Tara Brach - Meditation - Saying "Yes" to Life (2017-10-04)

Episode Date: October 5, 2017

Meditation - Saying "Yes" to Life - This meditation guides us in relaxing through the body, then opening to the changing river of experience. By continually relaxing back and letting go into what is unfolding, we discover the natural vastness, wakefulness and vitality of our essential Being. Your support enables us to continue to offer these talks freely. If you value them, I hope you will consider offering a donation at this time at www.tarabrach.com/donation/. With gratitude and love, Tara

The following meditation is led by Tara Brock. To access more of my meditations or join my email list, please visit tarabrock.com. As a way of waking up through our bodies, waking up our hearts, you might bring the attention to the brow and just let the brow be smooth and relaxed. It can help to imagine that you're smiling into your eyes Let the corners of the eyes, the outside corners lift a bit

as the eyes are soft and let a slight smile spread through the mouth, the inside of the mouth smiling. Imagine and sense a smile spreading through the heart, the felt sense of that curve of a smile and the heart not to cover over but really to make room for what's here and letting that space, that openness of a smile, mile widen out so you can allow the shoulders to relax back and down some.

See if you can feel the shoulders from the inside out, softening. Perhaps you can sense the shift from ice to water, kind of melting inside the shoulders. And then water to gas, letting go some. Meaning the awareness inside the hands. Can you notice the tingling or vibrating there? noticing what happens if you soften the hands and continue to feel them from the inside out. Perhaps you'll sense a kind of vibrating warmth or coolness, the aliveness that's there, letting there be that openness to the chest.

Feeling inside the heart is directly contacting the sensations there, relaxing down the torso see if you can let this next breath be received in a softening belly this breath and now this one and again you might imagine and feel that curve of a smile

at the belly feel from the inside out the aliveness in that whole region the eyes are smiling soft in the mouth the heart the belly You might visualize and have the felt sense of a smile spread through the whole pelvic region.

It's receiving and opening to the life deep in the torso. So your whole body can be filled with this fountain of aliveness. You can even imagine the very base of the spine, the curve of a smile where you contact the floor, the cushion, the chair, imagining the whole earth energy flowing through there. through the base of the spine, filling your whole body with aliveness. Notice how there's no distinct boundary to that aliveness.

It's the whole field of changing experience, vibration, tingling, warmth, cool, pleasant, pleasant, just letting this life live through you, including in your awareness the play of sound. You're listening not just with your ears, but your whole awareness, listening to and feeling this entire changing flow of life, moment to moment. Notice how much it's possible to relax with what's happening. When thoughts arise, you can notice them and relax back into the senses, sensation, sounds.

If it's helpful to relax back into, the inflow and outflow of the breath right here, this moment. Let your practice be very simple when you notice you've been drawn into a movie of the mind just to gently relax back with interest and kindness rest again in the senses in the changing play of aliveness in the body, sound, And if it helps to have your primary home base be the breath, the movement of the breath, relaxing with what's happening over and over is a way of saying yes, opening our hearts to this life just as it is.

You might notice what's happening inside you right now. And if you realize you've been often a more virtual reality, and now's the time to relax back again to reopen the attention so there's a shift from being inside thoughts to reconnecting to the aliveness that's right here these sounds

just let them wash through receiving the aliveness in the body perhaps softening the hands relaxing the shoulders, softening the belly, relaxing your heart, receiving this moment-to-moment life, saying yes, opening to what's right here. And if what's right here feels edgy or difficult, see if you can bring a real kindness, a gentleness to that receptivity. Let the yes be very caring in these last few moments you might experiment with what happens when you deepen the yes, saying yes to whatever's right here with your whole heart.

The poet Dana Faultz writes, In the shared quiet, an invitation arises like a white dove lifting from a limb and taking flight. come and live in truth take your place in the flow of grace draw aside the veil you thought would always separate your heart from love all you ever longed for is before you in this moment

if you dare draw inner breath and whisper yes Thank you.