Tara Brach - Meditation: Vipassana – Opening Our Hearts to Life as It Is

Episode Date: July 18, 2019

Meditation: Vipassana – Opening Our Hearts to Life as It Is - This meditation awakens the senses with a mindful scanning of the body, establishes an anchor for presence, and invites us to arrive again and again, deepening the pathway home. When difficult or intense experience arises, the practice is to learn to open to what is here with a clear, allowing and kind attention (a favorite from the archives).

The following meditation is led by Tara Brock. To access more of my meditations or join my email list, please visit tarabrock.com. Awareness, scan through your body. Just notice if there's areas of particular tightness or tension. See if by bringing a soft awareness to those areas, there might be a little loosening, letting go. You might bring the attention to the region of the brow,

the eyes, softening the eyes. Let the brow be smooth, unhinging the jaw. I'm just sensing a slight but real smile at the mouth. See if you can let the shoulders fall away from the ears. You might imagine a kind of dissolving in the shoulders. Ice to water, water to gas. Can you feel from the inside out the movement of energy? softening, letting go.

Let the hands rest in an easy, effortless way. Softening the hands and feeling them from the inside out. Just be intimate with the tingling and vibrating that's there. Let there be an openness to the chest and feel the region of the heart from the inside out, a soft, allowing attention, letting the life be just as it is, scanning down to the region of the belly,

letting this next breath be received in a softening belly. This breath and now this one, and again, scanning down to the pelvic region, again sensing from the inside out, relaxed, open, soft attention, allowing the life to be just as it is. Noticing if there's any tightness or tension in the thighs, hamstrings, the calves, and softening, loosening, feeling the feet from the inside out. The feet, the hands, tingling, vibrating, then widening the attention to feel the whole body.

Since this dance of sensation, just let everything happen, not opposing anything. It's receiving sensation in a very open, awake presence. Because the mind so easily drifts from presence, you might sense in the foreground a home base or anchor, perhaps the inflow, outflow of the breath, as a way to stay connected with presence, feeling the breath, the nostrils,

or maybe at the chest, expanding and settling, or the belly, or for some, the home base is the whole body breathing, even in a cellular way, expanding and settling. For some it might be sounds, listening to the play of sounds. Or you might feel a part of the body and let that be your home base or anchor.

Perhaps the tingling in the hands. The purpose of the anchor is to know that you're here. Right here. You might mentally whisper here. You feel the immediacy and vividness of presence. Our practice is when the mind drifts and we realize we've been in a trance of thinking to gently choose and arrive back right here. Presence, this moment, this breath, these sounds, these sensations.

Right here. It doesn't matter how many times the mind drifts. Each time you invite the mind back to write here, this moment, without judgment, with friendliness, with interest, you're deepening the pathway of arriving home. If you discover in the present moment some strong energy that's challenging, perhaps physical tension or tightness, soreness, aching, squeezing. or emotionally challenging, sorrow, fear, anger, hurt. Then instead of resting with the anchor, the breath or sounds, open to what's here, perhaps

breathing with it, letting yourself connect with the life of the moment, with gentleness, with interest, with care. Notice what happens, whether it gets stronger or weaker, when it's no longer compelling than to rest again in your anchor or your home base. So the intention and practice is to be with what's here, to open to the different waves of experience with a tender and clear present. And when nothing strong is compelling, to continue to collect, and begin to settle the mind more with your home base. No matter how far the mind has wandered, you can start fresh in any moment,

in your meditation and in your life, by simply noticing what's happening and gently arriving right here. ...are of these sounds, re-relaxing a bit in the body, softening the shoulders, the hands, relaxing your heart, reopening to the life of the moment, this inflow and outflow of the breath,

the aliveness of sensation, feelings. See how much you can relax with what's happening right here, an awake and kind attention. We close with a simple reflection to widen the attention to sense, your life as it is right now, today, yesterday, these last few days, and sense if there's any part of you that needs attention, just asking for comfort or kindness, and gently putting your hand on your heart so that the touch itself is caring, light, just to offer yourself

some message or energy of care that's healing and widening again the heart and minds, the sense that your hand is on the heart of the world, and sensing whatever prayer for the world most resonates in these moments and offering it.