Tara Brach - Meditation: "Smile Meditation" (2010-07-07)

Episode Date: August 18, 2015

Meditation: "Smile Meditation" (2010-07-07) - posted to podcast from Tara's website by popular demand! 

So please close your eyes if you'd like, let your attention go inward and sense that you can make yourself at home right in this moment. Just relax with your experience and notice what's happening. You might find that it helps to collect your attention if you take a few very conscious, long, deep breaths. So together, let's inhale deeply. And exhale slowly. Again, inhale deeply, fill the lungs.

And a gentle exhale, slowly releasing the breath. And again, inhale deeply, filling the lungs. Hold for a moment. And exhale, letting the breath out, releasing, relaxing. So as the breath continues in its natural cycles, sense the possibility of relaxing even more relaxing as the breath comes in as like a balloon filling with air

just relaxing open and with the out breath letting go letting go let your senses be awake so that you're aware of the sounds around you they're very receptive listening to the sounds in the room

and listening to the sounds and sensations and feelings inside you listening to your heart. Just be aware of the state of your heart right now. Open or close, speedy, anxious, easy, peaceful, numb, vulnerable. Without any judgment, just notice how it is right now.

As you listen even more closely, listen for what your sincerity of intention is right now. what you wish for tonight, what matters to you. Let it be a mental whisper, a prayer, sensing your immediate intention and our shared intention for waking up, for having this awakening of heart and mind ripple out and be of benefit to all beings everywhere. And so with that sincerity we chant together

if you'd like to bring the palms, letting them touch very lightly at the heart area in front of you in prayer pose. Just staying connected with your heart, with your intention. We'll chant the mantra, om, the sound current of connectedness, of belonging, of oneness. We'll chant it three times. Please inhale deeply. Pouring your hands and sensing your sitting posture from the inner. inside out, so that if it makes sense to very subtly and gently and gradually adjust,

so you're sitting in a way that is tall, allows you to have a quality of alertness, supports alertness, sitting in a way that's balanced, so you might even lean a little forward, a little backwards, a little to one side, and then the other. And then find that centered balanced posture, letting everything relax around the tallness of the spine. The shoulders relax back and down, arms, the hands soft, softening the belly. So you can feel the breath being received deep in the torso.

torso. An image that supports a kind of inner receptivity and openness is that of a smile. You might imagine the great blue sky filled with the curve of a smile, a shining, open, uplifted smile that settles down into your mind so that your mind like the sky is open and filled with that sense of lightness, receptivity, filled with that curve of a smile, the smile spread through the eyes, the corners of the eyes can feel them up a little, the flesh around the eyes soft, a slight but real smile at the mouth. This smile actually sends a message to the nervous system that counters the conditioning of fight-flight, that allows you.

you to rest in ease, trust, a sense of belonging. Feel the inside of the mouth smiling. So the mind is filled with a smile, the eyes, the mouth. And the sense that the smile could settle through the chest and heart area, spreading itself so that you can feel not that you're covering over anything, but that there's now space to feel what's there, a kind space, a gentle space, sensing that a smile can allow you to, like, concentric circles in all directions, feel a spreading of relaxation.

So it envelops the shoulders, the inside of the shoulders can soften, a dissolving there, letting go, relaxing down through the other, arms, hands resting in a very easy effortless way. The smile and the openness in the chest can ripple downward, relaxing the torso, the belly even more. Again, feeling the breath, being received deep in the torso, letting the awareness wake up through the hips, the buttocks, genitals, down through the legs, being aware from the inside out of your thighs, hamstrings, shins, feeling the feet from the inside out. Then in a comprehensive way, allow yourself to experience this whole field of bodily sensations,

the vibrating and the tingling, the heat, our coolness, where it might be tight, closed, open, feeling the energy body, the subtle aliveness that pervades every cell, relaxing with the experience, receiving not only the aliveness but also the particular vibration of sound. You might listen to the close in sounds right here in the room, including the coming and going of these words. It's like a symphony, just appearing, disappearing, always changing, including the more distant sounds, nothing to do, just receiving this life experience and awareness, listening to and feeling the entire moment, sensing the

edgeless space of presence that sounds and sensations are happening in, or experiencing, by. You might find it helpful to have a home base, keeping in the foreground a gentle attention on the inflow and outflow of the breath, or perhaps the particular experience of sounds, yet noticing all the other experiences, appearances that are occurring in awareness also. As we continue in silence, let your intention be. be to notice when the mind gets lost in the clouds of thought and gently reawaken when you notice opening back into this presence, opening back into this relaxed, listening attention, coming home again and again into now-ness. If you notice the mind's been wandering,

regard that with acceptance and patience just pause and sense what's been happening thinking, planning, remembering and sense the wisdom within you the love of presence choosing to come back just gently arriving again right here sense the heerness

the sounds, the play of sensations, mood in your heart. Something feels difficult, sense the possibility of offering what's here, real kindness. Perhaps the mental whisper, yes. Yes, or it's okay.

But just let's the life be as it is. Respectfully, with compassion.