Meditations that Free the Heart
Guided Meditation: Loving This Life – Happiness – Metta (17:05 min.)
This guided meditation, grounded in the practice of Metta, invites us to awaken the heart by softening the body and quieting the mind. We begin with the simple image of a...
Heart Meditation: Taking in the Goodness (24:08 min.)
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 of...
Heart Meditation: Taking in the Goodness (24:08 min.)
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 of...
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Meditation: Calling on Your Awakened Heart (23:33 min.)
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...
Meditation: Compassion Practice – Tonglen (23:39 min.)
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...
Heart Meditation: Loving Kindness – Befriending our Lives (27:22 min.)
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 direct sense of...
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Meditation: Suffering and Compassion (8:07 min.)
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 it into...
Meditation: Embracing Life with an Open Heart (11:54 min.)
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 beings everywhere. ...
Guided Heart Meditation: Loving Kindness – Befriending our Lives (27:22 min.)
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 direct sense of...
Short Talk & Guided Heart Meditation: Releasing Blame (retreat) (41:39 min.)
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...
Short Talk and Guided Heart Meditation – Releasing Blame (retreat) (37:50 min.)
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...
Short Talk and Guided Heart Meditation – Loving Kindness – Befriending our Lives (39:29 min.)
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...
Meditation: Calling on Loving Presence (from retreat) (18:18 min)
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...
Meditation: Awakening the Heart – Giving and Receiving Loving Blessings (10:59 min.)
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...
Meditation: Relaxing Back into Living Presence (18:55 min.)
When we are lost in thoughts our mind contracts, our body tightens and we disconnect from true openheartedness. The pathway home is through “relaxing back” and reopening our...
Meditation: Awakening the Heart – Giving and Receiving Loving Blessings (11:07 min.)
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...
Retreat Short Talk & Meditation: Loving Kindness – Awakening and Expressing Our Heart (36:50 min.)
This short talk and guided meditation remind us that we each have the capacity to awaken our hearts. We explore together the lovingkindness (metta) meditation, and emphasize...
Meditation: Blessings of Love (11:28 min)
A blessing is whatever reminds us of the sacred loving presence that shines through all of us. This meditation is a transformational practice in receiving and offering blessings....
Short Talk & Meditation: Forgiving and Freeing Our Hearts (36:53 min)
Forgiveness for others becomes possible when we’ve held our own being with great compassion. This short talk and guided meditation brings forth our most awake and tender presence...
Short Talk & Meditation: Tonglen – Radical Compassion (32:43 min)
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...
New Year’s Meditation: Awakening Loving Presence (22:27 min.)
Loving presence is an innate capacity, and it can be cultivated. This meditation begins with a scan arousing a relaxed tender presence in the body, then brings loving attention...
Meditation: Blessings of Love (11:26 min)
A blessing is whatever reminds us of the sacred loving presence that shines through all of us. This meditation is a transformational practice in receiving and offering blessings....
Reflection: Transforming Suffering & Awakening the Heart (12:45 min.)
[Excerpt from Darkness of the Womb – Four Key Steps in Transforming Suffering a talk given on January 25, 2017.] [read the full transcript: Darkness of the Womb: Four Key Steps...
Instruction & Meditation: A Forgiving Heart (36:04 min) (retreat)
A forgiving heart clears the way for giving and receiving love freely. This talk and meditation explores where we have become habituated in blame towards ourselves and others,...
Guided Heart Meditation: Loving Presence (from retreat) (34 min)
This meditation introduces the loving-kindness (metta) heart practice. After brief instruction, it begins with scanning the body, filling it gradually with the image of a smile....
Heart Meditation: Awakening Loving Presence (35:24 min)
We each have an intrinsic capacity for loving presence, and there are powerful ways of paying attention that bring this potential alive. This meditation uses the image and felt...
Heart Meditation: Taking In the Goodness (24:56 min)
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 of...
Meditation: Awakening Compassion (11:35 min)
Meditation: Awakening Compassion with Tonglen ~ Our hearts awaken as we let ourselves be touched by the suffering within and around us. They shine as we respond with care to what...
Reflection: Deepening the Truths We Share (8:32 min)
Our capacity for love grows as we practice deepening the truths we share with each other. This short reflection offers guidance in how to bring your presence and heart to truth...
Meditation: Your Future Self – Accessing the Wisdom of Your Heart (7:17 min)
When we are cut off from our natural love and wisdom, there’s a way home. This meditation guides us to a visit with our future self, and reveals a pathway to our awakened,...
Meditation: Guided Heart Forgiveness (28:50 min)
Tara gives brief instructions on the forgiveness practice, then guides us through a process of forgiveness of ourselves and others. "Forgiving is a movement of your heart not to...
Meditation: Awakening the Heart – Giving and Receiving Loving Blessings (11:21 min)
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...
