Tara Brach - Meditation: RAIN on Self-Blame (2019-04-17)

Episode Date: May 23, 2019

Meditation: RAIN on Self-Blame (2019-04-17) - One of the greatest roots of suffering is being at war with ourselves. This meditation, based on the acronym RAIN (recognize-allow-investigate-nurture), guides us in releasing the armoring of blame, and relating to our inner life with greater understanding and compassion. For more resources on RAIN: www.tarabrach.com/rain/.

The following meditation is led by Tara Brock. To access more of my meditations or join my email list, please visit tarabrock.com. This is a brief reflection on bringing rain, the mindfulness and compassion of rain to self-blame. And a way to begin is to scan your life. You scan today, scanned the last few days, perhaps, and notice where you have felt caught in some form of blame, where you've been anxious about non-perfection.

It might be to do with falling short at work or parenting, the partner, just the way you interacting with people that you feel has created distance. So this is that inquiry, how have I been relating to myself? Where have I been harsh? Where have I been withholding or cynical towards myself, jaded, angry, impatient, demeaning? And as you scan, let your intention be to meet what you encounter with a wise and compassionate presence. So this is the scan, kind of a forgiveness scan where you see where you've turned to you on yourself and then we begin with rain, the rain on self-blame by recognizing a place where

that's happened. This might recognize some of the more predominant features of it, you know, what it is you're judging. And as you recognize the landscape, for now it's a low. Create a sense of, okay, just letting it be here, letting it be here. This is part of bringing what's been a trance above the line so that you can really shine the light of awareness, just to let it be here. And you can begin to investigate.

Investigate means just to sense more fully how you experience in your body that self-blame. Maybe there's some beliefs of I'm falling short, I'll never be who I want to be, I'm hurting other people, I'm hurting myself, I'm stuck, whatever the beliefs are, but feel how the beliefs live in your body. Let yourself feel your throat, your chest, your belly and it even helps to put your hand on your heart and that'll help to keep your attention with you and this is the beginning actually of nurturing as you investigate just to sense okay where just this hurt inside and you might sense the squeeze of self-examination, and you might sense the squeeze of self-judgment, the sinking feeling, the aching feeling, the emptiness of it.

You might sense how long and how often it's like that and even in a broader sense how much that affects your life, investigating and sensing if there's a sadness about that. And what that place of that part of you that feels not okay, what it most needs right in this moment. It's really sensing your wisest, kindest self responding to this part, sending in some message of kindness or comfort, and feel your sincere intention to be kind towards this place inside you. And even if you don't feel kind, sense your intention to offer kindness, that there's some part of you that in a very deep and sincere way wants to bring a caring inward, letting yourself sense the space of kindness and presence that can arise, that

can hold what's there. And you might ask yourself, who would you be if you trusted your goodness? Who would you be if you sense there's nothing really wrong with me? How would your life be if you were without anxiety about non-perfection? You basically trusted okayness. The poet Dana Fault says, Why wait for your awakening? Would you hold back when the beloved beckons?

No, I can't step across the threshold you say, I'm not worthy, I'm afraid, and my motives aren't pure. Do you value your reasons for staying small, more than the light shining through the open door? Forgive yourself. Forgive yourself. Now is the only time you have to be whole. Now is the sole moment that exists

to live in the radiance of your true nature. Perfection is not a prerequisite for anything but pain. Please, oh please, don't continue to believe in your stories of separation and failure. This is the day of your awakening. Feel your breath and feel your heart. The Buddha said that this entire life arises from the tip of intention.

You might sense your intention right now in the deepest way, towards healing, towards freedom, freeing the heart from the barriers that keep us from truly being in love. day.