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Foreign.

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Welcome friends, to the Tara Brak Podcast. I'm so glad you're here. Each week I share teachings and guided meditations to help us awaken our hearts and bring healing to our world. You can learn more or support this offering by visiting tarabrock.com where you can also join our email list. Now let's explore together the many ways

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we can live from the love and

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presence that's our deepest essence.

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Namaste, Foreign. Today's meditation is a heart meditation, so I hope you enjoy it. Wherever you are. Take a few moments to find the posture that most serves you. Typically it's helpful if there's an upright quality because it helps you stay more wakeful, but for some, you might decide lying down works. It's important that you're comfortable and at ease. For many just to sense what lets you in these moments feel safe and grounded, lets you feel present and at ease, comfortable, relaxed. Your eyes might be downcast or closed, but begin to bring the attention inward and feel this body breathing. And breathing together. Now let's inhale deeply to the count of five, a long slow in breath. And exhale to the count of five. A slow out breath, Inhaling, filling the chest and the lungs and a very slow out breath so you can feel the sensations of the breath as it leaves the nostrils. Inhaling slowly to the count of five, Slow out breath, feel a sense of releasing, relaxing outward, letting go one more time, inhaling deeply. And a slow out breath, relaxing, letting go, letting go and then allowing the breath to resume in its natural rhythm. And as you do, sense the quality of presence that's here. Now to invite you to visualize a wide open great sky, blue, bright open and to visualize the curve of a smile spreading through that sky. And getting the felt sense and the image of a smile spreading through the sky and with it that kind of receptivity and benevolence, a sense of goodness, Sensing that vast open sky with the smile spreading through it and see if you can let your mind merge with that sky. Vast awareness, spacious, receptive with the atmosphere of benevolence. Letting the felt sense of that warmth and benevolence come to the eyes and allow the eyes to soften and imagine and sense a smile spreading through the eyes so the outer corners are lifted a bit, your eyes are smiling, floating in that open space, emanating that benevolence, that goodwill. And you might feel the lips in a slight smile also and the inside of the mouth smiling, just allowing that sense of benevolence, of goodwill to deepen, feeling the whole face relaxing, smoothing. The eyes are smiling, the mouth. You might sense that you can visualize and feel smile in the throat. And some opening there. Taking some moments to let the shoulders fall away from the neck, to soften inside the shoulders and soften again, To let the hands rest in a very easy, effortless way. And then soften the hands and soften again so you can feel from the inside out the tingling and vibrating there. Bringing your attention to the chest. Let the chest be open and you might visualize and have the felt sense of a smile spreading through the chest, spreading through the heart, Making room for whatever's there, Creating a very spacious, receptive and tender presence. Again, just scanning and sensing that great open sky of awareness with a smile, Letting the mind merge with that open awareness, filled with an atmosphere of benevolence, filling the eyes and a smile and the mouth, so you can feel that sense of goodwill, of receptivity, of gentleness in the face, feeling the throat, smiling and smiling into the heart. Feeling that spacious receptive tenderness in the heart region. As you scan down. Let this next breath be received in a softening belly. This breath. And now this one. And in that openness, sensing that smile spreading through the belly so you can visualize it and have the felt sense of it, Making room for the energy and aliveness that's in the belly, Opening to that energy through the whole pelvic region, deep into the torso. Visualizing and sensing that smile spreading through the torso, making room for the energy that's here. And you might even imagine the earth energy flowing up through the body, filling the body. The openness of a smile makes room for the fullness of this energy and aliveness, The body vibrant, loving, present even in a cellular, Including that sense of the great sky filled with a smile, the mind merged with that great sky, So that your whole being is filled with loving awareness, a vast tenderness suffusing your being. It. And when the attention naturally contracts into thoughts and you notice it, let the intention simply be to gently relax back again. Perhaps feeling and sensing the smile at the eyes, the mouth, the heart, sensing that benevolence. And relaxing back and resting in this heart space, Vibrant, open, tender. Sensing how whatever arises, whatever waves appear, can be held in a boundless sea of caring. You can choose to relax back again and again, just noticing what's going on and then re relaxing the body, some gently sensing that smile. Resting in heart space. And this is from the Radiant Sutras. Enter the bowl of vastness that is the heart. Give yourself to it with total abandon. Quiet ecstasy is there. And a steady, regal sense of resting in a perfect spot. Once you know the way, the nature of attention will call you to return again and again and be saturated with knowing I belong here. I am at home here.