Tara Brach - Heart Meditation: Three Domains of Forgiveness (retreat) (2015-06-27)

Episode Date: July 17, 2015

Heart Meditation: Three Domains of Forgiveness (retreat) (2015-06-27) - Instruction and guided heart meditation on forgiveness from the 2015 IMCW Women's Retreat. Your support will enable us to continue to offer these talks freely. If you value them, I hope you will consider offering a donation at this time. Visit: www.tarabrach.com.

The following meditation is led by Tara Brock, meditation teacher, psychologist, and author. In the Buddhist teachings, the prerequisite to really fully waking up our hearts is the practice of forgiving, which means really to release any of our resistances to loving. the given being that each of us when we get hurt or wounded tightens or tenses around our heart. We kind of armor ourselves and push away at what we sense as the cause of harm. So this kind of averse of pushing away

comes in the form of hatred, anger, judgment. And most of us have some, and some of us have really, if we've been wounded badly, have very deep sense of, unforgiving of hardened armoring. So the practice of forgiveness isn't like a willful, okay, I'm going to let go of the armoring, but it's a willingness that comes out of a deep understanding that we're not free if our hearts are armored because not only are we in a kind of constant protective stance, but

we really can't let in and out love in a flowing way. So we intend towards forgiving. That's really what it comes down to. Out of some wisdom, some deep longing to be free, it's the intention to let down that armoring, knowing that whatever we resist persists, if we're resisting and pushing away at some perceived bad other, that sense of dividedness

and conflict is just to be. just perpetuated. And we also have that intuition that what we accept, we go beyond. In any moment that we open to and say, yeah, the wounds are here, and just let that be real without pushing away and covering it over with aversiveness.

In those moments we enlarge. In the moments of accepting, we come larger. One of the stories I've always loved about that comes from a movie that describes a ritual that happens in a part of one tribe in Africa when someone's murdered in a family. The killer's brought down to a river and the family goes down there and the killer's hands are tied and the family has to decide whether the killer is thrown into the river to drown are saved.

And if they decide that the killer should be thrown in and drowned as punishment, they have justice, but they don't have any freedom, any healing. But if instead they decide that not to have the killer punished with killing, in other words, to let go of the vengeance, they can start on the path of healing. and the coup, this tribe, say that vengeance is a lazy form of grief. That vengeance is a lazy form of grief. So vengeance includes any of the ways that even from the mild judgments to the deep resentments and hatreds,

when we're in that mode, we're not able to contact what's under it. We're not unable to contact the vulnerability and the woundedness and the grief that actually is the beginning of healing. So we forgive for the freedom of our own hearts. But as I mentioned, we can't will it. It actually, forgiving can be done prematurely, a kind of premature transcendence when we say, oh yes, I've forgiven that person, but we don't really let ourselves open to what's

gone on. So it's got a gradualness. And sometimes if the wound is deep we need the support of a healer, teacher, therapist, friend. Because to truly forgive means to enter the place of woundedness and open to it and feel it and find some space for it. So we'll do a practice today that's that I think is one of the most intuitively wise practices I know from the Buddhist tradition. It's three parts where we first ask for forgiveness and then we offer to ourselves and then offer to others. And it's one of those practices that you can't really do too much because wherever there's hardening at whatever level, wherever we're creating separation, it's an opportunity to soften.

Jogh M. Trunkh, Tibetan teacher, says that that's the whole practice, the whole path. It's to meet our edge and soften. And the places where we're holding judgment are an edge that create a real painful separation, not only from others, but from our own awakened heart. So it's in that spirit that we'll do the forgiveness practice together

because forgiveness practice can put us in touch with so much vulnerability and reactivity. It's often, often we accompany it with a kind of judgment that we're not doing it right or doing it well. We have some idea of how it should be. So I'd like to invite you to begin with the intention to this kind of attitude to really approach with an openness and without judging or adding something to the practice. Just a simple intention to see how much it's possible to awaken and open your heart in these moments.

I like to begin also with a kind of forgiveness sweep of my own body because the more embodied we are, the more alive and profound forgiving is. So to just let your awareness scan through your body and first sense if there's anything going on in your body that in some way you're resisting or tensing against that wants inclusion right now,

areas of discomfort, unpleasantness, See, if you can, with a real gentle kind of presence, just say this too. Soften around what's here. That includes tense muscles, because when we tense our muscles in a way, we're tensing against the moment. We're resisting the life that's here. So forgiving on a physical level means to de-condition that, uncondition that, relax. and allow the moment.

You might smile into your heart and sense the space in the heart area that allows whatever's here to be here. And we begin with a reflection of where we might have caused harm to another person. A truth for all of us is that at some point in our unconsciousness

and not knowing, in our habitual way of doing things, we cause harm. So it could be intentional or unintentional through our words, our actions. You might sense where this has been so to choose a person, a situation, and it might be current and ongoing also, where you sense that you've, somebody has felt hurt or rejected or misunderstood, neglected. As the person comes to mind, see if you've...

You can get closer in to sense the realness of what that person might be experiencing or have experienced. This requires allowing yourself to feel touched by that person's pain. Just being open, letting yourself sense the hurt, the feelings that other person might have had, and to mentally whisper that person's name. the classical language is I see or feel the pain that I've caused you and I ask your forgiveness, please forgive me. You can repeat it, slowly, really feeling presence behind the words.

