Tara Brach - A Conversation Between Tara and Mark Nepo

Episode Date: September 10, 2021

A Conversation Between Tara and Mark Nepo - Mark is a spiritual teacher, wonderful poet, and author of many books including best selling "The Book of Awakening." In this wide-ranging and rich conversation, Tara and Mark explore shedding our defenses, faith, compassion for ourselves and others, spiritual practice, and facing illness, aging and death. 

Greetings. We offer these podcasts freely and your support really makes a difference. To make a donation, please visit tarabrock.com. Namaste and welcome. I am totally excited and happy to be with Mark Nipo for a conversation. And Mark's been a spiritual teacher for so many over the decades. and he's also a wonderful poet and writer, and many of you know him through the Book of Awakening. There's a beautiful 20th anniversary edition, highly, highly recommend. And this most recent book is Book of the Soul, again, really completely beautiful, powerful book. And there's 10 more in between them.

So there's this wealth of transformational teachings is really amazing. So, Mark, I am so happy to have you here. Welcome, welcome, my friend. Oh, thank you. It's a joy to be with you. Thank you so much. So I had chosen some, I mentioned to you before, some themes I thought would be juicy. I hope they will be. And the place I had thought to start, and it's one of the repeating themes in your teaching, is that shift from defending ourselves in any way to opening to what's right here. And you sometimes, I've heard you describe it as the,

exquisite risk, which that phrase has just stayed with me forever. And you are in one place, and again, I don't know where this was. You quoted Nietzsche, who says that the snake then cannot shed its skin will perish. So I just wanted to have you maybe speak some. You describe in your own life, how you protected yourself, used the image of a catcher's mitt. And that kind of twitch of emotional reactivity and it stopped you from actually experiencing things directly. So yeah, anything you want to share on that. Sure. I think, you know, and as you know from my work, a big transforming, part of my journey was in my 30s, almost dying from a rare form of lymphoma. And that really changed everything. And so just to start by, you know, I feel like every being will be given the

opportunity to be dropped into the depth of life. And it isn't necessarily by a life-threatening or difficult passage. It could be wonder or beauty or being unconditionally held for the first time. And for me, that transformation was the catalyst was cancer. It could have been something else. But I realized through that, and as you mentioned, before that, I was a driven young artist. And, you know, being brought to my knees and to accept there's nowhere to go.

You know, I woke up on the other side. I lost my drive, which is very disorienting. And it took months, but I discovered that I was drawn to things now, not driven. And the image for me was, which helped me finally, was of a river, you know, a river that's fast. and is held by its banks. You can hear it. It makes a lot of noise. But when it reaches the sea, it doesn't disappear. That current joins the larger body of water more deeply, and it's quieter. And that's what had happened to me.

And emotionally, the sense of, you know, defending ourselves. I grew up, you know, both my parents are gone now, but I grew up in a very, you know, kind of an emotionally dysfunctional home. I mean, probably unique in some ways, but pretty typical in other ways. And I was the sensitive child. And so, you know, at an early age, I learned, you know, I could be easily hurt but never surprised. And I learned not to show that hurt because in the kind of environment I was in, that was only like, you know, fresh blood in the water. would lead to more hurt or teasing or being made fun of. So I would, you know, and so I did, yes,

I called it my catchers mitt. I developed this reflex to fend off potentially hurtful things. And it was so good that it worked by itself. But on the other side of my cancer journey, I didn't survive not to be touched in my heart. And this thing had a mind of its own. And so I had to over much therapy and, and, you know, and we can talk more about patterns, too, breaking patterns. I had to put that catchers bit down every time it went up. And I discovered that the deeper my, my direct connection with the mystery, with life, you know, with the authority of all being, then, yeah, I could be hurt and rejected, but I wasn't, you know, going to turn into a pumpkin.

And so that it was, and I talk about this in the book of awakening, about the friction of being visible versus the friction of the cost of being invisible. And there's a cost either way, but for me, I've discussed. discovered that the cost of being invisible was corrosive and started to erode my roots and my foundation and my genuine sense of who I am. You know, as D.H. Lawrence has a poem called self-protection in which he asks the question, is the best self-protection hiding who you are being who you are. Of course, I believe it's being who we are. That's been that's so good. I love that because again, you're not denying that it's a huge risk,

this costs. You can get hurt. And I think for each of us, we developed really workable defenses and armoring, so it works in a certain way to not feel the rawness. But then that's got its price and I know I can say for myself my rewards came from performing well and kind of being smooth and being able to work through myself my stuff and other stuff and you know coming out on the other side and for me what happened was I started realizing how that role stopped me from feeling intimate with anybody. it was like that was the price. I would look good. I would get the kind of fixes of okay, you're worthy, you're respected, but then it came, the price was distance. And part of what I started finding out

was the opportunity when I didn't perform well to not move away from that experience. And just like you said, to realize I wasn't going to die, you know. I was around the next day. And not only that, people didn't hate me or start disrespecting me. So I think what you're saying is so resonant that it is a risk. You know, it's exquisite because it opens up to us who we really are. And the way we start taking it more and more is we do it a little. We play an edge and discover actually there's more freedom in the moment of not doing our old strategy, that we open up to some creative mystery.

in those moments. Well, and I feel that being authentic is such a doorway and such a practice. You know, it is kind of the emotional, the real emotional version of practice of seeing things as they are and honoring that and owning that. And it only, for me, leads to more solid foundation and more, more. and more transparency. You know, one of the images that I think is so, you know, powerful for me with the pandemic is that, you know, in the Jewish tradition, the word Sabbath literally means the one day we don't turn one thing into another. Wow. And I feel like we've been forced

into a global Sabbath. And you can't bend, manipulate, we can't even dream too far ahead. And so we've been forced, and our turn, to see the miracle in the ordinary, to see the beauty, you know, in everything and everyone. And I think, you know, it was Merton who said, if we truly, Thomas Merton, if we truly beheld each other, we can fall down and worship each other. And so here we are forced to say, no, the dream isn't tomorrow. We can't defer life or our best selves or our worst selves. It's all right here. And that was one other, like, powerful thing for me with the pandemic is that when it first came upon us, I had a lot of echoes from my cancer journey.

