Tara Brach - Starting a Meditation - with No Bell at the End (2016-11-05)

Episode Date: November 10, 2016

Starting a Meditation - and No Bell at the End (2016-11-05) - Given in the early morning on the first day of retreat, this recording can settle you into a meditation of any length. There is no bell at the end, so you can make your session as long or short as you wish.

The following meditation is led by Tara Brock. To access more of my meditations or join my email list, please visit tarabrock.com. It's part of arriving, you might sense your that simple intention towards presence. And let the attitude be one of ease of relaxing, of interest and friendliness, towards whatever's arising.

Perhaps the most direct portal towards a full presence is to awaken and relax through the bodies. You might take some moments to scan with your awareness through your body, perhaps softening the eyes a bit, letting the brow be smooth, a slight smile at the mouth,

relaxing the jaw, with the shoulders fall away from the neck, It's feeling the shoulders from the inside and sensing if there's a natural loosening, untangling, sensing if the life there can float a bit in awareness. Let the hands be soft, resting in a very easy, effortless way. And again, feeling from the inside out, the tingling and vibrating and aliveness there. You might feel an openness in the area of the chest.

softening down to the belly, letting this next breath be received in a softening belly. This one and again and again. So from the inside out feeling that area of the belly, the aliveness inside you. The same way scanning down and sensing the region, the pelvic region, relaxing, opening. from the inside out, feeling the aliveness that's here, and the length, volume of the legs, feeling the feet from the inside out, tingling and vibrating,

and then widening the lens. See, you can experience the whole body as a field of sensation. Just let everything happen. Letting the senses be wide awake, including sounds, the foreground, sensing these sounds and sensations, feelings, all changing flow. And in the background, this alert, inner stillness, presence, wakefulness. Letting your practice be simply to come back again and again, relaxing back, this wakefulness, And if it supports you and stabilizes your presence to let the breath be in the foreground

or some other anchor to help remember to come back and to stay more steadily here, and please let your attention rest in that way.