Tara Brach - Vipassana or Insight Meditation and Instruction: A Path of Practice from Retreat

Episode Date: December 6, 2018

Retreat Meditation and Instruction: Vipassana - Path of Practice (2018-10-07) - Vipassana, also known as insight meditation, is training in bringing a clear mindful attention to our moment to moment experience. We begin by relaxing through the body and then resting attention with the breath – or some other sensory anchor – and allowing the mind to settle. Then we open to whatever is predominant or calling our attention – sensations, emotions, sounds – meeting each arising experience with a clear, kind attention. The gift of this process is discovering balance in the midst of the changing flow, and gaining deep insight into the nature of reality. Free download of Tara's 10 min meditation: "Mindful Breathing: Finding Calm and Ease" when you join her email list.

The following meditation is led by Tara Brock. To access more of my meditations or join my email list, please visit tarabrock.com. In a few moments, I'll be offering the guided instructions, as we often do. But before that, I thought it would be helpful just to lay out the larger framework or map for our instructions and practice, a real path of practice. And the heart of the practice really is to relax or rest back into that awareness that's always here that recognizes and allows this changing life to be reality.

And as a way to find our path to the way to the way, that. We have a number of different skillful means, our ways of helping us arrive. Some of the most basic that we offer here as part of practice to help us really see clearly and open fully is to establish an anchor. An anchor, home base, they're all equal. Whatever helps you to sustain a more steady presence serves. And the most common is the breath. And even within the breath, there are different places you can attend to the breath. Some that inflow, outflow at the nostrils, some that's the rising, falling at the chest, expanding, deflating the belly, some for the whole body, just feeling the whole body breathing.

But for many people, the breath isn't the primary anchor, especially if there's been trauma. An anchor might be the sensations in the hands, the feet, or sound. Sounds a good one for many people, not just when there's been trauma, because different anchors have different strengths. And with sound, it creates more of an open quality, a more receptive presence. With breath, it's more refraithes.

find, it's a narrower focus, it can lead to great quietness. So when we guide the instructions, we invite you to find a home base to help support the presence which is really the heart of practice. But if the mind is already quiet, you don't have to have an anchor. So I'm saying this because there's one of the great misunderstandings in the mind. and practices that it's all about coming back to the breath or coming back to an anchor. But that's really a skillful means to help us be present more. And if all you did was focus on the breath, you'd miss reality because there's a kind

of efforting that can come with that. And reality is really the changing moment-to-moment experience. So in our instructions we often begin with what helps us to arrive in the body because there really is no possibility of presence if we're not awake in our senses. So we often take our time and a body scan is for most people a very powerful way of making sure you're as here as you can be awake and embodied. And then the next thing we often invite is to settle more in a more precise way with the chosen anchor or home base.

So first there's an arriving more generally in the senses, then establishing that home base to further stabilize, to further create that kind of steady attention, quiet the mind. And then the third part is to include whatever's here and calling us fully. In Vapasana, we might have a primary anchor, but we're in any moment that something calls the attention, we release the primary focus on the anchor and open to that. And that's where we really try to bring those wings of mindful, interested, curious, attention and the wing of kindness to whatever arises. So you'll sense as we now go into the guided practice those three elements of arriving, establishing the anchor, and then opening

as life presents itself to what's here. You might be aware right now of your body, simply sitting here and breathing, and as a way of awakening more from the inside of, out through the body, we'll gently scan through the body. And I often like including in that scan the image and felt sense of a smile as it has the effect of creating a lot more ease. It quiets the fight-flight response and opens us more in a relaxed way. You may You might begin by paying attention to the brow and the eyes, that region. And since what happens if you smile into the eyes or let a smile spread through the eyes, the outer corners of the eyes lifted slightly, softening the eyes and letting the brow be smooth,

noticing whatever sensations wake up in the region of the brow. a slight smile to the lips and letting the inside of the mouth have that felt sense of a smile, letting the tongue fill the upper palate, relaxing down to the root of the tongue, and sensing the sensations that fill the mouth, gums, teeth, lips. You can visualize and sense a smile in the throat, sense the throat filling the neck. sensations that wake up and fill the area of the neck. The shoulders to drop away from the neck. I mean the awareness to fill the shoulders

