Say Yes to an Open Heart

 

08.07.2020 SAY YES TO AN OPEN HEART The September 2020 issue of Lion’s Roar magazine features Buddhist wisdom on discovering the healing power of your heart. Inside, you’ll find teachings and meditations from leading dharma teachers to help foster compassion and make your heart more loving and open. Now is an especially important time to cultivate a warm, compassionate heart for the benefit of ourselves, and by extension, the world. You can access these practices right now if you subscribe to Lion’s Roar magazine and include digital access.   Below, you’ll find three pieces from the Lion’s Roar archive that all speak to the power of cultivating an open heart toward yourself, and by extension, to others. May they warm your heart this weekend.

Open Your Heart Further Pema Khandro Rinpoche on cultivating the boundless love of a bodhisattva. When our love is tired or has hit its limits, Buddhism suggests we open our hearts further and tap into a more expansive love. This opening is the first step toward awakening our natural heroism known as the bodhisattva’s love. We can open up to greater love in moments of sorrow because our vulnerability and our compassion are intertwined.

Say Yes to an Open Heart Diana Winston reflects on the intertwining of mindfulness and compassion, as practiced with an open heart. By doing this practice of yes, by mindfully embracing each moment with a willingness to accept things as they are, with a willingness to be with life—inner and outer—exactly as it unfolds, you may be able to look down at your chest and realize that your heart is gigantic. It’s expansive, spacious, broken open, like a big, fat suitcase overflowing with warm, comfy, oh-so-familiar clothes.   You open and open, you attend and attend, you say yes, again and again, and then over time, the mindfully opened heart is more and more just who you are.

A Practice for Developing Kindness Toward Yourself Valerie Mason-John, author of Detox Your Heart: Meditations for Emotional Healing, shares a meditation for cultivating a positive relationship with yourself, and, by extension, the world. There is a meditation called the metta bhavana, which has its origins in the Buddhist tradition. Metta means loving-kindness, and bhavana means to develop. This meditation teaches us to be kind and gentle by cultivating a positive relationship with ourselves and the rest of the world. Loving-kindness can be the beginning of compassion for ourselves and the way to end anger in our hearts and minds. It is what I have used to begin releasing the toxins of anger, hatred, and fear from my heart. It has been the alchemy in my life.   The first stage of this meditation turned my life around. It was here that I faced the question, “If I can’t feel love for myself, how can I feel healthy love for others?

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