Tara Brach - Causing No Harm

Episode Date: September 28, 2011

2011-09-28 - Causing No Harm - The mindstates behind violence--anger and fear--are universal and natural. If they possess us and drive our actions, we suffer. If we learn to meet them with a mindful awareness--if we step out of judgment and angry reactivity--we serve our own freedom and the possibility of peace on earth as well. Please support this podcast by donating at www.tarabrach.com or www.imcw.org. Your donation makes a difference! Thank you!

So tonight I want to explore something I've been reflecting on a lot, and it's really that when humans create a lot of harm on this planet, it's a call for us to deepen our attention, whenever it comes to our attention, to the mind states behind it. Like, what caused that harm? And it's a really important question. You know, I'm thinking of the ecological disaster.

pastors like at the Gulf. You know, we have such a short memory of what the crises are and all of a sudden it just fades. Well, there'll be more accidents. What's behind that? Can we sense into the greed and fear in the culture that causes that or that causes an economic crisis that creates such tragedy in the lives of so many people?

You know, for many of us, you know, 9-11 was just here. So we think, well, what's behind the violence there and then the retaliation that create the more violence, the cycles of violence? What's behind that? Can we sense the fear and the anger behind that? And then last week was so poignant for millions and millions of people. What's the mind state behind wanting to see someone be killed? behind believing that punishment, that killing people for what they're being accused of is really going to create a better world in any way.

What's behind that? These are questions it feels important to ask. I think of our country. You know, there's 70% of the world, countries in the world, have gotten rid of capital punishment. So there's 30% United States and some third world countries that are. have retained it. Okay. Now 65% of our population approves. So what is it? You know, it's such an important question. What is it if we approve of something that we know doesn't detain crime? That we know hits people that can't afford a lawyer, a decent lawyer. That we know

often hits the wrong person. They get the wrong person gets What's the mind state that would have 65% of our country believe this is helpful? These are questions that I've been asking, you know, what is it behind an eye for an eye when we're believing that? So after 9-11, when a lot of people feared the very continuation of violence that has occurred, there was a story that circulated on the web and I remember being moved by it and sharing it here some of you might remember it it's a story where an old grandfather is speaking to his grandson

and he's talking about what causes violence and cruelty and he says in each human heart he says there are two wolves battling one another and one is fearful and angry and the other is why his understanding and kind. And so the young boy looks as grandfather says, yeah, and so which is going to win. And the grandfather smiles and he quietly says,

whichever one we choose to feed. So, you know, when we think of what the mind states are, you know, behind so much violence, we sense the fear and the anger that are there. And it's not just in certain people. It's all of us. I mean, every one of us has a nervous system that is rigged when we feel threatened to feel anger and to feel fear. And I want to say right from the start, this isn't a talk about that we should get rid of that. We need to feel angry and we need to feel fearful.

And that aggression is a really important part of us to survive. and it has an intelligence that alerts us. So we need to be able to pay attention to that. But it's part of our limbic system. It's part of the most primitive part, the reptilian and limbic system. It's part of us. But unless we're able to cultivate and pay attention

to the more recently evolved parts of the brain, you know, the frontal cortex, it is the site of thinking and it's the site of empathy, and it's a site of insight. Unless we cultivate that, we won't be able to mediate. We won't be able to really provide wisdom and guidance

for the more primitive parts of the brain. There's a reason that we humans develop these different layers of the brain. So our potential is to go ahead and feel the different strong emotions that are there, but have some wisdom that, lets us know how to respond to them. You know, we're potentially very dangerous and cruel creatures.

And I think of, I was thinking of our dog, we have two poodles and one's a royal standard, very large dog. His name's Hakuna, the Lion King. And I would take him for walks in Bethesda. And Hakuna is very alpha, like really, really alpha. and he hated this pair of Akitas that used to be in the neighborhood. And whenever he'd see them, he'd want to lunge at them. So I'd have to, I'd be, you know, I'd have to go to a tree and wrap his leash around a tree and hold on

because, you know, 90 pounds of hurtling poodle, you know, and drags me around, and that's hard. So then after they passed, Hakuna would go back to cheerfully. you know, smelling the smells and trotting along, if you think of what a human does, I mean, Hakuna didn't start replaying it in thinking, damn, Adidas, they think they own the hood, you know. And, you know, it wasn't like he would keep going on it. He just went back to what he went back to.

