Tara Brach - Meditation: Awakening the Heart - Giving and Receiving Loving Blessings (2016-03-02)

Episode Date: March 5, 2016

Meditation: Awakening the Heart - Giving and Receiving Loving Blessings (2016-03-02) - Our hearts awaken as we express and receive love in an embodied, conscious way. This guided practice brings our attention to dear ones in our life, and explores how we discover deep communion through offering and letting in love. "To love someone is to learn the song in their heart and sing it to them when they have forgotten." Arne Garborg 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/donate/. With thanks 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. We'll close with a meditation that to me is the most powerful training in Bodhita in a very immediate way, learning to offer that loving and receive it. Let's take a moment to sit however you're most comfortable, comfortable to close your eyes, take a nice full, deep breath, inhale and exhale.

Let the breathing be felt at the heart. You might imagine a smile spreading through your heart, a smile that allows you to sense the space that's there, not to cover over but just to have room for whatever you're feeling right now. And sense if there's any part of your being right now that is needing attention, needing kindness, needing care. Just scan and notice, for most of us we move through the day and we don't recognize that there are places in us that are feeling anxious or lonely,

sad, upset, off balance. Just notice what might want attention. And you might gently put your hand on your heart and feel that you're beginning to offer just from your own highest, wisest, kindest being, attention, presence, kindness. You might vary the touch so it feels tender, light, real. And see if you can invite the energy of this universe that is intrinsically kind and loving. Right here.

Just ask for and invite that love to be flowing and bathing through your hand into your body, bathing the place that most needs it. You might even sense the close in presence of love, loving awareness, the beloved, and imagine that blessing that you're being blessed with love for some to feel it as a kiss on the brow, a touch on the brow. So it's very intimate and immediate, the sense of taking taking in love and letting it wash through. It's a sense of space, the heart space that is always in a ready here opening and merging

with that loving presence around you. So it's really one big field of loving. And then bring to mind somebody in your life that you care about and you feel a connection with and imagine that you could bring them close in. so you can see them right here in front of you. You can see that person's eyes and the soul that looks through those eyes. You can see that person's vulnerability, where that person has experienced fear or disappointment,

hurt, insecurity. You can also sense the innate goodness, the sincerity and love, aliveness, awakeness that's there. You might imagine that person's eyes closing and that you just kiss that person on the brow, kiss that person on the brow and mentally whisper their name and just say, I love you or offer whatever blessing you'd like. The more you kinesthetically imagine kissing the brow, mentally whispering the person's name,

the more fully you can sense that offering of a blessing. And then imagine that you're closing your eyes and that person is offering you the same loving blessing by kissing you on your brow, whispering your name and saying, I love you to you. And see if you can let yourself receive that blessing. And sensing the field of loving that exists between you

that's beyond any sense of separate self, this field of bodichita. We'll bring to mind one more person, somebody else that you feel care for, some connection with. Again, seeing the person's vulnerability, right in front of you, seeing those eyes and realness of that person, natural fears, losses, what this person lives with, and also, their goodness, what brings up your loving, your care, imagining, offering them a blessing as they close their eyes in some way kissing them on the brow, touching them, mentally whispering their name and saying, I love you, and exploring, receiving the blessing of love. Your eyes closed, sensing that person kissing your brow, saying, I love you.

whispering your name, and relaxing open to feel that field of loving. To love someone is to learn the song in their heart and to sing it to them when they have forgotten. To offer these blessings of love, to receive them, wakes up the radiance of our heart, Bodichita. And it closed in a simple way by feeling that field of loving presence, that heart space, that we all belong to, that's really the source of our beings. May all beings everywhere realize their very nature as loving presence.

May all beings live from loving presence. May all beings touch a great and natural peace. May all beings awaken bodichita and be free. Namaste.