Meditation: Calling on Your Awakened Heart (23:52 min.) - Tara Brach

Podcast Summary: Tara Brach – “Meditation: Calling on Your Awakened Heart”

Air Date: October 8, 2025
Episode Length: 23:52 minutes
Host: Tara Brach, Ph.D.

Episode Overview

In this deeply calming guided meditation episode, Tara Brach invites listeners to “call on your awakened heart.” Focusing on practical spiritual presence, Tara blends mindfulness, self-compassion, and visualization exercises to help listeners connect with both their own vulnerable emotions and their innate capacity for wisdom and loving awareness. The meditation serves as a sacred pause—a space to come home to oneself and to access the qualities of understanding, tenderness, and courage necessary for personal and collective healing in challenging times.

Key Discussion Points & Guided Practice

1. Settling Into Presence

[03:04] Tara begins by inviting listeners to find a comfortable, alert sitting posture. She encourages using the breath as a tool to settle into the present moment:
- “Sense this whole meditation as a sacred pause, an opportunity to come home to yourself.” (Tara, 03:19)
- Attention is turned to the natural rhythm of the breath and the sounds of the environment, fostering an “inward listening” to the state of one’s own heart.

2. Mindful Awareness of the Heart’s State

[05:21] Tara gently asks listeners to notice how they’re feeling, allowing for any emotion—numbness, grief, agitation, hopefulness, anxiety, anger, vulnerability—to be present without judgment:
- “Let whatever you feel be here… invite forward whatever deeper levels of vulnerability or fear might want to be felt or known.” (Tara, 06:05)

3. Visualization: Calling on a Wise, Compassionate Being

[07:32] Listeners are encouraged to visualize “the calmest, wisest, most compassionate being you can possibly imagine”—be it a spiritual teacher, healer, figure like the Dalai Lama, Divine Mother, Kuan Yin, or even one’s own future/high self:
- “Bring to mind your future self, or what you might call your high self—your own awakened heart in its full manifestation and flowering.” (Tara, 08:12)
Tara guides the listener to imagine being in the loving presence of this being, receiving their wisdom, tenderness, and courage:
- “Sense that this being of wisdom, of love, is gazing at you right now with the profound tenderness. Just imagine those eyes and sense the tenderness, the care coming through them to you.” (Tara, 10:01)

4. Receiving and Embodying Wisdom

[10:33] The listener is guided to let the loving energy of this presence bathe and fill them completely, helping them to view the world with wisdom and compassion:
- “Notice what it feels like to experience this spirit, this energy… let that wisdom and love and energy pour into you… so you’re looking through the eyes of wisdom and feeling the world with the heart of compassion.” (Tara, 11:25)
Dissolving Separation
- The meditation guides participants into a state of union with this being, dissolving any sense of separateness:
  - “You are not other than this beingness. You’re one with this luminous, empty, beautiful awareness.” (Tara, 12:33)

5. Receiving a Message for Guidance

[14:41] With an open, receptive awareness, listeners are prompted to “receive a message” from the presence—whether words, an image or a felt sense—to guide them in the days ahead.

6. Resting in Tender Awareness

[15:30] The practice transitions into a few minutes of simply resting in the heart’s open, tender awareness, embracing whatever arises with compassion and presence.

7. Closing Insights and Reflection

[19:50] Tara returns to the theme of realizing one’s own awakened nature:
- “You can only imagine a being of loving presence because this is the nature of who you already are, and this entire path is coming to realize and trust that… the wisdom and compassion is already here and our path is just to wake up to its presence.” (Tara, 21:06)

8. Memorable Poetic Closing

[21:34] Tara shares powerful lines from poet Lynn Unger, underscoring connection and compassion:
- “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 become 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. Promise this world your love, for better or for worse, in sickness and in health, so long as we all shall live.” (Tara, quoting Lynn Unger, 21:34)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

On Self-Acceptance:
- “Sense this whole meditation as a sacred pause, an opportunity to come home to yourself.” (Tara, 03:19)
On Brave Presence:
- “Invite forward whatever deeper levels of vulnerability or fear might want to be felt or known.” (Tara, 06:05)
On Receiving Compassion:
- “Imagine those eyes and sense the tenderness, the care coming through them to you.” (Tara, 10:01)
On Oneness:
- “You are not other than this beingness. You’re one with this luminous, empty, beautiful awareness.” (Tara, 12:33)
On Realization:
- “You can only imagine a being of loving presence because this is the nature of who you already are...” (Tara, 21:06)
On Compassion for the World:
- “Promise this world your love, for better or for worse, in sickness and in health, so long as we all shall live.” (Lynn Unger poem, quoted by Tara, 22:22)

Timestamps for Key Segments

| Segment | Timestamp | |:-------------------------------------- |:------------ | | Opening, Intention Setting | 03:04 | | Body & Breath Awareness | 03:55 | | Sensing the State of Your Heart | 05:21 | | Visualization: Awakened Heart | 07:32 | | Receiving Presence/Wisdom | 10:01 | | Dissolving Separation/Oneness | 12:33 | | Message from Wise Being | 14:41 | | Resting in Tender Awareness | 15:30 | | Reflecting on Innate Compassion | 19:50 | | Closing Poem & Final Reflection | 21:34 |

Tone & Style

Tara Brach’s language throughout is gentle, nurturing, and inclusive, offering repeated reminders to meet whatever arises with kindness and curiosity. The meditation flows at a calm pace, providing listeners ample space for their own inner experience.

