Tara Brach - 2014-08-27 - Loving Truth - The Power of Investigation

Episode Date: August 30, 2014

2014-08-27 - Loving Truth - The Power of Investigation - A key element in spiritual awakening is wise and compassionate investigation. This talk explores how investigation and inquiry (the use of questions) serves emotional healing, intimacy with others and the deepest realization of who we are.

The following talk is given by Tara Brock, meditation teacher, psychologist, and author. Good evening. One of my favorite phrases from the time of the Buddha, this is from the Pali script, is Ahi Pascico, and the meaning is come and see for yourself. And what it communicates is that this is not a path of listening and believing what other people say. I mean, they can be useful, they can be pointers, but it's really a path of direct investigation. But the only freedom, the only liberation comes from actually checking out and finding out what is happening in this mind, right here, right now. So in the Buddhist teachings inquiry, our investigation is considered one of the key factors of enlightenment,

one of the key features that actually allows us to wake into a full awareness. And it's basically considered that the very nature of investigating will reveal truth. And we practice out of a love for truth. So one of the traditional metaphors that I find really helpful is just to imagine a dark room filled with furniture and what happens when you turn on the light. And if you keep it off, you kind of bumble around, to keep knocking against the furniture. But if we start shining a light on the room,

then we begin to change our patterns. We don't have to bump against furniture and bruise ourselves. So the key to understanding transformation is that we're all patterned. We all have conditioning that has us repeat certain behaviors out of fear, out of grasping, out of ignorance and that it's not until we investigate and see those patterns that we can change them. So we begin to notice, okay, what is it that's going on when I get this addiction to food or to a certain person or to a certain activity or what is going on when I'm constantly doubting myself and I'm constantly gripped with feeling not enough? And it's If we have some element of interest, and interest is a huge deal, you can't go very far in this path without interest, interest in reality.

If there's some interest, we begin to shine the light of awareness in that dark room where the patterns keep on repeating themselves. There's a saying that history repeats itself, which is good because most people don't pay attention the first time anyway. So the idea is that illusion exists because it's not investigated. And we can see it in our personal history. And one of the examples that I found most profound of this story that's become rather well known, Lester Levinson, who many of you might have heard of as the founder of the Sedona Method. When he was in his 40s, he got really sick. He had heart failure and colon cancer and probably some other things too.

And the doctors basically sent him home and said, there's nothing we can do. Try not to move around much and you're going to die. It was kind of like that. So it was a death sentence and so he reflected on his life. He was super educated. He had studied every philosophic system, every religious system and so on.

Where did it get him? So he decided to drop it all, all his ideas about life, and begin to ask some questions. to his own body and mind. And he addressed his body and where some of the illness was and says, what's your belief? What's the view going on here?

What's the unconscious view that this pathology is holding? And the response that he got from inside was kind of a demand that the world be different. It was a view that the world is not the way it should be. This was the core belief. The world should should. be different. Or it could have been I should be different or you should be different. But that was the flag. So then he asked himself, do I need that? No. They decided to drop it. And he went on

to live a number of decades and create the Sedona method and bring to a lot of people this very powerful system of asking good questions. There are a number of good systems out there of asking questions. But the point I want to make is that when we're suffering, we're believing something that's not true. You might think of it as we're opposing reality, we're at war with reality. And that belief isn't always in consciousness. And even if the beliefs in consciousness we're not in touch with the feelings underneath the belief, and it's not until we investigate and connect with what's going on, what it's unconscious and bring it into consciousness that we get freed up from the pattern

that's creating the suffering. So this is the landscape that we'll be exploring tonight. How to begin to bring this power of inquiry, of investigation, which is a key part of mindfulness and if you're familiar with rain, the rain acronym, which is a way to use mindfulness, it's key element of rain. And I'm considering this talk as a focus on one key dimension that we really need to be free. And it's a dimension that takes courage because to the degree we have fear we get really rigid and go around with certainties. It shouldn't be like this. It's supposed to be like this. And we get very tight and that's where fundamentalism comes in, right, wrong, good, bad.

