Tara Brach - 2022-07-20 - Homecoming to Your True Nature

Episode Date: July 21, 2022

2022-07-20 - Homecoming to Your True Nature: Awakening beyond the separate, fearful self - Most of us unconsciously identify as a separate, threatened, deficient self. This talk shines a light on this conditioning and explores the ways that mindfulness, compassion and self-inquiry reveal the freedom of our true nature.

Greetings. We offer these podcasts freely and your support really makes a difference. To make a donation, please visit tarabrock.com. Namaste and welcome friends. I'd like to begin this talk with an essay that I like from Bruce Holland Rogers and he writes this. He says, when he was very young, he waved his arms and snapped his massive jaws and tromped around the house so that dishes trembled in the China cabinet. Oh, for goodness sakes, his mother said, you are not a dinosaur. You're a human being. And since he was not a dinosaur, he thought for a time he might be a pirate. Seriously, his father said to him after school one day, what do you want to be? But in high school, they gave him tests and told him he was good with numbers. Perhaps he'd like to be a math teacher,

that was respectable, or a tax accountant. He could make a lot of money doing that. It seemed like like a good idea to make money, what with falling in love and thinking about raising a family. So he became a tax accountant, even though he sometimes regretted it because it made him feel well small and it made him feel even smaller when he was no longer a tax accountant but a retired tax accountant, still worse, a retired tax accountant who forgot things. He forgot to take the garbage to the curve, to take his pill, to turn his hearing aid on. Every day it seems, he he forgot more things, important things like where his children lived and which of them were married or divorced. Then one day when he was out for a walk by the lake, he forgot what his mother had

told him. He forgot that he was not a dinosaur. He stood blinking his dinosaur eyes in the bright sunlight, feeling its familiar warmth on his dinosaur skin, watching dragonflies flitting among the horse tails at the water's edge. So it's powerful how we get conditioned really to believe we're this particular separate human with certain limiting characteristics and then live our decades really according to that internalized self-view. And this is really the nature of trance of a dream that we're living in this constricted reality and it's very competitive reality. And it's very compelling. It feels very real. We fully believe we are the accountant or the teacher or the sales per person or the parent. We also might believe we're the addict or the family hero or the

victim or the sick one. But the point is that our identity includes what's expected of us and what we have to do to be an okay person and what's wrong with us. It includes what we're we can and can't do in our lives. And in the deepest way, the undercurrent of this trance is feeling that something's missing in our lives, that something's wrong with how we're living. There's a story by Reb Zalman, Sachter Shalameh. He told it a lot about his youngest daughter Shalvi when she was, I think, five years old. And one morning she woke up and said to him, You know how when you're asleep and dreaming it seems so real and then you wake up and realize it was just a dream?

When you're awake, can you wake up that much more and realize this is just a dream? Pretty wise for a young being. And we can intuit that we live in this life in these big swaths of virtual reality and stories a lot about a self who's separate, who's often deficient, who's threatened, who's really not enough. And of course, there's a larger truth that also appears. And it happens when we're in moments of presence. It might be when there's real tenderness with another being in our lives or maybe when we're touching that mystery during birth, our death. You know, it might be in a creative flow, that sense of really being in that flow or when

we're helping others. But the point is that we intuit at moments a larger sense of being beyond that trance of a small self. You wouldn't be here listening if you didn't have a sense of that possibility of living with more freedom, that there was more, there was a deeper essence, something to touch, more aliveness, more love. So a very key inquiry on the spiritual path, and you find this in most spiritual traditions is that question, who am I really? And what we'll be reflecting on today is how do we wake up from that trance? You know, how do we wake up from that trance? You know, how do we

wake up from that limiting identity of being separate or being deficient and live from our true nature, from our full awareness and heart. And in particular, we're going to be looking at that shift in identity from that small self to who we really are. And the places in our daily life where we're most caught in trance, where we're most reactive, those become really powerful portals for making that shift, for discovering who we really are. So to ground this a bit, because these can sound like abstract words, let's just take a pause together right here. and if you're not driving and if you can close your eyes or let your gaze be downcast, take a few full breaths and now consider any place in your current life where you do feel like

you get stuck, where you get reactive, maybe caught in feelings of fear or feeling like a victim mistreated, feelings of failure, maybe loneliness. anger. So it might be something in a relationship or at work, something to do with an addictive behavior. And just for a moment, let your attention go right to that stuck place and ask yourself, what am I believing about myself in these moments? If you investigate, what are the limiting beliefs about yourself, about maybe how others are relating to you or or how you're falling short. Is there a belief that something bad's going to happen?

