Tara Brach - Meditation: Vipassana (Mindfulness or Insight)

Episode Date: November 17, 2016

Meditation: Vipassana (Mindfulness or Insight) - A gift of meditation is learning to open to life just how it is, with awake awareness. This meditation guides us in establishing an embodied presence, and collecting the attention with mindfulness of the breath. We then open the attention to whatever is predominant, and rest in an open, engaged and receptive presence. Your support enables us to continue to offer these talks 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. A key gateway to awakening presence is through the body. It will take some moments to scan through the body, releasing and relaxing, letting go of tension. You might begin by sensing the region of the region of the body. the brow, let the eyes be soft, the brow smooth. You might even imagine and sense smiling into

the eyes, letting the curve of a smile spread through the eyes, lifting up the outer corners. That same image of a smile, sensing a slight but real smile at the mouth, feeling the energy of a smile inside the mouth, just receptive to the sensations that are there, relaxing the jaw, relaxing the tongue down to the root. Can you feel the aliveness of sensation in the mouth? Allowing the shoulders to fall away from the ears to relax back and down. And feeling the shoulders from the inside out, you might imagine a melting of ice to water. Then water to gas.

See if you can sense the movement of sensation. inside the shoulders, relaxing, letting go, letting the hands rest in an easy and effortless way, and softening the hands, softening the hands and feeling them from the inside out, an intimate attention to the tingling and vibrating, the aliveness inside the hands. Let there be an openness at the chest and see if you can feel that. the heart region from the inside out. You might let the image and sense of a smile spread through the heart, not to cover anything over but to really create space to feel what's here. Feeling from the inside out noticing what's it like. Loosening through the belly. You might sense

that same curve of a smile through the belly. I'm feeling from the inside out. See if you can let this next breath be received in a sense that same curve of a smile through the belly. And feeling from the inside out, see if you can let this next breath be received in a softening belly. This breath and now this one and again letting awareness fill the belly and sensing the life that's there and bringing that same receptive presence to fill the region of the pelvic area. Again sensing from the inside out the movement of sensation, receptive presence and that same receptivity and presence fill the legs sensing the volume and length of the legs

feeling the feet from the inside out the tingling and vibrating there then opening the attention and awareness you can feel simultaneously the whole field of aliveness of this body all the sensations moving vibrating

not opposing anything or resisting discover what it's like to let this whole universe of aliveness live through you. Notice how the appearing and disappearing of sound also washes through you. So you're listening to and feeling the whole moment, receptive, open, with the same listening and feeling presence, receiving the stream of the breath just as it is, the sensations of the breath, perhaps felt at the nostrils, the stream of the inflow, outflow, maybe the rising, falling of the chest, expanding, settling of the belly,

or if you find it easier to feel the whole body of the breath, expanding, settling, even in a cellular way, an exquisite presence that senses this background of sound and sensation, the whole field and intimate in the foreground with the movement of the breath, relaxing and resting with the breath. The mind naturally drifts. When you become aware that the mind is contracted and gone off into the stories of the past or the future, commentary, that's an opportunity. to practice reawakening, re-arriving.

So just to appreciate those moments of waking up and realizing, oh, okay, been in that trance of thinking, gently reopen the attention, hear the sounds that are right here, know that you're in the room, into this body and in this moment, feeling the sensations, the shoulders might relax a little again, softening the hands, relaxing your heart, gently arriving again with the inflow or outflow of the breath, relaxing back into this moment-to-moment presence, breath by breath. And if you find that something else is calling your attention strongly, some strong sensations in the body, perhaps something really pleasant, tingling, vibrating, or something challenging, some squeezing or pressure, heat, tightness.

And let the breath recede into the background and bring a receptive presence, interested and kind to where the sensations are strongest. Let that be in the foreground. It might be a strong emotion. fear, excitement, anger, sorrow, whatever's here, allowing it to be in the foreground of our awareness, noticing how it changes, sensing it as a constellation of sensations. And when it's no longer calling your attention, you can gently come back to rest in the movement of the breath

In this way our mindfulness includes whatever is appearing. And when nothing is prominent, we continue to collect and relax with the simple movement of this life breath. You can begin fresh any moment that you realize you've been in a trance without any judgment with kindness, with interest, just to reopen the attention. sense that you're right here in the room, these sounds, these sensations, and this breath, entering whatever is calling you or predominant, by opening to what's here with gentleness

and interest. It helps to breathe with the experience, to breathe with it, to let this life be just as it is, and discover that. that balance and tender presence in the midst.