And to get the knack of inquiry, we have to be willing to open up our hands and not know. And we have to be willing to drop everything we think we know to be able to have truth flow through. Does that make sense? And this is big and we have to drop all our ideas about how it is. Even if 20 minutes ago they seem really good, to this moment, this moment be available to truth, we have to drop it all over again, like completely drop it, and live in a kind of uncertainty in what the Zen Buddhist called Don't Know Mind and then discover, well, what's really going on? So it's a vulnerable situation.

Somebody sent me this a few years ago and has a doctor who's kind of, scratching his beard and he's looking at this guy, this guy's sitting there with this huge dagger in his back. And the doctor's saying, well, it's got to come out, of course, but that doesn't address the deeper problem. So what would motivate us to drop everything over and over again to keep sensing, okay, this is the view. The view is that so-and-so is wrong and I'm right, Or the view is that I'm really a failure and I'll never be who I want to be. Or the view is that others won't love me. Or the view is I have to do this in order to be okay.

What will motivate us to challenge and shine a light on what we're holding tightly? It's that someplace in us loves truth more than we love that certainty. There's something in us. that really wants to know the truth. Rumi says, he says, grapes want to turn to wine. We want to be all that we are. So just take a moment.

Let's reflect together for a moment. Very, very simple. This is a very simple pause and checking in. And close your eyes. So the most basic inquiry, what is happening inside you right now? What's the most predominant or compassionate, telling experience you're aware of.

Notice what happens when the question is asked. What's happening right this moment? What most wants your attention right now? And just take a few breaths and open your eyes when you'd like. The power of inquiry is that it directs our attention. It energizes our attention and it energizes it right into the present moment, what's here. And there's a kind of nudgee it

a kind of knack to asking ourselves questions. It's kind of like you develop an inner coach that you hold lightly like everything else, it just a skillful means, it starts getting the knack of saying, okay, so what's going on right now inside me, or what wants attention, or what am I running from right now? Many different ways you can ask the question. I'm going to go into some questions in a little bit that I find helpful. But first I want to say that there's a lot of misunderstandings about investigation. And the biggest one is that investigation is in some way a kind of mental or analytic process that we're trying to figure something out.

There's some sort of mental digging like, well, I'm feeling this way because for a really bad experience I had in college. And it was really because I was younger than everybody else. And so it's like we go into the storyline and that's not investigation. In fact, anything that takes us from the present moment is not a wise form of investigation for the sake of spiritual awakening. It may be useful for something else. So it's not analytic, it's not abstract.

We're not trying to investigate if I solve a problem, how to fix this broken printer, or what should I do first today to get the most done. It's not like that. And it's not a kind of... of theoretical wondering that's like answering the question why. Why is there evil in this world? There's one story I've always loved at this Roshi and a student in a dialogue in a student saying, well what happens after we die? And the Roshi says, you know, a Roshi by the way is a kind of Zen monk. He says, well, I don't know. And that really angered the student. He says, I thought you were a Zen monk.

and the response was I am, but not a dead one. So the question is not like this why question. It's directed to what is going on right here, right here, right now. And it's not a kind of inquiry is not a chance to step back away from. It's very engaged. In fact, inquiry or investigation, you're feeling what you're looking into. Some of you might heard this term, Zen in the art of reading all the books about Zen. you know, it's not that.

So you could listen to and read about and think about spiritual matters for years and there's no freedom until you actually start paying attention to your inner experience. One coach I heard about, said to a former football player says, what is it with you? Is it ignorant or apathy? And he said, coach, I don't know and I don't care.