Not with humans. What happens to us is that in some way, somebody mistreats us or insults us or threatens us or whatever it is, And we get going and we keep replaying it. And every time we have the thought of how wrong they are or what happened, it revs up the biochemistry of fight-flight, which revs more thoughts and we keep cycling in it. And then we behave in ways that create more of the very situation

that has the seeds of violence. So this is what I mean by feeding the angry wolf. We get caught in this trans. of bad other, and we believe in our bodies believe it, and it affects us. Our sense of identity narrows into a victimized or angry person. The same thing happens as a society. When as a culture, we have a mindset of in some way we're better than or we're threatened

and we have to get back in the same way eye to eye for an eye in order to put some other country or people in their place, when we have the idea that we can control things and do the war to end all wars or get rid of certain types of people, it creates a cultural or social psyche, a kind of alpha psyche that is actually really dangerous. So what I'd like to talk about tonight is that we have a choice. I mean, each of us has the same. nervous system and wiring, but we have a choice how we respond to the situations in our life. So I want to explore meditation because every time something happens in the world that's really horrendous, there's some prayer in me that knows that if more of us could meditate, we would

touch the consciousness that wouldn't then generate the horror. And what meditation does, very, now research is showing it in very explicit ways through MRI diagrams and so on. It shows how when you meditate, it activates the left frontal cortex. Now, what that means is it activates certain positive emotions, and it deactivates the limbic systems fight-flight. So in those moments, there's more capacity to think reasonably. There's more capacity to see consequences. there's more capacity to contact empathy, really important.

Because if there's not empathy, the other stays a bad other. Our hearts don't include who's there. We make decisions based on the idea that somebody out there or a group of people is in some way less than human. And then therefore we can hurt them. So one of the ways we can understand meditation is it instead of the sympathetic nervous system which is fight-flight meditation activates the parasympathetic

which puts a bit of a break on it, allows us to slow down, allows us to come back to some balance and some peace. The word Ahimsa means to cause no harm. It's non-violence. And in a way, I love the language. language of it. When I moved to Washington, I was part of an ashram community and Ahimsa was the name of the ashram. And it is an invitation that's in all the Eastern spiritual traditions, it kind of saying what's possible. That it's possible in these human body minds with all of our wiring

to take care of ourselves, to draw boundaries. to take care of those we love, but have a heart that really causes no harm, that is not creating actions that cause harm. That that's a possibility. Ahimsa means that we, in our moments, are remembering our innate connection with all beings. That there's a oneness that we're part of.

And when there's that realization, we act from that wisdom. So I'm going to explore this a little more, but just to say that we need to act. On all the fronts that I've kind of named, we need to act, whether it's for saving the health of the planet, or bringing it back, are working for peace, are working for social justice, we need to act. And none of those actions will make a difference unless we have. have gone to our own hearts and minds and sensed,

how do I create violence? And sometimes it's small ways, but how do I create separation? How do I feed the angry, fearful wolf? Because if we can do that, and it really is us, and by us I mean those of us that are sitting here tonight, and those of us that are listening or watching, and those of us around the world

that are just in a process of waking up and sensing the pain of violence, the pain of being possessed by fear and anger. If we can begin in our lives, and I'll invite you tonight just to pick one place where you might be feeding the angry wolf, where you might be in some subtle way, living, you know, buying into your judgments and keeping somebody at a distance and not really

seeing them as a part of you in some way. If you can take one place where that's happening, then you are helping to evolve the consciousness on this planet in a way that gives us a hope for a Hymsa for peace. So it's a both end to act in the world and to keep feeding keep feeding the understanding and kind wolf so we begin just to look a little bit more at how our wiring reacts to violence and to say that every child we can see in every child that there is this rigging that we want to get even when we feel hurt it's a way of in some way the organism trying to find control again we want to get back so vengeance is very deep in our system. It's not like we're bad for it. And I hope that nothing I'm saying tonight about

how we cause violence has to do with a bad. It's our nervous system. So children are like that. I remember with my son. I would wrestle with him or we'd play. And if for some reason, if I pushed him in any way, he'd have to push me back twice as hard. And I remember really well. It was like, in his body, how to do it to feel okay, you know? So it's a lot. It's for children, and I remember reading, somebody's described this to me, Boy announces proudly, I'm going to marry grandma. The father says, gently, son, you can't do that. Children don't marry their grandparents.

