Tara Brach - Instruction & Meditation: Tonglen - Radical Compassion (retreat talk)

Episode Date: June 7, 2018

Instruction & Meditation: Tonglen - Radical Compassion (retreat talk) - We are conditioned to avoid suffering - our own and others. By pulling away, we also contract our heart and disconnect from our innate capacity for compassion. This short talk and meditation is a training in touching vulnerability, and discovering the boundless heartspace that can be a transformer of sorrows. (from the Spring 2017 IMCW Spring 7-day Silent Retreat - previously unpublished)

The following meditation is led by Tara Brock. To access more of my meditations or join my email list, please visit tarabrock.com. Exploring the heart practice of compassion today. And when you consider radical compassion or living compassion to major components and one that it's embodied, that there's a visceral quality of tenderness. And the other main quality is that it's all-inclusive,

which means that as we open and feel that tenderness for one expression of suffering, it's really a tenderness that has a vast quality that includes all suffering everywhere. And so practices that cultivate radical compassion are actually practices of undoing our resistance to contacting vulnerability. The alchemy of compassion is that arises naturally when we allow ourselves to connect with the vulnerability that's here.

So the compassion practices actually undo the resistance, and there's another undoing, which is, the grasping that has us keep on holding on to experience versus letting it really be held by the wholeness of being. So compassion practice is undue grasping too. And to me, the practice that is most powerful in the domain of compassion is some variation of the Tonglin practice, which is a Tibetan practice. It's formally described as taking in and offering out, and for many people using the breath as a key kind of way to practice,

with Tonglin is powerful, and for some people it's not, so you'll have that option as we go. So feel free to adjust how you're sitting, if that's helpful, find the position that you think will allow you to be at ease and also alert and like to set the grounds of art practices with this earthy body of ours, softening in ways that we can actually feel an embodied meta, using the imagery and felt sense of a smile. So I invite you to do that by first envisioning the curve of a smile spreading through a great,

open, brilliant blue sky, sensing that openness and vastness of a smile, bred through the sky, and sensing that your mind can merge with that sky. So if your top of your head opens out and just sense that mind-like sky, sky of awareness filled with the curve of a smile. That's the openness and the receptivity and brightness of that mind. Sensing that curve of a smile, lifting up the outer corners of the eyes, spreading through the eyes, let the flesh around the eyes soften,

and the brow be smooth. A slight smile at the mouth, inside of the mouth smiling. All the micro-muscles of the face can begin to relax. Again, that sense of reception. susceptivity, the eyes smiling, the mouth, visualizing and sensing a smile spreading through the throat. You can feel with the breath, the breath touching the throat, and the curve of a smile helping

to create space for the aliveness that's there. The eyes soft, smiling, the mouth, the throat, a smile to spread through the heart and chest area, going into the heart. and sensing the space that can include whatever's here, tender, receptive, open, eyes, the throat, and sensing the rings of opening outward that can include the shoulders, letting the shoulders relax. The hands are soft, open, vibrating, allowing that smile to feel the whole upper torso, and visualizing and sensing the curve of a smile through the belly. I'm feeling that from the inside out.

A space that has room for the life that's here. Filling the breath more deeply in the torso. Visualizing and sensing the curve of a smile spreading through the whole pelvic region and opening to the energy and aliveness that's there. And then at the base of the spine, that curve of a smile, Right? Where you're contacting, seat, chair, cushion. Imagine allowing the earth energy to flow up into that vase of a smile and upward through

your whole body, energy and openness and receptivity. The whole body is filled vibrating with the spirit and sense of a smile and sensing the space around you also filled with the full. that brightness and openness. You might begin by exploring Tonglin with the breath and let it drop away if it's not of support to just beginning to bring the attention to the in-flow and outflow of the breath but feeling the heart, feeling just if you're breathing right at the heart and taking some moments to scan and sense if there's any

part of your being that's calling for a healing attention. If there's anything in the background going on in your life that is expressing in your body, your heart, has hurt or woundedness or fear or sorrow, something unresolved, some conflict, some aggression towards others, or judgment, hurtfulness towards yourself. yourself.

If you find there isn't something that wants attention that's causing any suffering, then you can just practice with whatever's predominant. But if there is letting the situation be very close in so you can get in touch with it. And this is where the story can be a skillful means that you let the story of what's happening run a little in your mind. If there's a situation, let's say it involves other people, see the person clearly, hear what was being said. So you're going right to a scene where you feel most what has triggered what's going on in you and freeze it where you get most stuck, finding where that stuck place lives as vulnerability in your brain, you're

body, you might check your throat, your chest, your belly. You begin to sense with the in-breath that you're agreeing or allowing yourself to fully touch what's here. Whatever part of you's most needing attention, whatever you perhaps have been unwilling to feel fully. With the in-breath, it's like saying yes. I'm touching you and connecting with you. feeling it in the body.

