Greetings. I'm Tara Brock and I'd like to welcome you to these podcasts. While the talks

and meditations are offered freely, we'd very much appreciate your support. To make a donation

or learn more about my schedule, please visit tarabrock.com and our IMCW.org. Thank you.

The simplest guidelines for sitting posture are to sit in a way where you're alert, you're

sitting upright, you can be wakeful. So feel that uprightness and also at ease. So right

from the start, sense what it means to relax a bit. Again, with the eyes closed, let the

attention go inward and we'll open with a simple reflection just to ask yourself what is your

intention for this practice for the sitting? What is it that you most vote for?

Sensing what matters to your heart is it arriving in presence, learning to touch some peace in your

life, being more open-hearted, realizing truth, the truth of what you really are, your full potential.

And intrinsic to this practice of meditation is our aspiration, remembering what really matters.

One of the most direct portals to presence is awakening or awareness within the body. You might feel

the top of the head and just feel whatever sensations are there, letting the attention flow forward over

the forehead. See if you can soften the eyes and let the brow be smooth, relaxing and feeling the

aliveness in that region. Let the jaw be unhinged, slight smile at the mouth. You might sense the

inside of the mouth smiling, let the tongue be relaxed, relaxing down to the root of the tongue, and feeling all the

sensations in the area of the mouth. Relaxing the shoulders back and down, let the awareness

feel the shoulders and the inside out feeling the sensations that are there. And if you notice the sensations of

tightness, of tanglingness, of knottedness, just let that float in awareness.

Sense the length and the volume of the arms. And let the hands rest in a very easy and effortless way,

consciously softening the hands and then feeling the aliveness from the inside out, softening again, sensing the

awareness, the tingling, the vibrating inside the hands. Just as a cup is filled with water, this whole body is filled with awareness.

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