Hi. This is Cory Muscara, your guide here at Mindfulness.com. I'm thrilled to welcome you to this very special masterclass with Tara Brach entitled, Trusting the Gold, based on Tara's most recent book of the same title. When we here at Mindfulness.com found out that Trusting the Gold was probably going to be Tara's last book, we wanted to celebrate her profound legacy to the mindfulness industry by bringing this special class to you. Tara Brach is considered by many to be one of the world's foremost meditation teachers.

She is also a clinical psychologist and bestselling author of books, such as Radical Acceptance, True Refuge, and Radical Compassion. In this Trusting the Gold masterclass, Tara shares some beautiful teachings and practices to help us connect with our basic goodness, deepen our self-acceptance, and fall in love with life again. Personally, Tara has had a huge impact on my own practice and teachings, especially helping to soften some of the austerity that I had in my meditation practice, making space for more internal warmth and welcoming of all the different parts of me. May this class support you to do the same. Welcome to mindfulness.com, Tara.

We are honored to have you with us. It does feel special to me to have you with me. This is the official first time exploring and celebrating the book, coming out, and really looking at some of the key themes together. I hope for those of you that have been with me, it feels really deeply familiar, these themes of Trusting the Gold. So I'll be including practices as we go.

And for some of you, you might want to journal. I'm finding more and more that if you do a practice and then just write down a little bit and I'll suggest some questions, the practice goes deeper. So you might consider that if you want to get a pad or have something to write on nearby. And we'll start with a short practice. We're not doing a full meditation at the beginning, cause I'll be weaving in a few practices.

But let's take a moment and arrive together. And as a way of beginning, you might just check whatever posture you're in and inhabit the posture. In other words, really come into your body and make whatever of those slight adjustments help you so that you really feel that you're sitting in a way that's wakeful, that supports being alert and also at ease, really at ease. If it helps you to close your eyes or let your gaze be downcast to bring your attention inside, please do so. Let's take a few full breaths together.

Inhaling slow, long, deep in-breath, perhaps to the count of four or five. Feel yourself filling your chest and lungs. And then a slow out-breath, matching the length of the in-breath. Feel the sensations of releasing the breath through the nostrils, letting go. And then breathing in together.

A nice, full, deep in-breath, slow, conscious. And then that out-breath where you're releasing a smooth even way. Letting go, letting go. One more time, inhaling deeply. And that slow out-breath, relaxing, releasing outwardly, letting go.

And then as your breath resumes in its natural rhythm, notice you can be witness to the breath. Observe it. And notice the quality of presence that can emerge even in just a few moments when we're intentional. And give yourself the gift of letting go a little through the body. And you might scan and notice where there might be habitual holding or tightness.

And simply bring your awareness to those areas and see if there can be a natural softening. For many of us, just letting the awareness fill the shoulders. Allow the shoulders to relax back and down some. And see if you can soften, relax. And see if the hands can rest in a very easy and effortless way.

And soften the hands. And start to notice the tingling and vibrating when we soften the hands, the aliveness. Let the chest be open. Relax down through the abdominal area. Perhaps letting this next breath to be received in a softening belly.

This breath. And this one. Scanning through the body relaxing. Beginning to sense the body as a field of sensation. Including in your awareness the sounds that are here.

So in the stillness, there's a listening to and feeling life, moment to moment, breath by breath. In the quietness, you might let the attention settle some around the area of the heart. Become aware of the state of the heart right now. Whatever mood or emotion's here or perhaps what's been here, and you can still feel a bit of the sense of it, if there's been excitement or stress, sadness or fear, ease, happiness, confusion, anxiety, whatever. With an honest and gentle presence, just acknowledge how it is.

And take a moment to offer yourself whatever blessing, whatever kindness, whatever wish you feel most will serve in this moment. And as you do, you might sense the spirit of namaste, of just honoring the life that's here, the aliveness, the sacredness, the awareness that's right here inside you. Just honoring namaste to the life right here. And you migt sense in your heart space all the others that have gathered that are here, and all our friends and relations, and really spreading it out to all beings. Just sensing your namaste to the, to the life, to the awareness, to the essential tenderness in all beings.

Namaste. And the mystic and theologian, Thomas Merton writes "Life is this simple. We're living in a world that is absolutely transparent and the divine is shining through it all the time. This is not just a nice story or fable. It is true." You might sense in what would your life be like if you really paused.

We could see that sacredness shining through, yourself, others, animals, trees, plants, the same sentience and aliveness. This is not just a nice story or a fable. It is true. Okay. So opening your eyes.

Coming back. So I'm just feeling I want to bow to you and say namaste to each. I've kind of fallen in love with the word, well, the meaning of the word and the spirit of the word, which is I see that sacred light shining through you, me, all of us. So I just want to honor that. And it's really pretty much the spirit of the book, Trusting the Gold, and of a lot of what we come together to explore.

And of course there was a cartoon, I just saw it again recently that the light in me acknowledges the shadow in you. So that's also part of what we explore, right? That there are challenges in seeing the gold, seeing the sacred shining through.