Practicing With A Broken Heart

Having a Broken Heart from time to time simply comes with the territory of having been born
human. But how do we support ourselves so that we can both survive and grow from such
experiences? Ajahn shares some tender reflections.
​

Transcript

Hi,

This meditation is intended specifically for people going through some kind of a significant emotional trauma.

If that's not you,

Then the practice might not make much sense.

But if that might be you,

I sincerely hope something in the following half hour is helpful.

You know,

Usually when I'm giving a Dharma talk,

A reflection,

It's often in places like Malaysia,

Australia,

Sometimes with groups of students in India,

And in Thai language in the monastery where I live in Thailand.

Right now I'm on solitary meditation retreat in my monk's cabin in the monastery where I've lived for the last six and a half years.

This is an unusual Dharma talk because I can't see any of you in front of me.

I'm actually sitting in front of my shrine.

I've been editing a few Dharma talks in between meditation sessions.

It brings me quite a bit of joy to be able to share and encourage.

And so I alternate between walking,

Sitting,

Chanting,

Taking some time to share some talks that have been given in other places and make sure that they get shared with lots of good people all around the world.

Perhaps the reason I'm giving this talk sitting in front of my shrine in my monk's cabin is it's not the kind of talk you could address to a group of people in a meditation retreat.

Rather it's the kind of talk that is relevant to a certain type of person going through a certain type of situation.

And so I've been looking at my website.

I've been looking at items on Insight Timer meditation app.

And I've been considering what subjects have I covered and is there anything that I've not yet covered that I might talk about that might be helpful to people.

And I realise that there is.

On this subject of having a broken heart,

Feeling terribly hurt or devastated,

This experience that so many human beings have to experience and live through.

And I thought I might be able to offer some words,

Some encouragement that might be able to help people going through a difficult time.

This human situation,

We're really extraordinarily vulnerable when you think about it.

This body and mind phenomena in the form world,

To use some Buddhist terminology.

We have bodies,

We have minds,

Flesh and blood,

Bones,

Made of four elements,

Trying to navigate this sensual form world.

In terms of experience,

We are very complicated,

Sophisticated,

Emotional beings and yet we're so vulnerable.

The human birth,

The experience of childhood,

The various things that we experience.

Often it seems things that we wouldn't choose,

Things that we had no idea were about to happen and that's what I mean by vulnerable.

And so I'm currently 45 years old and I think that most people when they get to be this age,

Middle aged,

Have probably had a few broken hearts.

And so we've all had some experience of getting through painful,

Difficult,

Emotional times.

So what are the kind of broken hearts that we can have?

I think parenting in relationship with our parents.

Often times people don't receive the kind of care that in many respects human beings need.

Often times there is neglect or unskillfulness and often times people are repeating habits of neglect and unskillfulness that they experienced themselves.

Sometimes people do a really terrible job of parenting their kids and even so some of those people are doing a better job than their parents did.

Or perhaps it's your children breaking your heart,

Being vengeful,

Rebellious,

Forgetting to be grateful.

Other ways people have broken hearts it can be a business partner betrays one,

A best friend betrays one's trust or as is often the case a romantic partner,

A spouse,

A husband,

A wife,

A girlfriend,

A boyfriend.

This experience of falling in love it can hit us so hard and often times people feel they have no choice.

Somebody seems very special,

Somebody seems completely trustworthy,

We might feel very safe in their company and in a way we give our hearts to them.

And then if things change that can be devastating.

The degree to which we love somebody if there's qualities of attachment,

Clinging or craving also present as they usually are,

The degree to which we love somebody is the degree to which we can feel hurt if something in the relationship changes.

Perhaps the person dies,

Gets a terrible illness,

Has an accident,

So much depending upon this person and so much trusting that they'll be there and it changes and they're not there in the same way.

And it's just really heart wrenchingly painful.

Otherwise it's the person we fall in love with and sometimes they fall out of love with us,

Fall in love with someone else or they just do something that we never thought they'd do.

