Tara Brach - Instruction & Meditation: A Forgiving Heart (from retreat) (2017-05-02)

Episode Date: May 18, 2017

Instruction & Meditation: A Forgiving Heart (2017-05-02) - A forgiving heart clears the way for giving and receiving love freely.  This talk and meditation explores where we have become habituated in blame towards ourselves and others, and a classic three part reflection that can loosen and release the armoring around our hearts. (a guided heart meditation at the 2017 IMCW Spring Retreat) Your support enables us to continue to offer these talks freely. If you value them, I hope you will consider offering a donation at this time at www.tarabrach.com/donation/. With gratitude and love, Tara  

The following meditation is led by Tara Brock. To access more of my meditations or join my email list, please visit tarabrock.com. This afternoon, the guided heart practice will be on forgiveness. I'd like to begin by just speaking for a few minutes and then we'll actually practice. When we've in some way been wounded or offended, we develop some hardening of skin around it or scabbing.

And just as with any limbic survival response, we need to do that. We need to protect ourselves. And like most of our limbic reactivity, if we keep on protecting beyond when it's necessary are needed, it then becomes suffering. Then we kind of go around with scabs that protect us from actually letting in light and love and giving out light and love. So the practice of forgiveness is to cultivate that capacity to let go when it's healthy to let go of the blames and the resentments and the armoring. When we're holding on to blame and resentment, hatred and anger, we're in a trance of sorts.

We're inside the narrative of a small, separate, wounded self. And so that's the lens that we're experiencing ourselves through the victim. And we're in a trance because we have a narrowed lens. that we're experiencing others through. We're seeing other as the oppressor or the enemy, bad other. The whole understanding of trance is it's a contraction, so we're not really experiencing reality directly. So in the Buddhist tradition, forgiveness is really the precursor

to all the other heart practices because it's not until we've done some letting go of that armoring that we can actually cultivate the other qualities of metta, loving kindness, Karuna, compassion, the full joy of other people's joy. I want to add that forgiveness is in a sense a subset of compassion. It's when we are able to open our hearts to the vulnerability or woundedness underneath the scabbling or armor that we can let it go. and then we're able to see others and open ourselves to their wounding, their woundedness.

There's a story that often in, you know, probably once a year I share, I haven't shared it that recently, that for me highlights really the possibility of forgiveness in a very dramatic way. Part of the reason I get drawn to it is because it occurred in Washington, D.C., and it's It's something that is in the news a lot in Washington, where a 14-year-old for no reason at all killed another young, a teen, to prove himself, to a gang. And then he was brought, he cord in his trial, the mother of the killed youth was there,

and she sat impassively through the whole proceedings. And then right after the verdict was read, she was staring at him, and she said, I'm going to kill you. And the youth was taken away to serve actually several years in a youth facility because she was too young, I think, to go to prison. So after the first half a year,

she went and visited him. And he didn't have other visitors. She bought him some snacks, that kind of thing. And then over the remainder of the time that he was there, she would make these visits and bring him things to eat or read or whatever. So near the end of the three-year sentence, she was visiting and she asked him where he was going to go when he got out.

And he was confused and uncertain what he was going to do. So she offered him a job in a friend's company. And then she asked him where he was going to live, and he didn't have anybody that he knew of. So she offered him a temporary use of a spare room in her house. For eight months he lived there, he ate her food and worked at the job. And then one evening she calls him into the living room to talk and sits down and he's kind of very, what's going to happen here.

And she says, do you remember in the courtroom when I said I was going to kill you? And he said, I sure do. And then she said, well, I did. I'm going to read you. I did not want the boy who could kill my son for no reason to remain alive on this earth. I wanted him to die. That's why I started to visit you and bring you things. That's why I got you the job and let you live here in my house.

That's how I said about changing you. And that old boy, he's gone. So now I want to ask you since my son is gone and that killer is gone if you'll stay here. I've got a room and I'd like to adopt you if you let me. And she became the mother of her son's killer, the mother he had never had. So when I share this, I can say I have no knowledge of how I would respond in those situations what I'd be capable of. And NAR do I feel like we should all feel like, oh, that's what I could do.

