Chapter 1: What does it mean to awaken our hearts through meditation?
Welcome, friends, to the Tara Brach 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 tarabrach.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. Namaste. In the stillness you might envision a very open blue sky stretching outward in a limitless way, vast sky, visualizing the curve of a smile spreading through that sky. So you can sense the uplift, the openness, the energy of a smile spreading through that sky.
And letting the mind merge with that sky.
Chapter 2: How can visualization enhance our meditation practice?
Feeling that spaciousness of awareness, filled with a smile. Wide open, sky-like mind, filled with the energy, the friendliness, the openness of a smile. A sky-like mind, smiling into the eyes and letting the sensations in the area of the eyes float in that openness. The brow is smooth, eyes are soft. Slight smile at the mouth.
You might feel the inside of the mouth smiling, relaxing the tongue, letting it fill the lower palate, relaxing down to the root of the tongue, feeling all the sensations in the mouth, the gums, the teeth, floating in this openness and awareness. The eyes smiling, sensations floating in openness. Smile at the mouth. Sensations floating. Letting the shoulders drop away from the neck.
Chapter 3: What techniques help in sensing and relaxing the body during meditation?
Sensing the shoulders filled with awareness. The sensations and aliveness inside the shoulders just floating. So if you sense a knottedness or a tightness, let it float in awareness. Sense if you can notice and feel the space inside the shoulders, the sensations of aliveness floating, moving in that space. Allow the hands to rest in a very easy and effortless way.
And softening the hands, and softening again. Can you sense the sensations in the hands, the vibrating, the tingling, floating in awareness, moving in space? Perhaps you can even sense the space between the sensations. Just like you can sense the space or visualize the space between the particles in an atom, the nucleus of an atom. Space and aliveness.
Chapter 4: How do we cultivate awareness of our breath and sensations?
Filling the hands. You might sense an openness of the chest, letting the curve of a smile spread through the heart. You can visualize and sense the sensations and aliveness there floating, unfolding in the space of awareness. Relaxing through the belly, letting this next breath be received in a softening belly. This breath right now. And now this one. And again.
You might visualize the curve of a smile spreading through the belly. Can you sense and feel the sensations and aliveness inside the belly, floating in awareness and space? energy moving in awareness.
Chapter 5: What is the significance of the heart space in meditation?
And sensing the pelvic region filled with awareness, the aliveness floating, moving, in that space of awareness. Aware of the legs, the length, volume of the legs, And sensing the vibrating and tingling of energy through the legs, right into the feet. And sense how it's all happening, floating, moving in the space of awareness.
You might visualize and imagine the space of awareness extending in front of you, outward beyond the furthest stars, and behind you, outward beyond the furthest stars, to both sides, outward and outward, beyond the furthest stars. below you and above you, outward and outward, beyond the furthest stars. And sensing how this boundless space around you, an inner space, is continuous, continuous
filled with the light of awareness, this world of sensation appearing and dissolving, floating in this boundless space of awareness. sounds appearing, disappearing in this boundless space of awareness.
Chapter 6: How can we embrace the present moment without judgment?
Just resting in the wakeful openness that allows and includes this whole changing flow of life. It's quite natural that the mind will drift into thoughts. You can gently relax back by reconnecting with the aliveness that's right here, feeling the breath and the changing sensations in the body, the sounds that are here.
letting the sounds and sensations appear and disappear in this wakeful openness, this alert stillness that's your own presence. We wake up from thoughts and we notice the thinking and then relax open. Thoughts are a mental contraction that always correlate with physical contraction in some way. So you can re-relax in any moment. Just noticing what might want to let go a little right now.
Perhaps softening the shoulders. softening the hands, softening the belly, sensing that slight smile, relaxing your heart, letting life be just as it is, sensations and sounds, appearing, disappearing, in open awareness. You might sense how that open awareness is experienced at the region of the heart as a kind of heart space that includes what's here.
The heart space where everything that is is included and welcomed. From the poet Dorothy Hunt, peace is this moment without thinking it should be some other way, that you should feel some other thing, that your life should unfold according to your plans. Peace is this moment without judgment, this moment in the heart space where everything that is is welcome.