What's the belief about the kind of future you might expect? Just going to get a sense of what you're believing, how your mind is taking in things right during these times. And then just ask, you know, what is the sense of who I am in these moments? Do you feel small, separate, very tight? deficient, threatened. This is just a chance to sense the small self-identity, how it feels. And just know from that witnessing place this is trance and this is a portal for awakening.

And keeping your attention inward, you might take a moment to sense a time recently where you touched a sense of happiness or feeling of love or peace. And again, it might have been in a relationship or in nature while meditating, maybe gardening in nature, outside, moving, music, dance. Just a moment where you were really feeling that happiness, that ease. And in the same way, sense, well, what's my experience of self in these moments? And notice if there's more spaciousness, maybe not such a solid sense of a self. Maybe there's just a more open, warm, beingness, tenderness. Just again, registering from that witnessing place, okay, so this is a taste of who I am beyond trance. The eighth century Chinese poet Li Poe writes,

The birds have vanished into the sky and now the last cloud drains away. We sit together the mountain of me until only the mountain remains. Okay friends, so if your eyes are closed, open in your eyes. Maybe I'll pause here and just note that this talk will feel more resonant if you've had some years meditating, exploring the path. And no matter what your level of experience, you can trust that you'll take what most serves your awakening awareness. So just that kind of openness and curiosity. And I'll share a trance story from one of my first retreats that really struck home. And this is a legend from ancient India. It tells of a musk deer, who one fresh spring day detects a mysterious and heavenly fragrance and it just hints of peace and

beauty and love. It's like a whisper beckoning him. So compelled to find its source, this deer sets out and goes in search all around the world. He climbs these icy mountain peaks and goes through steamy jungles and treks through endless desert sand. and wherever he goes the scents there it's faint, always detectable. At the end of his life, he's exhausted from this relentless search and the deer collapses and as he falls his horn pierces his belly and suddenly the air is filled with that heavenly scent.

And as he lies dying, this musk deer realizes that the fragrance had all long been emanating from within. This is a really arctippal kind of a mythology because it points to the key delusions in all humans, this dream or trance that we're a separate self, that something's missing, that we're not whole, and that the spiritual freedom we long for is down the road or in the future, it's out there. And then of course a related delusion is something's missing inside. that getting what I long for requires doing or efforting, going somewhere else. Given my own history of being a kind of type A yogi, this story, this really resonated. And also this little Zen story, some of you might remember where a novice goes and wants to enter

the monastery and he's talking to the abbot saying, well, how long will it take me to get enlightened? And the abbot says, 10 years. And the novice says, wait a minute, 10 years, what if I try really, really hard? And then the abbot says, 20 years. And the novice is really angry. You just said 10 years. For you, 30. You know, so it's, you might sense in yourself how you're like that, that must dear, really this self that's busily on its way somewhere else. and not trusting what's within as enough. One of the really radical reminders on the path, and you find this in Buddhism and many spiritual traditions, is that what we seek is right here, it's what we are. We hear it, we even might shake our heads, and yet, like the

much dear, there's still this sense of trying to get somewhere. But it's right here. And this is true, even in the moments when our neurosis is full bloom, when we're completely activated and sensing that, you know, we're deficient, we're failing, we're messing up, even then we're not separated from the loving awareness that's our true nature, from our basic goodness, any more than waves are separated from the ocean. I'm going to continue with this metaphor of waves in an ocean because I find it really useful. You might sense that in the daily trance, attention is focused on waves and we sense ourselves as this pattern of waves on the self with this core fear and these wants and this persona and this body and this role that I play. And we forget.

yet our larger belonging, that the waves of our being, the different thoughts and feelings and sensations all are filled with oceaness, that there's something mysterious and infinite and pure that's filling everything. So the ocean, it's described in many different words, you can think of the ocean as reality, that that's what we're made of. Beingness, loving awareness, God consciousness, the divine mystery, original goodness, true nature.

