Tara Brach - 2015-04-08 - Three Liberating Gifts: Part 3 - Looking in the Mirror

Episode Date: April 12, 2015

2015-04-08 - Three Liberating Gifts: Part 3 - Looking in the Mirror - This 3 part series is based on a teaching story from the Upanishads that shows our potential to awaken from an ego-based trance and discover the full luminosity and freedom of our natural awareness.  In each class we'll explore one of the three gifts considered as essential on the spiritual path.  The first is the capacity to forgive, to let go of the blame and resentment that prevents our hearts from being open and free.  The second gift is "inner fire," the capacity to devote ourselves wholeheartedly to what we most cherish.  The third gift is a "mirror" or the capacity to look deeply into our own hearts and minds and realize the truth of who we are. Each class includes guided meditations that explore how these gifts can be nourished right here and now in our lives. Please support this podcast by donating at www.tarabrach.com or www.imcw.org. Your donations allow us to continue to freely offer the teachings!

The following talk is given by Tara Brock, meditation teacher, psychologist, and author. Welcome and namaste. There's a pretty well-known story of the magician Harry Houdini. He'd be traveling around Europe, and he would challenge the local jailers to put him in a straight jacket and put him in a cell, and then, you know, he'd break loose without any trouble and wow everybody. But there was one little town in all. Ireland where he did this and he was put in a straitjacket and locked in the cell.

And he did fine with the straitjacket, threw that off in no time. But no matter how much he worked on that cell, he couldn't get out. And finally, he, you know, people got bored and left and he finally admitted defeat and asked the jailer to release him and asked him, you know, what was the story with he thought some newfangled lock he had never encountered. and the jailer admitted to him that it wasn't that at all. Rather, he had never locked the lock. He had just left it there on lock,

and Houdini was locking himself in. So I love this because it's a really very clear illustration of how our ego conditioning is to assume there's a problem and to keep on tinkering away at things, trying to figure things out, trying to do something about what's wrong, trying to defend ourselves, trying to aggress. And it's all in this underlying assumption that we have to do something

and something any moment is going to crash or go wrong in our life. It's quite natural that it's part of our identity and part of our job, so to speak, to take care of these cells. I mean, that's part of the deal for us. And we're living in a very confined world. if we're continually under the impression that something's wrong and we have to fix it or do something about it or get out of some sort of a tough situation or solve a problem. If that's our chronic mind state, it's a pretty compressed world

because we can never really pause, we can never arrive, and we can never really connect with a fullness and openness of our heart, a sense of the awareness that's right here. So this is a bit of an entree into the third of a three-part series of classes that I've been offering, and if you're here for the first time, don't worry, they stand on their own, and I'd encourage you if you have time to check out the last two. This is based on a story from the Upanishads, and it's really the general theme is how, in the field,

face of this changing, living, dying world, can we pause and open up to that timeless being or presence that really is what's rich and alive about our existence? How do we do that? And in this story, as a young man in India, who got into a conflict with his father, he publicly embarrassed his father and his father basically told him to go to hell. which is in the language was really go to Lord Yama. I give you to Lord Yama, the Lord of Death. So Natchikata went and pursued the Lord of Death, tried to find him and wanted to meet with him.

And he was so persistent and he put up with so much that when he finally did meet with the Lord of Death, he was granted three boons. Lord Yama said, any three wishes. And so these classes have been organized around the three wishes. And his first wish, his first wish was really for forgiveness, that he could let go of any anger and hatred that he held towards his father or towards anyone. Because Natchikato was a wise young man.

And he knew that to really pursue a path of awakening and freedom, he needed an undefended heart, a part that wasn't carrying that kind of armoring. So that was the first wish, and that was the first class that we had. The second wish was that for inner fire. Now, inner fire is the energy or the juice that has us really commit to pursuing a path. It's that wholeheartedness that says there's something that really matters to me. And as we know, in our day-to-day life, we often get distracted. We often get waylaid and get caught chasing after things or defending against things, worrying, planning,

and we sometimes, and this is fairly frequently, lose track of what really is important to us. The reflection is sometimes if you were at the end of your life looking back, what would really matter? And we forget that. So that was the second week. His third and final wish, Arboun, was really for self-realization. It was really that wish, I want to really know, I want to know my true nature, I want to know who I am. And as a response to that wish, Lord Yamas gave him a mirror. And he said, the path of self-realization is to look into your own awareness.

