Tara Brach - 2013-05-13 - Question and Response at Satsang

Episode Date: September 8, 2014

A Special Evening Satsang – question and response with Tara from 2013-05-13. Many of the questions that evening were about R.A.I.N. NOTE: Satsang means exploring and realizing truth in the gathering of spiritual friends. The word comes from Sanskrit – sat means truth - and sangha is community or company of spiritual friends.

The following talk is given by Tara Brock, meditation teacher, psychologist, and author. Well, so welcome here. Looking around seeing who's here for the first time, but it'll help me if you identify yourselves. There's not too many. Anybody, yeah? Anyone else? Yeah, thought so.

Well, welcome. So our rhythm here is, as we just did, we sit for 45 minutes, and then open it now to any inquiry that, is alive for you. Anything to do with your practice, especially anything that might have emerged tonight? Yeah, so raising your hand if you'd like the mic and we'll just take turns. And there's a hand raised. Yeah. I have a question regarding rain and really pertaining to the eye of rain. At the retreat, somebody asked James about eye and he talked about how there's the danger when you get into the of switching from investigating to, I think in my case, interrogating.

And so I'm curious if you have any suggestions as far as not getting off on a false refuge when you get into that eye and becoming... Yeah, yeah. So let me do a check. Is there anyone here that's completely unfamiliar with the acronym, Raine? Don't be shy, yeah. So I'll just briefly review it because I find it just a very valuable handle for, especially when we're in reactivity to use the wings of mindfulness and compassion to untangle the tangle.

So the R of rain is recognized, and it's sad enough that just goes, okay, I'm stuck. You know, I'm often an angry reaction or whatever it is. So with the R, you're recognizing it, kind of naming it in some way. And the A is allow. And often when we're in reactivity, the allowing, it's not a full-blown acceptance. It's not I like this, it's not I want it to go on. It's a willingness to pause and just let be for the time being so that you have enough of a space that you can engage a little more presence.

Okay, so recognize and allow. It's like putting a frame around a picture, so you can then really begin to become intimate with the picture. The eye is investigate with kindness. It has to have both wings in it. If it's just to investigate, there'll be some aversion or wrong, reactivity that won't allow a clear seeing. If it's just kindness, it could get all gloppy and gooey and not have any acuity. So it's investigate with kindness. Now, the purpose of this is anything

that you bring into awareness, you're no longer identified with. The reason there's a tangle is because the eye, the sense of self has gotten reactive. So the different layers of experience that we investigate and really just notice what's happening in that noticing there's a dissolving of the stickiness. So one level you want to investigate is how is this experience playing through my body? That's the primary place is the body because we tend to dissociate. So again, it's not interrogate and it's not analyzed, it's feel into the body. We also investigate the feeling tone, you know, or more accurately the emotion, because if we're not aware, oh, oh, shame. That's shame. Again, there's some stickiness. Now, the area that's most challenging to investigate

is beliefs. It has to be done with a light touch because that's where we most quickly go into the kind of interrogating, analyzing, figuring out. So when I say light touch, it means just putting in there, oh, so what am I believing right now? And if there's a core belief, it might be something like, I'm always going to fail. No one will ever love me. I'm unlovable. You know, like that. If there's not something that comes up, drop it. But even if something does come up to avoid the proliferation, come right back and sense in, what's that like to experience how that expresses right in the body? So your safeguard is to keep coming back, throat, chest, belly. So your investigation is mostly of the felt sense in the body. If you bring a full

awareness to whatever dimensions are active, you know, the beliefs, the feelings, the sensations, in that full awareness there's enough of a disillusion of a sense of this is me that you enter the end of rain which is not personal, not identified, that natural awareness you're free again.

So that's the end of rain. You don't do something with the end of rain. You just kind of rest in not identified. You rest in natural awareness. Does that? Very much so. Okay. I'm always glad for the opportunity to go through rain because most

everybody I know, even people have been doing it for you, years because it really is the whole of the practice kind of put into a little container there's always different angles that we can refine in it so thank you for bringing in some rain yeah just to follow up on that so the end takes care of itself by the r and the a and the i it's not like you're kind of having this self-talk of it's not you it's okay you know it's okay you know it's the end just happens because because you've done the R and the A and the I? The N is the fruit.