And particularly this moment, when I was dying, diagnosed. I, like anyone else, I went to this appointment with a doctor who told me I had cancer and I was alarmed and frightened and thought you must have the wrong folder. It can't be me. And but then when I left that office that day, the door I had come through for that appointment was gone. There was no way back to life before that appointment. And I also feel that you man. humanity has been forced through that doorway with the pandemic. The old world is gone. It's been there's no going back. It's true. And what comes to me as you say that is that it takes a certain faith or trust to not still try to escape that and think ahead and try to fix things or try to numb ourselves. And in the Buddhist tradition, the word faith, the Pali word is Siddha. And it means resting your heart in what is true.

Oh, I love that. Yeah. It's like really trusting reality. And it doesn't mean that we're trusting that this pandemic will ever go away. That we're not trusting that we won't get sick or die. We're not trusting in anything like that. It's kind of this trust that it's okay. anyway, that there's a larger belonging that's timeless.

It's a loving awareness that's really our being that we can take refuge in. And if we have that kind of faith, then we can with authentically, courageously open to, okay, here's how it really is. And what made me think of this actually was something I read that you wrote about faith when you were during your cancer struggle, which is that. that faith is no longer a construct, but some vital tool as urgent as an ore in the ocean or a prayer in the modern world. And so I just was hoping you could talk a little more about faith. Yeah, thank you. Well, I love that definition that you share that is so like speaks to what I feel.

I feel like faith, not in a doctrine, in a personage and, you know, in any kind of tradition. But faith in life for me is this, this unshakable belief that I'm part of something larger and that everything is connected. And, you know, a key moment for that for me all those years ago was when I was going through, I had my first. first chemo treatment and it was terribly botched. And it was, I had, it was about two weeks after I had a rib removed in my back. And I was in a holiday inn with loved ones outside of New York City. And I just kept getting sick. And that was particularly hard because, you know, I just had a rib removed.

And thinking, well, this can't keep going on. on. It must, you know, but it did. And so eventually, you know, we did go to an emergency room, but in the depths of that night, just before dawn, there was still like, well, this can't keep going on. And I kept getting sick. And we were exhausted and afraid. And I think because I was exhausted into that place of the heart resting in what is true, not that I chose it. Oh, well, I have wisdom. I'll know. No, no. I was just totally broken and exhausted. I couldn't hold up any defenses anymore.

And I remember my former wife was with us. It was there, of course. And her fear and frustration and anger, you know, she kind of blurted out. And we had one dear friend who was with us, three of us. And she blurted out, where is God? And I remember I was slouched on the floor against the wall with my knees up and my elbows on my knees. And I don't know where it came from in me. And I whispered here, right here. And I think I have spent all these years trying to understand what came to me in that moment. And I felt this sense as the sun started coming up.

you know, I felt this sense, well, this was real for me, and I didn't know what was going to happen next, and I was afraid, and I was broken. But I had this unshakable sense, well, somebody, somewhere nearby, a baby's also being born right now. And somewhere else, a couple's making love for the first time. And I, and that's where I felt this other truth that to be broken is no reason to see all things is broken. And it, and, you know, learning from that over the years, you know, we, I think we tend by our human nature that, you know, if I'm broken, then I want to paint the world as broken. If I'm afraid, I want to make the world a fearful place. Or if I accept that other things are going on or there's a larger sense, then I went, well, what's happening to me doesn't matter. And it's, it's all true.

It's all true. And while I need the company of someone who knows what it's like to be afraid, I need everything safe to heal. And while I need the company of someone who knows what it's like to be broken, I need everything whole to heal. And that mystery of the abundance and diversity of life. And that's what. I think for me, faith of, you know, when I sink my heart into what is true, that's what I sink into this, this unshakable, you know, abundance that, you know, during this journey, I had a dear friend who I met in the cancer rooms.

And, you know, I just loved her dearly. And when she finally died, it was a beautiful day. I had just seen her the day before. And I didn't want it to be a beautiful day. Yeah. But the light was mercilessly beautiful. And it was saying to me, well, you know, feel what you must and then come back. Yeah. Yeah. It's really that wholeness that includes the waves that are so painful, but remembers there's something larger also. So it doesn't negate anything. And, And I know many people wonder, well, I would love to trust that. I've had so many people tell me I'd love to trust a larger belonging.

