, letting this next breath be received in a softening belly. This breath, and now this one, and again. Notice how your awareness can fill the whole torso, scanning down deep,

into the pelvic area, feeling that aliveness and space, feeling you so that if you begin to now scan down the legs, you can feel the upper legs and just feel from the inside out the life that's there and the lower legs. Down into the feet, feeling the feet from the inside out, aware of whatever tingling or vibrating, places of pressure, warmth, and opening the attention. So in a comprehensive way you can feel this whole body, sense the whole dance of sensation, a field of sensation, just letting it happen, letting everything happen just as it is, a surrendering attention, a surrendering presence, not opposing anything, not resisting.

So you're letting life live through you, widening to include the play of soul. sound. So you're listening not just with your ears, but your whole awareness, listening in a global way, taking it all in at once, listening to and feeling the whole moment, just resting in that wakeful openness, the space that everything's happening in, resting in this openness and being aware of the inflow and outflow of the breath, not doing anything, just as if you're listening to and feeling the breath as it happens naturally so that in the foreground there's a kind of anchor or home base that lets you know you're here. Might be the sensations of the nostrils flowing in and out or you might be aware of

the gentle expanding and deflating chest or belly. You might feel the whole body even in a cellular way expanding and settling. very receptive attention, not making anything happen, not controlling. When the mind drifts, as you may have noticed it does, without any judgment, just with some friendliness, from interest, sense how you can re-relax back into this open wakefulness. Just re-open the senses, listening again, perhaps re-relaxing the shoulders, or the hands, perhaps sensing that slight smile and the quality of allowing or gentleness, attentive and open, letting this life move through you.

And if it's helpful having in the foreground that home base of the breath, know that you're here. Which time the mind drifts and you re-relax back, back into this wakeful openness, You're deepening the pathways and the capacities for presence. So not to judge the drifting. Let it be an invitation to re-relax, opening to the aliveness of this moment. These last few moments, just relaxing back again, allowing this life to flow and arise out of the stillness and back into the stillness.