I could tell you things, but they wouldn't make a difference. each one of us needs to look into our own minds, our own awareness, to discover what's true. So that's the theme of this class. It's really how do we discover our nature? How do we look back into our own awareness? And it's based on this capacity. Each of these wishes is really for something we all have. We all have a capacity to let go of hatred.

We all have a capacity that energy. of wholeheartedness that can be in love with waking up and give ourselves to it. And on this third boon, we all have what's called a self-reflexive awareness, this capacity for awareness to look at itself, to sense its own luminosity and love. Okay? So we'll look more closely into this. And I first bring to mind, you know, well, what happens when we look in a real mirror. And as you know, we look in a real mirror and sometimes we'll look and we'll see the person that, well, kind of look like my parent by this age, you know, or we'll

sometimes look in the mirror and see somebody that doesn't fit our idea of how we should be looking and we'll have all sorts of judgments or opinions. But what is really going on if we really kind of reflect on it is that the consciousness that's looking into the mirror is outside of time. So that while our bodies might change, if we keep looking through different ages in our life, our body and our face will change, the same consciousness, that's outside of time.

That doesn't change. That is changeless. So consciousness or awareness isn't something we have to go find. You don't have to go somewhere. It's like this idea is consciousness there and like we're grabbing at it but it's not out there. A very simple exercise

I sometimes I like to do we can just do it for a moment is to sit and just close your eyes for a moment this will take about 10 seconds you don't have to adjust how you're sitting or anything for the next 10 seconds try not to be aware Okay. So just checking anyone's successful.

Usually there's often someone, but awareness is just always here. It's what we're made of. But we don't notice it usually because our attention is fixated on objects. We move through the day and we're fixated on thoughts or on an image or on a sound. We fixate outward rather than sensing that which is looking. That's the way we usually move through the day. We don't sense that the silence that's listening, we sense the sound. We don't sense the stillness that's perceiving aliveness. We sense the particular sensations.

One of the descriptions, I think, that's really helpful of the mind is as a reducing valve of information, that one of the primary jobs of the mind is to filter out what might not be necessary for our immediate survival. What that means is we're pushing away anything that's not immediately related to thriving. And we're basically sorting for whatever's going to give advantage

or whatever's going to bring us comfort, whatever's going to in some way enhance our experience. So we're constantly sorting like that. I read that a man wrote a letter to the IRS that said,

I've been unable to sleep knowing that I cheated on my income tax. I've understated my taxable income and have enclosed a check for $150. If I still

can't sleep, I'll send the rest. So we move through and we strategize constantly. And we put aside information and the world that's not so useful. And I sometimes think of this when I'm walking in the morning with my dog, Katie,

will be out in the river and I'll notice it for a while in the walk I'm kind of turning on what do I have to do today and what did I forget and something that's come up that I'm you know involved with and then gradually you know I'll say oh those are a lot of those that's the fixating I'll just open up and it'll just become sounds and sense and the sense of the presence it's here in other words I'll stop the reducing valve activity meanwhile Katie is constantly fixating on every possible squirrel that can go along.

It's just a different kind of intimacy with life that she's involved with. But it's really interesting to watch the mind how so quickly it's habituated to kind of follow a track versus stay open and just include whatever is entering our senses. And if you think about today or most days how we move through, we're usually like Houdini we're usually trying to solve a problem or get things done we're trying to move towards something else

it's a reducing valve experience and part of what makes it so confining if we're really paying attention to it is that the storyline we're fixating on is almost always about moa okay it's not just a reducing valve

it's reducing valve on the story or narrative of self what am I going to do what's going to help me what's going to hurt me. It's like on and on and on. So I sometimes call this the space suit self that everything is about this space suit that's going to help us navigate through the day. This is a reducing valve of the mind, this starring ourself. And what that means is when we have this story about ourself always going on, what happens when we think about others? Well, in a way all we see is their spacesuit, right? We don't see who's there.

