Meditation: The Silence That's Listening (from retreat)
Tara Brach
Tara Brach
4.8 • 11.3K Ratings
🗓️ 22 June 2018
⏱️ 27 minutes
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Summary
Meditation: The Silence That's Listening (from retreat) - Listening to sounds is a powerful way to quiet the thinking mind and connect with the natural openness of awareness. In this guided meditation, we begin by opening to sound and then listening to and feeling the whole changing flow of life - allowing whatever is here to be just as it is. In the foreground, we notice the dance of sensations, thoughts, emotions…rising up and falling away. And in the background, a wakeful, receptive presence - the silence that is listening. When we let go of all doing and relax back into this alert stillness, we sense our true nature…our home.
In words from the Tibetan tradition: "Utterly awake, senses wide open. Utterly open, non-fixating, allowing awareness."
(Morning meditation from the 2018 Spring IMCW 7-Day Silent Retreat)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The following meditation is led by Tara Brock. |
| 0:07.8 | To access more of my meditations or join my email list, please visit TaraBrock.com. |
| 0:30.0 | As part of settling in this morning, you might want to bring to heart and mind your intention |
| 0:54.8 | towards presence, towards awakening. |
| 1:12.3 | And feeling this body sitting here breathing, sensing the posture, whatever subtle, aligning |
| 1:23.7 | that supports you, and sitting in a way that's awake, alert at ease. |
| 1:40.3 | And noticing if there's any places of obvious holding that want to let go, that are easy to soften. |
| 2:10.3 | And bringing our attention, opening the attention to sound, beginning with listening. |
| 2:29.3 | There's no doing with listening. |
| 2:56.8 | And the sounds arise and they're spontaneously known by awareness. |
| 3:06.8 | And the global kind of listening, letting the sounds wash through you. |
| 3:29.6 | And maybe we'll wear very close in sounds. |
| 3:37.8 | The sounds of these words coming going. |
| 3:49.8 | And listening into the space in the room. |
| 4:18.8 | Perhaps the most distant or subtle sounds that awareness can detect. |
| 4:45.3 | And it's in the vastness, the openness that includes all sounds arising and passing. |
| 5:12.7 | And the receptive silence that's listening. |
| 5:35.9 | And sensing how you can bring the same listening awareness to receive the sensations of the body. |
| 5:52.6 | And the soft, receptive attentiveness in the area of the eyes. |
| 6:01.9 | If you're listening to and feeling the sensations received in awareness. |
| 6:26.4 | And opening to the sensations through the whole face. |
| 6:38.6 | Opening to the sensations through the shoulders, the arms, the hands. |
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