And it doesn't, sometimes it happens in those dramatic ways where there's that surrendering that we can't even intend. And in that breaking open, there's a touching in the openness. I've also found for myself this growing trust that comes in very small, ongoing ways every time there's some uncomfortableness, there's some suffering, there's some fear, and somehow rather there's that willingness to be with, you know, that presence, and in that presence, discovering a larger tenderness and clarity and goodness that I know as I rest with that is more the truth of who I am than the passing waves. And it happens in small ways all the time,

Mark, that if I just pause long enough to really feel the truth of what's here, there's also a larger truth of this kind of awake, empty heart that's holding it all. And it's the many rounds that makes the difference for me. It's kind of like each time there's more of a trust that this is more truth. This is more the timeless truth. And that trust, as it gets stronger, I do believe, carries us through this whole living, dying world. I so, that makes so much inner sense to me. And it triggers a poem I wanted to share. And I feel that, you know, one of the great teachers about trust to me was a little baby duck I once saw. It was it was, it was, it was a up on Lake George in upstate New York.

And it was curled onto itself, and it was asleep floating in the lake. And I thought, how on earth does it do that? And it led me to think more about when I learned how we all, when we all learn how to swim and, you know, at first you fight it and you sink more. But then if we let go, if we surrender, you know, We just go a couple of inches and the buoyancy holds us. And I really think that's just a great metaphor for trusting what we're talking about and the larger. And those two inches, maybe the most too difficult inches on earth.

Well put, because they usually are. They're designed to be that way. Well, let me, can I share this poem? It's called disrobing in time. Nothing is easy but to tell the truth, the truth of what I feel and see. This somehow cleanses my eye, and it becomes clear what to do.

In my pain, I forget to admit what is true and things get worse. Because I don't want to be sad, I don't admit that I already am. then i feel like i'm drowning because i don't want things to change i don't admit that they already have then i feel like the wheel of life is tearing me apart the greatest power we have when feeling powerless is to admit what is already true then the stepping-stones of eternity rise out of the mud showing us where to go Taking in my breath and for all our friends listening, we will make sure this is available to you, unless it's in one of the books. Oh, of course. Yeah, of course.

Yeah. Wow. It's, you know, as you read it, I could feel that, you know, admitting the truth in the moment that we admit the truth, there's spontaneously a tenderness. Like as soon as I can admit, that jealousy is here, comparing mind is here, or that I'm feeling insecure. With that admitting, there's kind of an opening to tenderness to more compassion. And if I can really face and admit the suffering another person's in, it's the same. And I wanted to talk to you about compassion, self-compassion, compassion for others, because you have some really powerful teachings on it. And I know many come away from spiritual teachings with this idea that the virtue is that we're putting other people first, you know, or else they come away thinking, well, either

I'm going to be compassionate towards you and your needs or me and my needs. Like, for instance, one person in a conflict with her partner said, you know, my need is to speak truth and be authentic, but my partner's need is to feel appreciated and not judged, you know. So it's like this zero-sum game. And so I really wanted to invite you to share some about that because I read somewhere you going right at that one. Oh, well, thank you. So, well, I have found that, and of course, as we know, you know, compassion so means, you know,

being with, being with in this honest and tender way we're talking about. And certainly, you know, if you fall down, I can help you up, or if you're thirsty, I can bring you water. But anything that happens inwardly, I can't take away or solve. And so I can only keep honest company. And so for me, compassion comes out of this mystery that it seems like life has been made just difficult enough that we need each other. other to, I think, to ensure the journey of love. And I feel like compassion involves this truth telling also that we've been touching on. I think that once we can admit what's true, then we can truly be there for each other. I think that we often, and this is natural enough,

but we often love in the way we'd like to be love. But that's not always what's needed. So this is where compassion and taking care of ourselves and others and seeing things as they are, kind of, they all, of course, right, they all appear in life all tangled as a set of one set of roots. And, you know, I remembered that I first learned this years ago in a previous marriage and my in-laws who I knew for decades, my father-in-law was a farmer, lifelong farmer. And his daughter, his sister was also just part of the farm family.

They were both in their early 80s and she was dying from cancer and she was in the hospital. And this man who was, you know, would give you the shirt off his back, very taciturn, you know, hardly wouldn't be in a conversation like this. He'd feel very uncomfortable. He didn't speak much, but all of a sudden he was very present, insisting that his sister never be left alone around the clock. And I immediately felt, oh, you've just told me what you want when it's your turn. But no one ever asked his sister.

Like she might have said, leave me alone. I want some solitude. And then I realized, you know, that what a teacher, that that, yeah, we often. So I think the first thing in compassion for me is to ask what is really needed and not assume it's what I would want. And the second thing I've been learning about, about, I guess this is the person, the, it falls in like diagnosing what's needed before just jumping to give it. And even with like with heartache, you know, so my heart, I've had a broken heart and then you're my friend and your heart is broken. And I feel like, oh, I know somewhat what that's like. And so we're there.

But without truly inquiring, I don't know what that's like for you. And, you know, there's an old Native American, I love this custom, Native American elder circle, council's meet in circle. They still do, not just for equity, because there's no head to the circle, but so that everyone has a direct view of the center. So if heartache's in the center, I see the heartache from my experience, but I don't know what from your side of the circle until I ask. And so it's made me really act on my heart with listening and asking a lot before. before just rushing in. Yeah, so as you say that, I mean, that completely resonates that first we have to start, if we're going to be compassionate towards anyone, we have to be embodied and have that

capacity to listen inwardly and really sense what is going on with us and being able to hold our own being. And then to a greater or lesser extent, we can attune to the other and begin to feel into vulnerability and so on. And yet it's such an amazing gift and invitation to ask that question, you know, really, how does this hurt? What's hurting? What do you need? Ruby Sales, who's a civil rights icon and so on says, where does it hurt? You know, just really drawing it out and that's just such a intimate, tender thing. But I think the hardest piece with compassion for others is when the other person's needs conflict with our needs. Like you can the example at the beginning with, well, I just want to be able to speak my truth. But what if my truth is actually blaming you?