And often because it's not always a full experience with rain, sometimes we'll do it and will partially dissolve the identification. The N is not going to be full. There'll be more of a glimmer of, oh, this really isn't personal. It's just happening. But there's still some stickiness, and that just means another round, another time. In fact, you can experience, you know, a glimmer of that N, of that freedom. And then, you know, 10 minutes later, the triggers, and you're back to, okay, again, recognize, allow, just feel it again.

But that's okay, because every time you in some way remember to deepen your attention, you're cultivating these neuropathways that take us home. So rather than look at it like, oh my gosh, I've had to do so many rounds of this, just know that as much as we have conditioning that has these neuropathways that are habitual ways of being a lot of, at war with ourselves, blaming others, being caught in a small self, we're actually deconditioning that with every round. And sometimes you'll do a light rain. Sometimes it'll be like a real quickie. Just simply, you know, just noticing something's happening saying, okay, okay, noticing it in the body, feeling a little more space, and that's it. And other times you might take 45 minutes and really spend a while trying to breathe with a real stuck place and just notice it more deeply. Yeah. So my question is about the effectiveness of practice, and there's lots of things that have been really overwhelmingly benefited by my practice. One area that I can't seem to get to translate is my work. And I've tried all kinds of different practices, having compassion for my team and my boss and my colleagues. And it's been difficult to get that to translate to action on my part. And I find it really puzzling because I have compassion for so many people. And yet in this team,

team, I'm obligated, I'm responsible, I have things that I need to be doing, and either I'm in utter resistance to doing it, and I can't come to grips with this resistance and resolve it, or I have ADD, or I don't know what's going on, but I'm so frustrated with myself for not being able to engage and fulfill the responsibilities that are mine to fulfill, regardless of how beautiful my intention is to do so. So what I'm hearing is that your intention is to include your team with a compassionate heart, and you're having a hard time doing that because you go into some mindset at work

where you're focused on getting things done and it's stressful, it's harder for you to fulfill that intention? I think the problem is more that I'm not focused on the things at work, utterly distracted from the things at work, wanting to be doing anything else but the things at work. So your frustration is that you're not able to focus at work and get the job done? Right.

So in the moment of you kind of checked in and asked yourself, when you get distracted, have you paid attention to the moments of being distracted, like kind of just checked in and sensed what your energy was like, what was going on inside you? Not as a general practice. I don't think I've ever really spent a day doing that. Like, today I'm really going to notice. And not a whole day, because you wouldn't be able to. Then you wouldn't be being distracted.

You know what I mean? If you could really be mindful of distracted, then you're no longer distracted. But are there particular, like, you know certain junctures of the day when you're most inclined to really not be able to hone in and stuff like that? Sure. Okay. Are there a few flags you could identify as to when you kind of know this is one of those periods where I'm going to be distracted?

I think the shift to being on the computer more has been a disaster for me. It's something I'm not really used to. I'm used to being, I guess, away from the desk. And that is something I haven't acclimated to very well. Okay, so that's helpful. So when your work is on the computer, you find that you do other things on the computer than your work? Absolutely.

Yeah. I'm sure nobody else in here this. I was about to say you're alone. You're completely alone in this. But I mean, I guess the judgment is horrible because, you know, as a professional, as someone other, you know, who's a mentor and a leader to other people, the thing that's killing me is, I should not be like this. I should be better than this.

This is ridiculous for a woman my age and in my position. So, you know the effect of shoulds. They don't get us very far. They do not. What I invite you to do is when you're veering off and doing email or anything else than your work to just pause enough to just sense what's going on inside you. Just a very brief rain and find out what the feeling tone is in your body. Okay. Find out what the emotion or mood is there. I mean, do you have a sense of what it would be if you just imagined? Maybe a little bit

trying to get somewhere else. Uh-huh. And let's say, just take it a step further and this is for all of you to sense. Anytime you know you're getting pulled off into the something else, what would you have to experience if you didn't go ahead and pursue your something else? If you just had a stay, what would you have to be then living with that's not so pleasant? Facing the reality that things are a mess. Okay. And what's it like for you inside? When things are a mess, what does it bring up for you inside. Judgment, anxiety. Okay, so there's some anxiety about things being out of water, disorganized a mess, and you'd have to almost sit down in that angst if you didn't go ahead and

distract yourself. Yeah, I mean, maybe it's a form of avoidance, avoiding the reality. So is it really bad to feel that angst? Like if you imagine sitting down in it for a bit, what would it be like? It would be overwhelming, I think. Yeah. Is that really bad to feel that angst? Like, if you imagine, It would be overwhelming, I think. Yeah. Is that what it feels like? It would be overwhelming. Yeah.