And that just made me, I thought that was such a great line because it made me realize that really the spirit behind inquiry is a true interest and care about how things are. It's really loving life and wanting to know life intimately. Okay, so let's look a little more closely. We'll look at the basic ways that inquiry and investigation both can heal emotional tangles and also really reveal in a very deep way a spiritual truth, really wake us out, liberate. And one of the lines I like the best from Carl Jung is that our suffering and neurosis come from the unseen, unfelt parts of our psyche. Sometimes described as unlived life that which we haven't really allowed ourselves to feel

and process. That includes, as you heard with the story from Lester, the beliefs that we haven't shined a light on that are driving us. The beliefs of I'm not really worthwhile, or that I'm unlovable, or that I can't trust others. So to the degree that we haven't really shined a light on and investigated the feelings and thoughts that are there, were identified with them. You're identified with anything you haven't brought into the light of awareness. That's what has control over your life. So the process of investigation is to begin to...

And it can be pretty systematic, ask questions that bring into the light of awareness that kind of subterranean tangle. And when I say light of awareness, it's a kind of awareness, a gentle awareness. and a clear attention. So maybe give you an example of how I did some investigating with one

woman. This is some years ago. Her situation, and this is when a lot of people I know can relate to, she would be visiting her father once a week. He was in a nursing home. About an hour from her home. And they'd take

lunch, etc. And then in between, she'd call them regularly. And he would, he'd be visiting her regularly. And he was clearly lonely and really hankered after her visits. In fact, when she was, you know, they're about to leave, he'd always remark, well, I'm sure you have better things to do, but he wouldn't want her to go, you know. So she was sandwiched between that and her youngest son was in middle school and in a very angry and withdrawn place where he both wanted attention, he'd storm away and be rude, and he was hurting and it was hard. So she found herself loving them but not liking them. And then she found herself feeling like she was a hard-hearted, unloving person. And I know a lot of us can relate to loving people but not liking them. And deep down feeling like we're not a very loving person because of that. And so we were working with that and when I asked her about her beliefs, you know, what

are you believing? It was basically, I can't do it right. I'm basically letting down everybody. I don't like myself. I'm a failure. You know, I'm not a loving, helpful person. So she's a very, very core level of failing as a mother and failing as a daughter. That was the belief that, and part of that belief was that I'm selfish and unworthy. And then I asked you, well, when you're believing that, that you're selfish and unworthy, that you're failing others and so on. What does it feel like underneath that belief? And she said, fear that I'm going to be left all alone, and that then I'm going to just fail even more and be completely isolated and miserable.

And then I asked a question, how does going around feeling like a failure and feeling that fear affect your life? And she said, well, I am always... squeezed, I can't relax. And that was the moment that she had, and I sometimes described this as kind of the ouch moment where she really got how many moments of her life, she was feeling like a failure, she was squeezed about it, she couldn't relax, that she just wasn't able to engage in her life. And that was where, in that kind of ouch moment, and I, I sometimes sometimes think of it as a soul sadness, where we send to see the landscape of our life

and realize how much of our life we have sacrificed to these patterns, where we haven't really let ourselves be close to others, where we haven't been able to love without holding back some, or where we haven't really let ourselves enjoy or be creative. So that was the moment that she, we could ask, well, what is that place in you that feels like a failure that feels afraid need and that's a really powerful question. What is this part of you need? And it really needed in some way the message of it's okay, you know, I care about you. And I often have people put their hand on their heart because it's a beautiful part of the loving kindness practice to offer care inside. And so she did that and there

was more compassion around. Then I asked her another question which was, what was, what what would your life be like if you didn't have that belief of failure? What would it be like? And she said she could immediately feel energy. It was like everything that it was pushed under by that sense of the leagered and failing. She just felt a lot of energy. And she would be an adventure, not a problem.

And then I asked her, who would you be if you didn't have that belief and failure? And she said, space. I'd be free to love and I'd be space. Those were the word she used. But here's the point that when there's a tangle that's not in consciousness, we need to begin to ask questions that bring out what's going on. We need to be able to ask questions that let us be able to ask questions that let us see what's the beliefs, what's the feelings.