That's not really the point. The point is that there is that human potential to wake up in the midst of these circumstances circumstances and see past the veil. And when we're in trance we can't remember that others can grow and change, that others want to love and be loved. We can't remember the goodness when we're in blame mode. The aperture is really small. And in just the same way, when we're in blame mode, we've lost.

touch with our own greatness of heart. We're not living from the truth of who we are, our potential. So we practice forgiveness and forgiveness means to forgive or let go of the armoring. We practice and we can't will it. It just doesn't work. What we can do is enter with a quality of willingness, that there's some wisdom in each of us that knows that we're not free. Our hearts aren't free if we're living in judgment and blame. And when we do this practice for some of us, it could be that we're going to be really contemplating a very deep, deep wounding. And if it's traumatic and you haven't, you don't feel a sense of the reception.

sourcefulness to go there than I choose something smaller. Others will pick perhaps scenario where they just know they get tight and judgmental and it all counts. Sometimes we forget how the kind of chronic little judging and resenting creates a distance sometimes with those that we're close to that can span decades just because we haven't really stopped and haven't really gone under it to sense the part of ourselves that needs more attention. So we can't will it, but we can be willing. We can have an intention to free our hearts. So it's in that spirit that I invite you to practice.

And, yeah, sit however you feel comfortable so you can be awake at ease as you come into stillness, you might just scan through your body and notice if there's any place that can let go a little more that wants to just be released with as soon as you bring your awareness there you can soften some. When I'm doing heart practices I often like to use that image of a smile, not to impose a mood but rather it really sends a a message to our nervous system that we can relax our defenses. It helps us reconnect with a natural sense of openness, benevolence. So you might sense a smile spreading through the eyes, a slight smile at the mouth, smiling into the heart. So you're kind of visualizing

and having the felt sense of that curve of a smile, and sense the space that's there, not to get rid of anything, but the smile makes room for what's here. It's softening the belly and taking a few deep full breaths, feeling the breath go deep into the torso.

Much as described with radical compassion for forgiveness to be full, authentic, needs to be to be embodied, your body be awake. Just as a glass can be filled with water, this whole body can be filled with awareness. Hands, openness at the chest, softening the belly, feeling the feet, this field of sensation, this energy body right here. This forgiveness practice is an adaptation of the classical Buddhist forgiveness practice. It has a three parts and the first part is an asking for forgiveness. So I invite you to take some

moments to reflect and sense them where you might have caused injury to another, hurt another. Might have been intentionally or unintentionally. It might have been through your thoughts in attitudes or your words or behaviors and see if you can bring the image and sense of that person right close in so you can let yourself connect to the realness of the hurt to imagine image in to that person's experience a feeling in some way pushed away or put down or not seen, letting go of the protecting skin so that you can let yourself feel what it's like to let in the realness of the other person's hurt, including an awareness, any feelings of sadness or regret, our resistance or tightness, whatever's here, feeling it and still attending.

You're attending inwardly, attending to your sense of that person and the sufferer. there mentally whispering the message and you might start with their name. I see and feel the pain that I've caused you and I ask your forgiveness. Please forgive me. Being right here, feeling what's here again whispering the person's name in your mind. I see and feel the pain I've caused you. and I ask your forgiveness, please forgive me. And again, whispering the person's name, I see and feel the pain I've caused you, and I ask

your forgiveness, please forgive me. And just sense for yourself whether you can allow yourself to feel forgiven, regardless of what happens outside you, to feel forgiven. judging. I just see if that's possible. Which brings us to the next part of the practice, which is forgiving ourselves to scan and sense where you might not yet have forgiven yourself for something and it may be for injuring this person you are just reflecting on or there may be something else you want to bring your attention to. Some way that you've caused harm to yourself or others.

