Tara Brach - Cherishing Each Other: A Conversation with Tara Brach and Father Gregory Boyle

Episode Date: April 25, 2024

Many are familiar with the Dali Lama's words "My religion is kindness." In this conversation you will sense the gritty and real way that we struggling humans can learn to cherish one another. We talk about the relationship between boundaries and compassion; the unshakeable goodness at our core; how we belong to each other, and how judgments arise from delusion and blind us to the blessing of that belonging. Father Greg Boyle is an American Catholic priest of the Jesuit order. He is the founder and director of Homeboy Industries, the world's largest gang intervention and rehabilitation program, author of several books, including Tattoos on the Heart; Barking to the Choir; and in 2023, The Whole Language: The Power of Extravagant Tenderness. Father Greg's life and work are a huge inspiration: he is dedicated to living from love and cultivating loving community with a marginalized population of ex inmates, gang members and their families. You can find out more about Father Greg and Homeboy Industries at: https://homeboyindustries.org/our-story/father-greg/

Greetings. We offer these podcasts freely and your support really makes a difference. To make a donation, please visit tarabrock.com. Namaste. Welcome, my friends. Today I'll be having a conversation with Father Gregory Boyle. I just connected with him personally this year, but I've been inspired by him and sharing his stories from his three wonderful books for years. So Father Greg Boyle is an American Catholic priest of the Jesuit order, and he's the founder and director of Homeboy Industries, which is the world's largest gang intervention and rehab program. And as I mentioned, he's author of several books. The first one is tattoos on the heart, the second barking to the choir, and the third, the new one, is the whole language, the power of extravagant tenderness. those great words, extravagant tenderness.

If you saw my sticky notes, there's just so many good stories and quotes, and he's very funny. So it's just, it's a great read and totally inspiring. So Father Greg is dedicated to living from love and cultivating a loving community with marginalized population. In this case, these are ex-gang members, most are ex-inmates, and really loving them into healing. And the whole community, the atmosphere of the community, as you'll hear from him, really is a sense of that cherishing, that loving into healing. I often think of the Dalai Lama saying, my religion is kindness. And as you'll see here, this is an expression of it that's not abstract. It's gritty and real and beautiful because it embodies hope.

So I think you'll find a lot of richness and inspiration in this interview. Okay, welcome. Father Greg, thank you for being here again. Thank you. Honored to be with you. So I just want to start by confessing, actually, to those that are listening, that we had a prior and I thought really beautiful interview. And I'm thinking maybe unconsciously I didn't record because I wanted to have more time with you.

But who knows, here we are. And so I thought maybe I'd start by asking a little bit about your personal background. And I'm curious what first drew you to being a Jesuit priest? Yeah, well, thank you again. It's good to be with you. I, you know, I was educated by the Jesuits, so it was kind of what I knew. And in those days, this was 50 years ago. You know, there were a lot of Jesuits who were teaching at the school I was at.

And I just love their joy and their fearlessness. I love their high hilarity and their, you know, prophetic stance. That was, you know, towards the tail end probably of the Vietnam War. So they were always dragging us to peace protests and to end the war. And I just love that. And then I kind of was intrigued by Daniel Bergen, who was at the moment, at that time, was, you know, on the run. The FBI was looking for him. And I remember seeing his play, the trial of the Catonsville,

nine at Mark Taper Forum. And it just kind of, it was this moment where I said, yeah, that's what I want to do with my life. It was the combination of the joy and hilarity I experienced with the Jesuits I knew, coupled with there are people in the world who, you know, stand in the right place. And I wanted to stand there too. So obviously, many years later. things get refined.

And so whatever initially drew you to do anything, you know, you know, becomes kind of quite different half a century later. Sure. Yeah, but it sounds like initially it was the culture you were in and the engagement, caring about the world and a kind of bold engagement in that way. Yeah. More than maybe I'm thinking that you had some internal, like spiritual awakening that said, oh, I need to serve in the ministry. Well, it was partly that.

It was also coupled with a palpable, personal, emotional, mystical experience. That was in there, too. So it all was kind of a melding of all those things together, where it felt so true and right that it was undeniable. So I knew I had to kind of move in that direction. And so the reason you have when you enter is almost never the reason why you stay. I mean, you end up finding other contours, you know. For me, it was, you know, falling madly in love with walking with the poor in a certain way.

And then a vocation within a vocation within a vocation, you know, somehow accompanying gang members. So all that became quite evident, you know, over five decades. Yeah. Part of my curiosity was I was in school in Worcester around the same time that you, well, we're about the same age. And I remember going and hearing the Berrigan Brothers talk and one of my first inspirations and actually my first boyfriend that really mattered in college was a Catholic worker. took me to the mustard, you know, seed. And so I had, in terms of social engagement, that was like very alive for me.