Now sometimes the questions could be simply we start with well what wants attention. What wants acceptance? What wants my attention right now? What might I be afraid to feel or unwilling to feel? You can ask the question, what am I believing? Or what's the view of this part of me? Be careful, though, because believing can go into a whole story

that can take you very heady. So keep coming back to how does it feel in my body? How does it feel right here? The question that was key for her, what does this part need? They always need some form of presence and sometimes it's compassion, sometimes it's acceptance, sometimes forgiveness, but that's a really important question. If you bring this inquiry and care to the tangle, the tangle and tangles, the identification with the tangle starts dissolving and who you become is really the space that's interested

and caring and awake, you're no longer identified with the small self that was suffering. And that shift in identity is the key shift that brings freedom on the path. Okay, so here's the key element to remember if you're going to go off and start investigating, and that is, I sometimes use a metaphor that the parts of ourselves that are unconscious are like, shy, wild creatures that are kind of in the shadows, in order for them to come out into the light of awareness, we truly have to create a safe and inviting kind of a space. In other words, your attitude needs to be one of curiosity and gentleness and care. Otherwise, it's not going to be safe enough for the fearful parts and the shameful parts and

the lonely parts to reveal themselves. Sometimes this reminds me often of a story about George Shaler, who is a primate biologist, and his renown came when he returned from the wilds with more intimate and compelling information about guerrillas than ever had been discovered before. And this all came through in a film, Gorillas in the Miss, where his protege, Diane Fosse, is the field biologist in the movie. But George Shaler, his colleagues, would ask him, how did he get all this remarkable information, you know, about this tribal structure

and a family life and intimate habit of guerrillas? And he said he attributed it all to just one simple thing. He didn't carry a gun. He approached these huge, gentle creatures with a tremendous respect. And they probably sensed his benevolence. It was safe. And they let him close enough so that, you know, he could observe their lives. It's exactly the same when you begin to develop an intimate relationship with your inner life. And it is a relationship. That quality of presence and gentleness and inviting the parts of ourselves that are struggling to come out.

When we do, when we say what's happening and we listen inside, it can be like a vibrational hug and it starts to melt the edges and it allows experience to move and dissolve. Let's just check it out a little. We'll practice together this piece and then we'll look at a few other areas of inquiry. So this is going to be, as you pause, just to give you one of those mini kind of practices that you can enlarge on your own. I want to give you a taste, though. I've just investigated in a guided way. And so you might choose something that's going on in your life with another person or your own behavior work

where you get stuck, where you're repeating a pattern over and over again. It could be something where you end up acting out in a certain way that you wish you didn't, some behavior you don't like, or it might be an internal stuck place where you just get caught in judgment or fear, certain circumstances that trigger you. And don't worry about finding the perfect situation. And I wouldn't suggest a stuck place where there's trauma because you don't have the time

or the container for that right now. It might be something around an addictive behavior, you know, overeating or some drug use, maybe overworking and getting stressed out, maybe getting angry at somebody, feeling rejected and withdrawing in a certain way. Let yourself go right to a situation that exemplifies it, and the more you can put yourself in the situation, the more you'll get out of this little exercise, just seeing another person's face and their expression and how they're speaking to you. If another person's involved or seeing the room quite clearly that you're in or if you're outside what's there

and whatever the trigger is, letting that be close in and central. The R of rain is just to recognize what's going on right now and allow it to be there. So in some way a stuck place means you're triggered, you're caught, sometimes we call it the hijacking of the limbic system, you know, you're just caught. And that's an invitation once you recognize and allow the R and the A of Rain to investigate. And remember, it's investigate with an intimate attention, no gun, no judgment, with friendliness. You might just begin by sensing, well, what's happening inside me when this is going on? You might feel your body, the throat, the chest, the belly.

