Tara Brach - Guided Meditation: Lovingkindness (metta) (from retreat)

Episode Date: January 31, 2014

2012-04-28 Guided Heart Meditation: Lovingkindness (metta) from retreat

Okay, so take a few moments to settle yourself in a way that feels alert. You're sitting upright, but primarily do a kind of scan to make sure you're comfortable. So right from the start, take care of yourself. As you come into stillness, just briefly scan and sense of you have in some way tightened in the last few moments or hours or whatever, any part of your body that just by noticing some of the muscular ice-cubness can be dissolved, softening where you can.

And then just pausing enough to sense your intention through this guided practice. See if you can get in touch with your own sincerity about connecting and awakening heart energy. In both the Buddhist and the Taoist traditions, one of the levels of loving kindness practices with the body itself, and the image of a smile is often used to help the nervous system, the muscles, the body

come into a state of ease, receptivity. So you might imagine the sky that's around us filled with the curve of a smile, that it extends through the sky up into the heavens, and that that openness and that curve and that receptivity can fill the mind, letting the image and the curve of a smile spread through the eyes. You might sense the corners of the eyes, lift it up a bit, Let's see if it's possible to soften the eyes. Let them be like orbs floating in a pool of water.

The brow smooth. Sensing a slight smile at the mouth. Ticknathand describes this as smile yoga. Because it really does communicate to the nervous system, some ease. Let the inside of the mouth smile also. Jaws relaxed. Now again, smiling into the eyes. sensing the mouth and a slight smile.

And then smiling into the heart area. Imagine and feel that curve of a smile spreading through the heart and the chest. And imagine the smile coming from the inside out, from deep within, in a cellular way, the space inside the heart area, a smile emerging. So they're not getting rid of anything in the heart area, but creating the space that can hold it. And imagine you can smile into the naval area, let that curve of a smile spread through what's called the dantien.

So you can loosen and soften there also to free up the energy in the whole torso area. And then a very gentle attention resting at the heart so that as you breathe in you can feel that whisper and sensation of the breath, the breeze of the breath, whispering, touching, moving through the heart area and breathing out, sensing the space, tenderness in the heart area. We extend this heart met

into the interpersonal realm by bringing to mind someone who's very easy for us to feel love with, someone where the loving is simple, not complex. That question itself, that invitation might bring up a lot,

lot for you. For many of us it does. So see if you can give yourself permission to just settle on whatever person your mind brings forward that seems like the best choice for now without adding a lot to that. See if you can keep it simple for yourself. Give yourself that gift. Choosing someone who you trust the love with. You trust cares about you. You trust knows you. You trust your caring. And with some interest or curiosity to explore this further, bring that person right here close in. So you can see his or her eyes, face.

See the expression of this person when he or she is feeling close with you, is appreciating you, is happy or is in a mode of being very kind, generous, where there's positive feelings. Sense as well as you can what it's like to feel this person's loving, their care for you. As you sense this person's goodness, his or her capacity for love, for presence, just feel your care in a very visceral way for this person. Sense what you appreciate. See if you can feel into that,

invisible, yet alive place of connection, that field of loving that's there between you both, offering your care to this person, your prayer. Whatever wish arises naturally that you'd like to offer for their well-being. Imagine whispering it. imagine that person hearing you receiving it using the person's name as you express your wish we bring our attention from this other person our relationship with another to our relationship with our inner life to bring our care our presence to the life that's right here a poem for you by cassia Berman. She says, the mother of the universe refuses to let me worship her outside myself anymore.

She is withdrawn inside me and tells me if I want to know her. I have to come inside too, which is the last place I want to be. Although she's been telling me this for years, she's never gone to this extreme before of actually hiding inside me. If I want to love her, I can only do it by loving myself now. Just as we look the goodness in another to now reflect on the goodness that's right here inside this being. And you might, as a beginning of looking inward at goodness, look through the eyes of a loved one, just to experiment a little. Look through the eyes of someone that cares about you, at yourself.

Look to see your own innocence and purity, your humor, the aliveness of your mind, your capacity for loving. Notice what happens when you look through another's eyes at your own being. If you want to continue to experiment, you can look through the eyes of the Buddha, of Kuan Yin. Look through the wisest eyes, through the most awake heart that you can imagine, at the life that's right here. Bearing witness to yourself through your own awakened heart mind now. Seeing behind the conditioning to the goodness, it helps to look and sense your aspiration

that will remind you of your goodness. One part of awakening in the heart is to see basic qualities of awareness, of tenderness, of curiosity, and the other is to offer ourselves prayers of care. For many it's quite helpful just to put your hand on your heart, to let it be more intimate, this offering inward. You might experiment, and if you have your hand on your heart,

just to vary the pressure some so that you're communicating presence, communicating care. I'll just suggest some phrases and feel free to customize however you'd like. May I be filled with loving presence? As you hear a phrase, just visualize it and see if you can feel it from the inside out what your wish really is. May I be filled with loving presence. This moment, may I be filled with loving presence.

May I be held in loving presence? Sensing the possibility of this life being held in a field of light, of tenderness. May I be filled with loving presence, held in loving presence. May I be happy and visualize what that means to you. May I be happy? Sense that you really wish that for yourself. sense the possibility through your visual image, through a felt sense. May I be happy?

May I feel safe? May I touch great natural peace? Feel your sincerity in offering the wish? Visualize. Let there be a felt sense. Truly offer yourself something now. May I feel safe. May I touch great sense.

and natural peace. May this heart and mind awaken and be free, again, sensing the realness of your wish, that this matters. And whatever image or felt sense comes with it, may I be filled with loving presence, held in loving presence. What's the image? For some, it may be a sense of light and warmth just pouring into you, being held in that field of tenderness, let the phrases bring it alive for you, filled with loving presence, held in loving presence. May I be happy? Feel your own caring for yourself and offering the prayer. May I be happy, just the kindness in that. May I feel safe. May I touch great and natural peace. May this heart and mind awaken and be free.

Allowing yourself now to let all the senses be open and just to inhabit open-heartedness. Just to let every cell light up with it, the spaces between the cells, sensing who you are when the heart is really awake, innocent, tender, caring, just noticing if there's any boundary, to this space, this heart space,

bringing to mind that dear one, the person you reflected on sensing how that being lives in this heart space, filled with loving presence, sense how all those here are part of that heart space, radiant, empty of any center, our solidity or ice-cubness, vast.

And we close by sensing this shared field that we're in as truly being edgeless that when we wake up these hearts we really wake up to a boundless space of loving to this fundamental goodness that like the sun radiates in all directions

offering our prayer to all beings everywhere that all beings might be filled with loving presence feel held in loving presence, that all beings might know loving presence as their very essence, that all beings everywhere be happy, that all beings touch a great and natural peace, that all beings everywhere awaken and be free. Namaste and blessings. Thank you.