Meditation: Blessings of Love (11:31)
A blessing is whatever reminds us of the sacred loving presence that shines through all of us. This meditation is a transformational practice in receiving and offering blessings....
Meditation: The RAIN of Compassion (34:54 min) (from retreat)
This new version of the acronym RAIN is a powerful way of bringing compassion to the life within you, and to attuning and deepening compassion for others. Given at the 2015...
Meditation: The RAIN of Self-Compassion (10:42 min)
This meditation is included at the end of the RAIN of Self-Compassion talk. This talk explores three key features of the trance of unworthiness and introduces this guided...
Heart Meditation: Loving Presence (33:55 min)
Scanning the body, filling it with the image of a smile, meditation continues with loving presence of someone easy to love, our own being, and offering care to others. - from...
Guided Meditation: Radiant Empty Heart (38:02 min)
an open focus meditation from the 2015 IMCW fall week long retreat
Heart Meditation: Letting Go of Judgment (18:10 min)
from the IMCW 2015 Labor Day Retreat
Heart Meditation: Three Domains of Forgiveness (34:14 min)
...with instruction from the 2015 IMCW Women's Retreat.
Meditation: Forgiving Ourselves and Others (34:16 min)
guided heart practice on forgiveness of ourselves and others - with instructions (from 2015 IMCW Spring Retreat)
Retreat Meditation: Forgiving Ourselves and Others (32:56 min)
Instruction and guided heart forgiveness practice from the 2014 IMCW New Year's Retreat.
Guided Meditation – “Loving Kindness” (22:10 min)
Loving kindness—embracing ourselves and all beings with a full and tender loving presence.
Guided Meditation (without instructions) – “Lovingkindness (Metta)” (29:50 min.)
Guided Meditation: Lovingkindness—embracing ourselves and all beings with a full and tender loving presence.
Meditation – Loving This Life – Happiness (Metta Practice) (16:30 min)
This meditation focuses on cultivating a sense of friendliness and openness through the imagery of a smile, allowing the mind and body to relax and soften. It encourages being...
Guided Meditation – “Guided Forgiveness Practice” (29:08 min)
Meditation – “Compassion Practice – Tonglen” (28:49 min)
Our deepest wisdom and purest actions arise out of open-hearted presence. This meditation, “Awakening Compassion,” is drawn from the Tibetan tradition and carries us home to the...
Guided Meditation – “Loving Kindness” (22:10 min)
Guided Meditation - Loving Kindness ~ Loving kindness—embracing ourselves and all beings with a full and tender loving presence.
Guided Meditation – “Loving This Life – Happiness (Metta Practice)” (16:30 min.)
This guided meditation, based on Metta practice, focuses on cultivating happiness and loving-kindness by softening the body and mind, beginning with the imagery of a smile. It...
Guided Forgiveness Meditation (11:23 min)
NOTE: an excerpt from the end of the "A Forgiving Heart" talk on 2/26/2014. Includes a poem from Rumi at the end.
Guided Meditation: Metta (Lovingkindness) (11:48 min)
Guided Meditation: Metta (Lovingkindness) - Short heart meditation from the end of the talk, "Part 1: Universal Faces of Love" (audio and video)
Guided Meditation – “Compassion Practice – Tonglen” (37:10 min.)
Our deepest wisdom and purest actions arise out of open-hearted presence. This meditation is drawn from the Tibetan tradition and carries us home to the vastness of loving...
Meditation: “Taking Refuge in the Beloved” (23:01 min)
Meditation on taking refuge in the beloved - calling on love as a resource.
Guided Forgiveness Practice (from fall 2013 IMCW retreat)
Instructions, then a guided forgiveness meditation.
Guided Meditation – “Guided Forgiveness Practice” (with instructions) (32:05 min.)
from the IMCW 2013 Fall retreat. Instructions included prior to practice.
Guided Meditation – “Guided Forgiveness Practice” (29:08 min.)
Introduction to the Heart Practices (instruction and meditation from retreat) (39:55 min.)
These instructions on the heart practices were given at the IMCW 2012 Spring Retreat. A guided lovingkindness or “metta” meditation to open the heart, call on love, and come home to presence follows.
Introduction to the Heart Practices (35:55 min)
Instructions on the heart practices from the IMCW 2012 Spring Retreat - a guided lovingkindness or "metta" meditation to open the heart, call on love, and come home to presence...
Guided Meditation (with instructions) – “Lovingkindness (Metta)”
Tara leads a guided Metta meditation with instructions.
Guided Meditation (without instructions) – “Lovingkindness (Metta)”
A guided Lovingkindness (Metta) meditation from Tara.
Guided Meditation – Metta Practice (30:53 min.)
Metta (Lovingkindness) practice - embracing ourselves and all beings with a full and tender loving presence.