You might ask yourself, what am I believing? If you feel where you're most vulnerable, what's the viewpoint of that vulnerable place? Something's wrong with me? Is it something's wrong with you? I'm not lovable, I'm not worthy, I'm endangered. What's the belief? And perhaps you can't find a belief and that's quite fine. Just let yourself feel the feelings that are there under the belief whether or not you've

identified one. Where do you feel most afraid, most upset? What's the feeling like? What's the worst thing you're imagining could happen? And if you could speak directly to that part that's most upset in some way, how does this part want you to be with it? What does it need? Is it acceptance, kindness, understanding? It might help to put your hand on your heart and just to offer that deepened presence. It's such a visceral, tender way to really bring alive this compassionate investigation. What's needed? What's needed? You might sense, who would you be if you weren't believing that something was wrong?

You weren't believing the belief that's there. Who are you when you offer real compassion and presence to these vulnerable? places, to sense the beingness quality that's here, the heart space. And because this is such a short kind of an exercise, you might just send a message to whatever is going on inside that you'll be back, that you want to listen, you want to understand, you care, no gun, just presence. So what we just did was really bringing the qualities of kindness and mindfulness to a difficult place, but we emphasize the element of investigation, which is a key part of awareness.

Now, just as when we investigate our inner life, we become more intimate with it and there's healing that's possible, it's exactly the same with each other. If we want to be in relationships with each other that are really... that are really vibrant and alive and dimensional, we have to be interested in each other. There has to be that seeking to understand quality. We get so inside our own self that we forget to really wonder,

what's it like for you? What's it really like for you? So we have the capacity to understand each other. We have this neurocircuitary that's really designed in a social creatures, these mirror neurons, to pay attention and get a real feeling sense of what it's like. But often when we're caught up in ourself and we're caught in fight, flight, freeze, and we're very self-centered, we are disconnected from that circuitry. So how do we wake it up?

I mean, can you imagine how your relationships, would be if you deepened your intention to inquire and to understand. If you think of the people closest to you, if you just want one degree more of what's it like for you, so much can flourish. It's radical because a lot of the moments of our day, we're living in a kind of mental map of I'm in here, the world's out there, and it's filled with assumptions about who others are. We're living off of a story of whose others are and not checking in with the real organic what's right here. One of my favorite examples of this is a story years ago that somebody sent me,

and it goes like this about a century or two ago, the Pope decided that all the Jews had to leave Rome. and naturally there was a big uproar from the Jewish community, so the Pope made a deal. He would have a religious debate with a member of the Jewish community, and if the Jew won, the Jews could stay. If the Pope won, the Jews would leave. The Jews realized they had no choice, so they picked a middle-aged man named Moisha to represent them,

and Moisha asked for one addition to the debate. To make it more interesting, neither side would be allowed to talk. The Pope agreed. The day of the great debate came, and they didn't talk. Moisha and the Pope sat opposite. each other for a full minute before the Pope raised his hand and showed three fingers. Moisha looked back to him and raised one finger. The Pope waved his fingers in a circle around his head and Moisha pointed to the ground where he sat. The Pope pulled out a wafer and a glass of wine.

Moisha pulled out an apple. The Pope stood up and said, I give up. This man is too good. He's great. The Jews can stay. An hour later, the Cardinals were around the Pope asking him what happened. The Pope said, well, first I held up three fingers to represent the Trinity. He responded by holding up one finger to remind us that there's one God common to both religions. I waved my fingers around to show that God was all around us. He responded by pointing to the ground to show that God was interior right here within us. I pulled out the wine in the wafer to show that God absolves us from all our sins. He pulled out an apple to remind me of original sin. He had an answer for everything. What could I do? Meanwhile, the Jewish community crowded around Moisha. What happened? They asked.

Well, Moisha said, first, he told me that the Jews had three days to get out of here. I told him that not one of us was leaving. He told me this whole city would be cleared of Jews, and I let him know that we were staying right here. Yes, yes, and then said the crowd, I don't know, Moisha said, he took out his lunch, and I took out mine. So it's a silly story, and I was aware in speaking of it that there's so much tragedy going on right now that in Gaza in the Middle East that as I spoke it I started feeling really uncomfortable and I want to share that with you

because I feel so much pain about the violence there and it could have been any character set up in the story so I apologize for any pain I caused as I was reading I truly just in the moment started realizing that it was inappropriate but I think the message is important could have used a better illustration that we think we know when we're speaking with each other

what's going on and we don't. And we need to find out. One young friend of mine who has served for a number of years by working in Central America with people that are impoverished or in trouble in different ways describes an experience he had that really spoke to this.