Like, I cannot fix this. So powerless also. Yes. Okay, and just take a moment now, and you can just close your eyes and kind of put the mic down. And just, again, to dip in, like if you're just sitting there

and you're in front of your computer and you're not going to go do something and you just happen to get, wow, it really is a mess, and I can't fix this. and yet there's some sense I'm responsible so there's a real sense of angst and in some way you're not doing

what you're supposed to be doing and what that brings up in terms of anxiety and if you just agree to sit with that for a little bit more and sense really what it feels like and just how much it is, how much it's in your body. Just tell me what you notice.

It certainly feels better sitting here and thinking about it. I feel like there's a momentary calm and yet the habit is the sense if I stuck around it would be overwhelming. So what we'll get from this is you're in the habit of leaving because it feels like that angst would be overwhelming, powerless, can't do anything about it, it's just not a place you want to be. So the first step for you is to be really a kind understanding towards that.

If you can at least have that, if you can put aside, this should be different and just get, well, the reality is, this is how my system's perceiving this. And nobody wants to stay home in that agitation. So the kind understanding itself will give you a little more curiosity about sensing what's possible and a little more choice. Are you with me? I'm with you. Okay. So that's the first step. And then the second is when you go to work, try little pauses where you breathe into it and sense the possibility that if you get a little bit of space, that at least you have the choice to take one step. You have more experimenting you can do other than the leave and do something else.

And just give yourself permission to pause, try something out. And then if you find your going again, the most important thing is not to cake it in with should, because you'll never get interested and you'll never find the kindness that's needed to change the patterning with should. Yeah. Let us know. I mean, I realize we're not getting together for a few months, but let that be a real, it's a fantastic area to explore. Because every one of us, if it's not work, it's relationships, if it's not relationships, it's something else, we all have ways that we leave what's uncomfortable.

We all do. So it's like first forgiving it and then getting interested in how we can have alternatives. Okay, I think it's great because it's a practice to do in the moment versus in meditation before or after. Exactly. It's a mini-rein-the-moment where you really don't judge the outcome. Okay, thanks.

Yeah, enjoy. At least be curious. Yeah. There's a tone of voice that I've been accused of that I don't hear. And so I don't know how to work with it, to change it, to prevent it. And it came up yesterday, quite surprisingly, just calling the waiter's name. I was out to brunch for Mother's Day, and the waiter had the same name as my son. and calling his name, just trying to get his attention for something, my son's friend reacted.

It reminded him of when I would call Ian from the foot of the steps upstairs in a tone of voice that they all heard, but I didn't. And it sounds like I'm angry and I'm not feeling angry. So I don't know what it is or where it's coming from and what to do about it. And it's, again, if I could be present the moment before and hear, 24-7, then I can prevent that, but I'm not sure how to work with that. Are there times that it happens that are distinctive? Like, do you get that feedback in certain conversations with certain people?

The times where I've been able to at least recognize after the fact where maybe it could have sounded the way they heard it was where I'm maybe frustrated, not angry. I mean, just there's like, I guess, a slight anger if I'm frustrated, a slight disappointment. I'm in a slight something, or I'm in a hurry. And so it comes out sounding like I'm angry, but I'm more like in a hurry frustrated. That I recognize when it's pointed out. Uh-huh, uh-huh.

And what do you wish? I wish that my tone reflected more patience, kindness, and not an angry or harsh expression. And would you sense that, if there actually were more patience and kindness that your tone would shift, or do you really think that there's a mismatch of tone and what people are picking up? Some of both. Certainly there could always be more patience. And sometimes it just feels like it doesn't fit what I'm feeling.

So if you really are in a place where you're insides or not in a fight-flight, freeze, stressed place, and your voice has the tone that expresses you in a fairly relaxed, you know, then there's really nothing to do. But when you get the feedback, you know, continue the communications until it becomes, you know, that kind of an authenticity where it's gotten that your energy's what it is. So if that's the situation, there's nothing to do, but just stick with the communication process.