You might imagine the person receiving the message, the sincerity of your message. I see and feel the pain I've caused you and I ask your forgiveness, please forgive me. Sense if you're open to feeling forgiven, continuing by turning the inquiry and reflection to yourself and sensing where you're armored against your own being in a judging, rejecting way. And it may be for having caused harm to this person

or there may be something else you'd like to work with, some way that you're at war with yourself. And then take some moments to sense what feels so wrong or bad about yourself, what causes you to be down on yourself. And it may be for a way you cause harm to another, or it may be a way that you cause harm towards yourself. Just sense the attitude or behavior,

whatever it is that you've done, thought, felt that you feel is unacceptable, unforgivable. The greed or the anger, the out-of-controlness, the offendedness that you don't like. And then see if you can deepen your presence and sense what's behind that. Sense how your leg is in a trap, how there's some fear, hurt, unmet need, yearning that's playing out, probably something very old and something very intense. Maybe it's a need to be safe, to not feel like you're wrong, to be in control and secure, to get love or understanding. Maybe it's the fear of being rejected. Sense the fear, the want, the unmet need. See if you can sense that from your

most wise and kind self, or look through the eyes of someone who's like a loving grandmother, so that you can see behind what seems unacceptable, the place that drives it, with sympathy, with kindness. We can transform our behaviors, but it doesn't come from punishment. It comes from understanding. See the pain behind the behavior. And from that place, see if you, you can offer a simple message of forgiveness. It might be I see the pain, fear that drove what feels unacceptable and I forgive myself. I might just be forgiven, forgiven. I like to use just the words forgiven, forgiven. It's this tenderness that doesn't want to keep punishing and pushing ourselves away. Forgiven, forgiven. And if it helps to put

your hand on your heart and for many that can deepen the experience as you offer some message of forgiveness. Please explore that. Forgiven, forgiven. And maybe there's a yes but or I don't deserve or maybe there's numbness like you're not connecting right now and you can say forgiven, forgiven to that too. so that your basic stance is one of deeply allowing what's going on. Forgiven, forgiven.

From the teachings of Bapuji, break your heart no longer. Each time you judge yourself, you break your heart. You pull away from the love that is the willspring of your vitality. Now the time has come your time to live, and to trust the goodness that you are. There's no evil, no wrong in you. Your true essence is pure awareness, aliveness, love. Let no one, no thing, no idea, obscure this truth.

If one comes, forgive it for its unknowing. Do not fight. Just relax and open and breathe into the goodness. that you are. We continue to widen the practice by now bringing to mind where we have been hurt or wounded by another and where we've armored our hearts. And again, this is pretty universal that we've all felt violated in some way, that another has misunderstood, are put us down, neglected, wounded, rejected. So you might sense where you'd like to bring your attention now,

where there's some, you've created a kind of chronic separation with being angry or rejecting of another, unforgiving of another, where you'd like to soften that. And when someone comes to mind, some event of being wounded, again let yourself lean in and get close in enough to remember and feel the pain that caused you to resist and block out and push away the other. The first part of this process of opening our hearts to another is to open our hearts with compassion to the pain that's right here.

So don't even bother with trying to forgive another until you've just sensed where the pain is, the feeling of being rejected, are not seen, or whatever it is, to, again, and if it helps to have your hand on your heart, please do, to let yourself start breathing into that place and letting yourself contact and be with the place of hurt, with as much kindness as you can.

It might be as you feel the wounded place, you offer a message that it needs to hear, of comfort. It could be simply, I'm here with you right now. Ticknaud Hans says, darling, I care about this suffering. Another message from one healer is, I'm sorry, and I love you. It could be just, it's okay. Just letting your own tenderness help to comfort. And if you feel like you need help, just call on the beloved in some form, the next, the next thing. natural world, the Buddha, Kwanian, a beloved friend, your dog, whatever form of kindness can help you to bring comfort to this wounded place. Let it pour in, let it bathe you. Notice what happens

when you bring compassion to the wounded place, how the sense of your own being opens some. It's from that place of increasing openness that you can begin to include in your awareness the other person and to look through the eyes of wisdom and see just as you did earlier with yourself how in that person's behavior their leg may have been in a trap of in some way fear, unmet needs, uncontrolled craving, that they too were driven in some way by something difficult. It's as you see past the mask of behaviors to that person's vulnerability, that you can begin to extend the message of forgiveness.

You might whisper the person's name and say, I see and feel. feel the pain you've caused me and I forgive you now or have not yet ready to forgive. It's my intention to forgive you, to include you also in my heart. And with a mindful attention, just bear witness to where you are right now. And again, that sweep of attention to see if you're in any way adding a judgment to the process, if you're being forgiving enough. or if you're even staying with the meditation or just see if there's any judgment that's crept in

because it's an opportunity to practice forgiven, forgiven, forgiven. And it's in that spirit that will just take some moments and just sense the potential of a truly inclusive heart, that edgeless heart that includes what's ever, arising in us, whatever's here belongs, this life, this weather, this inner weather. We can let it float, let it arise and dissolve in this tender space of loving presence. Sensing how the more awake and unconditionally present our heart, the more inclusive.

This is how the poet Rumi puts it out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and right to doing, there is a field. I'll meet you there. When the soul lies down in that grass, the world is too full to talk about. Ideas, language, even the phrase each other doesn't make any sense. Thank you for your presence for bringing your hearts to this. Namaste.