← Tara Brach
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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 we can live from the love and presence that's our deepest essence.
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Namaste. As you come into stillness, let yourself feel your breath in the area of the heart. So you become increasingly sensitive to the feelings, the felt sense in the area of the heart. And ask yourself what is my deepest intention for being here for practicing meditation? This is an inquiry about what most matters to you, what your heart longs for. As you sense what matters. The sign of really being connected to a deep intention is you'll feel sincere. It's like your body saying yes, I care about this. Aware of your sitting posture, Letting yourself sit, they say like a Buddha, halfway between heaven and earth. So you're sitting tall and yet rooted. See if you can relax any parts of the body that are obviously tense or tight. You might soften in the shoulders and let the shoulders relax back and down a little. You might soften the hands so you can feel as you relax the hands, the sensations inside them, tingling, the vibrating. You might let there be an openness at the chest and see if you can soften and relax the belly. Let this next breath be received in a softening belly. This breath. And now this one. And again. You can feel the breath and the aliveness deep in the torso relaxing through the legs, Letting the feet spread and rest comfortably on the floor. Feel the contact places where your feet touch the floor. Warmth, pressure. Feel inside the feet, the movement of energy. Tingling, vibrating. Then open the attention. Feel your whole body sitting here again. It's like a field of sensation actually if you feel it directly. Notice how everything's moving, maybe cool or warm. Pressure, flow, tingling, pulsing. Include sound in your awareness. So you're listening not just with your ears, but your whole awareness. A global kind of listening that lets everything in receptor. Notice how with listening you don't have to do anything. Sounds are known spontaneously by awareness. Relaxing back into that awareness, that openness that's listening to and feeling the whole moment. In the foreground. You might notice again this play of sound sounds in the room, More distant sounds. In the foreground. You might notice the sensations tingling, pressure, aliveness. You might notice passing moods, feelings, emotions. In the background. Is that awake presence, That which is Aware the subjective essence of your being. Rest in that relaxed, awake presence. Noticing what's happening moment to moment. For some, as a way of quieting the mind or calming in the foreground. You might attend just the waves of the breath. Let the breath be your friend, your home base. Feeling the inflow and the outflow. Moment to moment, the sensations of the breath. You might feel the whole body breathing, whole body expanding and then deflating, even on a cellular level. For some, rather than the breath, it can help just to feel the sensations in the hands or the feet, the sensations of the sitting posture. Moment to moment, as a way to steady and quiet the mind. It. You'll notice at some point that you're no longer resting in presence, that the mind is carried you off into the future, the past. It's totally natural. And when you notice it, you have a choice. You can relax back. Relax back into presence. Reopening the attention, listening to sounds. Reopen the sensitivity to the body. Perhaps by seeing what might want to relax a little more in your body. Maybe letting go in the shoulders again, Maybe bringing a slight smile to the mouth and relaxing through the face, Maybe relaxing your heart. Resting again in the presence that is aware of the breathing, the sensations that are here. Notice what it's like to rest in the gap between the thoughts when there's no thinking that's taken over. What's right here? Can you sense in the gap between the thoughts the awareness that's here, This mystery of presence. It. You can start fresh in any moment. If you notice you've been off in a thinking trance. Relaxing back, you can ask, well, what's happening inside me right now? Can I be with this? Notice the difference between being inside a thought and this vividness of being right here, This mystery of presence. As part of closing this meditation, I'll share a poem from the poet Dana Faulds. It only takes a reminder to breathe a moment, to be still. And just like that, something settles, softens, makes space for imperfection. The harsh voice of judgment drops to a whisper and we can remember again that life isn't a relay race, that we all will cross the finish line, that waking up to life is what we were born for. As many times as we forget, catch ourselves charging forward without even knowing where we're going. That many times we can make the choice to pause to breathe and be and walk slowly into the mystery. As many times as we forget and catch ourselves charging forward without even knowing where we're going. That many times we can make the choice to pause, to breathe. And be and walk slowly into the mystery.