If we're not aware of our own presence, we don't detect another's presence. Does that make sense? So we see others as objects. I call them unreal others, because when we are in that reducing valve and that spacesuit self, and we're not aware of the awareness that's shining through it, others become objects that are in some way are projection, but not real. One of my favorite illustrations of unreal other is a story about a Catholic priest

and a Baptist preacher and a rabbi, and they're all serving as chaplains at a university in Michigan. And they get together once a week for coffee and talk shop. And one day someone made this comment that preaching to humans isn't really that hard, but what could be really challenging would be preaching

to a bear. Okay? So one thing leads to another, and they decide to do an experiment. They're all going to go to the woods. They're going to find a bear, and they're going to preach to it and attempt to convert it to their particular faith. Okay? So this is the, you know, it's friendly competition. Seven days later,

they come together to discuss what happened. Father Flannery, who had his arm in a sling, and had various bandages on his body, goes first. Well, he said, I went into the woods to find me a bear, and I found him. I began to read him from the catechism. Well, that bear wanted nothing to do with me, and he began to slap me around. So I quickly grabbed my holy water, sprinkled him, and Holy Mary Mother of God, he became gentle as a lamb. The bishop's coming out next week to give him communion and confirmation. Reverend Billy Bob's boat next. He was in a wheelchair, had one arm and both

legs in a cast. In his best fire and brimstone oratory, he claimed, well, brothers, you know that we don't sprinkle. I went out and I found me a bear and then I went down to read to my bear from God's holy word and that bear wanted nothing to do with me. So I took hold of him. We began to wrestle. We wrestled down one hill and up another and down another and we came to a creek. So I quickly dunked him and I baptized his hairy soul. And just like he said, he became gentle as a lamb. We spent the rest of the day praising Jesus. Hallelujah. The priest and the Reverend both looked down at the rabbi. He was lying in a hospital bed.

He was in a body cast and traction with IVs and monitors running in and out of him. He was in really bad shape. The rabbi looked up and said, looking back on it, circumcision might not have been the best way to start. So I probably could have found a better illustration of this, but the idea here is this, that much of the... the time, our habit is to live in a smaller world than is what's possible. And our sense of self is shrunken. And when we're living in a very self-centered perception where we're not really

sensing our beingness, we're in that sense of a self that's trying to accomplish this and avoid that. When we look at each other, we do not perceive spirit, our beingness, heart, we just don't see. Pema Chodron has a very beautiful description of what happens when we live in this kind of reducing valve of mind. She says it's like being preoccupied with our self-image, it's like being deaf and blind. It's like standing in the middle of a vast field of wildflowers with a black hood over our heads. It's like coming upon a tree of singing birds while wearing earplugs. Okay? The reducing valve of information. Now first to say that this reducing valve being fixated, being self-centered, whatever, however we want to call it, isn't a bad thing. It's part

of our evolutionary development. It's part of what happens. We get into this stage of egoic development where that's our way we sort. But it's not the end of our potential to evolve. So if we get arrested there, then they're suffering. In fact, this is a poet Wei Wu-Wai. He says, why are you unhappy? Because 99% of what you do is for yourself, and there isn't one. Now, some people might hear that and grasp it intellectually and sense, well, yeah, I kind of get it, that, you know, there's an idea of self, but it's everything's moving around, there's nothing solid in there. But even when we get it on some level, that self-sense can be pretty gritty and real feeling. And, you know, even the most rudimentary constellation of cells

have a, are designed to have a perception of a self in here and a world out there. So we are designed to perceive selfness. That doesn't mean that we aren't also designed to wake up out of that perception, but that is part of the design. So if you feel like you move through most of the time, feeling like, yeah, there's a self in here, you're in good company. So even, you know, we go through, we get born, we get incarnated, there's a sense, our family tells us who we are, it becomes very, it can become very, very solid.

and yet when we begin to reflect, this is the self-reflexive awareness, begin to look and look deeply, we can start seeing past that perception to something larger. So here's a reflection for you. If you want to just close your eyes for a few moments, let this be an invitation. These pauses as we are together, a chance to connect right now with your breath, to feel your presence right here. We'll just take a little journey and to imagine

you're looking through a photo album of your life and might start in kindergarten and just take a look of what you see. Maybe if you're not very visual, it's fine, you'll get a kind of felt sense of it, some sense of yourself in kindergarten. You can jump to high school, kind of what you might have looked like,

some might what was going on for you, what mattered, when you started your first job. Sense in the photo album, whatever you see, whatever you remember, mostly just a felt sense of that part of your life. Maybe falling in love, sensing the person who fell in love, what was mattering then. Maybe in the photo album when having a first child if you happen to have had one. Maybe there's some photos celebrating an achievement, but also there'll be photos of times of great insecurity or loss. You might let some of those come up.

