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The following meditation is led by Tara Brak. To access more of my meditations or join my email list, please visit tarabrack.com in this stillness, let your awareness scan gently through your body and just notice where there might be some holding or tightness or tension. And since you can bring your awareness to those places and sense a softening, a releasing, you might soften the eyes. We often carry a lot of tension there. Little micro muscles tighten and the more we think, the more they tighten. So sense the softening of the eyes and letting the brow be smooth. You can imagine smiling into your eyes, letting the outer corners lift a little. It just helps to bring a sense of openness and receptivity. Slight smile at the mouth, relaxing the tongue. Sensing the tongue can fill the lower palate. See if you can relax the tongue right down to the root opening to the sensations that fill the mouth, the gums, the teeth, the lips. Be aware of the air touching the face, the sensations through the face, scalp and skull. You might imagine the throat, filling the neck, Feeling the sensations inside the throat and neck. Softening at the back of the neck and softening a little more so the shoulders can relax away from the neck and feel the space open up inside the shoulders. Notice what happens if you let awareness fill the shoulders from the inside out. Sensing the land and the weight in the volume of your arms. Feeling the thumbs from the inside out, the tingling and vibrating there. Feeling the forefinger from the inside out. As if you could put your awareness right inside your finger and feel the aliveness. And then the space between the thumb and the forefinger. Feeling the middle finger, the sensations and space that fills that finger and the ring finger from the inside out. An intimate presence. The small finger, pinky inside out. So you can feel all the fingers and the spaces between them. Bones and flesh and space, vibrating and alive. Feel the space between the palms and the backs of the hands and sensing the hands as a field of sensation floating in space. Let there be an openness at the chest, feeling inside the chest, feeling the region of the heart, and you might imagine and sense you can smile into the heart. So you visualize the curve of a smile spreading through the heart and the felt sense of that. And this isn't to cover over anything, but rather to create the space that really allows contact with what's here. To feel the aliveness directly inside the region of the heart. Feeling the sensations in the mid back and down to the lower back and inside the abdominal cavity. Letting this next breath be received in a softening belly. This Breath. And now this one. And again. Feeling the awareness fill the torso. She can feel from the inside out, the aliveness and space inside you. Breath after breath, Opening to the pelvic region and sensing the sensations, the space that fills that area. Aware of the legs, the length, volume, the weight. So you can feel the space inside your legs and the aliveness right down to the feet. Feeling where your feet contact the floor, pressure, warmth. And then from the inside out, the movement of sensation, energy. Feeling the hands soft, alive. Widening the lens so you can feel this whole body changing. Constellations of sensations. Vibrating, tingling, pulsing, letting it all happen. No opposing, no resisting life. Vibrating and appearing moment to moment in this great space of awareness. Resting in spaciousness and listening now, listening now, not just with your ears, but your whole being. Listening to your environment, not just a particular thing. Listening globally so everything's taken in evenly. Listening to sounds, listening to silence. See what it feels like in your being to come into a state of listening, not trying to do it right or reach a goal. There's really nothing to do. Sounds are known spontaneously. You'll notice their sound. The feeling of sound, the space it's happening in. You can feel the space and the underlying silence. Or quiet in the midst of sound. Let yourself feel that the silence, the sound space around your body. Quite naturally, the mind will be carried into thoughts. And when you notice that, let it be a noise that happens, not attempting to get rid of thoughts. See what happens when awareness lets everything be as it is. Just notice. You can be in a state of listening right now and sense a natural spaciousness, like a great sky. That can be aware of the different clouds, the birds, the breeze it. And when there's a drifting, just coming back to listening the sounds that are right here. Sensing thoughts as that inner dialogue. Sounds in the mind be the silence that's listening to the thoughts, that's listening to sounds, the spaces between sounds. In this openness, there's awareness every moment. Space itself is aware, highly awake. The sounds, sensations, everything is known in this awake space. It aware of listening. And then sense what is listening. And perhaps noticing that silence, that alert awake silence that's aware of sound. What's it like to be this awareness? Awareness itself is not trying to accomplish anything, to control anything. Just allows everything to happen and be known spontaneously, everything to happen and return to natural state. Sensing this can allow your body to relax a little more right now. Mind to quiet the defenses of the heart to quiet it. Open receptive presence, realizing that wakeful space as your true home. It's.