Summary for New Listeners:
This episode offers an accessible, soul-nourishing meditation that skillfully blends mindfulness, visualization, and heart-opening poetry. Listeners are guided to gently witness their present reality, call on the wisdom and compassion available within and beyond themselves, and recognize that the loving awareness they admire is their truest nature. The closing lines urge us all to extend our compassion to the world, reaffirming our interconnection and responsibility to one another.

Transcript

A (0:00)

Foreign welcome friends, to the Tara Brak Podcast. I'm so glad you're here. Each week I share teachings and guided meditations to help us awaken our hearts and bring healing to our world. You can learn more or support this.

B (0:23)

Offering by visiting tarabrock.com where you can.

A (0:27)

Also join our email list. Now let's explore together the many ways we can live from the love and presence that's our deepest essence. Namaste.

B (1:04)

This episode is brought to you by BetterHelp friends. As you know, on this podcast we explore how we can deepen together on a path of healing and spiritual growth. And one key dimension of that growth is mental health. As a clinical psychologist over the years I have seen firsthand the power of supporting others in this aspect of their journey. And for so many those struggling with addiction, with conflicts, in relationships, with the oppressiveness of anxiety or depression, it was my being able to offer companionship, guidance and care that allowed them to begin untangling limiting beliefs and stepping beyond the grip of fear. For most everyone I know, myself included, there are seasons of life when having a therapist can make all the difference. Someone who can hold space and who can offer perspective and help you remember your own inner wisdom. BetterHelp is the world's largest online therapy platform and it has more than 12 years experience matching people with the therapist who can truly support their healing. And we know how important that connection is. At this World Mental Health Day, we're celebrating the therapists who've helped millions of people take a step forward. If you're ready to find the right therapist for you, BetterHelp can help you start that journey. Our listeners get 10% off their first month at betterhelp.com tarapodcast that's betterhelp.com T A R A Podcast.

A (3:04)

The title of this guided meditation is calling on your awakened heart, so you might keep that in mind as we begin together. Like to invite you to close your eyes and settle in. Take some moments to make yourself comfortable. Wherever you are, find the sitting posture that most supports you. So you're sitting upright. You can be alert but also at ease, relaxed. Invite yourself to be right here. Sense this whole meditation as a sacred pause, an opportunity to come home to yourself. In that spirit, you might take a few full breaths, gathering and collecting the attention, Inhaling deeply, filling the lungs and exhale. Let the out breath be slow, releasing, letting go and again. Nice deep full in breath and a slow out breath, letting go, letting go and again. Filling the chest and the lungs, breathing in and with the out breath Sense of relaxing outward or releasing or letting go. Then, as you allow your breath to resume in its natural rhythm, just notice the quality of presence that's here. Let your senses be awake. So there's listening to the sounds around you, listening to the quietness, the space that's here. And an inward listening, so that you begin to listen to and feel into the state of your heart right now. Notice how you are. You might sense these last days or weeks and all that might be contributing to just this moment, the way your heart and your body and your mind are being experienced. So what is the state of your heart right now? Perhaps there's a numbness, perhaps there's an agitation, contraction. Let whatever you feel be here. For some, there may be grief, vulnerability. There may be other emotions. Sense of sadness, anxiety. Maybe there's excitement, maybe there's hopefulness, maybe there's anger. Listening and feeling the state of your heart and sense as you do that you can hold and touch all that's present in this presence, inviting forward whatever deeper levels of vulnerability or fear might want to be felt or known. A very receptive listening presence. As you open to what's here and as you sense our world right now and all that we're living through, let yourself remember, let yourself picture being. Who's the calmest, wisest, most compassionate being you can possibly imagine, or that you've ever met. It might be someone you know, perhaps a teacher, healer, Might be someone you have never met, but admire, like the Dalai Lama, perhaps a spiritual figure, the Bodhisattva of compassion, Divine Mother, Kuan Yin, might be an indigenous healer. Or perhaps you might choose to call on directly. Bring to mind your future self, or what you might call your high self, your own awakened heart in its full manifestation and flowering sense. Who comes forward, who you naturally call on. As you envision this being of wisdom, of great heart, feel that you're in their presence. That you, with all the state of your heart, just as it is now in these times, you're in this being's presence. And notice what their presence is like, their vast understanding, their wisdom, of how.