And not everybody has the skill to go underneath blame to sense of deeper truth is here's my unmet need. And so it's a training. I think it's really a training when we're looking at how to hold both of us in compassion to sense that conflict's not bad. This is one of the things I keep learning. It's like if you and I are in conflict, mark, it just means it's a conflict of needs. And it's okay. And to let that be okay, not to get so alarmed because that's what turns it into a zero-sum game.

Well, it's either mine or yours, you know? Yeah, and you raise, I think, like an important paradox comes up for me. And I think it's between this paradox that sometimes we have to set boundaries in order to give. And sometimes I have experienced when I thought I have nothing left to give, but love calls me to still try, I wind up discovering my greatest gifts. And I don't always, you know, until in the moment of honest, you know, disrobing in time, I'm not sure which it'll be. You know, do I need to set boundaries in order to be fully present or do I need to just keep giving? When is that, you know, needless sacrifice?

And when is it helpful? And we all grow. And I think this, well, I had this thought that I wanted it that just escaped me. No, it'll come back. It'll come back. But I think what you just offered, which is so important, a lot of people feel like compassion means I don't have my own boundaries. Compassion means I give the green light to somebody else to go ahead and do what they're doing.

Compassion means whatever that could be violating. And so I think there's that fierce compassion that is both tender and also really sees clearly what's needed. And sometimes what's needed is to say no. And at other times, what's needed is to invite ourselves to explore what's really possible in terms of offering. So I love that that's a question we put to ourselves. Oh, and now I did come back. I figured if I talked a little more. Well, you spoke to it too.

So I think that one of the ways that I've learned to try to be in compassion is to be like a greenhouse that just keep offering light and warmth without precluding how that's going to be received or how someone's going to grow from it. The other thing I wanted to bring up is that I think that everyone has an argument with life. and it's our argument, whether we think life's unfair or whatever it might be. And we often, and what made me think of it was the example you gave us about speaking the truth versus being seen and heard and validated. And we often play that argument out on those who are close with us. But it's, so, you know, if I think if I am a person, let's say, another hypothetical situation, I'm the glasses always half full person.

And you're the glasses always half empty person. And of course we're together. So and we, you know, go around and round about it. But it's really, it's really our own stance with life and our own argument with life. And to me, there's a deep kind of compassion that involves supporting someone with truth. that you need to have this argument with life, not with me. Beautiful. Wow. You know, this is not, you've made me a surrogate.

You've brought me into your play, your drama about this, which might be a legitimate drama, but I'm not the one, you know, you need to arrive at that place in your own soul where that conversation unfolds, and I can support you here. And the way that I can support you is really being, a mirror and a feedback mechanism, because if you're half empty, I can let you know as part of life what it feels like to experience that. And I can also mirror back the goodness of it, where there's

a certain clarity and, you know, facing certain truths because there are limitations that we need to be able to face. And if you're the half full, I can also say, here's how your optimism always gets me. And here's the beauty of it. So we can be mirrors for each other that help us see the impact of our argument with life. Yes, and I think, because I believe, and I know as you know that the wheel of life keeps going, and if we freeze it at any one point, we have these partial worldviews. You know, one is half full. The other is, no, it's all terrible.

But it's everything. And I think that when we play out these arguments, we try on all these different roles as victim and rescuer. and that's where there's another small poem I wanted to share if I could. Please. So this is a newer one called Mind as Keyhole. Mind as keyhole. Beneath the cloud, everything is gray. Above the cloud, everything is light.

Calling the cloud unfair is being a victim. Trying to conquer the cloud is being a hero. Calling the cloud a cloud is the beginning of peace. Wow, Mark, that's powerful good and it makes me, it brings up some, a couple of different questions I want to explore. And one of them, because you keep talking about. about not forgetting the wholeness, you know, acknowledging what's here, but not forgetting the wholeness. And one, there's a chapter piece in the Book of the Soul called distributing

the weight. And this, it points to something I think many have experienced. And I'll just say in the pandemic, I mean, how many of us listening have felt in some way actually privileged during these last year and a half and blessed in a way that we've gotten to pursue certain things. Maybe we're introverted. Maybe there's been some happiness with the unfoldings of our life. But then we've also felt torn or guilty like, how could I feel this while other people are suffering, you know, because there's so much suffering. And then the other side of it is how many have been caught in a struggle, like a real heavy

struggle. Like I can say for myself, I remember when I was in a downward spiral of sickness and I really lost my mobility, I couldn't really walk very well. And I remember going to a supermarket and watching everybody walk from their cars into the store and thinking, they don't think twice about that. And I'm having to figure out how to go slowly enough but get myself into the store. So how many of us have been caught in something and felt alone in it and that others are living in an entirely different realm and not relating. So I just was hoping you could speak to that, share a little of what you shared in that amazing chapter of yours. Thank you. I think that, you know, it's, of course, it's very human that we would feel, you know, some guilt or or a sense of if I'm

blessed to be okay in this moment and others aren't. But I feel like, and this is, is the wholeness again and the that we need all of it and that it does no good if everyone is suffering at once you know the one of the great kind of mysteries just by nature is light always finds a crack to fill and if we're all cracks and we're never light what good is that and and so you know we will take turns we will take turns being unable to move or unable to do something or to being confused or being dark. And so when we're blessed to have a moment of wholeness or a moment of resilience, I feel more and more like we're called to embody that wholeheartedly so that we will have resources to share.