so you can feel from the inside out what's there. Sometimes it can be helpful to sense a melting, ice to water. See if you can feel that. Water to gas. Just notice whatever movement, aliveness, our deeper awareness of tension or tightness. letting the awareness wake up inside the shoulders, sensing the length, the volume of the arms, feeling your thumb, sensing the awareness, the space, the aliveness in the thumb, the forefinger,

feeling from the inside out, space between the thumb and the forefinger, waking up all the fingers, softening and feeling from the inside out, flesh and body. bone the space between the fingers, the space between the palm and the top of the hand, softening even more so you can feel the full aliveness from inside out in the hands. Let there be an openness to the chest. And you might visualize and sense the smile spreading through the heart. It's not to cover over, but really to make space for what's here. sensing that space and aliveness in the whole region of the heart. Perhaps whatever emotions or mood is here,

the awareness fill the belly. You can again visualize and sense the felt sense of the smile at the belly, softening, allowing yourself to experience from the inside out, very deep into the torso, the aliveness that's here. The eyes are still soft. A slight smile, smile at the mouth, smile spreading through the heart, the belly. You can actually visualize a sense a smile deep in the pelvic region, bringing alive that whole area.

Even a smile at the base of the spine like a cup, allowing the earth energy to flow into and through you, feeling your feet on the earth, the contact, the pressure, sensation inside the feet and widening that lens of awareness to feel this whole body as a field of sensation, not stopping anything, not opposing anything. Sensing how this field of aliveness includes sound, widening out through listening, not just with your ears but with your whole awareness, listening to and feeling the whole moment. And the sound, the sound that come and go. A whole play of sensation.

And in the background, that alert inner stillness, that which is aware, is a way to support this presence. You might sense in the foreground your chosen home base or anchor. Very receptive, relaxed, receiving in a moment-to-moment way the flow of the breath, listening to and feeling the movement of the breath. Or if your anchor is part of the sensations and part of the body, receiving that, are sound, moment to moment a relaxed attentiveness. By now you might have noticed the mind has drifted.

And the pathway or the way we come back, what most will plant the seed for deepening presence, is non-judgment, just that interest of, oh, okay, in a virtual reality, let's come back home again. And then that curiosity, there's a relaxing open from thoughts, noticing again the sounds that are right here rather than the sound of the thinking, relaxing open the body, because Whenever the mind's in thought, there's a correlation, the body tightens. So maybe re-relaxing the shoulders, softening the hands, relaxing your heart. You don't have to rush back to the breath.

It's more of a relaxing back into presence. And that heerness, again, just letting yourself gently land on your chosen anchor. to soft attention. What's it like? This life breath. This moment. And now this moment. Maybe choosing to collect and settle, to continue to do so with the primary anchor home base. If some strong sensation calls your attention are strong emotion, can be very pleasant or very unpleasant, to let the, anchor recede into the background and let that be the primary place of attention in the foreground. Noticing those two questions, so what is happening inside me right now?

And can I be with this? Relating to what's arising with a clear and soft attention, interest, what's it like? gentleness, a heart quality. Notice it'll get stronger or it'll fade. Just notice what happens. And it's no longer predominant. The practice is to return, gently resting with the anchor. Or if the mind's quite quiet and steady,

just resting in the awareness that's here. That you're here, right? Here. moment to moment. Each time you notice you've been drifting is an opportunity to deepen awakening this coming, this pathway home, cultivating it. Not to race back to the breath, but to relax open again into presence. Relax back into presence. Listening to the sounds that are here, you can start fresh in any moment, re-reliven. relaxing through the body, softening where there's tightness.

Relaxing, open your heart. You can use that smile that's a meta scan with the body, when you smile into the body. Arriving again, just these last couple of minutes, you might experiment with simple being, not trying to control, not trying to direct the attention. Just noticing what happens when you let everything be just as it is.