In a way we might have had an overly positive projection,

Perhaps we projected more goodness onto a person than was actually there.

It turns out that they are humans,

They have weaknesses,

They make mistakes,

People change.

Or maybe you broke your own heart with your own unskillful actions,

A terrible mistake,

A bad habit that you just couldn't kick or many mistakes.

Sometimes we disappoint ourselves so much we break our own hearts.

Very common experience for us vulnerable human beings.

Different people have different levels of sensitivity so some people might become broken-hearted more easily than others.

Some people have to practice with this experience of having a broken heart several times or many times in their life,

Perhaps it's disappointments with a parent and then a teacher and then a romantic partner and then a friend.

Time after time experiences of disappointment,

Expectations and hopes dashed.

It seemed like a wonderful situation turning literally into a nightmare.

So what do we do with this experience?

How do we practice with it in a way that we might grow?

First of all we have to ask how do we get through it?

Sometimes there can be so much pain in the heart.

It can feel like you can't cope,

You can't survive this.

The pain feels like it's killing you.

It's important to understand that what we're experiencing is an emotion,

A mental feeling that it's important to understand,

This is the wisdom component.

It's important to understand that it will arise,

Stay for some time and cease.

In periods when we're freshly disappointed or recently broken-hearted it seems like those feelings do not arise and cease.

We might have a pain in the heart all day.

So when we sharpen our awareness through meditation just come and sit,

Close your eyes,

Don't pay attention to the thoughts,

Have a look in the heart and just notice those feelings are changing.

They're throbbing,

They're swirling,

They're gushing.

It can be like fire,

It can feel like stabbing,

It can feel like ice but when you have a look it's changing.

There's constant flux.

You'll also notice if you're really patient,

If you sit long enough,

If you just bear with painful feelings in the heart,

There are moments where the pain is much less and then another round of pain can come like a wave,

A wave of excruciating pain.

We do have to make time to just feel and be aware of the incredible pain and it can be stunning.

And at such times all we can do really is know,

Mindfully know,

Not conceptually know,

Just be aware with this quality of mental awareness,

Being conscious,

This is how much life can hurt.

It's like this,

Ouch.

And without judging it,

Just being able to feel,

Wow,

So much pain.

Once we allow the space for that pain just to be as it is,

Then try to notice that it changes.

Sometimes it seems completely overwhelming.

If you use the analogy of an ocean and waves,

Some of these waves are like tsunamis,

Huge waves of pain,

But just like a tsunami,

Even such a huge wave has to recede and then there'll be smaller waves.

And so when the waves of emotion are incredibly strong,

Sometimes what we really need is to give the love that we were hoping we could depend on from someone else.

Maybe they died,

Maybe they let us down,

Maybe they loved someone else instead.

Whatever it was,

Whatever the reason,

Whatever the occurrences that made the situation change that left us feeling broken hearted,

When we come to reflect on this,

Meditate with this,

Try to be with this and heal this,

The story doesn't matter so much.

What we need to do is just be with the feeling,

Understanding that what we need is love,

And sometimes all you can say is love,

Love,

Love.

Just try to offer love to the terrible,

Painful,

Excruciating experience of grief and broken heartedness.

Try to make space in the mind,

Just relax the sense of boundaries,

Constriction,

Contraction,

Just make the mind open and spacious and just feel the pain and be aware and just say to yourself love,

Love,

Love.

When others have not loved you,

The degree to which you felt you needed to be,

That's the time that we all need to learn how to love our experience,

How to find a refuge inside,

How to give the love to that terrible pain,

Incredible grief,

Just offer it love,

Acceptance,

Holding it without judging it.

We might have to do this many times,

But another thing that will be helpful is to notice that it's a feeling,

A mental feeling,

And notice that it changes and try to see those waves.

Sometimes it can feel like molten steel was poured down your throat,

All of your intestines and heart is just burning with pain.

Sometimes it can feel like you were stabbed in the heart repeatedly.