And I think more importantly than I've only ever been kind of if you're in a blessed moment, and I'm suffering. As long as you're still holding that there are those suffering, that's still healing. It's when people run from suffering. You know, and I think this is part of the distortion of our society, of our, you know, that certainly the,

you know, the in the Declaration of Independence, the inalienable rights, you know, but we've kind of just made a cartoon of that, that we haven't, we're entitled to happiness. We're entitled to the thoroughness of this amazing experience of being a spirit and a body in time on earth. We're not entitled to happiness. We're not entitled to anyone particular. That's like freezing the different parts of the wheel of life. And so I feel like often people, and we've seen it in the pandemic, you know, suffering can bring people closer or it will also if people in their fear they'll turn away.

That's right. That's right. They'll turn away and try to insist that it's not happening. We see that right. There's a whole section of our society that has blinders on. It's not happening. It's not happening. Well, yeah, it is.

It is. And this comes down to the ultimate thing of impermanence because ultimately it frightens people that they're going to die. Yeah. And we will. but, you know, will also live. And I think that was one of the other mysteries for me and almost dying is that life and death were so much, feel so much more one fabric than I ever imagine. You know, I think in order to try to understand them like everyone else, I tried to look at life here and death over here.

but kind of being, you know, thrown close to the edge, I was amazed at that that too is part of a oneness. So I'm wondering because I've been very inspired by what your learnings have been from cancer, mortality, and now I'm kind of wondering if you could update in the sense of here we are and we're about the same age. age and aging goes on and how the vulnerability and reality of aging continues to inform you. Like, what is it teaching you? Oh, my goodness.

Yeah. You know, it's teaching me a lot. And I think that, let me start with a metaphor that's been a great teacher about aging for me and the life of the spirit. And that's of like a meteor. And as meteors come into the atmosphere, the farther they go, more and more of them flakes off and they get brighter and brighter until all that's left is light. They actually don't hit the earth, most of them. And to me, that has come into view as a metaphor for the journey of a spirit in a body over a lifetime. that inevitably more and more of us flakes off until there's nothing left but light.

Of course, you know, when we slow that- Wow, that's very good. More and more of us flakes off until there's nothing left but light. And of course, when that happens, and, you know, it doesn't feel good and we don't like it along the way and it's frightening. And I think I'm learning more and more the paradox of limitation. And that too started early in life, but I feel it more and more now. I mean, it was during my cancer journey that I realized there was nowhere to go. The miracle was everywhere.

And I think, you know, so here's like how things shift over time. You know, my father who was gone now, who was a master woodworker. And so he was very gifted with his hands and very mechanical. And he always taught us as kids to use our fingertips and holding things. That's where your dexterity is, you know. Well, and I, this year I turned 70. I thought, you know, if I met someone our age when I was younger, I thought they were ancient. It doesn't seem so long now.

But, you know, in the last five, six years, you know, my wife, Susan's a Potter. and she has not only her work, but she collects other powder's works. We have lots of wonderful mugs and plates and everything. And I usually do the dishes. And in the last few years, I've broken a lot of things. And I felt terrible because some of them are like her collector's items. And I started to realize I don't have the strength in my fingers anymore. I can't hold it by my fingertips.

In fact, at this time of life, I'm asked to hold. hold things more deeply in the center of my hand. That no longer works what my father taught me. And if I keep insisting on it, I keep breaking things that are precious. So, you know, that's just like one, like I'm starting to learn. There's certain shifts. And so I feel like we're asked as we, as over time, it's like if life, if we're, if we're taking this slow climb up this mountain we call life.

Well, the view is always the same, but every few years as we get higher and higher, I feel like we're called to stop and look out and recalibrate the view. It's the same view, but it's a little different. And certainly, you know, I have ever since my cancer journey have felt that life is precious

and but it's a little different being 70 and I'm well, thank God. But I feel, you know, even more, you know, there's, I have no bucket list. There's no five year plan. I just, I only want more of what is. It's beautiful. Just to share, since we are in the same kind of zone, it's every day, much of the day, there is that perception of how impermanent it all is. It didn't used to be that way. But there's just that's just like the most prominent thing.

And so, you know, just to give an example, last week, I swim most every day. Oh, I swim too. That's my ex. Really? Yeah. Well, I have a bit of brisitis and it was acting up so last week I could only swim for part of my swim. And immediately I could just see the whole story of, oh, this aging, deteriorating body and, you know, so on. And feel the unpleasantness and kind of the discouragement and the changing sensations in my body. And then realizing that is the story and that is and these are the feelings. that are here and then just sensing this larger presence that's never changing completely timeless always here and again it's that shift from identifying with this body that still tries to compete

with itself for some you know i'm still trying to make a better time or something to this kind of good humor kind awareness and it's got its own radiance and i think the biggest thing mark is that it just seems so clear, the more that identity shifts, the more there's really the truth of mortality, like this body is going, the more unconditionally I'm loving. Like love is freed up from facing death. And I know you found that in a very dramatic, compelling way with cancer, and there's something about getting older, the exchange for the dying body is just what you said. It's just like a more of a resting in that light and knowing that that's, it's truth and it carries us, you know. You know, I had just recently one of my oldest friend, I'm Godfather to his three kids who are now

in their 30s. And Eli, who's the youngest, lives in Chicago, he came to visit about a month ago and he's a musician and I had been you know planning to give him leave him my instruments you know and he was here and just what you're saying about feeling the impermanence and and my heart just I felt with such certainty and I just said to him I don't want to wait to give you these. I want to give it to you now. It means more to me to have to tell you like I was never a good musician, but these instruments shaped my sensibility. And I want you to have them to help your sensibility. And I was so certain, you know, just like you were saying, I was just so in that moment, it was so clear to me. And so, yeah, I did. I gave them to them. It's like if we really get it, why would we ever hold back from saying, I love you?

