Meditations that Free the Heart Archives - Tara Brach: Recent Episodes
Meditations that Free the Heart Archives - Tara Brach
Experiencing our aliveness through our senses is the gateway to resting in formless loving presence. This meditation guides us to awakening through our body, and recognizing the backdrop of silence, of awake awareness, that is the source of all being.
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In the midst of difficulty we need access to our deepest wisdom and love. This guided meditation calls forth this loving presence by opening to the heart and spirit of whatever being in our life we most experience as calm, wise and compassionate.
How do we find that inner place of calm in the midst of the storm?
And when your body has become still,
reach out with your heart.
Know that we are connected
in ways that are terrifying and beautiful.
(You could hardly deny it now.)
Know that our lives
are in one another’s hands.
(Surely, that has come clear.)
Do not reach out your hands.
Reach out your heart.
Reach out your words.
Reach out all the tendrils
of compassion that move, invisibly,
where we cannot touch.Lynn Ungar 3/11/20, Pandemic
Image credit: Donna JS Russo
The post Meditation: Calling on Your Awakened Heart (23:33 min.) appeared first on Tara Brach.
Experiencing our aliveness through our senses is the gateway to resting in formless loving presence. This meditation guides us to awakening through our body, and recognizing the backdrop of silence, […]
The post Meditation: Embodied Spirit (16:54 min.) appeared first on Tara Brach.
Our deepest wisdom and purest actions arise out of open-hearted presence. This meditation, a compassion practice or tonglen, is drawn from the Tibetan tradition and carries us home to the […]
The post Meditation: Compassion Practice – Tonglen (23:39 min.) appeared first on Tara Brach.
This heart meditation guides us in how to cultivate a deep quality of friendliness in relating to our inner life and each other. The gift of this practice is a […]
The post Heart Meditation: Loving Kindness – Befriending our Lives (27:22 min.) appeared first on Tara Brach.
Taking in the Goodness: Rumi said, “Whenever some kindness comes to you, turn that way – toward the source of kindness.” This meditation guides us to look for the source […]
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This brief meditation is a version of the Tibetan Tonglen practice: With the support of the breath we allow ourselves to open to the realness of suffering, and then offer […]
The post Meditation: Suffering and Compassion (8:07 min.) appeared first on Tara Brach.
Lovingkindness becomes full when it is energetically experienced in our bodies. This meditation guides us in awakening the receptivity, warmth and openness of metta through our body, and then invites […]
The post Meditation: Embodied Metta (19:36 min.) appeared first on Tara Brach.
In this short practice we connect with our aspiration to live from love, and then bring a caring presence to our own vulnerability, to a dear one, and to all […]
The post Meditation: Embracing Life with an Open Heart (11:54 min.) appeared first on Tara Brach.
In the midst of difficulty we need access to our deepest wisdom and love. This guided meditation calls forth this loving presence by opening to the heart and spirit of […]
The post Guided Meditation for Times of Pandemic: “Calling on Your Awakened Heart” (23:44 min.) appeared first on Tara Brach.
This heart meditation guides us in how to cultivate a deep quality of friendliness in relating to our inner life and each other. The gift of this practice is a […]
The post Guided Heart Meditation: Loving Kindness – Befriending our Lives (27:22 min.) appeared first on Tara Brach.
Our self-protective habits of resentment and blame block intimacy and connection with ourself and others. This short talk and meditation are an invitation to deepen our understanding of the suffering […]
The post Short Talk & Guided Heart Meditation: Releasing Blame (retreat) (41:39 min.) appeared first on Tara Brach.
This meditation explores the meaning of forgiveness and its role in healing and transformation. We then are guided in a forgiveness practice that helps us release the armoring of blame, and inhabit an inclusive and open heart (given at the Fall 2019 IMCW 7-Day Silent Retreat).
The post Short Talk and Guided Heart Meditation – Releasing Blame (retreat)(37:50 min.) appeared first on Tara Brach.
This meditation introduces the domain of “heart practices” and then guides us in how to cultivate a deep quality of friendliness in relating to our inner life and each other. The gift of this practice is a direct sense of belonging – knowing that we can never be alone (given at the Fall 2019 IMCW 7-Day Silent Retreat).
Photo: Jon McRay
The post Short Talk and Guided Heart Meditation – Loving Kindness – Befriending our Lives (39:29 min.) appeared first on Tara Brach.
Often, when we’re really struggling, the only way to find compassion for ourselves is by reaching out to a larger source of love. We might for instance take refuge by calling on the Buddha, Divine Mother, God, Jesus, Great Spirit, Shiva, or Allah – reaching towards a loving awareness that is great enough to offer comfort and safety to our wounded self.
When we feel held by a caring presence, by something larger than our small frightened self, we begin to find space in our heart for the difficult currents of our life, and for the lives of others. The suffering that might have seemed “too much” can now awaken us to the sweetness of compassion. [Note: recorded during an IMCW 7-day silent retreat]
In French: Inviter la Présence bienveillante
The post Meditation: Calling on Loving Presence (18:18 min) appeared first on Tara Brach.
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.
NOTE: This meditation is a favorite from the archives – from the end of the talk, “Bodhichitta – The Awakened Heart – Part 2.”
“To love someone is to learn the song in their heart and sing it to them when they have forgotten.” Arne Garborg
To offer these blessings of love, to receive them, wakes up the radiance of our heart – Bodhichitta.
We close in simple way by feeling that field of loving presence, that heartspace 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 Bodhichitta and be free.
Namaste
The post Meditation: Awakening the Heart – Giving and Receiving Loving Blessings (10:59 min.) appeared first on Tara Brach.