And it can be something ongoing too that you continue to judge yourself for. Taking some moments to sense what feels unforgivable, what feels like something that you can't accept. Sensing that is if you're watching a movie of yourself

and just to know that when we're pushing away a part of ourselves, there's a trance. So sense if you can look deeper what is it that might be driving the behavior, what might have caused you to act in the way that feels unacceptable, what hurt or fear or confusion, our pain just to understand more deeply sense that you could look through the eyes of the wisest part of yourself right now, to better understand what drove you or drives you.

Watch the hurt or fear that has you act in a way that feels not okay. Holding an awareness of vulnerability that's underneath the behavior. I invite you if it helps you to bring your hands to your heart as a deepening of this communication with yourself, whispering to your own being, I see and feel the harm that has happened. I see the pain and vulnerability underneath. And I forgive myself.

You might just whisper, forgiven, forgiven, to not hold against yourself any longer. And if you feel resistance coming up, offer forgiveness to that. This too, forgiven, forgiven, to be unwilling to hold against yourself any longer. forgiven, forgiven. It happens quite often during forgiveness practice

that we add the second or third arrow of, I'm not doing this right. So you might scan in the background to see if there's any judgment lurking or maybe it's very obvious. And then include that in awareness. Forgiven, forgiven. We now extend the practice

is to bring our hearts to a place where someone's caused us harm or injury. And this is true for all of us, that others in their unknowing and sometimes intentionally out of their fear, their woundedness, cause injury to us. So sense where this might be so in your life where you're still feeling that armoring of blame or anger, hatred, judgment, maybe something that's historical or something that's ongoing. And as you bring this to mind, let yourself as much as you feel is healthy for you,

come right close into the pain or suffering that has been caused to you. Have the person's face in your mind, their sound of their voice or a particular situation that you're replaying, to reconnect with what caused you to bring up the walls. And as you get in touch with the feeling of the wounding, you might let that person recede and pay complete attention to the place in you that feels hurt. And again, it can be helpful to deepen the process with yourself to have to have to

have your hands on your heart and bring your full attention to where are the wounded places. See if you can breathe with it, acknowledge it. This is really where the practice of radical compassion comes in to bring as much tenderness as possible in this moment to the place in you that's hurting. feels pushed down or pushed away or defiled, misunderstood, rejected, not seen. You might send a message to that place that you're here, you're listening, you're accompanying, sensing the possibility of really bathing this place with tenderness, bringing your most awake, loving heart.

to this place embracing bathing with love and it feels like you need support in that just to call on the source of loving in this whole universe maybe through a particular person

that's loving or deity just formless loving awareness let that pour through your hands right into your heart right into the place that most needs it sensing how when we meet a wounded place with love, it becomes a vast kind of tenderness, that you can begin to include in your attention now,

the person that brought in the suffering or triggered it, staying very much inhabiting a vast tenderness, looking through the eyes of your most awake, wise, high self. Some might consider the future self that, which is really manifesting fully, your wisdom, your compassion. Looking through those eyes and see the other person, see past the mask, to sense the vulnerability or fear or unmet,

need, loneliness, goodness that would drive that person to act in a way that was hurtful, that would blind them to the realness of your being. Ask the mask. See, the young place in that being had a need that was unmet, a fear, a confusion, a narrowness. And it's from this awake heart of yours, a future self or high self, that you can include that being in this tenderness, classic phrases whispering their name. I see and 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.

O this armoring and include you in my heart, whispering the person's name, I see and feel the harm you've caused me. And I forgive you now, or have not yet ready to forgive. It's my intention to release the armoring, to include you in my heart. The poet Rumi says, be ground. be crumbled so wildflowers will come up where you are. You've been stony for too many years.

Try something different. Surrender. Letting go of self and other, of injury, of any ideas of forgiveness. And just breathe into the space that's right here. Since your beingness, that tender, awake. awareness that's right here and if you sense floating in that beingness any judgments about how this meditation went again forgiven forgiven it's really okay be ground be crumbled so wild flowers will come up where you are you've been stony for

too many years. Try something different. Surrender. I'll continue in this stillness for the last couple of minutes, letting whatever arises be received in an open and tender heart. And may wildflowers grow where you are. Blessings.