What are we waiting for? Absolutely. So this is a little bit of another angle on this, which is that I know when it doesn't come so easily, when my feeling of I don't want to feel bad, I want to. want to be able to go hike or swim or whatever it is or whatever, I know when the identification is there. And this is where spiritual practice comes in, like that we actually are building a kind of muscle towards deconditioning that habit of fixating or deconditioning that habit of protecting ourselves

against the more raw experience and learning to come back. And so you call it immersion in presence, which I think is a beautiful way to describe it. describe it. And you also talk about, and I hold it similarly, that spiritual practice, this kind of intentional practice, can feel at odds with this deeper truth of there's nowhere to get to, there's nothing to seek, there's nobody, that really meditation is a dissolving of any sense of a meditator. Yeah. It would be kind of fun just to share, like trade notes on what is your, do you have a formal practice these days? No, at this point, and I love, and maybe you know that this, you know, quickly, you know this,

this little parable about the, the senior kind of senior monk who's meditating in the temple, and he hears this noise that's irritating, and he knows he should make it part of his meditation, and he just can't, you know, and he finally walks in the other room, and there's a younger monk scrubbing the tiles of the temple. floor. You know this one? No, tell me. I'm eager. It's something else to share with people. And the older monk says,

what are you doing? He says, without looking, he says, I'm scrubbing this tile until it becomes a mirror. And the older one goes, no matter how much you scrub that, it's never going to become a mirror. And without looking up and scrubbing, he says, any more than meditation will bring you to

enlightenment. Oh, touche. But I do feel that, you know, so my practice at this point is to try to have an integrative practice. So, you know, I mean, if I'm really struggling, I will stop and more formally, you know, devote time to even meditating or something. But largely these days, you know, it's like when I'm out in the store and I'm impatient, that's when I, I'm try to meditate and you know when I try to listen and um so I try to integrate things and really the writing space is for me is really that meditative space I just take notes when I can outlast my own particular grip on things that that's when I start taking notes I love that phrase

outlast my particular grip on things. That patience, it just stays. And I should say also that, you know, this ties into that, you know, that part of being older is like, and for me, it's coupled with kind of PTSD around the cancer journey. That, you know, for so many years, I, I so kind of held this dichotomy that if there was anything happening in my body, uh-oh, it means something's wrong. And wellness was only when nothing was out of the ordinary. And that, I didn't even conscious of that. But then as I've started to get older, why realize I can't do that? Because there's always like a tree that keeps

aging. There's always stuff happening and it doesn't mean something's wrong. I have to somehow learn to switch that. But when something happens for me and, And, you know, when we're younger, something happens, we don't think anything of it. But, you know, when something happens and, you know, for some reason I'm, I'm extra achy or something, and I wonder, what is this? Is something going on? And I can drop into that trauma place and get all filled with fear. And one of the things when I'm afraid that I do work on, which is a practice now is, My fear is real, but like I was saying earlier, everything in the world is not afraid. So there is a bottom to, even though when I'm in it, I may not be able to find, there's a bottom of my fear below which is solid ground that is not afraid. So then it is, how do I touch into that? How do I outweigh the cloud of my fear?

My parallel mark is when there's fear, when there's a stuck place that's asking for my intentional attention is often, is to feel it as directly as I can and then notice that there's a little bit more tenderness and then from that tenderness actively offer love or actively pray for love. Either one works. because if I can even remember the word love, like even the slightest gesture of love, what it does is it immediately starts dissolving that feeling of separate selfness that's actually fueling the fear. So I keep turning towards love. And it, in a way, it's a directive thing, you know, where I'm on purpose more fully taking the posture sometimes of prayer. If I just imagine bowing my head or put my palms together literally, something in that humbling, and it's not saying,

oh, superior God up there, you're better than this piece here. It's more of a sincerity. It's like I get very, very sincere about feeling my love of the beloved. And then that just dissolves everything. I become the beloved, I become the universe. Thank you. Because I think that love enlarges our sense of things and gives us that way. Because really prayer has become listening and not asking. It's understandable that we ask, you know, we tend to pray and ask for things. But pray, but it's really become listening. And when I can like you, if I can open up to that current, that life energy that we call love, it starts connecting me with everything larger than me.

Exactly. And the power is that it needs to be embodied because so many times we can hear talking about some larger realm that we belong to and it sounds cognitive. But in the moment that our hearts get tender, we're feeling our way into it in a cellular way. And then becomes real. So and then this is something that's been teaching me or working me. That is when I can be in that place with through love and compassion, I start to touch into that the place where everyone has loved. And to me, that starts to be, that is starting to define what resilience is for me. when I can be so thoroughly where I am, the truth of where I am, that I start to touch into the truth of that gesture everywhere, that company makes me stronger than I am. And that is what I'm starting to understand is resilience.

