Tara Brach - Meditation: The Space of Loving Awareness

Episode Date: November 23, 2023

Meditation: The Space of Loving Awareness - This meditation begins by guiding us through a scan: opening to inner space and aliveness, then to outer space, and then continuous space, filled with the light of awareness. We explore how every experience belongs to this infinite awake space of our Being, and can be held with tenderness and love.

The following meditation is led by Tara Brock. To access more of my meditations or join my email list, please visit tarabrock.com. The gateway to our presence is awakening through the senses. So bringing the awareness right into the body, feel the eyes and let them soften, let the brow be smooth. So you can begin to feel the sensation

and aliveness and space in the domain of the eyes and the brow. Let the jaw be unhinged, slight smile at the mouth. You might let the root of the tongue relax. See if you can feel the sensations, the aliveness in the mouth area, and the space sits there, let the shoulders relax back and down a bit, and feel that you could bring the awareness inside the shoulders. feel the sensations from the inside out.

Can you imagine the space that fills the shoulders, sensing sensation moving in that space? Let the hands rest in a very easy and relaxed way, softening the hands and feeling them from the inside out. See if you can sense the space inside the hands and the aliveness, the tingling and vibrating, moving in that space. Let there be an openness to the chest. Bring the awareness to the heart area. Just feeling the heart from the inside out.

See if you can sense the space inside the heart, that interior space, the aliveness of sensation there. Scanning down the body, loosening and softening in the area of the belly. Let this next breath be received in a softening belly. This breath and then this one and again, can you imagine the space inside the belly and the aliveness that appears and dissolves in that space, the movement of sensation, energy, continuing to scan down to sense the space and aliveness that fills the whole pelvic region feeling the legs, the volume of the legs, the space and aliveness inside the legs.

right down into the feet, placing the awareness inside the feet. See, if you can sense the space that fills the feet, the movement of sensation, peering, dissolving in that region, extending the attention to a kind of rooting into the earth beneath you, sensing the whole space of the earth, the aliveness in space, vast aliveness in space and sensing how it flows into your body

your body an extension of and a part of this vast play of energy flowing into your body through the feet filling you so you can feel your body and the earth body is a field of sensation see if you can imagine opening out into the space

in front of you infinitely far sensing the space it's beyond the most distant stars, how this field of energy extends outward and outward in front of you, and extending behind you in the same way opening out behind you infinitely far past the furthest stars. Just imagine, visualize, sense vastly behind you. And then to either side, opening out, sensing the energy outward and outward past the most distant star, and visualizing beneath you, past the Earth's field, beyond the most distant stars, and above you, beyond the most distant stars.

And sensing how that boundless space surrounds you is continuous with this interior space within you. One vast continuous space, this whole life floating in and appearing in and dissolving into vast continuous space. Sensing that this vast continuous space is filled with the light of awareness. Just resting in this ocean of light, this sea of awareness, just be that stillness out of which this entire play of energy and sensation appears. Sensing in the foreground, this changing dance of sound and sensation, feelings, and the

the background, this vast inner stillness, this formless dimension, filled with the light of awareness. You'll notice that the mind quite naturally contracts away from this openness, this luminous presence. It fixates on thoughts, goes inside ideas about the future or the past, commentary, judgments. And you notice that you've exited into a virtual reality, just gently pause and reawaken your senses. When we're in virtual reality, we're cut off from the senses. So just reawaken, reopen to what's right here.

That's the pathway back. listening again to the sounds that are right here actually appearing and disappearing moment to moment. You can re-relax the body. Relaxing will help you connect with the living sensations that are here. The shoulders, the hands, the belly, feeling the body from the inside out is a field of sensation, sensing the space around you and within you as continuous space. filled with the light of awareness.

So each time the mind leaves presence, just pause and reopen the senses, relaxing back, resting again in openness, resting in the space of awareness. If the mind has drifted, gently arriving again, just feeling the life of the body,

relaxing, and bringing a listening and an intimate attention right to the heart as a way of closing the sitting. Feeling the breath at the heart, feeling the space of the heart. And in a simple way, listening in and sensing whatever blessing or wish you'd like to offer to your own heart in this moment and opening the attention wide so that your heart's space includes all beings. May all beings everywhere realize their very essence as loving presence. May all beings everywhere live from loving presence.

May all beings everywhere touch great and natural peace. May all beings everywhere awaken and be free.