And he says, why not? You married my mom. I'm going to marry yours. And so it's in children, it's in, you know, we can go to the other end of the specter. Rita Rutner writes, my grandmother buried three husbands. Two of them were only napping. So our limbic system is a source of this anger and fear, and it's ten times quicker than the frontal cortex,

which then starts thinking about things, and it's much more satisfying to respond with anger. It's much more satisfying initially to lash out. There's a whole surging biochemistry of anger that we can get addicted to, because temporarily there's a sense of power and rightness and control temporarily. So we get addicted to it. It's easier to believe that somebody else is a bad other. When we've been injured in some way,

it's easier to believe that and feel our righteous anger and to lash out than it is to feel the wound that's happened and process the injury. And this is a key thing, and we're going to keep coming back to this, that it's easier to feel angry and to feed the angry wolf than it is to bring a presence to the vulnerability and begin to come to the place where we can feed the understanding and wise wolf. It's easier.

So what happens is we do that, and whatever is unprocessed then sets the seeds for the next round of lashing out. We haven't been with the wound. It gets re-triggered really quickly and we lash out again. So our anger never takes care of it. And sometimes the anger is delayed as we know

and there's a kind of a more passive aggressive but it still gets to us. Some of you might remember the story of a guy who confessed to his friend at work, that he really blew it, that in some way he was talking to his secretary, and he was kind of attracted to her and asked, and when she asked how the weather was,

he said, it's kind of nippley out today, and he felt terrible and embarrassed, and he said, oh, my God, you know. His friend said, oh, it's not your fault. You know, you just, you made what's called a Freudian slip. You know, just the other morning I was having breakfast with my wife, and I meant to ask, please, past the sugar, but instead I said, you damn bitch, you've ruined my life. So I think you get the idea.

We hold it in, we, you know, in some way keep feeding the angry wolf, and it comes out in some ways. I mean, they say that women are depressed. When they get depressed, they eat or shop. When men get depressed, they attack another country. You know, it's, so it comes out unless we take the time to face the unfazed fears. And we are in a culture that's got a lot of discomfort and fear at its core, disconnection. But rather than face the vulnerability, we try to consume more,

we try to earn more, we try to win more, we spend more, more, more. We're running. So you can look at it as an individual or as a society that when we keep

feeding the angry wolf, when we don't face what's here, we continue to plant the seeds of violence. And a lot of the fears we're not facing, we can see it comes out in

discrimination and in cultural and institutional discrimination. A fear of women, fear of people with different sexual orientation, expectations, fear of people of different races or religions. Those fears, unless we're with them, we act out violently. There's a book that starts with a story of an Austrian woman named Clara, and she's made pregnant by a married uncle who, when his wife dies, marries her.

All her children die soon after birth. Finally, she has her fourth child, and her fourth child is really, really sickly. and she nurses for two years obsessively. He tries to get away from the nipple, but he can't because she's so afraid that she wants to force him to live. She's so afraid he's not going to. She's also obsessive about other things. She's obsessive about having a spotless house,

and she lives in fear of her husband's beatings. And her son grows up to be exceedingly fearful as an adult. He's afraid of any dirt. He's afraid of, he's a vegetarian, afraid of microbes, of germs, of dirt. He feels the very blood in his veins is dangerous that it can bring about defects in feeble-mindedness in children.

He's afraid of gossip about his incestuous family. He never has children. He's afraid of his tainted blood. He's terrified of cancer, which took his mother's life. It's horrified. He suckled at diseased breasts. He's afraid of moonlight. and horses of snow, the water, the dark, of judges, of Americans, of old men, of poets.

So the question is, how could anyone live with that much fear? Okay, this is the unprocessed fear. He seized on one all-encompassing explanation for the existence of sin and disease for his failures and disappointments. There was no weakness in his parents or in his blood or in his mind. He was faultless. Others were filth. He could not change his China blue eyes.

