Tara Brach - Meditation - The Silence that is Listening (2013-11-13)

Episode Date: November 14, 2019

Meditation - The Silence that is Listening (2013-11-13) - Listening to sound is opens up to the space of pure being. In this guided practice we begin by awakening through the body, and then explore listening to sounds and silence, and to inhabiting the receptive presence that is listening, awareness itself. Your support enables us to continue to offer these talks and meditations 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. The stillness let your awareness scan gently through your body and just notice where there might be some holding or tightness or tension and sense you can bring your awareness to those places and sense of softening, of releasing.

You might soften the eyes. We often carry a lot of tension there, little micro-muscles tighten, and the more we think, the more they tighten. So since the softening of the eyes and letting the brow be smooth, you can imagine smiling into your eyes, letting the outer corners lift a little,

it just helps to bring a sense of openness and receptivity, slight smile at the mouth. Relaxing the tongue, sensing the tongue can fill the lower palate and see if you can relax the tongue right down to the root, opening to the sensations that fill the mouth, the gums, the teeth, the lips, the air of the air touching the face, the sensations through the face, scalp and skull.

You might imagine the throat, filling the neck, and feeling the sensations inside the throat and neck, softening at the back of the neck, and softening a little more so the shoulders can relax away from the neck and feel the space open up inside the shoulders. Notice what happens if you let awareness fill the shoulders from the inside out, sensing the length and they weight and the volume of your arms. feeling the thumbs from the inside out, the tingling and vibrating there, feeling the forefinger from the inside out,

as if you could put your awareness right inside your finger and feel the aliveness. And then the space between the thumb and the forefinger, feeling the middle finger, the sensations in space that fills that finger, and the ring finger from the inside out, an intimate presence, a small finger, a pinky, inside out. So you can feel all the fingers and the spaces between them, bones and flesh and space, vibrating and alive. Feel the space between the palms and the backs of the hands and sensing the hands as a field

of sensation floating in space. there be an openness at the chest and feeling inside the chest, feeling the region of the heart. And you might imagine and sense that you can smile into the heart so you visualize the curve of a smile spreading through the heart and the felt sense of that and this isn't to cover over anything but rather to create the space that really allows contact with what's here, to feel the aliveness directly inside the region of the heart, feeling the sensations in the mid back and down to the lower back, and inside the abdominal cavity, letting this next breath be received in a softening belly, this breath, and now this one, and again,

feeling the awareness, fill the torso. You can feel from the inside out, the aliveness and space inside you. Breath, after breath, opening to the pelvic region and sensing the sensations, the space that fills that area. Where if the legs, the length, the volume, the weight, so you can feel the space inside your legs and the aliveness, right? down to the feet feeling where your feet contact on the floor or pressure or warmth. And then from the inside out the movement of sensation, energy, feeling the hands soft, alive, widening the lens so you can feel this whole body, changing constellations of sensations, vibrating, tingling, pulsing.

pulsing, letting it all happen, no opposing, no resisting, and life vibrating and appearing moment to moment in this great space of awareness, and resting in spaciousness and listening now, listening now, not just with your ears but your whole being and listening to your environment, not just a particular thing, listening globally. is that everything's taken in evenly, listening to sounds, listening to silence. See what it feels like in your being to come into a state of listening. Time to do it right or reach a goal. There's really nothing to do.

Sounds are known spontaneously. You'll notice there's sounds, the feeling of sounds, the space that's happening in. and you can feel the space and the underlying silence are quiet in the midst of sound. Let yourself feel that, the silence, space around your body. Quite naturally the mind will get carried into thoughts and when you notice that, let it be a noise that happens, not attempting to get rid of thoughts. See what happens when awareness lets everything be as it is. Just notice you can be in a state of listening right now and sense a natural spaciousness

like a great sky that can be aware of the different clouds, the birds, the breeze. And when there's a drifting, just coming back to listening, the sounds that are right here, sensing thoughts is that inner dialogue sounds in the mind and be the silence that's listening to the thoughts that's listening to sounds, the spaces between sounds. There's awareness every moment. Space itself is aware, highly awake sensations. Everything is known in this awake space. ...of listening and then sense what is listening and perhaps noticing that silence,

or awake silence, that's aware of sound. What's it like to be this awareness? Awareness itself is not trying to accomplish anything, to control anything, just allows everything to happen and be known spontaneously. Everything to happen and return to natural state. Sensing this can allow your body to relax a little more right now. Mind to quiet. The defenses of the heart to quiet. Receptive. presence, realizing that wakeful space as your true home.