Nova Franklin

Australia

Breathe into your heart space to cultivate tenderness, release tension, and embrace an undefended heart.

Health & Happiness

Presence

Buddhism

Guided Imagery

Traditions

Visualization

English

This practice is designed to bring us back into awareness, connection with, and openness to our own hearts: to the beautiful, most tender parts of ourselves we often hide or cover up, and to remember what it feels like to live and breath openly.

"The mind is like tofu, it tastes like what you marinate it in." -Sylvia Boorstein

Marinate your mind in the softness, tenderness, and receptivity of the heart and stay curious about how the world begins to feel off the cushion.



This practice is designed to bring us back into awareness, connection with, and openness to our own hearts: to the beautiful, most tender parts of ourselves we often hide or cover up.

Heart Breathing Practice

 Hello and welcome. This meditation is a practice of heart breathing, one designed to bring us back into contact and connection with the energy, the feeling tones, the tenderness, the space of your own heart. And so I'll invite you as you find your way to practice today to find whatever looks like a comfortable posture position for your body. Taking a seat on the meditation cushion or in a chair. Maybe ruffling your feathers a bit as you arrive, finding a little bit of movement through the body that allows the spine to become long and tall. Placing the shoulders softly over the hips and the ears over the shoulders. Arriving in a posture that feels dignified, uplifted, awake. And then as well inviting a sense of ease into the body. Letting any tension in the muscles gently melt and soften. You can imagine perhaps the perfect balance between a strong back and a soft front. It can be helpful as we begin the practice just to acknowledge to the mind that for this next little while there's nowhere else to be. There's nothing else to do. Today in this moment you're giving yourself this gift of rest, of ease, of stillness. Letting the eyebrows begin to unfurl, relaxing through the jaw. Maybe getting a sense of and feeling the weight of the tongue in the mouth. Inviting the shoulders to melt down and away from the ears with a sense of heaviness and rest. Softening into the hands. And peeling into the gentle receptive presence here. Letting this next breath find a softening belly. Maybe beginning to get a sense of the way the body moves gently with breath. Relaxing through the hips, through the muscles of the legs, and all the way down into the feet. As if filling the cup with water, filling this whole body with awareness. From the soles of the feet back up to the crown of the head. Without any expectation, just letting the body come awake. Noticing what's here and alive for you in this moment. Recognizing sensations at the surface of the skin. Feelings of touch, pressure, warmth and cool. The movement of air. Welcoming the aliveness that's internal to the body. Feelings of comfort and discomfort. The movement of energy. The movement of the heart. Cultivating a spaciousness of attention that welcomes with openness, kindness, whatever arises in the space of the body. The feeling, tones and emotions. Allowing whatever arises to naturally come and go all on its own. Relaxing through the hips. Relaxing through the hips. And as you rest, feeling your body. Perhaps you've already noticed the feeling of the body breathing. And whether the breath feels alive at the nostrils, in the chest or the belly. Inviting yourself to draw the fullness of attention into the space of the heart. Beginning to feel as though it's the heart that's here breathing. Feeling the inhales as though expanding the heart space. And the exhale softening. Opening to tenderness. And the exhale softening. And the exhale softening. And the exhale softening. And breathing not just into the front of the heart space, but also into the back. Feeling the heart enliven, expand, radiate on inhale. Drawing light energy into the heart with this breath into the body. And exhaling radiating back out. And simply resting the soft gaze of awareness on this rhythm of breath in and out of the heart. Opening to whatever sense and feeling and energy arises here. And the breath in and out of the heart. And the breath out. And the breath out. And the breath out. And the breath out. And then invariably at some point we'll find out that the breath in and out of the heart is the breath out. At some point we'll find ourselves lost in some imaginative train of thought. When you find yourself letting this be the magic moment, the real moment of practice, where with a softness, tenderness and curiosity, you simply re-invite yourself back into your own heart. Reconnecting to the breath that's alive here. And with that playfulness, reinvestigate what's here in this moment, in this breath, what's alive in your heart. Resoften any tension in the body. Letting this breath find the aliveness in your heart space. And let the breath out. And let the breath out. Hmm. Hmm. Hmm. Hmm. Inviting yourself right here to become a safe space to explore the experience of an undefended heart. Perhaps allowing your exhales to release any shielding covering around the heart space. Letting this practice here on your cushion, your own body, become the safe space to explore the tenderness and openness of your heart. Coming alive to what it feels like to breathe into an open heart. To accept yourself and the world around you in each moment with no reservations or tensions. Allowing yourself to become the safe keeper of your own heart. With the willingness to be open to and reflecting back the love that you already deserve just as you are. Hmm. Hmm. Hmm. Hmm. Hmm. Hmm. Hmm. Hmm. Hmm. Do you find at any point that something else draws your attention away from the breath in the heart space? Perhaps an uncomfortable sensation in the body? A sound, an emotion or feeling tone? You're welcome if it feels good to you to lean in just a little. To get curious about whatever it is that's pulling your attention away from the breath in the heart. Maybe as if without concept. To feel it come and go just as it is. And then when you're ready in your own time, just like the moment of re-finding ourselves after being lost in thought. With a gentle kindness, simply re-arriving in your heart space. Finding the breath here. And reawakening to whatever is alive in this moment with this breath. And with the same softness, we can notice that sounds, sensations, emotions, even thoughts can come and go from the space of awareness. Pulling attention away from the breath and from the heart. Allowing yourself in these moments of experience to simply rest. Not needing to push anything away. Or to grip too tightly at the focus of attention. Resting in that innate capacity of awareness. To be a vast container. Aware of everything inside and outside of the body. Even as attention rests on the breath at the heart. It's only when pulled away that we consciously and intentionally invite ourselves back. Softening back in and reopening to what's right here. brightness of the observation into07..............