He could change the world they saw. He would identify the secret source of every evil and rooted out. He would free Europe of pollution and defilement. Only health and purity would remain. Are such grim and comic facts significant or merely interesting? Here's another. The doctor who could not cure Clara Hitler's cancer was Jewish. That's from a threat of grace by Mary Russell.

It's powerful, the effect of unfaced fear. So we begin to look, okay, so what gives rise to violence? And we see, you know, these different emotions. We see that the fears and anger that we're not facing are caused by sexual abuse. They're caused by emotional abuse. We can see them caused by poverty, the fear of survival. We can see them caused by racism. We can see them caused by mental disorders and by biological disorders.

All of those can give rise to fear and anger that we then don't process, right? But here's what's interesting. That in a culture, some of the most horrendous acts in history occurred in seemingly normal cultures. So I want to read you from, this is John Reier, who's a trauma expert and author and teacher. This is what he writes. Hitler would not have been successful but for the complicity of many thousands of ordinary citizens. Sometimes all that appears to be required for good people to do bad things

is underlying dissatisfaction or anger tapped or channeled by charismatic leadership nationalism are a cultural storyline about ancient enemies or unacceptable groups. The German people were human in the same way that Americans were human over several hundred years that they supported and participated in the violent enslavement of African people.

Perfectly normal people. Us. And yet caught in a cultural mindset, not facing deep down some of the unprocessed fears, so caught in a mindset and caught an activity that's violent. I find it interesting that

research now shows that those who hold lesser value and lesser entitlement of certain people and certain groups. In other words, women, people of color, gays, so on. They're more inclined towards violence and towards supporting violence. It makes sense intuitively, but it's interesting to see the research now. The language I like is unreal other. That when anybody or a group of people, we consider in some way less than, they become less,

than human. They become they're unreal to us so we can hurt them. They're unreal so we can kill them. They're a group of terrorists or they're a group of this or this and so we can do things and we don't look to see who's really there. Now here is something that goes hand in hand with that which is we also are violent towards ourselves. I mean, we're cruel and harsh in our judgments. We sometimes punish ourselves. We do behaviors that violate ourselves. And so not only do we make others unreal,

we make the self inside unreal. You know, this is a bad, I have a bad self in here, and it's kind of like an other that we judge and condemn and push around. So it's interesting to me that if you think of it, if you really embraced the life inside you, if you're a person that loves a life that's here and you embrace all the imperfections of this being that's right here, you're not going to be a person that then wants to kill another person. If you love life, you're going to love life.

So anybody that is locked into violence towards others is different. disconnected from their own inner being and their own life inside. It's an act that comes from disconnectedness. So a hymsa is this process of becoming connected so that we care. When we're disconnected, our identity gets very small. You know it in the moments that it's like that. In moments when you're caught in fear or anger, the sense of who you are shrinks.

You become small, solid, separate from others. So the process of feeding the wise wolf, the understanding wolf, is really a process first of reconnecting to the life that's here. That's the first step. That we open our hearts and our mindful presence to the life that's here. And then we begin to sense, oh, others are part of my being, part of my heart, that we're all part of the same web of life. We can see that. But not until we first get intimate with the life that's here. So this is Gandhi.

He describes his own spiritual unfolding, and he says, I hold myself to be incapable of hating any being on earth. By a long course of prayerful discipline, I've seized for over 40 years to hate anybody. I know this is a big claim. Nevertheless, I make it in all humility. What is powerful about this to me is that he had a work through prayer to wake up out of creating separateness and into an embracing heart. And what that tells me is it takes commitment, that if we want to experience this freedom from being possessed by the angry wolf,

we want to have anger as a signal but not be possessed it takes training it takes a real commitment a willingness to deepen our attention because every one of us gets triggered and every one of us has those energies moving through us so let's explore this some because the given is that we've each been wounded i mean we've each have we each have kind of hurt and vulnerability they can get triggered, every one of us. So how do we respond? When we get re-triggered by somebody personally in our life or by something that goes on in the world and we feel that sense of helplessness or anger or our powerlessness or fear, how do we respond? Do we just go right into all of our angry thoughts and just start spinning in it? Or do we say, oh, this is part of my training? You know,