Failures, break up in relationship, loss of a dear one. Then again, as we started this evening, looking in the mirror. You might just sense, really, who are you? You consider how much your body's changed, your worldview, through all those pictures, your sense of what's important in life, your pleasures, your moods, so much has changed, so much. Now ask yourself, in every time and place that you just reviewed through all these years and moments, ask yourself, what about me has been unchanging?

what's always been here through all those different moments what has always been here can you sense that there has always been and is right now a consciousness a presence a presence that knows just that purity

a presence that knows a space of awareness that perceives what's happening that's here right now that which is listening if you can begin to realize this mystery within your own existence, your relationship to this changing world shifts, you can hold the personal sense of self more lightly. You won't react so much when things don't go your way. It's one Tibetan teacher writes, if everything changes, then what is really true?

Is there something behind the appearances? Something boundless and infinitely spacious? in which the dance of impermanence and change takes place? If you'd like to open your eyes, please feel free. So for Natchikata, Natchikata, and this is out of that wisdom of impermanence, that's what led him to ask for the realization of timeless presence. He was with Lord Yama, he was recognizing, hey, it's all going to go. Just the way many of us here know these bodies are going to go, these bodies are going to go, minds are going to go, we're going to lose all we love. What is it we can really take refuge in?

And for Natchie Keta, out of that wisdom of impermanence, he asked to know that which is timeless. Some might call it spirit, some might call it Buddha nature, some might call it God, his own realized beingness. That's what he asked for. What's beyond this changing world? The author and Dr. Rachel Remen has a story that speaks to this. She says, for the last 10 years of his life, Tim's father had Alzheimer's disease. Despite the devoted care of Tim's mother, he had slowly deteriorated until he had become a sort of walking vegetable. He was unable to speak and was fed, clothed, and cared for as if he was a very young child. One Sunday while Tim's mother was out doing the shopping,

Tim and his brother, then 15 and 17, watch football as their father sat nearby in a chair. Suddenly he slumped forward and fell to the floor. Both sons realized immediately there was something terribly wrong. His color was gray, his breath uneven and rasping. Frightened Tim's older brother told him to call 911. Before he could respond, a voice he had not heard for ten years. a voice he could barely remember, interrupted. Don't call 911, son.

Tell your mother that I love her. Tell her that I'm all right. And Tim's father died. So Tim's now a cardiologist. And because his father, because he died unexpectedly at home, there was a requirement for an autopsy. And he said this. He said, my father's brain was almost entirely destroyed by his disease.

For many years, I've asked myself, how could he have spoke? Who are we really? I've never found the slightest help from any medical knowledge. Much of life cannot be explained, it can only be witnessed. So again, that reflection, if everything changes, then what is really true? And if just close your eyes and sense right this moment, that everything your attention can pick up on is moving and changing. There's nothing holding still. Sounds don't hold still, sensations. If everything is changing, then what's really true?

So we're going to do some meditations that actually dive into this a little more, but just to say that the deepest practices that are in any of the traditions of the Dharma of this path are turning towards this mystery, towards this timeless consciousness, this loving awareness that has no form. And so the practices are really just to turn in and turn towards awareness itself. And it sounds like it should be inviting, but it's not always that way at first. so I want to speak to that before we practice. Because, like Lily Tomlin, puts it well,

she says, I always knew I wanted to be somebody, but I guess I should have been more specific. You know, what do we find? Well, I remember when I first went to a retreat up at the Insight Meditation Society, and there was a sign up, and it said self-knowledge is not always or necessarily good news.

So when we first look within, what do we see? and we first turn the attention inward. Is it vast, luminous awareness? Often not. Often a lot of waves have been stirred up and instead we're finding obsessive thinking or some addictive craving or pain in the back or anxiety or something like that, right? When we start to meditate, we turn the attention.

Is it luminous aware? No. It's a lot of waves kicked up. Imagine the ocean. We're seeing the surface activity of the waves, but they can be really strong. When the ego is activated, those waves, whether it's fear or wanting, really possess us. So the first domain of practice that all of us begin with and keep coming back to, no matter how advance we get, is the domain of learning to work with the waves.

learning to bring a kind and clear and dedicated presence to whatever waves come and go. What happens, and this is the alchemy of presence, is that if you have craving or anxiety or anger or whatever, those kind of waves going on, if you're willing to stay, not act out of them, but stay. and in some way keep witnessing and feeling and sensing what's there gradually what happens is the sense of who you are shifts from being inside those waves you know I'm the victim

I'm the angry one the perpetrator whatever it is you shift from being inside the waves to being the ocean that's aware of the waves your sense of beingness enlarges and you're resting in something larger and that shift is really the essence of freedom. You become the ocean aware of the waves.