There's so many words. But the point is this, that when we're more identified with a small self, we forget our oceaness. We forget that essence. One Asian Buddhist teacher asked a friend who was traveling in Asia, the cause of suffering, and my friend replied, we get identified as a separate self.

And this teacher just laughed and said, no self, no problem. And so the suffering is when we're exclusively identified with the waves and we forget the ocean. And in the Buddhist Western world, we often describe this as selfing, that we're just living in the stories and feelings of a separate self. everything is perceived with this lens of this is happening to me, it's owned by me, you know, I am at the center of things, I am the doer, you know, the controller. So everything in life is kind of filtered as it relates to a cell. And in contrast, when the sense of a self, when the idea of self softens, and by the way,

it's often unconscious, but when it softens, when it's no longer our exclusive, identity, when it's no longer occupying the center of experience, what remains is this vastness, this mysterious openness and weakfulness and love that's really the essence of all. So we start looking at our lives and realizing, yeah, we go around a lot with that story of self. And it's helpful to know that everyone is conditioned. in a constricting way to live in this selfing dream, everyone. It's part of evolution, identifying as a separate, threatened form. And I look this up because I love this quote. This is a description of the proto-sists and these are tiny, multi-celled microscopic beings

and they're thought to be one of the first most important forms of complex life. And this is written by David Darling. By the way, I found this in a book by Wes Nisker called Buddha's Nature. And I really love this book too. So I'll read this to you. None of these early creatures was anything more than a bundle of biochemicals wrapped up in a membrane bag. Even so, in their makeup and activity, we can recognize the inception of a new quality in the universe. These ancient gelatinous specks of matter showed the beginnings of self-interest and purpose. They had established barriers, definite sustainable barriers between themselves and the outside world. And although the heady heights of human intellect and introspection lay almost four billion years away,

even the most elementary of life forms harbored information about what was part of their own constitution and what was not. Thus, the foundation of dualism, the belief in the separation of self and the rest of the world were laid. So in case there's any sense of something's wrong with me for going around in the selfing dream, this is part of our evolution. And it's also part of our evolution to be able to see that conditioning and awaken beyond that exclusive identity with a separate self, which we'll explore. But first, just to look at in our individual lives, the particulars of our identity are forged by caregivers who channel the larger

society and they basically tell us who we are. They let us know if we're a good self or a bad self and what qualities make up one or the other and what we can expect to accomplish and what we can't do and, you know, what we can expect from others in relating to us, whether they're going to be accepting and loving or rejecting and wounding. We get a lot of mirroring information about who we are and it sticks. It's sticky from our caregivers. I recently saw a cartoon and it was a group of cats and dogs. They had formed a nickname support group. So the first one to speak, this is a cat who says, I went from Charlie to Chuck to Sir Chuckles McFurry pants. And the dog says, oh, that's nothing.

I was cold train, then train, and now they call me chug-a-chug-a-chug-woo. There's a cat just listening saying, oh, dear, I'm so very sorry. So we get these mirroring messages that impact us. And the reality is if we feel like an invisible self that we're not seen or an unlovable self or an unworthy self, not enough, I should be different. It comes from messages. And if we live with an inflated ego, I'm a special self, I'm better than others, I'm an admirable self, an important self.

That comes from messages. And if we're at home in our being, not so centered on self, there's a sense of lovable, valuable, valuable as is, and really more a kind of belonging to the web of life, of nature, of beings, that comes from healthy, wise mirroring. Let's pause here, friends. Let's just do a little reflection on the kind of mirroring, that we got that told us who we are. And again, this is a chance if you'd like to let your attention

go inward. If it helps to close your eyes, please do. Take a few breaths and imagine your inner room in your childhood place where you grew up, maybe eight years old, and both are either, or if you only get one, a caregiver's there, and that they have a facial expression that's common that they have often and just sense what's being communicated, the sense as they look at you and have them look at you, they're attending to, if they're saying something like, I like this about you, be like this, what is it? How are they wanting you to be? And if they're saying something like, I don't like this about you, don't be like this. What are they not wanting you to be like? You might feel how those messages live inside you, how much you're who they wanted

