Tara Brach - Meditation: Tonglen - Discovering the Boundless Space of Compassion (2020-07-25)

Episode Date: August 4, 2020

Meditation: Tonglen - Discovering the Boundless Space of Compassion (2020-07-25) - This short version of the Tibetan Tonglen practice guides us in courageously opening to the suffering within us and all beings, and allowing that suffering to be held in the formless heartspace that is our true belonging (recorded during Tara's livestreamed Satsang QA session).

The following meditation is led by Tara Brock. To access more of my meditations or join my email list, please visit tarabrock.com. If you'd like to close your eyes and just take a moment to find yourself sitting in a way that's awake, relaxed, take a moment to settle. And as you do, become aware of the movement of your breath. Let your attention ride the breath.

And imagine and sense with the in-breath that you're letting in this world, you're letting yourself be touched by this world. You're opening to receive. You're saying yes to this world. And in a very particular way you're saying yes and opening to touch what we often don't want to feel, the pain that's here. You might start by even feeling as you breathe in that you're touching into your own pain. how your heart is experiencing the world because it really helps the circles of compassion.

We start right with the inner circle where we feel fear or confusion and just breathe in and it's like you're saying yes to it. It's like a continuation of saying this belongs. And if it helps put your hand on your heart to keep a steady attention, just breathing in saying yes, touching what's here. And with the out breath, imagine and sense that you're letting it be held by the vast loving presence in this universe. You're letting it be held by all the ancestors that have created and brought forth what's right here. You're letting it be held by all the awake hearts in this world, by all the goodness in this world. You're letting it be held by this vast earth and by this boundless sky so that you can breathe in and touch a pain

that's right here. And you can breathe it out and know that it's being held in your own enlarged being, the loving presence, that has no bound. And you can begin to breathe in and out for others too and for groups of others that have experienced the particular and horrific violence that we see on this earth when those in the non-dominant populations lower in the caste system are wounded so severely. You can breathe in for black, indigenous, people of color. You can breathe in for the women across the planet that have been dominated and abused, for those different sexual orientation, for anyone, any being anywhere that has been dominated, has experienced injustice and violence.

You can breathe in and open yourself to that pain. Let it belong. And you can breathe out and let it be held by the love and presence in this world. let it be held. You might imagine hundreds of us breathing in and out in this way, touching courageously the sufferings in our world and realizing that wisdom realization that this belongs to awareness, that we belong to awareness, that we are that shared heart space that can hold the sufferings of this world and transform them and is bringing your attention back right here to this moment. Just feel your breath, feel your body sitting here, and feel the

goodness of that love and awareness that lives through this particular body mind. And you can open your eyes as you feel ready. I want to thank each of you for being part of this. You held a beautiful space together for each other. Blessings.