I really want to serve this evolution of consciousness and this being and all beings, please may I pause and look more deeply? As Gandhi said, that prayerfulness, how do we respond? So one good friend a couple of years back when her husband admitted having an affair with another woman,

and that was after about a year of deception, she ran into this because her response was a kind of bitterness and a hatred and anger that she basically wanted to kill him. You know, she felt murderous. And so the first part of her process was absolutely not making that wrong. You know, I didn't encourage her to, you know, get active. But, you know, just this is, you know, this is her animal self and she's been violated.

So we say yes to the different energies that move through us. That doesn't mean we believe our thoughts like he's, an evil person and he deserves to die you know it's like we don't believe the thought but we open to the feelings the murderous feelings the rage and when she opened to it you know she really felt her hatred and her anger and let that be natural and kept paying attention and I asked a question I often ask which is you know if if you didn't believe the thoughts that that he's evil he's bad what would you have to feel underneath the anger and hatred

profound her devastating her so her practice was to hug herself and rock and that was her practice she would kind of have her knees up and she would sit you know she had an altar on the floor she'd sit in front of the altar and kind of hug her knees and she just cry and rock day after day after day that was her her you know she would just feel the hurt and and the only what I invited her to do was just what I'm sharing here is that that's the unfelt emotions. You know, she could act out and make him wrong and be locked into anger for the next 20 years

are she could sit and rock and feel her hurt. And she did that. And what she described, I was so touched by, was that she, you know, because she would just, if she was opening to the deeper layers of feeling lonely and fear of always being lonely, hugging, rocking, hugging, rocking. And she said at some point my hug became a real hug.

That she wasn't just hugging and rocking. She said, I was caring for myself. I mean, I was caring. And that's when her identity shifted. And as you listened to these Dharma talks, you know that the transformation and freedom comes. when we go from being the victim or the aggressor to a larger sense of

oh okay there's a caring presence that's more truly who I am than the angry wall for the fearful wall for the passive aggressive wall for whatever we are that's when her identity shifted she was caring for what was within for that life gradually with that larger identity

she could look through the eyes of compassion and look at her husband and see, I sometimes describe the dog with its leg caught in a trap, she could see where he was caught, where he was acting out of a place of pain, his fear of getting old and not being appreciated and never really being intimate, because they didn't have that intimate a relationship. She could begin to see that. I want to read you a just a little verse from a poem. And this poem was written by an inmate recently who's taking meditation right now

as part of our IMCW program where we have people going into local prisons. I just want to read you a verse he wrote because I was thinking of this woman and her hug becoming a hug. First and last, though, is this. Fall in love with yourself. whatever your flaws, whatever your faults,

no person is more deserving of your love and forgiveness. First and last, though, is this. Fall in love with yourself. So this is the process of feeding the wise wolf, that we open to what's there. And in that presence, we begin to choose wisely. We begin to choose love. And as I mentioned for her, she could start looking at him and see his own way of being trapped,

his own way of acting out of pain. And the result in that relationship was they did get divorced, that she didn't have the trust that couldn't be rebuilt in that way. But they were able to go on with a sense of caring, which allowed them to be parents, co-parents in a way that, didn't create embed violence into their family. I often share a line that I love that was from a movie and the line is that vengeance is a lazy form of grief. And I share it whenever I have a chance because I like to reflect on it myself. The things you hear me saying over and over again are things I

like to reflect on. And that one's important that the vengeance, you know, the The activity of the angry wolf is easier. But what it does is it covers over the grief that's there, the loneliness, the hurt, the pain. And if we cover it over, there's no chance for healing. And there's no chance for evolving our consciousness in a way that can serve this world. Vengeance is a lazy form of grief and a lazy form of fear.