you to be, or not like they wanted you to be the felt sense of yourself. And you can, in your own timing, just sense how your identity might cluster around different positive or negative messages from your parents. And then we widen it and we think about the society. You can open your eyes if you'd like. And our identity, both positive and negative features, is very much to do with how much we match the values of society's dominant strata. And clearly that that centers on certain race, certain religion, sexual orientation, class, gender and gender identity, your body type, different abilities. And so, while not always conscious, where you're positioned on top, you're going to have a certain experience. If you're not on top, you're going to have a certain

experience of being marginalized, threatened, not okay if you're positioned on top, more safe, more okay, a member, more entitled, more privileged. Also, the messages from society are hitched, your identity gets hitched to the kind of work you do and your accomplishments, to your competency, to how you handle life. So there's a sense of, am I in control? Am I doing this well? And if you look inside, most of us have a pretty ongoing monitor saying, well, how am I doing now? And a monitor saying, am I ready for what's going to come?

we have this kind of tensing against what's around the corner. That's part of the threatened self. So I heard a mem on preparing I thought I'd share. And it asked the question, in what ways were you actually prepared for the pandemic? Did you feel prepared? And the different responses, you know, we always stock bulk amounts of toilet paper.

I was already working online a lot. one person I like this one. I had all my children in the 80s. So the point of looking at what shapes identity is that we were all subjected to conditioning that created to different degrees of self and trance that made us feel like we were disconnected, we were separate, apart from the rest of the living world, and to different degrees not okay. And I like the way Wu-Wui puts it. He says, why are you unhappy? And he says, because 99.9% of everything you do is for yourself and there isn't one. So the remainder of our exploration in this talk is how do we awaken to realize who we are beyond that story of self? And again, we'll call on the metaphor of ocean and waves. And there are two

pathways I'd like to go over with you. And one is bringing mindfulness, compassion, and love to the waves that are arising. So we're caught in a trance of selfing. We feel we have these thoughts and these feelings and this feeling in the body. How do we bring a wise attention to it? Because if we can, that attention to the waves will reveal our oceanness. The second pathway is bringing direct inquiry and attention to the ocean itself. We're going to start with the first. And the key is that we always start right where we are. So if trance is thick, if you find yourself in the midst of difficult emotion, it's not going to help you to try to look towards the ocean, towards the oneness, towards the true nature that's here, because the ways

will obscure it. So we start with the waves because that's our selfing, portal. And again, these are the moments when we feel trapped in being a fearful person, an angry person, a shame person, a failure. And the practice is to pause and meet that tangle with mindfulness and compassion. And the power of it is that in a moment of mindfulness, when you become aware, oh, anger, anger, the identity of self is not fully exclusively in the anger. Your identity is opened up. There's that witnessing, that awareness that knows about the anger. In a moment that you bring compassion to the fear, let's say, you're not just inside the fear. There's also that space of compassion that's

holding the fear. So mindfulness and compassion widen the sense of being and allow you to and large beyond the trance of a separate self. Now let me give you an example, a little story, and I like giving you stories that are very current from my own life because this is what continues to nourish my deep faith in this practice. I've many times introduced rain, which is recognized, allow, investigate, and nurture, and that is simply a step-by-step application of mindfulness and compassion. So this is a range story. Jonathan, my husband and I were returning from the West Coast a couple of weeks ago. We were in an airport, long wait, and we were talking about some complicated family plans for a gathering later in the summer.

and he was getting increasingly irritated because the communications hadn't been great and the plans conflicted with another commitment. And then I got irritated with him because I felt like he was blaming me and I had been trying very hard to meet everyone's needs in the process. And because we were both hungry and tired and waiting in an airport with masks on, the tension amplified. and we both took on an increasingly aggressive blaming tone until it became really clear we needed a timeout and we just got quiet and didn't speak at all for a while.

