Tara Brach - Meditation: Vast and Timeless Presence

Episode Date: April 6, 2023

Meditation: Vast and Timeless Presence - The pathway to inhabiting our full presence is including, with mindfulness all parts of experience. This guided meditation explores how we can open, without resistance to the changing flow of sensations, feelings, thoughts and sounds, and discover the boundless awareness that is our true home.

The following meditation is led by Tara Brock. To access more of my meditations or join my email list, please visit tarabrock.com. Your body and mind settle, feeling the movement of the breath, sense if you can feel the breath directly in the area of the heart, deepening, listening attention at the heart, and sense what brings you to practicing right now. What is your deepest, intention for meditating. So this is an inquiry of what really matters to you and it's an invitation to feel your sincerity. That's a kind of deep innocence where there's a real truth, this matters, this is what I care about. And then the stillness, you might scan through

your body and notice if there's any areas of obvious tension or tightness. and see what wants to let go right now. You might consciously soften the eyes, let the brow be smooth, a slight smile at the mouth, letting the jaw be unhinged, sensing the tongue free to spread and fill the lower palate, relaxing down to the root of the tongue,

opening to all the sensations in the face, letting everything be just as it is, is, floating in awareness, feeling the scalp and the skull, the sensations there, down to the back of the neck. You might sense the throat filling the neck. Beware of the sensations and aliveness, the space inside the neck, allowing the shoulders to relax back and down some. Let awareness fill the shoulders so you can sense more intimately where tightness or tension

might be. And just let it float in awareness, unwind itself in awareness, allowing the hands to rest in an easy and effortless way. And you might soften the hands and soften again and feel them from the inside out, the aliveness that's in them. the tingling, the vibrating, letting life be just as it is, unfolding and floating in awareness, let there be an openness to the chest, let awareness fill the chest so you can feel from the inside out, the movement of energy, the places of tightness or flow, letting everything be

as it is, unfolding, floating in awareness, loosening down, the torso, the abdominal area, relaxing. I'm letting the awareness fill the belly. You might sense this next breath being received in a softening belly. This breath, and now this one, and again, feeling the awareness, filling the belly, aware of the sensations and the aliveness, the energy that's there,

letting it all float in awareness, letting life be just as it is, full presence without any resistance, extending the same allowing awareness through the pelvic region, including the aliveness there and down through the legs, filling the length and the volume, the weight of the legs, letting the awareness fill the legs, So you can feel the sensations there right down into the feet and widening the lens of attention to feel this whole body all at once.

This energy body is a field of sensation and explore what it means to let everything be just as it is, not stopping anything, not opposing anything, energy moving and a moving and unfolding in open awareness. This whole world of sensation belongs just as it is. Pleasantness or unpleasantness, tightness or flow, intensity, numbness. Everything belongs in this open, allowing field of awareness, sensing if there's any emotional weather systems in this field of awareness, feelings of fear, sorrow, excitement, anger, happiness, or hurt, letting everything belong, including an awareness the sounds that are here, even the most distant sounds included in this open, wakeful space of awareness. The breath is breathing itself, sensations,

arise spontaneously, sounds are known spontaneously, in this vast, awake presence. It's quite natural for thoughts to arise and to get lost inside the thoughts and lose that openness and wakefulness of presence for a time. Then awareness recognizes that. When you notice you've been lost in thoughts, gently relax open again. Feel the sensations and aliveness right here. Listen to the sounds that are right here and be aware in the foreground of changing sensations, feelings, sounds, feelings and emotions, sometimes strong.

Everything belongs. and sensing in the background this vast space of awareness, wakeful, open, stillness, noticing where your attention is. And if the mind's been drifting and thoughts, without any judgment, just gently reopen your attention, listening, receptive to the sounds right. that are right here, perhaps sensing what can let go again in the body, letting go a little more, listening to and feeling the changing flow moment to moment, letting everything be just as it is, not resisting, not opposing, a deep allowing in the foreground, this changing flow, the breathes itself,

feeling the sensations and aliveness that's here, sounds. And in the background, that vast space of awareness, wakeful, open, and still. And we close with a poem from the poet Rilke, center of all centers, core of cores, almond self-enclosed and growing sweet. All this universe to the furthest stars, all beyond them is your flesh, your fruit. Now you feel how nothing clings to you. Your vast shell reaches into endless space,

and there the rich, thick fluids rise and flow, illuminated in your infinite peace. A billion stars go spinning through the night, blazing high above your head, but in you is the presence that will be when all the stars are dead.