The poet Rumi says to seek not for love, but to discover the barriers we've created against love.

To sense what's between me and loving and just discover the beliefs, the judgments that have pushed others away,

the ways we create separation from others and from ourselves.

And so it's in that spirit that a lot of the Buddhist teachings say that forgiveness practice,

letting go of our armoring, of our judgments, of our versions towards ourselves or others,

is the beginning of truly awakening and freeing our hearts.

So we will practice and explore that a bit in this afternoon's guided heart practice.

And you can now just speak a little to create a context and it's fine just to sit and with your eyes closed,

feel free to shift if you want to sit in a way that's more comfortable than you are now.

For my experience, all the forgiveness practices come down to at the center of the capacity to forgive our whole,

our own being in compassion.

Now the word self-forgiveness and self-compassion is kind of the centerpiece.

The understanding in this practice of forgiving is that as we let go of judgment, of a version,

we're actually then having to face that which we were avoiding, which is woundedness, hurt, fear.

So it takes a certain courage and it's a life practice to forgive.

It's not a one shot. Each time though that we forgive, we become more familiar with and resting more fully in a larger space of heart.

Often forgiveness requires the support of healer, therapist, teacher.

So we have to be very gentle with ourselves in the process and one of the basic understandings is you can't will yourself to forgive.

But you can be willing, you can have the aspiration to move in that direction.

That's what opens the door, this willingness.

So perhaps as a way to begin this meditation together, just to sense your own sincerity, that in you which wants to love fully.

That in you which wants to love without holding back.

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