We boarded the plane and we took off and as we were flying and inwardly I had that circling story of, you know, him being wrong and how unfair he was framing things. And during that time, I was shrunken into this separate, angry, defended, righteous self. And my view of him rather than my beloved partner was in that hostilities, he was this kind of distant other. So at some point, as I settled in, I began to practice rain with it. And I brought the beginning as mindfulness, just recognizing, okay, angry, defensive. The A allows, let that be there. That's part of mindfulness. And then investigating deepens mindfulness where I could feel in my body underneath the anger, there was some

hurt. I felt like in some way his attitude was pushing me away, not liking me. And when I felt that, as soon as I could sense hurt, I was able to nurture with self-kindness. I was able to put my hand on my heart, you know, and just breathe and say, it's okay, it's okay. And it allowed me to view him more clearly and realize that this really was not about me. It was just this unfortunate timing in him having to give up something that mattered to him, which of course made me feel even kinder. There was a shift in identity. I was no longer inside this angry, defend itself, that exclusive identity, I was remembering the ocean more. I was resting in a larger sense of beingness, more spacious, more kind and compassionate. And I tapped him on the shoulder and

asked if we could make up. And of course we did. And he had gone through his own process of bringing up his own kind of reactivity. I share this because anyone who's ever been angry at a loved one knows this, that in the middle of the anger, who we are shrinks. You know, we become this armored fuming self. And even when we're righteous, we don't really like ourself in that egoic trance, but we are in it and there's something and it feels good and it can perpetuate itself for a while. But it's so different from the who we are when we're feeling our warmth and our connection and our tenderness and our gratitude for someone. When we're being playful with them when there's something funny that we're laughing at together, so different from

who we are if we imagine being with them as they're passing as they're leaving this life. In those moments, there's no centering of a small self, a wanting self, a fearing self, a hurting self and angry self. Really, that's dissolved into something much larger. There's just space and tenderness. So that's an example of meeting waves with kind presence, of reconnecting with the ocean, that shift in identity. And people often ask me, yeah, but when I get stuck in that small self, I can't hold myself with mindfulness and compassion. And the truth is that because we're so profoundly interdependent and connected with each other, you don't have to hold yourself, if there's another who can offer you unconditional love or you can even imagine that

unconditional love from a larger space, that softens the identity. That relaxes our heart. You might pause here and reflect for a moment. Take a few breaths as we've been doing. Maybe put your hand on your heart and bring to mind someone who you trust, cares about, you and it could be a child or your dog, member of the family, a friend, spiritual figure. Could be a sense of formless loving in the universe. But sense the love coming to you and if it's a being, a friend, a dog, just see the eyes and see the message in the eyes of care and you might let it in and just mentally whisper a whisper out loud, thank you. Just appreciating the loving. It's so precious.

And just sense, who are you when you're feeling loved? You might continue and send someone you love. And imagine letting them know your love, that you're sincerely looking them in the eyes. You're slowing down enough to have it be real. I love you. Just to explain. explore that for a moment and sense that they're receiving it, that they actually are receiving it. You feel the heart space that's here. Let it be as large as it is filling your body and beyond. Just be that heart space and sense, who am I when this loving is here?

You might notice that there's nothing solid, it's just tenderness, openness and that this is more true than any story of self from the Radiant Sutra. There is a place in the heart where everything meets. Go there if you want to find me. Mind, senses, soul, eternity, all are there. Are you there? Enter the bowl of vastness that is the heart. Give yourself to it with total abandon. Quiet ecstasy is there and a steady regal sense of resting in a perfect spot. Once you know the way, the nature of attention will call you to return again and again and be saturated with knowing, I belong here, I am at home here. Once you know the way, the nature of attention will call you to return again and again and

be saturated with knowing, I belong here, I am at home here. If your eyes are closed, you might open them. So what we've explored so far is really paying attention to the waves, or starting with the waves. They're paying attention to the feelings that are here and bringing kindness, bringing love. And in that, sensing that shift, that opening and discovering the ocean-ness, that tenderness and vastness of being, that formless presence, and that is a homecoming. Now, the second pathway that I named was directly attending to that awareness, to that space of awareness, to the formless. And here I'd like to ground it again in experience and ask you for the next 15 seconds,

to try something. Okay, you ready? Okay. For the next 15 seconds, please try not to be aware. Okay, starting now, try not to be aware. Trying not to be aware. Okay, that's enough. Take a few full breaths and you might sense, were you able to do that? What most people find is, and some Some say, yeah, I was able to not be aware, but most people find awareness as a given. It's there. We're just not aware of being aware. You might try it again. Just say to yourself, okay, try not to be aware. Just try that. And what I'd like to invite you to do is to continue to pay attention and just notice what you can about awareness. What is it? Be curious. Can you sense that it's like a sky that's open?