I love that because the basic illusion is that we're on our own against the whatever. So a moment that was where I really learned that, began to learn that, was when my father was in his last months. And he had had a stroke. And I was with him once in the hospital and found myself like many adult children do at some point. And I was feeding him applesauce with a spoon. And it was such a tender, bittersweet moment. and all of a sudden everything, everything in me in life was in the dance of putting that spoon in his mouth without hitting his teeth or interrupting his breath. And, you know, of course, began crying. But then I tripped into a moment when I was so like giving myself over so completely.

I was thoroughly at the bottom of my thoroughness. of that feeling, I tripped into the moment of everyone who ever fed a dying parent. And therefore I was more tender than I can be, and it's stronger than I can be, because that was my first kind of resonance of this sense of resilience. I'm really, I'm with you on the truth of that, that when we open up to that loving awareness, it's not my loving awareness, it's a shared field that includes all of life. And it's one of the things I had wanted to touch on with you because it just feels so important for our world that, I mean, the suffering right now is that we forget our belonging to each

other and the remembrance, you know, widen it being able to widen the circles of compassion so we really are including others feels essential. for life to go on on earth the way we know it, you know, because we are so caught. And you talk, this is again, the book of the soul about how prosperity can blind us. And I would add to that the power hierarchy of a cash system. We have so much that blocks that inclusive heart space. So I just wanted to invite you into that one to how we really bring down the walls, how we widen it, not just to those that are kind of more like us in their suffering, but those who aren't as easy to feel into. Well, I think, yeah, I, you know, I think that, and just to say, this is part of a

paradox that, you know, under all of it, I feel this constant reminder from my spirit that we are they. there is no they and yet you know I turn on the news and if I had here I'd pull it out and then I say I'm not that what are you talking about and then I'm in my own argument that's my argument with spirit is no we are they well you say I am I'm not you know and there I am but I'm holding that in my heart because I do believe that I do believe that there is no and that, you know, one of my shorter poems is just three lines. It's those, those who wake are the students, those who stay awake are the teachers, how we take turns. And so for now, while we're awake and others are not, and I feel like it's that, I,

Only great love and great suffering awaken us. And I can't push that on anybody, but I can not vanish. I can stay visible and lighted and loving. And I can, and I think this is such a challenge for every age, but for when we are awake. You know, if you cross the structure, to beat up the bully, or you run down another street to avoid the bully, your path is still

governed by the bully. So, and I think this is, you know, that's a crude way of saying it, but that's at the heart of all the, you know, Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. and Nelson Mandela of not giving in this adversarial push pull that is throughout all of time and not vanishing. So then there's the inquiry of, okay, if I'm not going to attack and I'm not going to flee and avoid, how do we pay attention when there's a bully? And I know for myself what happens is the first thing that comes up is, you know, what you described, whether it was pulling out hair, you know, some sort of an anger or a separateness, a bad other. And what I need to do is just stay

with, as you would say, wait out that anger and find underneath that deep down there's caring. Well, I think if I can get to the caring, then I can respond in a whole different way, because no longer is the bully a bad other. Well, and I have this, this truth that I got from a student of mine. And that also, so let me first, though, this is other thing that's so present in me being Jewish and being descendant from having family have died in the Holocaust. And so I feel there's a, in terms of real action, and I've felt this as a teacher now that I will, I am committed. I will welcome anyone into the circle except those intent on destroying the circle. And I don't know how else to do that.

So that's at the one extreme. At the other end that we're talking, I feel, and this is what I learned from a student of mine. I had a student who kind of an our age group. And she was sharing with this circle that she had grown up with a cousin. They were real closest kids. But when they were older now, they were way on opposite ends of the political spectrum.

and every other religious spectrum. And he had called her up and said, gee, wouldn't it be nice if we spent more time like we did when we were kids now? And she said she didn't know where it came from, but out of her mouth came. I'd love that as long as we share the evidence of our journey and not our conclusions. And I thought that was such a profound lesson. And I think it's something that's relevant here.

Like, you know, you and I may never see. eye to eye on abortion, let's say. But if I ask not for your conclusions, but I say this is, so I see abortion is really important to you. Tell me the story of how that is so. Where are the roots of that for you? We may never agree, but we will start to hear each other again. We will start to see the humanness and not the conclusions. I feel like that's so important that we go in to seek to understand what matters to each other. And that at least creates that basic human bridge of what we care about that allows us to be in relationship, to be in the circle together.

And some people are just not able to do that. So, and I love what you're addressing is, you know, really how to have those conversations if it's at all possible. And then there's the other piece of others who are suffering but feel different from us, not like there are enemy, but that we're just not able to really pay attention close enough. We have such a distracted society. So Haiti was on the front pages and people gave money to Haiti.

And I think Haiti has vanished from consciousness. And the people in Haiti are still in devastation. And I also think of our speciesism, which really is a very deep one for me, that we have a hierarchy of human life being more valuable. And, you know, the torture of humans is prohibited by international law. and 85% of people in this country are against cruelty to other animals, and yet 95% eat meat, and it's increasing as developing countries get more prosperous. And so what happens is that factory farming is designed to be out of our view.

