Tara Brach - Meditation: Touching Peace

Episode Date: September 5, 2024

This guided meditation offers a pathway to quieting our mind and calming anxiety. We begin with long deep breathing, and with the breath, engage the image of a smile and relax through the body. Then we practice resting in relaxed awareness, allowing waves of thoughts, feelings and sensations to come and go. The meditation ends with a beautiful verse from poet Philip Booth: As you float now, where I held you and let go, remember when fear cramps your heart what I told you: lie gently and wide to the light-year stars, lie back, and the sea will hold you. Poem: First Lesson," by Philip Booth from Lifelines: Selected Poems 1950-1999 (Viking).

The following meditation is led by Tara Brock. To access more of my meditations or join my email list, please visit tarabrock.com. Please find a comfortable way to sit, a quiet place where you can settle yourself. You might close your eyes. With your eyes closed, take some moments to adjust your posture, making any subtle movement that will bring into a way of sitting that allows you to be alert and relaxed.

Feel yourself sitting here on this earth. You might feel a sense of the weight of your body, a sense of gravity. There's a kind of belonging to the earth. You might imagine yourself as a great mountain, stable, steady, enduring changing weather with nobility and strength. And please become aware of your breathing. And you might extend your breath now so that with the in-breath, you can count to five.

Inhaling one, two, three, four, five. And feeling that fullness exhaling, again one two three four five and inhaling deeply filling the chest and lungs just counting for yourself a smooth in breath and then with the out breath a sense of letting go see if you can release whatever tensions you're carrying relaxing and letting go again breathing in filling the chest and lungs and exhaling, releasing, relaxing outward, letting go. Breathing in again a nice full deep in breath, exhaling smoothly, evenly, releasing and letting go.

And again, breathing in, filling the chest and lungs with the out breath, the sense of relaxing and letting go. Continuing this breath and as you do, bringing the attention to the area of the eyes. Feeling that as you breathe in, you can feel all the sensations in that area. And as you breathe out, you can release tension. Letting go, letting go. Continuing to pay attention to that region of the face, you might even sense that you can let a smile spread through the eyes. With each out breath, letting go of tension, letting go of tightness, letting go.

I'm continuing to breathe in this way, feeling the mouth, letting a slight smile spread through the lips. With the out breath, a letting go of any tension in the jaw, releasing, relaxing, letting go. So the eyes are smiling, the mouth is smiling. You might bring the attention and the breath now to the area of the heart, letting a smile spread through the heart. So with the in-brath, feeling the energy and aliveness there, with the out-breath of letting go, letting go, letting go. Continuing this long, deep, slow breathing, let the attention to, come to the shoulders and sense that when you breathe in, you can bring the energy and attention

right to wherever there's tightness in the shoulder. And with the out breath, a softening, a releasing, a letting go. As you continue with this breath, allow yourself to feel the arms and the hands. Again, with the in-breath, letting the awareness wake up in these areas of the body. and with the out breath, releasing tightness and tension, letting go. Letting there be an openness in the chest, relaxing through the belly, continuing with this breathing, the in-breath, bringing the attention to the belly, with the out-breath of softening or releasing a letting go, a matched in-breath and out-brath, long and deep.

Breathing in and out consciously of the pelvic region, releasing tension with the out breath. Now the legs, feeling the length and the weight of the volume of the legs as you breathe in, with the out breath softening and releasing tightness and tension, and the feet, relaxing and letting go. Feeling that you can sense this whole body simultaneously, this field of sensation, breathing in, feeling the aliveness throughout. everywhere in the body and with the out breath of letting go, letting go, and letting go. And now allowing your breath to resume in its natural rhythm, noticing the quality of presence sits here, witnessing the breath, relaxed, open awareness, sensing this awareness

that includes the changing sensations in the body, that includes, includes the changing movement of the breath, the inflow and outflow of the breath. This vast silence is listening to sound. Wide open stillness that includes all the waves of experience, sensations, feelings, thoughts, the great ocean of awareness, letting everything come and go on the surface, relaxing with a what's happening moment to moment. If a difficult wave of experience arises, sense the possibility of breathing with it, touching it fully with the in-breath, with the out-breath, sensing more space, openness, bringing a kind presence to the difficult waves. The mind gets distracted and often

thoughts. When there's a noticing of that, gently relax open again, listening to the sounds around you, listening to and feeling the sensations in the body, relaxing obvious areas of tension or tightness. You can't re-relax too often. Relaxing your heart. Again, resting in that open sea of awareness, relaxing with the changing waves and if nothing's calling your attention, perhaps resting with the movement of the breath, relaxing with the inflow, relaxing with the outflow. It's quite natural for the mind to drift. And each time you notice that and bite yourself back, you're deepening the way. the pathway to presence. So no judgment, no worries about having the mind get lost,

because really the practice is homecoming, finding our way back right this moment, to become aware again of the sounds, the sensations, the changing flow of aliveness. Right here, sense the possibility of relaxing with whatever, happening. It can be helpful if there's something unpleasant or difficult to simply mentally whisper, this belongs, or this too, or maybe the word yes, letting whatever waves arise belong in this ocean of awareness. If the body or mind feels contracted or tense, you might explore smiling again. into the eyes.

Softening the eyes and feeling the outer corners lifted up slightly, letting the brow be smooth. Slight smile at the mouth. You might even sense the inside of the mouth smiling. And visualize and sense the curve of a smile spreading through the heart, not covering over anything,

but creating the space for the life that's right here. You might ask yourself, is there anything that can let go a little bit more right now? Gentle witnessing of where there's tightness or tension. Sensing what might want to soften a little. Opening to the life that's right here. Relaxing with the changing stream. It's part of our way of closing this meditation.

I'd like to share with you a few words from the poet Philip Booth. He has a lovely poem about teaching his daughter to float in the ocean. This is the end of the poem. As you float now, where I held you, and let go, remember when fear cramps your heart what I told you, lie gently and wide to the light ear, stars. Lie back and the sea will hold you.

Lie back and the sea will hold you. Lie back and the sea will hold you. These last few moments, you might explore that kind of a surrendering, a lying back, are resting in the awareness that's here, relaxing with the changing waves. May we trust the great sea of loving awareness that holds our lives. May we rest deeply touching natural great peace. Please.