So a lot of practice that we're doing is working with the waves that are stirred up and rediscovering a sense of presence that has room for them. So once there's a calming down, once the waves aren't so sticky or possessing us, then we can begin to look directly into awareness and sense the oceaness itself. I think a good metaphor that might be helpful is to consider it that, I mean, first of all, most of the time we're looking at objects, at the waves,

we rarely look at the formless ocean. But to think of it as what, in terms of what happens at a movie theater. When you're in a movie theater and there's a movie going on, you're very, very absorbed in the action, just like when there's thoughts. We're absorbed in the action. So there you are and you're mostly lost in the storyline that's on the screen. But if there's some gaps in the action, things slow down enough. You might start being aware of the person that's sitting next to you

and the smell of popcorn and kind of just the movie theater. Sometimes that happens. And if you looked behind you to the source of the movie, in other words, rather than seeing, you know, there's light coming out and it's coming through a filter and you're seeing the changing scene on the screen, rather than that if you look back and back, what you end up seeing is the source of the movie, which is light, undifferentiated light.

That's what it's like to look back into awareness. We usually see what comes through the filters and we fixate on the storyline. But if we turn around, we see a kind of luminous quality of presence. Now, a couple of precautions, because we are going to be playing with us some tonight. I'm going to practice a little, we'll have enough time. The attitude is everything. If you want to explore looking into awareness, the attitude that makes it possible is one that is light.

There's a light touch, friendly, interested. Interested is the big one. really curious about, well, who am I or what am I or what is awareness? That there's a real curiosity about reality. And knowing that it's very easy to turn towards awareness and have this sense like you're supposed to see something and get frustrated. And so that's why the lightness is really important.

I'm going to invite you to, if you need to adjust your sitting posture, please do so. and you might close your eyes. So this is our practice on looking in the mirror, looking back into awareness. And as I mentioned, really the attitude or intention is all that really will make a difference.

So just sense your own curiosity, let go of some notion that there's a way to do this right because there isn't. It's an experiment. You might gently bring the attention to the breath And notice the waves that are here. And by waves I mean notice the play of sensations in your body.

Maybe there's some areas of intensity, vibrating, tingling, squeezing, pressing, heat, cool. Just notice how this body feels sitting here, physical sensations. See if you can relax with the waves, relax with what you're feeling. that receptivity of listening, aware of the sounds that are coming going, the soft sounds in the room, and the more distant sounds. See, you're listening to and feeling this changing experience. You might sense it in the foreground, sensations, feelings, sounds, and be curious, Looking back to the background of experience, that beingness or presence that's here, you might

ask, who am I? Or you might mentally whisper the words I am, and just sense the essence, I am. What is this essence of what I am? Is there any center or boundary to what I am? Anything solid? Letting go of everything that's not what you are. Perhaps you're aware of sounds right now, listening, listening to the sounds, the spaces between sounds. Then you might ask, well, what is listening right now? What is it that's listening? Gently turning the attention towards awareness itself and then just let go into whatever you notice, just let go into it.

Be the silence that's listening. the attention is right now, you might notice it, sounds, sensations, thoughts. And then just to ask, well, what is aware right now? What is it that's listening or aware of thoughts? Turning the attention, looking back, what is it? And then let go. Rumi writes, one light, end-lety. eminently emanating all things, one bright turning diamond, one, one, one.

Ground yourself, strip yourself down to blind, loving silence. Stay there until you see you are gazing at the light with its own ageless eyes. Continue meditating if you'd like or if you'd prefer to open the eyes, please do. So this is the most essential or deep of all spiritual questions, really, which is, who am I? And when we ask that, what do we find? One of the great sayings from the Tibetan tradition is that the supreme seeing is, is the seeing of no thing. In other words,

if we turn our attention to say, well, who am I really? And we land on, oh, I'm this feeling, or I'm this image, or I'm this, or I'm this, that's not it. Because who is aware of that? Anything we land on,

any sight, sound, image, thing isn't it. There's a formless presence that can't be perceived but can be inhabited or known. And it has three qualities, really. If you had to say, what am I? If you had to put it into words, one quality is pure, empty or openness.

