This short talk and guided meditation offers an overview of what many people find is a natural unfolding within a meditation sitting. It includes the process of arriving in an embodied presence, learning how to come back from thoughts, and then opening the attention mindfully to the changing flow of experience. The meditation provides generous space between prompts for practice.
The beauty of chanting is you feel it in your heart and body, giving words another dimension. It’s not just the abstract chattering of an isolated head that doesn’t feel what it’s talking about.
In this meditation, we begin by visualizing benefactors offering us kindness, care and acceptance. We practice to truly let this in, and fill our bodies and minds. Then we begin to generate it for ourselves. (Gratitude to John Makransky for inspiration from his "Receiving the Healing, Liberating Power of Love" meditation.)
From the first morning of the IMCW 2017 New Year’s retreat, Tara offers an introductory meditation with a body scan, bringing focus to the breath, sounds, then resting in awareness.
Agitation is a result of favoring and opposing experience. Meditation is about bringing body, heart and mind together to meet experience without favoring or opposing. Hindrances can be cleared from this unified place.
Energy is affected by intention. If we approach meditation with an intense need to calm and find a focus, we probably won’t be able to. This very aim affects our breathing and sense of ease. Make the aim about purification, letting things be how they are without getting intense about it.
The body can self-reference. It knows when it’s in balance, what upright is, and can relax what’s not needed. When the physical form becomes comfortable, bring attention to the bodily mood. Mind can pick up tones of firm, open, confident from the body.
