Tara Brach - Meditation: Relaxing with Life

Episode Date: October 19, 2023

Meditation: Relaxing with Life - This meditation includes a mindful body scan and guidance in relaxing with the changing waves of experience. When we say "Yes" to the moment, we open to the sea of awareness that can include, with care, whatever arises.

The following meditation is led by Tara Brock. To access more of my meditations or join my email list, please visit tarabrock.com. Let's begin together. Let's pause and do some practice. So take some moments to settle yourself and let the attention turn inward. The two guidelines generally in sitting meditation are to sit in a way where you're feeling upright, so there's a quality of sitting tall,

because that's conducive to being alert, being awake. The other is to sit in a way where you can be at ease. So it's both alert and relaxed. These are the two qualities, inner qualities we're cultivating. And as you come into stillness, become aware of your body sitting here, here breathing and let yourself feel the breath at the heart, as if you're breathing directly in and out of your heart.

Becoming aware of the state of your heart right now, you might feel tight or closed or tense or tender, open or fluid, numb or disconnected or very sensitive, whatever it is, just breathing and feeling your heart, listening in and sensing what your deepest intention is right now for meditating. What is it your heart longs for her? What is it that really matters to you? Getting in touch with the quality of sincerity, let there be a listening attention, listening to the sounds around you, a global kind of listening.

sensing the space, the openness that the sounds are happening in. With that openness and receptivity that you listen to sound, listening to and feeling the sensations in the body, you might begin by feeling the brow, the eyes, softening a bit and receiving the sensations in that region of the eyes and the brow. letting a sense of the image of a smile to spread through the eyes, softening again, slight smile at the mouth, letting the felt sense of a smile fill the inside of the mouth. And again, listening to and feeling the aliveness, the sensation,

inside the mouth. You might sense the throat filling the neck, feel the aliveness of sensation inside the neck. allowing the shoulders to relax back and down some. Feeling the volume and the space inside the shoulders and the aliveness of sensation in that space. Letting whatever you experience in the shoulders float in awareness. Perhaps there'll be some relaxing, some dissolving.

Let the hands rest in a very easy and effortless way. notice what happens is you soften the hands and then softening again and you feel the tingling, the vibrating inside the hands, sense the space between the palm and the outside of the hand, top of the hand, filled with sensation, the fingers, the spaces between the fingers, listening to and feel in the sensations of the hands, sensations floating in awareness, vibrating, tingling alive. Let there be an openness to the chest and you might visualize and sense the felt experience of a smile spreading through the chest, through the heart area, not to cover over but to

make room for the life that's here. I'm feeling the sensations, the felt sense of the heart, floating, unfolding, vibrating in space. What does the heart feel like from the inside out, scanning down to the midsection of the body, letting this next breath be received in a softening belly? This breath and now this one and again, feeling from the inside out, the space that fills the belly and the aliveness, the sensations. Still sensing the breath being received deep in the torso, scanning through the pelvic region, sensing the space, the volume of the pelvic region and the aliveness that's there, scanning

down through the legs, sensing the length, the volume, the weight of the legs, and the aliveness of sensation that fills them, flowing right into the feet, the aliveness there, widening the lens of attention now. To feel this body, this energy body simultaneously all at once, a field of sensation, floating, dancing, unfolding in the space of awareness. Notice how fully you can relax and let everything happen, letting this life live through including the dance of sound, the symphony of sound, washing through, listening to and feeling the whole moment, fully relaxing again and again with this whole dance of life, sensing in

the foreground, the changing movement of sensation, feelings, sounds, and in the back. And in the background, this awake field of awareness, the space everything's happening in. To meditate is to rest in this awareness, relax over and over again into this awareness. That includes all the changing waves. If the mind is active, it can help to include in the foreground, the tension to the breath, the movement of the breath, the inflows. the inflow and outflow of this life breath. And when the mind tenses back into thought forms and there's a noticing of that, the pathway

home is to relax open, noticing, oh, thinking, thinking, time traveling into the future of the past, letting the cloud of thought move on, resting again in that open awareness that includes, that listens to and feel the changing movement of sound and sensation feelings. Again and again, waking up from thoughts, relaxing open from thoughts, relaxing back into what's right here, listening to and feeling the moment, relaxing with what's happening, awake, alert, easy, awareness. It's being the ocean that includes the waves. And if the waves are difficult, it's physical pain or emotional pain,

to whisper with kindness, yes, this belongs too. And remember that there's a space for it. Rest in the ocean. Include the waves. As a way of closing, you might scan your body, scan your psyche, your heart, and sense if there's anything in your experience that you feel you're resisting in some way or at odds with.

And if there's something here, some physical sensation that's unpleasant or emotional state, just sensing it as a wave that's living through, you. And notice what happens when you mentally whisper, this belongs, yes, and sensing the awareness, that sea of awareness that has room for these waves, these different currents. And you might add to the yes, to the this belongs, a real quality of kindness, and notice what happens. Sense how the tender heart space that's who you are unfolds itself with kindness. Closing with whatever prayer resonates for your own heart, sense how when you open and widen

the attention how your prayer includes now all living beings.