Tara Brach - Meditation: The Sky-like Mind (20:29 min.)

Episode Date: July 24, 2025

This meditation begins with listening to sounds as a portal to spacious awareness. In addition to guiding attention to naturally occurring sounds, Tara plays chimes and gongs to deepen the experience of receptivity and openness. The meditation progresses to include all experience - sounds, sensations, thoughts, feelings - in the vast, transparent, timeless space of awareness.    

The following meditation is led by Tara Brock. To access more of my meditations or join my email list, please visit tarabrock.com. As you come into stillness, let your attention come to the heart area. You might feel your breath and feel it at the heart. We take these moments to reflect on our intention for being here. So you might ask yourself what really brings you to practice. What is it that your heart longs for?

What matters to you? You might sense that there's a prayer or yearning in some way for more presence, more open-heartedness, more connection with the sacred, more wisdom, peace. is to feel what is sincerely there, what matters. You might gently scan through your body and sense if there's any part of your body that wants to let go a little right now. Where is it possible to soften or relax a bit?

Feel your whole body sitting here, breathing, and extending the breath now so that the in-breath is longer, deeper, fuller. breathing in and a slow out breath, slow enough so you can feel the sensations of letting go. And again, a nice long, deep in-breath and a slow-out breath. Letting go, letting go, letting go, letting go. And one more in-breath, nice, full, deep inhale. and a slow release, softening down the length of your body,

letting the breath resume in its natural rhythm, sensing with the inflow that you can open and relax more and with the outflow or releasing, relaxing outward. Now shifting your awareness away from the body and begin to listen to the play of sound, around you. Notice them all. So you're listening not just with your ears but your whole body and your whole awareness, taking everything in evenly, globally, noticing the close-in sounds like the appearance of these words, the spaces between the soft sounds in the

room, those that are most distant. Just listen. You might sense that there's nothing to do. Sounds are known spontaneously. Notice how sounds arise and vanish, leaving no trace, just letting sounds wash through, including the sounds of these gongs or bells that I'll be playing. They arise, and they vanish in the open space of awareness. Once disappear and then appear in the open space of awareness. As you listen, let yourself sense, feel, or imagine in any way you can, that your mind is not limited to the size of your head. sense that your mind is expanding,

becoming huge in awareness that is open like the sky, clear and vast, like space. Sense, picture, or feel in any way you can that the awareness of your mind opens in every direction like the sky. Notice how the sounds You hear arise and pass like clouds in the open space of your own mind. In this openness and just listen. And the sounds come and go like clouds in the vast sky of your own awareness,

appearing and disappearing without resistance. Sounds come and go like clouds or bubbles. You're the space of awareness. As you rest in this open awareness, notice too how thoughts and images also arise and vanish in this space, just like sounds. Let them come and go without resistance. Spacious awareness has no struggle,

pleasant and unpleasant thoughts and feelings. Also move through the space, of mind like clouds, ideas and memories, joy and sorrow, arise and vanish like clouds as you rest in the clear, open sky of mind. Rest in the spacious awareness. It is your home. Now let the spacious awareness notice your body as well. In the space of awareness the body is felt as a field of changing sensations, pressure and tingling, hard and soft, warm and cool, vibrating and pulsing, all floating in awareness. Relax and let the sensations float and change. while you are at ease. Let the awareness be vast like sky.

Open and spacious. Rest in this openness. Let sensations float and change. Allow sounds to come and go like clouds in a clear open sky. Let thoughts, images and feelings arise and pass as they will. like waves or clouds. The mind remains transparent, timeless, and without conflict, allowing all things, but not limited by them.

That thoughts and images, feelings arise and pass, like waves or clouds, relaxing back into that openness of sky. the mind remains transparent, timeless, and without conflict, allowing all things, but not limited by them. Finally, allowing yourself to experience this spacious awareness as boundless heart space, filled with love and compassion, that warmth and tenderness, of pure love, that compassion for all those who lose their way.

Feel how this heart space includes our world with the depth of tenderness. Let this sky, this heart space be one of loving awareness. Relax into it. Trust it. It is your own true nature. It is home in these last few moments of silence, resting in this heart space and sensing your prayer for your own being and for all beings. And when you next hear the sounding of the gong, it will be the invitation to open your eyes and shift from formal meditation.