And then I landed up in an ashram and doing more of an internal process. But it was profoundly resonant. So I, you know, I was just curious to hear about you. Yeah. Those were, you know, those were extraordinary times, you know, 68 to 74, somewhere in there. you know it's just Bobby Kennedy, Martin Luther King, the war. Yeah. It was just, you know, we talk a lot about the current moment in which we're living.

But that was quite without parallel, I think. It was. And there was something in the culture that allowed a kind of movement of response that was really profound in terms of, you know, a lot more activism, a lot more giving yourself to something beyond yourself. It was a generous, radical time in that way. Yeah. Yeah. So just bringing us to Homeboy, because you were walking with the poor and you

started Homeboy, you were kind of stationed in L.A., yeah? Yeah, I had been in Bolivia, which kind of affected some kind of metanoian conversion where I went, okay, this is what I want to do. I want to be with the poor. And so then I came home and I was supposed to go to Santa Clara University. And then I told my provincial, please don't send me there. Nothing against Santa Clara, but I just felt that it wasn't enough. So as timing would have it, they needed a pastor at the poorest parish in Los Angeles.

And so which we happened to administer, the Jesuits, it. So it was a timely thing for me to say this to my provincial. And so he sent me here and I was the youngest pastor in the history of the diocese. You didn't, you didn't become a pastor that young here. How old were you? I was 31. Yeah. So, but that didn't happen, you know, because pastors were kind of, you know, older people and it was a kind of, you know, kind of some honorific even, you know. But nobody wanted to be a pastor at Dolores Mission. So there I was. And so, and then, but it's interesting, our initial couple years,

you know, immigration was the main issue. It was never gangs that the gang thing hadn't reared its head at all until 88. There had always been gangs, but as an alarming complex social dilemma, it hadn't presented itself until about 88. which began the decade of death. And so then that became quite intense. And we shifted from, you know, a lot of immigration concerns

and about separation of families and immigration reform and control act and all these things. And we had hunger strikes in the church. So we were doing a lot of activism relative to that issue. And then it changed overnight almost when I kept having to bury kids.

Yeah. So tell us a little bit about Homeboy Industries, how that emerged out of what you're just naming. Well, I mean, it evolved from starting a school for junior high age gang members because nobody wanted them. And then the gang members started to come to this school, which was a junior high and a high school. and they just kept saying if only we had jobs. So then we tried to find felony friendly employers. And that wasn't so forthcoming. So we just started things, you know, maintenance crew, landscaping crew, that kind of thing, all made up of members of the eight gangs who were at war with each other.

So but the common interest was that they all, they liked the idea of working. They like the idea of having their moms be proud of them and having a reason to get up in the morning. So even though they would hate each other supposedly or wouldn't talk to each other, you know, they worked on, you know, the crew to build our child care center. And then, you know, the unrest that came after the, you know, the acquittal of the four police officers who beat up Rodney King, that changed everything. So anyway, then there was a kind of an amenity for people kind of saying, you know, well, you know, they wanted to fund stuff.

So we ended up starting Homeboy Bakery. And then we became Homeboy Industries. We called ourselves jobs for a future prior to that. So then we became this, you know, symbolic eggs. ramp off this crazy violent freeway. And so people started to notice and gang members noticed. But we had to go through this 10-year period, our first 10 years, which had so much hostility directed towards homeboy death threats, bomb threats, hate mail, never from gang members, but from people who had demonized gang members. So, and then it all changed. October of 99,

our bakery burned to the ground. And then the whole city just shifted. It was a tipping point moment where suddenly they were all hoisting homeboy up on their shoulders. And it was like overnight. LA Times editorial, you know, Homeboy Industries doesn't belong to Father Greg Boyle. It belongs to the city. So, hey, everybody, you know, let's rally to.

And they did. We're in our current headquarters. because people said, we want to be smart on crime rather than tough. And so they invested. And so that was kind of a key thing. A lot of people get discouraged by their not being progress. But if you plug away and do the thing that's right and true and just,

then something, there's a breakthrough almost always. So for those who are listening, I just want to say that homeboy industries, there's like 300 businesses now, something like that? No, we have 13 social enterprises. We have 500 people. 500 people. 13. Yes.

And then we have in our global Homeboy Network, we do have 300 partners in the country, and 50 outside the country. So these are folks who use our methodology. We call them partners in the global Homeboy Network. Yes, you're correct, 300. Have that number there. But it is the largest gang intervention and rehab program in the world. And I just want to make a little bit of a plug here.