Sometimes the heart feels shattered,

Sometimes it feels bruised,

Red raw.

However it feels,

We're just aware of a painful feeling,

A mental feeling,

Holding it in awareness without judging it and knowing its qualities and then try to notice the ways that it changes,

Moves around.

Breathing the breath is really helpful,

Pema Chodron,

A nun in the Tibetan tradition,

Uses the word to ventilate.

You can use the breath to ventilate through the painful feelings,

Breathing in,

Just allowing the breath energy to flow through the pain in the heart and breathing out,

Allowing that breath energy to cool down the fire of pain and suffering.

Take a few deep breaths and use the breath to try to pacify.

Sometimes you can use the breath to pacify the feelings,

Calm them down a bit.

Other times the feelings are red raw,

They seem to fill the room,

Make the mind bigger,

The feelings fill the sky and all you can do is be aware,

Try to love it,

Allow it to be until it changes and know that it will change.

When these feelings change,

These big waves of emotion come in and then leave the mind naturally.

It's really important to notice when they change,

When they cease.

It's really important to notice how a huge emotion became a smaller emotion.

Something completely unmanageable,

Something that you feel you can't cope with,

Becomes in a matter of time something perfectly manageable,

Something that's easy to cope with.

And then another wave of feeling might come.

But if we've noticed the way that it changes and we really get it on a deep level,

When it's at its highest velocity or most intensity,

During that time if we have this wisdom component that knows it's going to change,

It's going to get better,

It's not going to be this much pain forever,

This can help us ride those waves,

Just wait it out.

And it really,

Really,

Really hurts.

Love,

Love,

Love.

Give yourself the loving acceptance that you feel separated from,

That for some reason you didn't receive.

Give it to yourself.

Use the breath.

Breathing in,

Lovingly accept this.

Breathing out,

May I be well,

May I be happy.

It's important to be optimistic,

Have some hope.

And there are many reasons that we can be optimistic and have hope.

I once heard a quote,

And I can't remember who said it,

But I believe it.

The heart that breaks can hold the whole world.

You see,

In the beginning,

Us ordinary human beings,

We love a few people,

We love our families,

Our friends,

People we fall in love with.

And then we get hurt.

And this pain forces us to try to find more resources,

Wiser perspectives,

A bigger picture.

And as we train ourselves to be with the pain of life,

Difficult situations,

We learn to hold this incredible pain.

We become more compassionate and more empathic,

And it becomes possible to offer this kind,

Non-judgmental acceptance and love to more and more people.

So through the experience of having a broken heart,

Through the experience of being incredibly disappointed,

Of feeling betrayed,

Feeling abandoned,

We can learn to take better and better care of ourself.

We can cultivate a true refuge in our own capacity to be aware and still and wise and loving.

And then we can bring those qualities into our life,

Share them with others.

But it takes a lot of patience,

A lot of determination,

A lot of courage,

And a lot of kindness to just be with the honest experience of an incredible amount of emotional pain.

And just to know,

This is it.

This is what it feels like to be a human being with a broken heart.

Another thing that's really important is acknowledging how common this experience is.

That's not to negate it.

That's not to say it's not something to be dismissed.

It's something that has to be tended to with great care.

At the same time,

We know this is what so many people in the world,

So many other people are currently experiencing.

What we can do sometimes when the emotions calm down,

There's more clarity.

We just get in touch with this wish.

Wouldn't it be great?

Wouldn't it be better if beings could be without suffering and sometimes just making this wish,

Breathing in,

May I be free from suffering,

And breathing out,

May all beings be free from suffering.

When we can move from incredible pain into an experience of genuine compassion,

Just really deeply,

Sincerely wishing,

May I be free from suffering,

May all beings be free from suffering,

May all beings be able to develop themselves,

Attain to a state where this kind of experience no longer affects them.

May we all be well.

May we all be happy.

May we all be free from suffering.