You need more to help you get in touch with the feelings of vulnerability you might sense, well, what's the worst part of this? What am I afraid of? What's most upsetting? What am I believing is wrong? And then again, come right to the body. Sense where it's the strongest and breathe right into that place. Letting the breath help you to contact directly and intimately what's here.

And if it helps to bring your hands to your heart or your throat or your belly, to help bring the attention, so if you're sending a message, I'm here, I'm contacting this, your hands help you. With the in-breath, you're actually investigating and feeling into what's there, right into the heart of it, the core of it. I have a courageous willingness to touch what's most difficult. And with the out-breath, there's a sense of how to have to be a courageous willingness to touch what's most difficult. But the out breath, there's a sense of having what you're experiencing, this vulnerability,

be held or offered into a very vast space of tenderness. Imagine this as a field of love and presence that's your own most awake heart. Imagine as a universal field that is in some way the heart of the beloved, Kuan Yin, God, Jesus, great spirit, you're offering the vulnerability to be held in the truth of living, open compassion with each in-breath touching what's right here, with each out-breath, sensing that you can offer it into love. You might find that there's some words that go with that. May you feel safe. May you know your belonging. May you realize the truth of who you are.

May you be free of fear. May you experience your fearless heart. Whatever words or message or prayer resonates in some way sensing the vulnerability that's here being held in the arms of the beloved. And now widening the attention to imagine others who are experience this same kind of pain or suffering. Others here, others in the world. So as you breathe in, you're breathing in for all of us, breathing in all of our vulnerability, the collective suffering, letting yourself be touched by the realness of our shared suffering. Visualize others sense the reality of the collective suffering. And with the output, breath, your heart's like a flow through to transform the suffering in the world with

the out-breath sense offering into the boundless space of loving presence, that there's room for this. It can be held. Become a flow-through, a transformer of suffering. We continue our practice. The invitation is to bring someone to mind in your life. who could use your healing energy right now, someone you care about, that you'd like to bring your presence to, include in your heart more directly.

Let that person be close in right now so you can see their eyes and see what they look like when they're having a hard time and remind yourself of what's going on. really sense in their face, their posture, their voice, if you can hear it, how the fear, or disappointment or hurt, sorrow is living through them. And then begin, again, with the breathing, to breathe in and let yourself touch and bring into your own being and feel directly that vulnerability as if they're inside you and you can breathe in and feel how they're living inside you.

You can sense what it's like to be in this being, looking through those eyes, feeling with that heart. And as you breathe out, sense that you can offer that pain and vulnerability, have it held in a very vast, healing, compassionate presence. Sense with the out-breath your prayer for this person. You might offer it with the out-breath. and sense how this space of compassionate presence is large enough, that you can breathe in and directly feel the angst or hurt or pain.

Breathe out, be a flow-through, let it be held in this empty, radiant, tender heart space. Vastness you might sense exactly what this person most needs to feel from you and imagine energetically that flavor of loving, bathing them, surrounding them, holding them, letting them know your heart is truly with them, widening the attention to sense all those that are struggling and suffering just as this person is. Think of others, particular others you know. And since breathing in and letting yourself be touched by that collision. collective suffering.

And you're breathing in for all those that suffer in this way, into this tender, open heart and being a flow-through, breathing out and sensing it, being offered into absolute boundless, loving space, healing space, sensing your prayer for all these beings. And sensing we're breathing in and breathing out, cease to be able. distinguish that there's just this open heart space, that the life everywhere is floating in it, this boundless heart space that holds all of life so that as you continue in the silence and stillness, whatever arises can be received in that compassionate process. It's the closing prayer, and it's by Diane Ackerman.

The name of daybreak and the eyelids of morning, and the wayfaring moon and the night when it departs. I swear I will not dishonor my soul with hatred, but offer myself humbly as a guardian of nature, as a healer of misery, as a messenger. of wonder as an architect of peace in the name of the sun and its mirrors and the day that embraces it and the cloud veils drawn over it in the uttermost night and the crowning seasons of the firefly and the apple I will honor all life wherever and in whatever form it may dwell on earth my home and in the mansions of the stars. Amosthay and blessings.