that there's an ongoing knowing quality, awakefulness, like a sunlit sky, naturally tender, responsive to what's coming up. You might explore the location of awareness. You might feel sensations, like maybe feel your hands. And you know, as you do, that awareness is in the body. knowing the sensations, registering them. It's the stillness that feels the aliveness. And you listen to sound, listening, receptive. Notice that sounds coming from all directions so that awareness is everywhere picking up sound. It's within you and through the space all around you.

awake space. He can take some breaths. There was a Tibetan teacher who went to one of his classes and he brought a big white sheet of paper, poster paper, and he did a little V on it. And he asked the students to tell him what this was. And most of them said, well, it's a bird. And he said, it's the sky with a bird flying through it. that our awareness is like a sky with different experiences, clouds and storms and weather systems moving through, arising and passing. And typically we fixate on the bird, don't we? We fixate on

the inner weather of emotions and sensations and thoughts of the outer weather, a person, a tree. and the sense of self is unconsciously part of that located in space attending to the objects. But instead of that, we don't very often sense that which is aware, that background of wakefulness, that space. So one of the most powerful trainings in meditation that really can be freeing is sometimes described as the backward step of shifting from focusing on the object, which includes focusing on our self-object, to sensing the awareness itself, the ocean. And I'd like to explore this experientially with you. And first to say, as I said earlier, that if you're sensing, well, what way of meditating

is really most going to serve me right now, if there's a lot of waves going on, if you're have a lot of emotions and a lot of thoughts, turning to sense the space, the awake space of awareness is going to be very difficult because your mind's going to keep being attracted to the bird, to the thoughts. So this is primarily a practice for when the mind has quieted some. But you've been listening and present now for a bunch of moments here for this talk. So let's just practice a little together. and it won't be a long practice but this is about the backward step, turning towards awareness. And you might begin if it helps you to close your eyes or lower your gaze and take some moments

to scan through the body and sense what might want to let go a little. As you're letting go you might be aware of your breathing, sense with the out breath, a relaxing, a dissolving and opening the attention to sense the presence of awareness. The awareness that's present throughout the body, it's picking up sensations, the awareness that's present all around you, listening, aware of sound, awareness in every direction and there really isn't an edge to it. Now again, just scanning the body, noticing what, what's here, an effortless sense of what wants attention. Just notice if somewhere there's tension or constriction or if there's an image in your mind that's calling you or an emotion going on,

maybe an inner voice, and just sense the location of it. Whatever you're experiencing, find out where it is in the body. Where do you feel it most fully? The shape, the quality of the sensation. So whatever your experience, sense as sensation in your body, locate the sensation, whatever feels strong, whatever calls your attention. It might be a tightness in the throat or constriction in the chest, the belly. I'm aware of this sensation. Just say those words to yourself and then find the eye who's aware of the sensation. That eye, I, that's witnessing the sensation and notice where it's located. Maybe it's in front of your face and up a little or maybe it's in the area of your brain. Just find the eye

that's aware of the sensation and just notice what it's like, the felt sense of that eye. So you're just examining, this is the experience of self, the self that's watching, witnessing, feeling. And now open some more and find the witness that's aware of the self, that which is noticing whatever's being noticed about the self. And notice where that is positioned. And it may be above you in front of you, larger sphere of space. What's it like that witness of the self and invite that witness to open and relax and dissolve in and as the fullness of awareness. Invite the witness to open and relax and dissolve in and as the fullness of awareness that's all around and throughout and this let happen whatever happens resting as awareness as long as you'd like