He was accompanying an old man with a broken hip to an emergency room, and for many hours this man was in pain, not getting attention. So Phil described his helplessness not being able to provide relief, thinking this guy needs me, needs me to help him, he needs me to do something, and all I can do is just hang out with him. So at one point, somebody handed the old man a bread roll, And this is what Phil Wright wrote. He says,

Then something miraculous happened. The old man broke his bread roll in half and stretched out his hand toward mine. An acute sense of surprise and embarrassment came over me, and at first I refused his offer, insisting that he eat it for sure he needed it more than I. But my feeble attempt to decline the gift were wholeheartedly dismiss as he pushed the bread into my hand,

motioning me to eat. And so I did, me looking bewildered and humbled, and he looked quite pleased to be able to share his meal. with a near stranger. Phil's learning that he was in the role of helper, and he created the other into other, you know, without really sensing who's there. And the who was there was a being that wanted to commune, wanted to share his bread, that that was meaningful. We forget what other people want or need or feel.

So seeking to understand means beginning to really ask questions, really ask questions to other people. How are you? What's it like for you? I was struck by a story about the Dalai Lama who I think really is an amazing example of willingness to hold beliefs lightly and listen. and attend and learn and grow. He was visiting San Francisco some years back and he was asked his position on homosexuality and he said,

our religion does not approve of it. He said that very firmly. Well, the San Francisco gay community was not really pleased with that response. So they asked whether the Dalai Lama would meet with a delegation and discuss and explore what he had said. And so they met. and it was a really long meeting, and he sought to understand they're upset about suffering

and the violence of discrimination. At the end of this very long meeting, he publicly announced that he had changed his position. He said, quote, I was wrong. I was speaking in accordance with traditional Buddhist teachings, but I now believe they are misguided. That really affected me because, you know, we don't see that much. We don't see much leaders being true leaders, which means that they keep on listening to the deepest truths and let that guide them. We don't see that much.

And for him to make a public statement and then converse, communicate, and listen to understand, and then be willing to be changed. How willing are we to be changed? How much do we hold on to our position? you know that phrase, the world is divided into those who think they're right. And that's the whole phrase. But imagine globally if we could begin to have dialogues where the purpose was to seek to understand.

You know, it's happening in some places. You know, truth and reconciliation in spots. Imagine if that was in our own personal lives more the training, where we left this talk and we each had somebody in mind that we were going to, in some way when we communicated, wonder more about, how are you? What's it like? What's this like for you? What's important? What's hard right now? So powerful. If we can begin to do that, it can ripple out. So just take a moment just to pause for you. And just, we've been talking about inquiry, you might ask the simple question,

what's happening inside me right now? And then maybe bring to mind someone you know who you see regularly who may be having a hard time. You know, not somebody that brings up a huge, a negative reaction, but just somebody you know. Bring your interest and inquiry to that person. What's it like right now for that person? What is here or she need? What would in some way comfort or soothe or be healing from you or others?

Just take a few full breaths and just sensing that there is this power that can transform relationships with our inner life and with each other by bringing this interest in care, this inquiry to what's happening. We'll take some time now for the final domain I'd like to bring this to which could be a year of talks or really decades. It's the deepest domain of inquiry. It's the domain that's kind of the central spiritual question, which is really who am I, or what am I or what are we really?

And if you ask that question, when the mind is filled with thoughts or the minds in some form of reactivity, all you'll get is other thoughts. You'll just get ideas about it. You'll just get some concept. So it's kind of like the ocean and waves. If there's a lot of waves, really we need to bring our inquiry to the waves. So what's going on with this wave and this wave?

