Heart Yoga: 5-Week Meditation Course to Heal and Awaken the Heart

A gentle 5-week meditation journey into loving-kindness and emotional healing. Learn the heart-opening Tibetan practice of 'Tonglen' and rediscover the natural warmth and joy within your heart.

Heart Yoga: 5-Week Meditation Course to Heal and Awaken the Heart
When: Tuesdays, 7:30–9:30pm
Dates: 20th January – 17th February (every Tue for 5 weeks)
Where: Studio above Sleepstore Chester, Sealand Road, CH1 4LS
Ample parking. Climb the stairs to the left of the building to enter. Please aim to arrive 5-10 minutes early so we can begin promptly. Tea and biscuits available.
Led by Nataraja — an Acharya (instructor) for Amrita Mandala, a modern spiritual path of healing and awakening.

What is this course?
This 5-week course is a gentle yet transformative introduction to Tonglen, a Tibetan Buddhist meditation for cultivating loving-kindness, compassion, and deep emotional healing.

Throughout life our hearts accumulate layers of tension, disappointment, stress, and hurt. Over time this creates a subtle hardness — a sense of heaviness or distance from our natural joy. We may feel ourselves withdrawing from life, becoming tired, guarded, or disconnected from others and even from ourselves.

This course guides you step-by-step back toward the softness, warmth, and inner safety that exist beneath those layers. Tonglen helps us rediscover the natural love and child-like wonder that is still present in all of us, waiting to be uncovered. It reconnects us with a simple truth: We are not alone in our suffering — and our heart can open again.

What is Tonglen?
Tonglen (meaning “giving and taking”) is a classical Buddhist practice of sending compassion outward and receiving difficult emotions with openness and love. It teaches us to:

• Soften emotional defences
• Reconnect with our innate capacity for kindness
• Feel less isolated in our struggles
• Experience a sense of spaciousness, safety, and joy in the heart

Though the method is simple, it works at a deep level and stirs deep layers. When practised regularly, Tonglen helps the heart gradually unwind and become more open and resilient.

What to expect
Over the 5 weeks we will explore:

• The essential components of Tonglen
• Guided heart-opening meditations
• Gentle “home practices” to integrate the teachings into daily life
• Supportive group sharing to help deepen understanding

Tonglen is both uplifting and honest. It can reveal warmth and bliss, but also moments where we meet our inner blocks, fears, or frozen emotional patterns. This is part of the healing process. Together we will approach these moments with patience, compassion, and a steady, grounded presence.

The Benefits
As the practice settles into your life, you may begin to notice:

• A lighter, softer heart
• Greater emotional ease and resilience
• Reduced stress and self-protection
• A deepening sense of connection with others
• A growing, natural joy that feels authentic and unforced

The course will be lead by Nataraja, an experienced Acharya (instructor) for Amrita Mandala, a modern lineage of tantric yoga and spiritual path of healing and awakening founded by Amrita Baba.

Everyone is welcome including beginners.

Click the sign-up bar below to reserve your place.