My sense is to the degree that you're not aware of the degree, of tension that you carry and how it affects your vocal cords, that's your place where you get to pay more attention. And it's a challenging conditioning because, you know, we speak all the time. So you can't, every time you're about to speak, say, what's my intention, am I hearful? You know, you can't do that. What you can do is you can select certain spots, certain people or certain circumstances, and let those be your places where you're going to practice. when we have the idea that we're going to be mindful all the time it's a setup to fail you know it really is your heart can care about it but it's like then we're just evaluating how am i doing all the time you

know but if you turn it into more of a curiosity and an experiment and you know with certain people that we have the dance where we get more tense and more impatient pick one of those people pick certain situations with that person and then with some interest see what happens happens if you do create more of a pause. And if you do say, what's my deepest intention right now? And again, that's a really powerful question. If before you speak in situations where there's a preconditioned dance, if you say, what's my intention? Just the question will align you more with your heart and your tone will change. I'm just going to mention, because it was funny, with a preconditioned dance, so with my son, I said, yeah, I'm just going to sing when I have to

talk to you. Hey. That is as cool as anything. And it worked. We both would just laugh because I'd be singing whatever it was I was wanting to say to him. And at the restaurant yesterday, he says, just sing to the waiter. I love it. I love it. It's beautiful. Hi, Tara. I'm really loving reading your book. And what I was wanting to know more about is just what you were actually saying about maybe bringing a question to the meditation, what is in my heart or just when I come to the meditation, I just want to explore my heart more and allow it to come out during that time. Not that it's a should.

It's just that would be another way to spend this quiet time. First of, you know, in our formal practice, it's really nice to have a balance between some skillful means that either could be in the form like you're saying of putting in an inquiry and sensing around that Or maybe it's the skillful means of just collecting the attention and really resting in one object, so you get very, very quiet and very, very peaceful. Or it might be the skillful means of a specific heart practice.

So it's really good to balance that, where you have something in tension, where you're directing, with what you're doing, which is really a choiceless awareness, where the only intention is the kind of, you know, bear attention of just recognizing and allowing this unfolding dance. And the reason the latter is so important is that if you're always guiding the meditation, you never really step out of this primary duality of a self that's kind of coaching herself in a meditation. You never relax into that kind of non-dual, continuous space that's here. So if you're doing a skillful means and you'd like to refine it with inquiry, one inquiry first is just to sense what your intention or aspiration is.

that's a kind of universal. And I feel like it's misunderstood a lot because it takes a real deep listening. We have layers of intention and we have prepackaged intentions. And so it's fresh every time and our aspiration is how we want to manifest in our being right now.

It's not some future thing. Right. So to start there by sensing what really matters until you get that palpable sincerity. I think of it as a real innocence. It's just totally entering the universe fresh and open, you know. Start with that. And then if there's another inquiry,

it's usually for me it's something like what's between me and presence right now. Is there anything that's between this heart and fully loving, that kind of thing? Because those kind of questions direct the attention to where we're contrasted. You know, how Carl Young put it, he said that our suffering is from the unseen, unfelt parts of our psyche.

So in a way, when we say, well, what really wants attention or what's between me and, it shines the light of awareness in a very natural way on what we might have been habitually not looking at. So I hope that's helpful for now. Yeah. Thank you, Tar. Good. Thanks for asking.

I have another post-retreat question, if I may. Yeah. I've never had a Goinka mindfulness training. I've done with Jonathan, of course, the lying body scans, which are usually guided. But in my own practice, I always would think of the body skin as something you do at the beginning as you're getting settled. And then Pat talked about his experience with Goenka and feeling bubbles all over his body. and I said, wow, this is cool, I've got to try that. So I did a whole 45 minutes of breathing into what I was feeling, which was usually discomfort.

But how do you get bubbles on your body when you're doing a body scan? Is there any body scan instructions as a skillful means? If there's ever a goal-oriented practice, I want bubbles, you know. I like it. Yeah, it's a very specific and very refined practice. And I remember I spent a lot of time doing it when I was at a six-week retreat at the Forest Refuge and I hurt my knee so I couldn't do walking practice. And then I got a back spasm. So I ended up lying on my back and doing very refined body scans for a while. And ultimately, it's not that defined. You can start wherever you want. But it's usually you're starting from the top down and you're doing very things. thin slice and you're not doing anything but actually opening to perceive that domain the sensations there and absolutely letting be so it's a very very slow where you're opening up the awareness to the play of sensation at each part of the body and you just go all the way down you can go all the way up and if you go slow enough and your attention is purely receptive what happens is you