But if there's a little bit of stilling, we can sense the gap between the waves, the oceaness itself. And that's where the who am I question starts being really, really powerful. So this is, for some people, as I bring this up, it's not going to land as, oh, right now this is my practice. And for others it'll be, and it already is for many, a profound weave in your practice. When you get to be somewhat quiet, as the mind quiet, the sense of self is not so solid you'll find. There's not a center of self and there's not a boundary to self. It's more at times like a ghost self. Kind of you sense this amorphous familiar selfness in the background,

but there's nowhere you can really land or identify it there. It's just a sense of that there's someone who's meditating or someone things are happening to. The quieter it gets, when there's really no storyline going on, it can become quite mysterious. And if you begin to say when the mind's really quiet, well, who am I? There's no answer at all.

The Tibetans put it this way, that the true seeing is the seeing of no thing. There's just no thingness. It's empty. It's empty of thingness. It's not empty of life. There's aliveness. There's awakeness. But there's no entity.

The story's gone. So this is not a conceptual process. If you have a thought about it when you say, Who Am I? No thought can grasp reality because reality is bigger than thoughts. Thoughts are just representational symbols, images. They can't grasp. You can experience intuit and be the reality, but your thought can't capture it.

So inquiry, this deep inquiry of Who Am I, is designed to take you past thoughts to the direct realization of beingness. where you rest as presence itself. We'll just do a little bit of practice in that in just a few moments, but I just want to kind of give you a kind of a summary of the evening that inquiry is really one of the most powerful and fascinating ways to wake up your practice.

And sometimes the most interesting question is what is the best question right now? Okay? Check that out. Sometimes the most powerful inquiry is what's the inquiry right now that really will draw aside the veils, that really allows presence. Sometimes for me it's what is between me and loving presence. Sometimes it's really what am I or what is aware. Different moments, different questions. So Ahi Pascico, come and see for for yourself. We can listen to all the talks in the world and that's not it. They can get us in a mood, they can turn us in a direction, they can show us this is the doorway, but we have

to walk through by shining the light into awareness itself, shining the light to wherever we're not seeing. Henry Miller writes this, he says, the moment one gives close attention to anything, even a blade of grass, it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent world in its shell. So this is the central facet of awakening awareness and bringing it to, whether it's emotional tangles or bringing it to each other or this Who Am I essence question. This is what awakens us to truth. So we'll close with a simple kind of exploratory. of what we call self-inquiry.

And again, I invite you to sit in a way that's comfortable. Just these last few minutes, it's very short. And all you need in entering this practice is some curiosity and a willingness is not to judge how you move through it. Just curiosity, openness. Be easy. Really easy.

In fact, you might take a moment. to see what you can let go of. Maybe you can re-let go again in the shoulders, soften the hands, soften the belly, give that slight smile. So you just have an intention towards gentleness. Relaxing with the movement of the breath. I mentioned the ocean and the waves. You might sense the waves of sensation, sound. And just ask yourself, what is really happening right now inside me? what's the experience of sound like, what's the experience of sensation like, sensing in the foreground these waves of experience. And can you also sense in the background that alert, inner stillness that's aware, the silence that's listening, how is that silence experiencing sound,

the stillness that's aware of sensation? How is that stillness experiencing sensation right now? that everything's happening in. How is that open awareness experiencing this moment? Who is aware of all of this? Who or what is aware right now? Just look back into awareness and let go and be awareness. Relax. From the poet Rumi, I am water.

I'm the thorn that catches someone's clothing. There's nothing to believe. Only when I quit believing in myself did I come into this beauty. Day and night I guarded the pearl of my soul. Now in this ocean of pearling currents, I've lost track of which was mine. Day and night, I guarded the pearl of my soul. Now, in this ocean of pearling currents, I've lost track of which was mine. mine.

I must stay and thank you for your presence. The teaching you have received has been freely offered. If you'd like to make a donation, learn more about my schedule or programs offered by the Insight Meditation Community of Washington, please visit tarabrock.com and our IMCW.org.