Tara Brach - Meditation: Sea of Loving Presence (2019-04-17)

Episode Date: April 18, 2019

Meditation: Sea of Loving Presence (2019-04-17) - In this meditation we begin with the image and felt sense of a smile to arouse an atmosphere of care, and allow that caring presence to fill our body and the entire field of awareness. We then open to the changing experience of breath, sensations, feelings sound and thoughts. By resting in a wakeful and open heartspace, we can include all the passing waves with ease and tenderness.  Free download of Tara's 10 min meditation: "Mindful Breathing: Finding Calm and Ease" when you join her email list.

The following meditation is led by Tara Brock. To access more of my meditations or join my email list, please visit tarabrock.com. You might take some moments to adjust your posture so that you're sitting in a way that feels upright. You're sitting tall and that helps to bring some alertness to your presence, but also at ease, see if you can relax around that tallness. Relaxed and alert. You might feel this body sitting here breathing and feel the breath right in the area of the heart and let there be a listening to your heart.

And you might ask yourself, what is my deepest intention for practicing meditation right now? This is the inquiry of what really matters to me, listening and noticing what you really feel sincere about, what your heart cares about. And as you sense that caring, we'll be chanting together as a way of opening the meditation. We'll chant the mantra-a-om, that sound current of connectedness and you might gently bring the palms together at the heart. We'll chant three times. We'll begin by taking a nice full and deep in-breath.

You can write from the beginning of your meditation and fuse the quality of friendliness of open-heartedness in it. And the image and felt sense of a smile can support you in that in a quite powerful way. You might begin by imagining a vast blue sky. blue sky extending in all directions and since it filled with the curve of a smile, that receptivity and brightness and warmth of a smile. And imagine and sense your mind merging with that open sky, wide open awareness filled

with the curve of a smile, gently smiling into the eyes so you can feel the outer corners of the eyes lift slightly in a smile. Let your eyes be soft, the brow smooth, very receptive to the sensations and aliveness in that region of the face, tingling, vibrating, light, dark, letting the lips gently move into a half-smile, the inside of the mouth smiling, and again receptive, attention, feeling the aliveness and sensations and the gum, the teeth, the tongue, the lips, letting the awareness spread through the whole face, relaxed and receptive, sensing that intrinsic benevolence or friendliness of a smile. I'm feeling the whole head filled with that, the scalp, the skull, inside the brain.

is feeling the aliveness, the space, the atmosphere of a smile. It might allow your shoulders to fall away from the neck. And feel the shoulders filling with awareness. So you can feel from the inside out whatever movement of sensations there. And it might feel tight or tense, squeezed, or maybe there's some fluidity or flow, and it can help to imagine and sense a melting from ice to water. Just feel that inside the shoulders, ice to water and water to vapor, sensing more space,

let the hands rest in an easy and effortless way, and softening the hands, and softening the hands and softening again, feeling the awareness inside the hands. So you feel from the inside out, the vibration, the tingling, the aliveness. The eyes are still soft, feeling that curve of a smile, and smile at the lips, and smiling into the heart. Imagining and feeling the smile spread through the area of the heart and the chest. and noticing that can make space for whatever is actually right there, whether it's feelings of vulnerability or numbness,

or ease and flow, just to open to that. Scanning down the body, feeling the midsection and letting this next breath be received in a softening belly. This breath and now this one and again. I'd visualize and sense the curve of a smile spreading through the midsection, through the belly, creating the space to feel what's actually there, feel the aliveness. It might be in the form of emotion, it might be a felt sense of tightness, there might be a sense of flow. The eyes are smiling, soft, the mouth, and the heart.

and the belly, soft and open. Scan down and sensing the pelvic region and again visualizing and sensing the felt experience of a smile spreading through. And sensing with that friendly soft openness that you can contact exactly what's there, feeling the aliveness that fills you. You might sense the atmosphere of a smile now spreading through the entire body, body, that friendly, receptive presence. You might sense the atmosphere of the smile spreading the space that seems around you outward,

radiant, resting in that open, receptive, friendly presence, this benevolent sea of awareness. You can allow the waves to come and go just as they are, sensing the waves of the breath, not controlling anything. It's receiving the sensations of the breath. Atmosphere of a smiling presence. A wave calls your attention, a wave of physical discomfort, perhaps a wave of burning or squeezing or pressure, ache. See if it's possible to be that sea of benevolence, a friendly presence, and include it. Notice what it feels like as sensations. Notice how it changes.

Let whatever waves arise belong in the sea of presence, the sea of the nevlin presence. You might notice waves of fear or sorrow or excitement or peace. Your practice is to rest in that openness, that awareness. and let the waves come and go, guard them with kindness and interest, if nothing strong is calling your attention. You might let the primary attention in the foreground be with the waves of the breath, moment to moment, fully present, receptive, kind, right here, intimate with the life, intimate with the life that's coming and going.

It's very natural to get caught and lost inside ways of thought. When you become aware of that you can relax back into that ocean of loving presence, perhaps first by listening to sound and reestablishing and sensing that smile at the eyes and the mouth, a smile at the heart of friendly and friendly and interested presence, resting again in that openness that can include the changing ways, breath by breath, moment by moment, right here. As a way of closing, you might scan this body, mind, the life that's here and sense if there's any part of you that need some...

loving attention and just sense wherever there's pain or discomfort, woundedness or sorrow, that this can be held in that loving presence, that sea of awareness with tenderness and widening the tension to sense our world and sense the suffering and pain that's in this world and sense that this too is included in this heart space, enclosing and sensing this heart space really holding the earth our mother and all beings with care.