really become aware that your sense of impermanence, it's a radical impermanence. And there is nothing but a continuous dancer unfolding. And sometimes the emphasis is on the sense of the creation. Sometimes it's the dissolving of sensations. Some people go through months where everything's death, everything's dissolving, dissolving, and then it can be both. And so it's a pretty wild ride. Sounds cool. Thank you. You just have to go slow enough. And very, very, non-doing. It's like the only doing is that you have a general map that you're following, which again in my understanding you have to drop that too if you really want to dissolve the final vestiges of duality. Receptive attentiveness to the play of sensation. And it's somewhat like

doing the open focus practice where it's receptive to the intuition of the space that's there. And in that practice, you actually are sensing sensations, and then you're sensing the space that it's all coming from. Yeah, thank you. I've got a question about wanting to have a regular practice, because I know that when I meditate first thing in the morning, I can keep that calm centeredness through the day. And I know when I meditate at night before I go to sleep,

it stops my racing mind, and I'm able to fall asleep into a deep sleep much sooner. But it's really hard for me. my day starts so quickly. The phone rings. I have to deal with situations. All day, it's like one thing I have to do after another thing, and then the phone rings. And I keep, you know, in the back of my mind, when there's a break, I'm really going to meditate.

I'm really going to sit and meditate. And the whole day is gone, and I thought, well, I'm going to get there early. But things get happening, and I just barely get here in time. And it's my life that's really full of really, really different things happening so fast it can hardly keep up. how do I find the discipline? So one thing I'm hearing is that it matters to you and you value it. And another I'm hearing is that repeatedly day after day, you feel you get swept into the stream of busyness.

And let me just check. So how many others find that the intensity and the demand and so on makes the discipline really hard for you? Yes, that's mostly everybody. So it looks like you've hit on something. let me just open it to you all for a little bit. Let's call on the collective wisdom. And just let me ask you, what have you found given the pull

that something matters to you and yet it's hard? What has helped you bring the discipline alive? I have creatures that when they know that I'm up, want to stay up. And so what I do is I get up very, very early and walk very quietly over to my altar and just sit. And if they don't hear me, I don't get the distractions. Parrot, two dogs.

So there's the things that my life are about, or, well, the things that make my life worth living are practicing, meditating, exercising, and kind of eating well. These are like staples of what makes me feel like I've had a good day. a worthwhile day. And what I notice about each of them is I don't somehow like to do them, like I try to avoid them and not do them, but it's what I really want to do. So what I have to do with each of them is just start to do it before I even allow myself to grasp onto the lazy kind of negative thoughts. So I'll put on my gym clothes. You know, I'm just forcing myself to sort of

not grasp on to the negative thoughts of like, I don't really want to do this, I'm tired. You know, I'll walk down to the treadmill. I'll just push the on button. And I'll just start to go through the motions. And then I find that I'm already, I'm doing it. Fantastic. That's great. And I want to reiterate the two we've heard so far.

So for Hardy, it's like a kind of no matter what, getting up early enough and just beelining for the altar. And Laura starts the movement. In other words, it doesn't matter whether your heart or mind is there. You just do the external actions. So it's like Jack Cornfield says you just put your touch. push on the cushion, you take what you get, you know, you just take the posture. Yeah, thanks. I've been working on really trying to establish a daily practice, and one of the things that's

really been working for me recently is I do kind of like getting better at stuff, so I'll know that when I'm about to sit, I'll really be kind of excited about just getting a little better at it. You know, like I'll just think, you know, I just kind of want to maybe feel that I've really kind of been present and, you know, the results vary, but I find somehow that it becomes almost like a game and I kind of look forward to it. So it's kind of like a fun thing to do instead of something I should do and it's kind of birdism. I just make it the first thing. Well, I get up and feed my cat. Once she's fed, I just brush my teeth and sit on the cushion. And it's just nothing else in the day is allowed. That's just my order. And then the day begins. That's been

working for me. What helps me the most is when I have the most compassion for myself, because it's time I spend with someone who is really my best friend, and the more I open to myself as my best friend and the one who needs to care about me most. There's no game. It's holding myself in love. And I think that's what has pushed my practice. The most of the most of the more. The more, I'm most is having that tenderness for myself. So that attitude of that your practice is coming out of a real love for your being and to stay connected to that tenderness is what really moves it. Compassion. Thank you.