You call it emptiness or openness. There's nothing solid, nothing contained, no boundaries. It's completely open. And another attribute of this awareness is cognizance. There's a quality of wakefulness. might have noticed that when you turn the attention, all you can sense is there's wakefulness there. It's space, it's wakeful, and if you keep paying attention to that experience of presence, you'll find that it's naturally got a quality of tenderness or warmth in response to whatever

arises. Openness, cognizance, and tenderness, also described as compassion. So back to Natchi Kata, at the end of the story, we see a young man who's realized this refuge of awareness, has realized this formless, luminous presence, and he's bowing to Lord Yama a final time, and he's totally at peace. This is the way the story ends. And then, as if by magic, the landscape of the kingdom of death changes to the spring rice fields of his native India. and in this a last secret is revealed to him that death and birth are not separate

renewal comes by dying when we face death and aloneness when we've realized that formless presence in other words when we've realized that awareness that's just pure empty cognizant tenderness when we realize that we're not afraid to live if we know the timeless awareness we're not afraid to live

so it describes that he could be in his life now unafraid everywhere we go becomes holy ground not chicata knew this in his heart and walked off towards his home to embrace his father and start a new life and I love that ending because it doesn't land us up in empty luminous awareness it says that's what we are and this life continues to

unfold and we can cherish it. That's the gift. We can step on the earth and listen to the birds and taste the food and the Tibetans describe we're like a child of wonder because we know the timeless and we can celebrate

this living world of form. Now that doesn't mean that strong emotions don't come up and we don't get stuck doesn't mean that we don't feel fear or grief, but we have the capacity to remember who we are beyond that. I think one of the most beautiful examples I've heard of that, some years back, Ticknat Han described his experience of his own mother's death, and he said it was one of the great misfortunes of his life,

and that he had grieved for her for more than a year, and then she appeared to him in a dream. and in it they were having this wonderful talk, and she was young and beautiful, and he woke up in the middle of the night and had the distinct impression that he had never lost his mother. She was alive in him.

And when he stepped outside his monastery, he had him began walking among the tea plants, he still felt her presence by his side. And as he says so beautifully, he writes, she was the moonlight caressing me, as she had done so often, very tender, very sweet. continuing to walk, he sensed that his body was a living continuation of all his ancestors and that together he and his mother were leaving footprints in the damp soil.

When with this mirror we look back and we start really trusting that which is timeless, then we have room for this living, dying world. We have room. Again, Ticknut-Han says, all I had to do. do is look at the palm of my hand, feel the breeze on my face or the earth under my feet, to remember that my mother is always with me available at any time. So we'll close our class with a brief meditation that bring together these three gifts that Natchie Kta asked for. I think you'll find this closing. It's really pointing to that each of the gifts is something

you already have inside you, but you can choose to awaken it. So for these last few moments just to close your eyes, I'd like to invite you to let that smile that we often practice with, let it spread through the eyes, lifting up the corners of the eyes, feel the smile at the mouth, inside the mouth, and let that smile spread through your heart now. And take a moment to scan and sense this first gift that Notchukata asked for this gift of forgiveness, which is letting go of any armor we have that pushes away ourself or any other being from our heart.

Just sense if there's any way that you're holding against yourself right now, any armory against your own being, any blame, resentment, judgment, feeling your intention to let go. to be kind. You might just send the simple word, forgiven, forgiven. Just sense how even the intention to forgive begins to soften us.

Sense if there's some way you're holding against another person that comes to mind. And it's enough to know that your prayers that your heart can release and open. Forgiven, forgiven is your intention. Sensing if you were at the end of your life, life looking back, what would most matter? Right this moment, what would most matter? What is it you most value? And bringing that valuing and that caring right into presence, right here,

opening fully to the aliveness right in this moment, not waiting. These sensations, these feelings, these sounds, and that background presence. If you turn back and glance, just a light turning back into awareness, it's just to sense that which is aware that's always been here, that timeless, wakeful space of awareness, resting in that at home in who you are, feeling our shared presence as we close, our shared heart space, may all beings everywhere awaken to the loving presence that's their very essence. May all beings live from loving presence. May there be peace on earth and may there be peace everywhere.

May all beings everywhere awaken and be free. Namaste and thank you. 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.