Like industry does a huge amount to hide that reality from us, and it's right in our backyard, just like concentration camps. You mentioned your heritage, you know, during World War II. Humans are tormenting other beings. And here's the thing, Mark, is that it takes intention to look if we're going to care. It really takes intention. And so it's just something that I am practicing in my own life is that to keep making the bridges, like when I go out for walks, I'll often look at a tree and just say, we are friends. And as soon as I posit that, I'll feel the truth of that connection or with a squirrel or with my dog or with, you know, when I imagine a pig or a chicken going to slaughter, you know, we are friends. And I just, my sense

is that it takes training our hearts and minds to pay attention in a world where sometimes the caste systems are so buried from our consciousness. I so appreciate what you're saying, and I think that this is where, you know, the sense which has gone on forever that each generation needs to, we need to find our own, our own way to practice being authentic and open-hearted so that those connections can be made. And, you know, it's like, I think like we're, you know, we learn to open our eyes in order to see. and we learn to open our heart in order to love. So if we open our eyes without seeing, and we open our heart without loving, what's the point? That's that's used to practice that's not really practiced for anything.

It's useless. Do we have time for one more story? Of course, yeah. Please. So this is a story of two monks who, They've studied long and hard because they've been told if they study long and hard enough, one day they'll have an appointment on top of a mountain with Buddha. So they do and they study and their hearts tell them that this is the day.

So they start climbing the mountain and halfway up, one of them breaks his leg. So they spend the night and the one who's fine takes care of his brother. fully, you know, intending to keep his appointment the next day to go to the top of the mountain. He doesn't want to miss the meeting with Buddha. Well, the next day, we wake up and the one who's broken in his leg is not doing well. He's got a fever and it's obvious he just can't be left there. And the parable stops there and the question is, of course, what would you do? And what it opens for me and what it opens is that when we have more people, in an age, in a generation who would keep their appointment at the top of the mountain and care for their broken other, we engender cruelty.

When we have more people who will stop and discover that tending their other is the summit, we engender compassion. And what you're raising is that we, each of us, very, in our lives, we face those choices several times every day. Every day. And that's a conversation within each soul. And it doesn't matter what you put on the top of the mountain, whether it's God, Buddha, financial security, family. you know, once we put that it ahead of each other, we are, we're watering the seeds of cruelty, even though it doesn't, may not even look like it. You know, there's that saying, be kind, everyone you meet us struggling hard. And it's true. If we think we're on our way somewhere else,

we miss the opportunity here to arrive fully in our hearts. And so maybe as a way of closing mark, you know, we've touched on this a bit, but it's a question I ask a lot of people that you just brought up the two possibilities of getting to the top are really pausing and opening our hearts again and again. How hopeful are you? Do you relate to that? idea of hope how hopeful I mean here we are and there's it's easy given what's going on right now in the world to feel well I feel like so first let me say that I do believe in this this sense that's a paradox but that all things are true all things aren't fair they're not just but all things are true and I feel that I I am hopeful because I believe I believe more in incarnation than progress. So, you know, we unpack that a little bit. Yeah, yeah. So, so, you know, progress is,

and here's a little quick illustration. So say there's a tribe, an indigenous tribe, they've experienced hardship and persecution, and then they migrate to find a new place to live. They come up into this beautiful edge of these mountain ranges, and there's a plateau, and they decide they're going to settle there. And that generation spends decades clearing all the trees so that their children can just look out and see the vastness of creation. So progress is when we in the world leave the world better for those who come. So the fact that those kids didn't have to clear those trees is progress. The fact that they have to open their eyes and see is incarnation.

That they have to open their hearts and feel is that everyone, every generation has to go through the same thresholds and journeys. And that's incarnate. No one can shortcut or take away or, you know, it's our turn. It's our turn to do the best we can, whether we're going to attend that person with the broken leg or walk right by them to the top of the mountain. So I believe more in the endless journey of incarnation than progress. And I feel so that we're not, humanity is not ascending some mountain. We're all the same six inches from heaven in the gutter. It's this way. So I do believe not, not, you know, will we, will we in our incarnation outlast the damage we've done?

I don't know, maybe not. But I do believe that that spirits and body in time on art will continue. And I do believe that we will, you know, Every generation has a different, horrible iteration to face and try to transcend, whether it was World War II or World War I or, you know. And, you know, and I don't ask, I don't ask why anymore. I only ask how. Beautiful. Why is maddening? Rapids hole, rapids hole.

Yeah, but what you're saying about the how, which is. And we can take it to this lifetime right here instead of looking at progress or trajectory as much as just this moment, incarnation means, are we willing in this moment to open in a fresh way, right this moment, to feel our heart, feel our spirit, and live from that. And that's a powerful... So, you know, in another dark time in... the Middle Ages in Europe, which we all, which were dark in Europe, but not the rest of the world. Like, I've learned that the rest of the world at that time was pretty enlightened. It's only our lens that says it was the dark ages, but it was in Europe.

Only 10% of the population of Europe was literate. 10% kept literacy alive for over 300 years. And so if we're blessed to be awake now and we take turns being awake, then it's in on us in this time to keep the literacy of the heart alive. That just feels like, I am very hopeful about that. And it's also a huge challenge. Challenging and possible. It feels important to keep the possible there to know that that's the potential, that the big picture is, yes, it's challenging, and yes, this is a potential and to live towards that. And Mark, thank you. You know, we could go on. It's a total treat. And I'm so appreciative of the wisdom you share and the way that you offer it

out in story, in images, like I walk away with some images now that'll keep me inspired. And so thank you. And it helps to bring forth what's possible in others. So I want to thank each of you who's joined us for being part of this. Can we feel our togetherness, our shared care, our commitment to this incarnation, this moment to waking up. Again, great gratitude. Oh, thank you. It's just a joy to be with you in this.