Tara Brach - Meditation: Resting in Breath, Relaxing into Life

Episode Date: June 15, 2023

Meditation: Resting in Breath, Relaxing into Life - This meditation invites us to collect our attention with a calming breath, and then with the senses as a home base, settle into presence. The reminders encourage a letting go of thoughts, shifting from virtual reality into the aliveness of moment-to-moment experience. In that letting go into life we find the stillness, wakefulness and openness of our true nature.

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 by pausing for meditation and you might let your eyes close or your gaze go downward and take a few moments to shift your attention from the outer world to the inner world, becoming aware of the life inside you. Become aware of your body breathing

and gently notice the area of the heart that you can feel the breath at the heart. And if you bring a kind of listening attention, you might sense into whatever mood is here right now. What's the mood? What is the emotional quality? Are you feeling restless or anxious, tired, a little sad or depressed, excited, happy, peaceful, worried.

As you listen into the state of your heart, you might sense even more deeply what it is that you long for that really brings you to meditation, to being here right now with the tension towards presence. What is it that matters? What's important to you? Let yourself be present with your own heart and sense what you feel sincere about. Am I sincere right now? Just kind of inquire. What do I really care about? In the stillness you might relax any areas of obvious tension in your body. Just see what wants to let go a bit. grabs the shoulders, just softening a bit. Let the hands be at ease, effortless, resting naturally,

and softening the belly, and the beginning to pay attention to the movement of the breath, extending the in-breath so it's full and deep, inhaling fully filling the chest, filling the lungs, and then exhaling slowly, slowly so that you can feel the breath as it leaves the nostrils. Slowly, slowly letting go. And then again, a long, slow in-breath, you might count to five and matching the length

of the in-breath a slow-out breath, counting to five. And then again, breathing in and slowly releasing the breath to the count of five. If five is too long, you can adapt this, but this breathing is a matched in-breath and out-breath, long and slow and deep. Let the breath be smooth and even. You might sense with the in-breath that you're opening to receive like a balloon filling. And with the out-breath are releasing, letting go, letting go. If you get distracted, just return again to breathing in, five counts or whatever works for

you and then matching the out breath. Then releasing any doings, letting the breath resume in its natural rhythm. It's gently witnessing and feeling the life of the breath just as it is. Sensing that inner stillness as this body breathe, it's still. You might notice where the breath is easy. is to detect and perhaps most pleasant. Maybe it's at the nostrils, it's that whisper of an inflow, outflow there. Or you might feel a rising, falling at the chest, perhaps an inflating and settling at the belly. Or maybe it's most natural for you to feel the whole body

breathing, kind of an expanding and settling even in a cellular way, and gently rest, the attention with the movement of the breath wherever it feels easiest or most pleasant to connect with it, as if you're listening to and feeling the breath in an intimate way, moment by moment, relaxing with the movement of the breath. Letting the breath be like a dear friend that's really a home base that keeps you connected with life right here. And if it's hard for you to connect with the breath, it's fine to let your home base be sound. Just listening.

And noticing as you listen to sound there's a quality of curesness, of presence. So resting with the breath or listening to sound. Or for some, another option for a home breath is to feel the sensations in the whole body or just certain parts of the body. We use our senses to stay connected right here and now. Breath by breath, for many of us before too long, there's a realization that there's no longer a presence at the home base. We've left the breath, we've left this moment,

and we're often some sort of a trance of thinking. planning, commentary, remembering. When there's that realization, it's actually part of waking up, you're coming home again. So appreciate noticing that you've drifted. Perhaps pause and listen to the sounds that are here. Re-relax your body a little, maybe relaxing your shoulders, your hands. Gently sense again that movement of the breath, wherever you like to pay attention to it.

And notice the difference between being here and being inside any thought. Notice the difference between presence and virtual reality. Can you sense the immediacy, the vividness, the changing stream of aliveness that's right here? And what happens if you say yes to that? and rest in what's right here, moment to moment. It's helpful to periodically check and sense, am I dreaming right now? Is this a trance?

That can help shine the light on that phase of time that you're actually not really here, often thoughts. And you can invite yourself back again right to this moment with a very friendly, gentle, curious attention. What's it like right here? Can you relax back? Again, feeling the movement of the life breath or perhaps the background of sound, is saying yes to the life that's right here and knowing the difference between this and the trance of thinking, making your home in presence. You might ask yourself if it's possible to let go just a little bit more right now.

What wants to let go? And can you let go into the life that's right here? This breath, this body, these sensations, sounds, just relaxing with the life that's here, moment to moment. The more we relax with life, the more our heart relaxes open. You might bring a gentle presence to the breath and the heart. Just feel that you're breathing in and out of your heart with a gentle and friendly attention. And from your most awake heart you might offer whatever wish or blessing

resonates right now to this life within you. You might widen the attention and sense if there's someone in your life you'd like to to send your blessings to right now. Hold them in your awake heart and send your prayers. We close by feeling our collective heart, this heart space that's boundless, holding all beings, sending our prayers that all beings everywhere, be blessed to feel that very essence of loving presence, moving through them, living through them. That all beings everywhere, that all beings everywhere, touch a natural and great peace, that all beings be happy and that all beings be free. Namaste and blessings.