If you can just get in touch with that genuine,

Really really broad,

Boundless compassion and just offer that that you would most wish for yourself to be free from this incredible pain,

Just offer that to all beings everywhere who are still in this vulnerable state.

May all beings be well.

May all beings be happy.

May all beings be free from suffering.

And so just reviewing a little,

Understanding that we all have to face this,

Having a body,

Having a mind,

Having a heart,

Having emotions,

Not yet being saints,

Not yet being Arahants,

Not yet being the Buddha.

We get disappointed,

We get separated from things that we like and love.

People betray us on the workings of karma manifesting in the relationships around us.

Mentioning this word karma,

There's no judgment.

In Buddhism,

We understand that there were many previous lives.

We've all made mistakes.

The response to that should be compassion and wisdom.

We get really serious about not making any more mistakes.

We don't judge it.

We open our heart.

Beings under the influence of ignorance,

Still affected by craving and aversion,

When they get irritated,

When they get deluded,

They make mistakes.

When they make mistakes,

They make bad karma.

And that bad karma ripens as painful experiences and painful feelings.

And so we get in touch with this wish and this aspiration to train ourselves to make wholesome karma,

Skillful karma,

Cultivate the qualities that will eventually liberate us,

And also develop the compassion and the equanimity.

Equanimity,

Equipoise,

Acceptance.

This comes from wisdom.

The wisdom that sees that much of what we're experiencing is the working of karma.

Trying to see that without making judgments.

All beings make mistakes.

All beings are experiencing the ripenings of good and bad karmas,

Skillful and unskillful karma.

And when it's really painful,

The very best thing you can do is non-judgmental,

Compassionate response,

Love,

Love,

May I be well,

May I be free from suffering.

And just trust,

No matter how painful,

No matter how huge these painful emotional feelings are,

They change,

They cease,

It will get less and less.

Sometimes with experiences like grief,

We feel we've grieved,

Sometimes with a broken heart,

A partner dies or leaves us.

These strong feelings can come around again at the anniversary of the death,

The anniversary of a wedding,

The day that things changed.

So we just have to understand this is the way the mind is.

This is the way emotions are.

We can't completely control them.

We have to work with them.

And so when you need to take the space to be compassionate,

To be kind,

To allow it in the mind,

In awareness,

And then take care of it as best you can with kindness and compassion and being determined to notice the way that it changes.

Another useful thing is the practice of forgiveness.

Eventually,

When the pain subsides a bit,

After we've given it a lot of loving kindness,

It might be appropriate to forgive yourself if you made mistakes.

It might be helpful to forgive people that we perceived have hurt us because holding onto a grudge is in a way another way that we hurt ourselves.

We're hanging onto painful perceptions and hanging onto painful feelings.

If possible,

When it is possible,

We offer forgiveness for nothing else so that we don't have to keep holding onto the pain,

So that we can allow it to arise and cease.

And also understanding beings make mistakes.

Just like we've made mistakes,

Other people make mistakes.

People's minds are affected by ignorance.

They don't understand the truth.

They don't understand karma.

Their minds can become more deluded,

Sometimes greed for more money,

Sometimes intoxication,

Sometimes becoming obsessed or compulsive with sexuality,

All sorts of things that affect human beings' minds.

And then they make mistakes and they hurt people because of their delusion.

In a way,

They got lost.

So eventually we have to have compassion for the mistakes that people make under the influence of delusion.

But it's usually a several step process.

We have to have compassion,

Loving-kindness,

Patience and determination to be with the painful feelings.

And this giving them kind attention,

Giving them spacious awareness,

Allowing them and just giving time,

They begin to heal.

The heart can heal.

And it's important to understand that this awareness,

The nature of the mind,

Clear knowing awareness,

Nothing can kill this.

So no matter how painful,

How huge,

How seemingly overwhelming an emotion might be,

No matter how much pain,

No matter how much grief,

It cannot kill awareness.

You can trust.

Mindful awareness can take it.

It will arise,

It will change,

It will eventually cease and awareness,

That which knows,

Will still be there.