When things are harried or moving fast and I get triggered, what works for me the best is to go into a mini, the third part of rain, not investigate with kindness but interest or curiosity. someone really pisses me off I go why am I so upset and all of a sudden I'm curious about

them and me and then I go they're acting really bad whatever the behavior is and then the space opens up like you're being an asshole I'm being an asshole real quick the judgment and I let go of that and I go

we're all kind of in this together and I'm in a little meditation I'm just there and I'm in the eye of rain curiosity helps me and I still struggle. I had a teacher once that really helped me with that, with a very simple sentence that she said,

discipline is remembering what you really want. And the actual meaning of the word discipline to become a disciple of what is sacred, a disciple of what you cherish. So discipline, if it's a discipline and it's not for something that really, really matters, it's not going to sustain. So part of it is the reflection of what matters,

and it might come out of a sense of compassion for oneself or could come out of interest? It has to matter. What I do, because I notice the judgment comes up. Oh, no. Here I'm into my day and I didn't meditate. And so I'm compassionate with the judging self. The other thing I do is when my day gets started before I'm ready.

Throughout the day, I take pauses and just be mindful of whatever is happening during the day just take the pauses. Thank you. Yeah. I just came off of a concentration retreat, and one of the recommendations to sustain was to meditate for two hours a day. We'll see. But I wake up in the morning, and before I get out of bed,

I say, I'm going to meditate. And I go and I get myself as comfortable as I can. I get a nice, soft chair, and I'm comfortable. I make myself just okay. And I set my timer for an hour, and I meditate. And it feels good. I'm comfortable, and it feels good as part of my day. In the evening, same deal.

But I forego watching television. I don't do that anymore. I just turn it off and sit. And it's very comfortable. I hope to sustain it. May it be so. That's great. Two hours a day.

I'll share my strategy, which is I lucked out in the sense that I spent a lot of years in an ashram where we had two and a half hours a day together there's a group, groups really help. There are people now that get on a phone or a computer at a certain hour and everybody meditates together and it's a commitment and they all show up, if not a class or something else. So groups are great. But then I left the ashram, got pregnant, and had a child, and all of a sudden not only did I not have a group, I had my own little group with Narayan, who was an infant. So I made a commitment to myself that I would practice every day no matter what. I just made that commitment. And my backdoor was a

didn't matter how long. And so while most days it was like a trick because I'd say, okay, I said no matter what, I'm going to sit. And usually once I sit, then there's something in me goes, well, just get curious. Well, let's just take a little longer. And then it ends up being a full sit. There's some days it wasn't like that. You know, some days would be the end of the day. I'd sit on the edge of my bed back then. It was always cross-legged. And I would just take a few breaths and say, you know, may everybody be happy, you know, may everybody be free, clean. punk, you know, and that was it. But here's the thing. No matter what really works for me, because there's a back door, anybody can sit for 30 seconds. And it doesn't have to be sit either,

by the way. When I say formal practice, it could be a walking practice, it could be a lying down in bed. It's the intention to be present. And it's a gift to the soul. You're dedicating to your spirit, to your heart, to your life, these moments to connect. And so it helps for me to say, or what, because when I get up in the morning, I might not be in the mood at all. It might not be, oh, gift to the soul. It's just like, I know, I'm just going to do it. But again, it's not rigid because the space around it is so easy. And there is something in us that does get interested and something in us that does care. If we give ourselves that no matter what space, that stuff starts percolating.

So I love this collage of responses because for one person, one approach works and for another another. It's not like there's a right answer. That's why I wanted to hear from you because there really is not one way. And thank you for bringing it in. Even though people looked at you,

we were all talking to each other. Yeah. Okay, let's just take a few moments to pause, to close together. in these moments to let the interest that really draws us into what is happening right now. Just that curiosity. What's it like right now? Really?

What does this body feel like right now? What's the state of my heart right now? Is there anything between me and presence right now? And asking yourself as you leave, what you feel your intention or aspiration is for tonight, for tomorrow, for your moments. What's your aspiration? May our time together this evening and inquiry and sharing. May our meditation, our silence, our prayer.

Ripple out to touch all beings, to bring awakening, to bring peace to these hearts and minds and hearts and minds everywhere. May all beings touch a great and natural peace. May there be peace on earth. May there be peace everywhere. May all beings awaken and be free. Namaste. The teaching you have received has been freely offered.

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