from the poet Rilke, center of all centers, core of cores, almond self-enclosed and growing sweet. All this universe to the furthest stars, all beyond them is your flesh, your fruit. Now you feel how nothing clings to you. Your vast shell reaches into endless space. And there the rich, thick fluids rise and flow, illuminated in your infinite peace. A billion stars go spinning through the night, blazing high above your head. But in you is the presence that will be when all the stars are dead. You continue if you'd like to rest as awareness. Breathe, feel yourself here. This is a taste of the backward step, the shift from selfing, from focusing on objects,

to awareness itself. And there are different ways that as you move through the day, you can open in this way, especially if you're quiet. You can just begin to listen to sounds. You might do it right now, just listening, and inquire, what is listening? What's aware right now? Maybe sensing the silence that's listening, the field of awake space. And when there's thoughts, you can say, well, who's thinking?

Or you might inquire, where did this thought come from? Where does it go to? Just rest in that openness. There are other practices. Sometimes I'll imagine that I have no head because that's a common place to locate the self. That I have no head and it's just space that's experiencing what's happening. Or I might imagine that I've already passed away. I'm already dead. There's no center, no self, and simply experience happening, life happening, appearing, dissolving.

There's emptiness, space, in the place of a self. And I love just asking the question, how is emptiness experiencing this moment? With practice, there is a sense of homecoming. the openness and wakefulness and the natural tenderness of awareness that we realize it's a homecoming because it's more true than any of the stories, the trance stories, the passing waves. And this isn't esoteric. It's not unrelated to our daily life in any way. It actually is very profoundly connected. You know, I started on purpose with the story about the story about the man who wanted to be a dinosaur. We get trapped in believing what the world tells us

about who we are. We get caught in that selfing, the feelings of separation and fear and feelings of failure and we can be in the dream for decades, just not living from the fullness or the mystery of who we are. So awakening from that limiting story from that grip of selfing, we become fundamentally more relaxed, less fearful, less reactive. There's just more access to our natural intelligence and creativity. In the Tibetan tradition there is a phrase, child of wonder. Because when there's not that centering on this complicated self, there's all this space for wonder and joy. And we're just guided by this liberating way. wisdom, that there's no separate self here and yet there's this belonging to the world.

It's the way Srinar Sargadatta puts it so beautifully. He says, wisdom tells me I'm nothing. Love tells me I'm everything. And between the two, my life flows. Srinar Sargadata is considered by many to have been quite free. And he was asked a question about, well, what's it like to experience that freedom or you're not centered on a self but living in that wholeness? And I thought I'd read to you a passage that has always touched me. And if you, this is from his book, I Am That, and I'm going to try to show you my copy of it just to give you a sense of how many pages are marked, if that's any invitation. So his response to this question, he said, I became free from all desire and fear. Another thing I noticed

was, I do not need to make an effort. The deed follows thought without delay and friction. I've also found that thoughts become self-fulfilling. Things would fall in place smoothly and rightly. The main change was in the mind. It became motionless and silent, responding quickly but not perpetuating the response. Spontaneity became a way of life and above all, infinite affection, love radiating in all directions, embracing all, making all interesting and beautiful, significant and auspicious. Infinite affection, love radiating in all directions. Let's take just a few moments, closing and as part of that I'd like to say that what we're exploring today is really is your potential that your true nature is always already here and one of my favorite teachings from

the Buddha is him saying I would not teach you about freedom liberation if it were not possible So this is our evolutionary potential. RELCO puts it like this, he says, you have not grown old and it is not too late to dive into your increasing depths where life calmly gives out its own secret. Okay, so taking just a few moments, letting your attention go within. Again, letting go if there's any areas of tension that are obvious. and letting your senses be awake, feeling sensations in the body, feeling the awareness, that stillness that is taking in sensitive to the aliveness in your body and listening

and sensing the awareness through space around you, that silence that's listening, just invite you dissolving into that awareness, resting as awareness, allowing, the sound, the sensations, the feelings of this human heart to rise, move and pass, an open and tender awareness. Wisdom tells me I'm nothing. Love tells me I'm everything. And between the two, my life flows. Thank you, friends, for your beautiful presence, wishing you all blessings.