Primordial awareness,

That which knows.

In the Thai tradition we talk about butto,

That which is awake,

That which is aware,

That which has a knowing nature.

The very same thing that knows smells and tastes and sights and sounds,

Also knows emotions,

Emotional feelings,

Mental feelings and that awareness that is mind.

No feeling can kill this.

This is much more resilient and spacious than we ever realized.

And as we train ourselves to cultivate this awareness and bring it to bear on our experience,

It becomes a refuge.

You can trust the clarity and the awareness that knows things as feelings that arise and cease,

Thoughts that arise and cease,

Impermanent and not self.

Although I just wanted to say these few words to be some encouragement to people who might be experiencing great pain,

Hang on in there,

Hold this pain in your heart with all of the love that you can,

Give that love to yourself that others may not have.

Sometimes we have to be a mother to ourselves,

A father to ourselves,

Offer the nurturing that an ideal mother would,

Offer it to yourself in your meditation,

Offer the discipline that a responsible ideal father would have by being consistent with your daily practice,

By not taking intoxicants,

Don't do things that will affect your clarity.

Sometimes we have to be our own teacher,

Remind ourselves with wisdom,

Behave wisely,

Skillfully.

Sometimes we have to be our own romantic partner,

Offer yourself the tenderness,

The kindness,

The sweetness,

The good humour,

Be kind,

Be a friend to yourself.

So whatever it is that you might be experiencing,

I wholeheartedly wish you every success in coping with it,

Surviving it,

Learning from it and becoming a better,

More whole,

More beautiful human being through surviving and growing from the experience of having a broken heart,

A heart that breaks and heals,

Can hold the entire world in the heart of loving kindness.

Be well.

Reviews

Thank you for your comforting words.
I am in the process of trying to heal & find myself again, to learn to love myself & find peace.
My heart is broken through family trauma, I never thought I would ever find myself in this situation.
The insight timer is helping slowly, meditation is helping to stop the tears & sadness. 🙏

Thank you so much for this – I am in the midst of a broken heart and have been for months from a friend who betrayed me and listening to your words is helping me cope.

Thank you for this beautiful practice. I am just a beginner to your approach to grief and loss, but I will return to this meditation for inner peace, healing, and love. 🙏

Positive talk to manifest deeper understanding of healing a grief stricken heart through loving kindness thank-you …

Thank you for this encouragement and for your compassion.

A heart that breaks and heals can hold the whole world! Thank you 🙏

Thank you. I have listened to this several times between 2017 and 2024. It’s helped me navigate through extreme loss. I really appreciate you

Beautiful and wise. Thank you. I needed this today 🙏❤️

Feelings Heard & Seen, full of Golden nuggets, thank you 🙏🏽

Thank you for this healing balm, this raft of stillness.

One of the best talks on Insight Timer 🙏 thank you

Thank you Ajajn! Super helpful to me who has a huge broken heart right now. 🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼

I feel so carried right now. Thank you 🙏 This was very helpful.

This talk is a beautiful gift. Thank you so much!💗🙏💕

A kind and gentle approach to healing what feels unhealable. I'm trying to be patient with myself but sometimes time takes a long time. Thank you. It helped. Definitely will listen, rinse, repeat...

i needed this. it’s been six months since my husband of 35 years passed away. i don’t want to shortcut or sidestep the grief. what i want is a a mindset to walk me through my grief. this talk does just that. i will listen to it often especially on those challenging days. namaste 🙏

Thank you so much! I'll come back to your words whenever I sink into torturous feelings again. They contain a lot of comfort and encouragement and remind me of my own inner source, which flows incessantly and fills every fracture, no matter how deep, with love 🙏🏻❤️

Thank you for the kind words and the examples. A broken heart that heals Can hold the entire world. May my heart heal soon so I can transform into a more beautiful human.

Wisdom offered with practical application. I will come back to this again, and again.

Thank you so much for this beautiful helpful meditation 🤍