So I'd like to just take a few moments. to reflect together and give you a chance to just experiment a little with how to choose in your life the understanding wolf and as you come into stillness take a few breaths so you can just feel yourself here let the breath invite you into your body and begin to feel that aliveness in the hands shoulders just relax a little the shoulders, softening the belly. You might take some moments to scan your life and see if there's anywhere that you may have been in some way feeding the angry wolf,

in some way kind of buying into a bad other, creating an unreal other, making somebody wrong, keeping them at a distance, armoring your heart. If you have a place in mind, And you can ask the question I mentioned a little bit earlier. If you no longer were subscribing to that belief, okay, this is a bad other, this person is evil in some way. If you put that aside, what is difficult that you'd have to feel?

So if you stepped out of that belief that somebody else was in some way evil, bad, what would you have to feel? to feel. I mean, would it be, as with this woman, a sense of hurt? Would it be fear that you'd feel kind of powerless? What's the vulnerability there that has kept you feeding the angry wolf? Whatever it is, you contact that's underneath that anger. Sense the possibility of just taking a little bit of time with it so that instead of you know, ignoring it, not facing it, just what happens if you let yourself breathe with it really gently? Now if it feels traumatic, then that's not a time, this isn't a time for it. But if it's this uneasiness, if there's hurt, if there's fear that you feel you can be with,

just taking a few moments to sense, okay, I'm going to be intimate with what's here. And if it helps you, as we often teach with these self-compassion practice, to gently bring your hand, to your heart. I often do this. I sit with my hand on my heart. It's a way to keep company with whatever's difficult. And if you haven't done this before, you might experiment. Let the touch be very light and gentle, as if the tenderness of your touch is communicating, okay, I'm here with this. I'm keeping company with this difficult feeling in here. So you're offering compassion to what whatever is underneath that anger. And if it feels big and you feel like,

oh, I don't have enough compassion to help hold it. Just imagine someone you love. Or if there's a deity like Budar, Kuanian, or Jesus, helping you to just hold that hurt, that fear, that vulnerability, as if that being's energy is flowing through your hand too. And it may be that right now it's hard to get in touch with things and you don't feel like, or it feels like too much for right now, but feel your intention,

your intention to bring a kind of intimate attention to what's there and not to continue to feed the angry wolf. Intention to wake up your heart in this way. And if you feel that you're holding yourself with compassion, like that woman, that you're actually offering a hug that's a real hug to your heart, you can begin to look at the other that you've had as an unreal other or been pushing away in some way and see if you can look through the eyes of compassion see if you can ask yourself what that person how that person might be hurting how that person's fears unmet needs might be have played into

their way of being violent or hurtful and just for that these last few moments, business is something that we do again and again. It takes many rounds for us to begin to create these different pathways, this pathway towards wisdom and towards love, just to sense your intention, that when you find yourself locked in distance or separation to pause, to not necessarily ride the train of judgments or blame

to pause and maybe feel what's even more difficult to feel but ultimately creates wholeness and healing. Taking a few full breaths, come on back. When you're ready, open your eyes. So this is really creating new pathways in the brain, new neuropathways in the brain. When you catch yourself and instead of riding the looping thoughts

and feelings of anger and hatred and getting back and vengeance. Instead, you pause and something says, okay, how can I move towards Ahimsa, towards this nonviolence? And you instead open to what's feeling difficult inside you. You are literally waking up a different part of your brain. You're deactivating your limbic system and you're in an evolutionary way opening up the higher brain to more activity. That will allow you to see the other person as a part of or connected to you in some way. That will allow you to then respond with more wisdom.

If it's difficult, just intend to practice. Now, I wanted to, before I close, just share one story because it can be really, really challenging when we've been deeply wounded. It's like everybody thinks forgiveness is a really great idea until we actually have something to forgive, right? So a story, this is to me a two-wolf story par excellence. Jesuit priest Gregory Boyle has a book I've shared from before, tattoos on the heart.

And he writes about the tragedies and the possibilities that he bore witness to, the potentials in one of the worst gang violence neighborhoods in Los Angeles. And in one story sold that as a mother of four. And she's very proud when her second son gets his diploma and goes to the Marines. And when he comes back for a visit, he goes out to get some fast food and on his way back. She hears the shots. And he dies in her arms on the porch. Well, soon after her older son, Angel, pulls off something very few in the hood do.

and he gets his high school diploma, graduates, and he pulls Soldat through the hell of this loss. And about six months after the death of her other son, he pleads with her to wear some clothes with color and to get her hair done and to come back and be the mother for her remaining three children. And she agrees in that afternoon she does. She gets dressed again.

