In order to start, please put the attention on the breath for just a few moments.
Imagine that the sun is shining in your heart, it warms it, it lights it up so that there are no dark corners. Everything is pure and clear and the warmth of the sun in your heart fills you from head to toe with a sense of wellbeing and it surrounds you with a feeling of being taken care of, looked after, embraced by the warmth of your heart.
Now let the sun that is shining in your heart reach out and send all its warming rays and its beautiful light to the person sitting nearest you, filling his or her heart with the warmth that comes from your heart.
Now think of your parents, whether they’re still alive or not, and you let the sun from your heart shine on them, fill their hearts with the light and the warmth, giving them the greatest gift that you have, letting them feel your togetherness, your care and concern, just as the warmth of the sun makes these grow on earth through the warmth of the heart, helps to make goodness grow in other people’s hearts.
And now we’ll think of those people who are closest to us, those that we might be living with, and the sun in our heart shines into their hearts bringing the purity, the warmth, the clarity, the beautiful shining light to them as our gift without any expectation of a return.
And now we’ll think of our good friends, relations, and acquaintances, whoever comes to mind and the sun’s rays from our heart warms them, brings light and love to them, expresses our togetherness, and we can see that they feel joyful receiving this warmth.
Now we’ll think of the people whom we meet in our everyday life: the neighbors, the people at work, students, teachers, patients, salespeople, postmen, whoever comes to mind who is a part of our daily life. The sun from our heart will shine on anyone and bring love and light to everyone’s heart whom we can touch with that. So we’ll go from person to person letting them know that we love and care.
And now we’ll think of a difficult person in our life or one that we feel totally indifferent towards. The sun from our heart can do exactly the same--no need to discriminate and we can fill that difficult person with the warmth from our heart, embrace him and surround him with care and concern.
And we’ll open our heart as wide as we can so that the sun in our heart has a chance to go as far as possible with its warming and beautiful rays with the light and its nourishing strengths, and first we’ll let it shine upon all the people here, giving the gift of our heart to them. And then let that sun from your heart reach out to all the people in the monastery, those you’ve seen, those you’ve not seen, those you have to assume that are there. The sun is capable of making love grow. The more strength it has, the more warmth others will feel. And now let it shine on the Dalai Lama on his birthday and his people in Tibet or in exile, giving them the gift of our love and compassion and care and concern.
And now we’ll let the sun from our heart shine on the people who live around this monastery in the village. We may not know them but we know they’re there. The sun doesn’t know us but it shines on us and makes flowers and food and trees and bushes grow. And just too the sun from our heart makes love grow. And then we go further field as far as the strength of our heart will reach. Let the sun shine on people in towns and villages and cities near and far all over the country in the surrounding countries, across the oceans, in your hometowns, some of them across the oceans. Let the sun frpm your heart bring warmth and love to the people that you know or can think of, have heard about or seen, or just assume to be there.
And now we let the sun from our hearts shine on all that which surrounds us: trees, meadows, valleys, mountains, flowers, bushes, grass, the sky, the clouds, sun, moon, stars. The sun from our heart has beautiful warmth and rays and can embrace it all.
And we’ll put the attention back on ourselves and we feel the buoyancy and the lightness which comes from the purity of the heart. We feel the joy that comes from loving and giving our love. And we enter into our heart seeing it lit up, nourished by the warmth of love, clear, with nothing hidden, and feel totally secure in that.
May people everywhere become aware of the sun in their hearts.
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