This is the whole language, which I read and reread, and you can see by the postage. and Father Greg's other prior books, the first one was tattoos on the heart, they're amazing books, and they give you a complete feeling for what's going on on the inside of these, but they're incredibly inspiring. So something's working, and so if you could just share with us what is the secret sauce that makes so successful what's going on. Well, I think we try to keep ourselves from becoming the Department of Motor Vehicles. You know, we don't want to just tell, you know, people come in and they say, I need anger management, and then we'd send them to window 49. You know, it's we do all those things, everything you can imagine from curricular things, school, anger management, parenting, tattoo removal therapy, case management, navigation,

and all of it is secondary to the culture that we try to nurture into place, where our principle is, if it's true that traumatized are likely to cause trauma, then it has to be equally true that the cherished will be able to find their way to the joy there is in cherishing themselves and others. And so we try to create a place that's safe where people feel seen, so that they can finally be cherished. And, you know, I think a lot of times we, you know, like in jails, you know,

they kind of embrace behavior modification because they're trying to change behavior. But behavior change isn't healing. There's a difference. And so we want to have our emphasis, you know, kind of be on healing where people excavate their wounds and they welcome their wounds so they know. longer feel inclined to despise their woundedness or to despise the wounded. And so the place is just kind of soaked with that sense of tenderness. And around here, we feel like it's the highest form of spiritual maturity. And we're always helping each other become more tender with each other.

you know, being tender is, and cherishing people is not hard, but remembering to do it is quite difficult. That's kind of our practice. Our practice is to remember to cherish with every breath. But I think that's what people here would say is the secret sauce. Even a lot of homies, I took two to Chicago. One of them was saying, both of them had hiccups where they starts and stops and they left us for a time and they came back. And I'd never heard this before and he said, I just found all the love too hard to handle. And I'd never heard that before. And I thought, wow. And it's a little bit like easing into a very hot bath. You know, it's, it stings at first. But then your, then your whole body becomes, you know, acclimated to

And I think that's what happened with this guy. A lot of times you think, oh, I wasn't ready. And we always say, we love you. Come back when you're ready. And then maybe that means a lot of things to different people. But I had never heard this idea that the love and the cherishing and the carino was just too much to handle. And so, but that's why we're dosing all the time. You give them a dose, they won't forget it, and they'll be back.

And then everybody's giving a dose. And so pretty soon, they're kind of used to being fed this way. You know, when you speak it, what it makes me think of is how many people, if you say, well, take a moment, reflect and just see if you can just let in so-and-so's love, and they actually can't let in love. And I think it's a similar thing that there's almost this intolerance. It's so unfamiliar and it catapults them out of their safe zone. You have to put down all your protections to let in love.

So I love the way you kind of describe it as titrating, that it's what we most long for. I mean, you put it so beautifully that it is what most profoundly rewires the brain to feel cherished. If you want to heal trauma, being cherished is what does it. And it has to almost be dosed and dose creatively with humor, you know, and sensitivity, which, I mean, you have so many fantastic stories on that. And really all hands on deck, you know, we always talk about it takes a village,

but it really takes villagers. You know, everybody has to kind of, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, villager here. And there's a sense of, you know, a tribe that ends tribalism. And that's kind of what the country is longing for that is kind of beyond that is a village, you know. And because everyone here has multiple, multiple rivals and enemies, you know, it's just so many different gangs are represented here. I guess those are the tribes. But what we have here is a village. And people, you know, you discover what villagers do and how they dose and how they're tender

and how they become the notice of God with each other and how they help each other, you know, really be seen with affectionate awe at what folks have to carry rather than judgments. So judgment ever sort of doesn't enter. And we're always trying to stay curious enough. And you're so excellent on this, you know, about leaning into everything that's happening here, as opposed to being tripped up by behavior. You know, because I think we're not trying to create a behaving community, but a community of cherished belonging way different, you know.

because one is about healing and one is about, and the other one, which is what jails do, is we just want bad behavior to stop. Well, behavior is a language, so we want to understand it, we want to be curious about it, we want to lean into it, we want to say,

what language is this violent act speaking so that we can name things correctly and actually make progress So actually what really strikes me is that you're creating a whole culture and everybody is, you know, in my language, you'd be kind of spiritually reparenting each other in some way. You know, everybody is learning ways to see each other and to hold each other tenderly. And what's phenomenal to me is that you say, you know, like they're coming from gangs that have like somebody from one gang might have shot the brother of somebody else.