And she seems to be coming back, well, later in early evening, sitting eating a sandwich on the front porch, Angel shot up by kids from a rival gang. So he dies. So she goes through some years of excruciating pain. And at one meeting with Gregory Boyle, she says, you know, I love the two kids I have. I hurt for the two that are gone.

And then crying, she admits, the hurt wins. the hurt wins. So some months later, she goes to an emergency room for some chest pain. And while she's lying there, a kid with multiple gunshot wounds is on a gurney right next to her, and there's no curtain is drawn. And so she's witnessed to him fighting for his life. And Soldad recognized him. He was from the rival gang that killed both of her sons. this kid. And she knew that her friends would say, you know, that pray that he dies. And that's not what happened. She hears the doctors yelling, we're losing him. We're losing him. And something in her cracked open. And she said, you know, I began to cry as I'd never cried before. And I started to

pray the hardest I had ever prayed. And she says, please, please don't let him die. I don't want his mom to go through what I have. Please don't let them die. So the boy survived, as did Saldad's capacity for loving. She had gotten ripped open by grief, which she opened to, and in time her heart became unimaginably large.

So I share this story. I love this story because of her courage. it seems so clear that unless we are with the pain, we can't open up these hearts to this empathy. We just stay on that cycle of getting back at others, blaming others, being in separation. So this is the pathway that as our consciousness evolves, we more and more feed the wise wolf.

We more and more pause and say, okay that's a judgment come back be with what's right here be with what's right here and as we become more mindful and aware right here we start realizing we belong to each other

we each are part of each other that every living being belongs in these hearts and the more we see that the more we look at others and we see their vulnerability we see that this being is struggling the more we look

and we really slow down and see that the spirit and the light that shining through the other's eyes, the more we get, it's the same vulnerability that's right in here. It's the same spirit that's right in here. And when we realize that, we don't want to cause harm. We don't want to cause harm. So we work for this outwardly. We work for this change where we make choices in our society not to kill people when they cause injury,

but to see what their pain is and try to help heal them, not to kill them. We work for change to see the kind of pain we're causing this earth because of we're running from something and we just have to keep consuming and consuming, and we work to heal the earth, the earth to not create a setup for more accidents and more suffering. And we work for peace. And we have to do it inwardly. I mean, each one of us, if there's going to be peace on earth, has to find the places where we're still in our trance of reaction and have that intention, like Gandhi, just to

not buy in. So we do it in those ways, and we do it in our day-to-day ways when we're out. on the beltway and we're driving are we violent when we're driving are our thoughts or our actions aggressive are we part of that because you know there's nothing that's not part of this how our thoughts are how we drive how we are on the phone if we've been you know waiting on for listening to a recording forever and finally the service person comes on and you know we know it's not her fault but how are we energetically you know what I'm talking about

you know and it's how we walk on the earth you know i i think of the little things that um you know we sometimes move around in a violent way sometimes the way we might you know take take a um paper towel from you know just pull it out and yank it and we're we kind of yank things and we push things how do we close doors do we slam a car door and you might say well these aren't this isn't you know sentient beings that were violating. But interestingly, when we move on planet Earth and it's with care, how we close a door,

how we pull the paper towel out, then how we treat people has more grace and care and kindness. Does that make sense? So we start moving in a way that really has a reverence for being, for being here. So let's, we'll sit just for a couple of moments, but I wanted to come back to that inmate I mentioned to you

because I'm talking about really how we wake up out of that reactivity that has to control things and dominate and be in charge and be aggressive and open up to that sense of belonging. And this is what he writes. He says, When the power of love overcomes the love of power, then the world shall know peace.

So let's sit quietly for a few moments together. May all beings everywhere deepen our attention. Look deeply at ourselves, at each other, see the vulnerability, see the spirit that's here. May we realize our belonging. And may our actions come from love. Namaste. The talk you just listened to has been freely offered. If you'd like to make a donation,

learn more about my schedule, or about programs offered by the Insight Meditation Community of Washington, please visit either my website, which is tarabrock.com, our IMCW site, which is IMCW.org. Thank you very much.