Tara Brach - Meditation: Waking up from the Dream (2020-07-25)

Episode Date: August 29, 2020

Meditation: Waking up from the Dream (2020-07-25) - We spend many life moments in a virtual reality of thoughts. This guided practice helps us reconnect with our senses and discover in the space between thoughts the light of awareness, the mystery of what we are.

The following meditation is led by Tara Brock. To access more of my meditations or join my email list, please visit tarabrock.com. Welcome, friends. Today's guided meditation is called waking up from the dream. And to begin, make sure you're sitting comfortably. Take a few moments to feel whatever the sitting posture is and close your eyes and make whatever subtle adjust.

will help you to feel most balanced so that you're sitting upright. There's a quality of being alert and also at ease. You might choose to have your eyes closed, but that's not required. But bring the attention inwardly so that you're aware of your body and aware of your body breathing right now. And as you feel this body breathing, you might become aware with the in-breath of a kind of of receptivity that you're receiving the life energy of the moment. It's as if even on a cellular

level there's an opening to receive like a balloon filling with air and you might feel through the parts of your body that kind of an opening to receive. And with the out breath, a letting go, a releasing a little bit as the balloon deflates or releases air that there's a releasing of tension or tightness. So receiving with the in-breath, opening, letting go, releasing, relaxing outward with the out-breath. And sense the possibility of relaxing deeply with this simple inflow and outflow of the breath. Continuing feeling that breath in the background, you might let your awareness begin to scan through the body, letting go of any obvious areas of tension. Tightness in the body is a very physicalized way of resisting the life that's here.

So we're undoing resistance. You might relax the jaw, have a slight smile at the mouth, let the eyes be soft and the brow smooth, and let all the little micro muscles in the face settle at ease. You might allow the shoulders to fall away from the neck, and let the awareness fill the shoulders so you can feel from the inside out the life that's here and if there's tightness or knots in some way it's a sense that they could float in awareness naturally untangle and soften you might feel that inflow and outflow of the breath

as you let go in the shoulders, releasing with the out breath, any holdings, intentionally softening the hands and softening again and again so that if you feel from the inside out, you can feel the aliveness of the hands, perhaps a kind of tingling or vibrating, breathing with that aliveness and let there be an openness to the chest. and then feeling from the inside out the region of the heart and feeling that rhythm that inflow and outflow of the breath right at the heart so with the inflow it's opening to receive that nourishing energy of the universe and with the outflow releasing whatever's not necessary whatever holdings or armoring is here continuing to scan downward letting this next

breath be received in a softening belly, this breath, and now this one, and again, feeling from the inside out, the life of the belly, letting this gentle movement of the breath continue to relax and open you, relaxing down to the pelvic region, feeling the breath, letting go with the out breath, feeling the length and volume of the legs, feeling the places of contact where your feet touch the earth, the warmth, pressure, and then widening the lens so you can feel simultaneously this whole dance of sensation, letting this whole life live through you, the heat and the coolness, places of pleasure, unpleasantness, tension, flow, just letting everything happen as if it's a wind, current, moving through the great sky of awareness, including the

sounds that are here, the close-in sounds, more distant sounds, so that you're listening to and feeling the whole moment, aware of the changing flow of sounds and sensations and feelings, and aware in the background of an open space of awareness, the sky, of awareness, the thoughts and feelings and sounds appear in and move through. And quite naturally, thoughts will appear like clouds, the attention gets caught inside them. When you notice that, you've been thinking about the future, the past, relaxing open again and sense the difference between being inside the thought and the vividness and mystery of what's right here. resting in the space between thoughts that surround thoughts.

It's easy to think we're present and actually be in a kind of subtle film of thinking. You can periodically check and ask, am I dreaming right now? Can you sense thoughts as a dream, a trance, a virtual reality? And again, relax open. give them a wide pasture, sense the space they're in, arriving back here in this mysterious presence, moment to moment, to moment. What do you discover in the space between thoughts if you feel caught in the thinking trance? Relax open and listen to the sounds that are here.

listen to and feel the sensations in the body and sense that boundless sky of awareness that everything is arising and passing in inhabit the silence that is listening be the sky of wakefulness this vast formless mystery that's the source of being And as a way of moving from formal to informal meditation, you might gently start moving your body a bit. A mindful, listening inwardly, sensing what your body needs. It can help to roll the shoulders a bit or it helps you rolling your neck, moving the fingers, whole hands circling with the wrists. You might move the spine in and out some.

And take some full breaths. And as you're ready, opening your eyes. You're continuing with presence, just including what you're seeing. Know that you're here. Namaste and thank you.