they're working together. So can you give me, like, share with us how it happens, the two people that could really be enemies, and it's in their bodies, that, you know, the hatred and the anger, how it works that they are side by side and make it, you know, into something tender? Well, you know, I think that they're often, especially initially, they, you know, you're going to be working in the bakery. And here's, you're going to be standing right next to the, this guy who is your enemy and then there's this sense of okay i can do that but i won't speak to him and and i can remember david and louis and they were just mortal enemies but david had one of his many tattoos on his face was a tattoo of this guy's neighborhood the gang just so that he could draw two lines crossing out i mean it was the most

It was the most in your face. In your face, provocative. I've never seen a more provocative tattoo. And they were standing next to each other making croissants in the bakery. And they didn't speak ever. And then one day on David's day off, he went to our clinic here in the headquarters. And he went in there and he said, I want this off. So he got he got the first.

treatment. And so the next day it was red and raised and a little bit swollen and and, and they're back making croissants and they're not speaking until finally David says, turns to the guy and he says, I'm getting this off. And it's because of you. You're good people. And now that wasn't because they sat down and worked something out. They, it just was kind of, I don't even know how you explain it. When you say it's in the body, it's it's kind of osmosis. It's like somehow we're in each other's proximity. And they start to discover a sameness.

Yeah. Even if they haven't said, wow, we both had single mothers and a father who left us or we, you know, domestic violence or we were tortured. And I'm sure that's part of the sameness. But they just kind of know that no hopeful kid has ever. joined a gang. So they know that they were all participating. They both were in the lethal absence of hope. And it was enough for him to be able to say, I'm starting to get this off. And it's because of you. So now I always say, does that always happen? Yes. Yes, it always happens. Any exceptions. I can't think of one. I really can't think of

And I'm not sure I fully know how to explain why that is, except that it is, you know, that folks are discovering that everybody's unshakably good and that we belong to each other. And that's the starting point from which we can begin. I think you used a word I really love, proximate. And my experience is that if I'm proximate with someone, I can't really hate or dislike or have aversion because there's something about, you know, our shared beingness that preempts all of my ideas. You know, and it's as you say, it's beyond conceptual. And so it really resonates to me that you put people close in. you have them working, serving, doing whatever, and something deeper would be forged.

And Brian Stevenson says this a lot, too, in Just Mercy about it. It's about being proximate. It's about choosing to be there. You know, it's kind of location, location, location. Can you locate yourself where people on the margins who struggle and carry more than I've ever had to carry? you know, if you just put yourself there, you know, it's like the 300 volunteers we have here, you know, they'll always say the same thing. What am I going to do there? And I always say, you know, that's the wrong question. What's going to happen to you here? That's the right question. And so just don't think about doing for what you're supposed to do will become apparent. But if you can just come here and allow your heart to, be altered by these folks. Watch what happens. That's what proximate means, I think. You know, can you be reached by people rather than reaching people? Yes, yes. It's about being touched, being touched in relationship. And, you know, I think it's a misunderstanding of compassion and of service that somebody is helping another. It actually creates a hierarchy that blocks the heart. So there's

something about the proximate is you're in relationship with. And then it's not me helping you. It's just here we are waking up together, you know, tenderizing together. It's togetherness. And yet we're kind of programmed like, you know, the whole, you've never been to, nor have I, to a graduation where you didn't see, hear somebody say from the stage, go out there and make a difference. And I always try to do. discourage people from doing that. I always say, be proximate, go to the margins, so that the folks there will make you different.

And that's what you hope for, because I don't know, on some level we think that that's passive, but it's how we, in an exquisitely mutual way, it's how we inhabit our own dignity and nobility. By allowing that to happen, to allow yourself to be made different, by the poor and folks who have been excluded and folks who are easily despised.

Allow yourself to be made different by these folks. That's huge because then everybody together is inhabiting nobility and dignity. And you're reminding each other of, you know, Buddha nature, of unshakable goodness, of, you know, the kind of precious soulfulness that you're being invited to see in everybody without exception. I love it.

I thought that happens, I think. Well, it resonates for me because my experience is that all truly wise, beautiful actions come out of that sense of mutual belonging, not out of a sense of an individual doing something. And that's why moral and ethical. precepts can be useful, but they also really get in the way because if it's not coming from that sense of truly our belonging, it has some sort of a torque that still creates distance. Yeah. I think that's absolutely, I think that's absolutely correct. And I think it's a nice adjustment that we need to make in terms of how we in society.

I'm kind of in favor of abandoning the moral quest because who would have thought, you know, our moral quest has never kept us moral. It's always kept us from each other. And it's always created a denunciation. It's always created a them. And the them, that's always untruth. I mean, us is the only thing that's truthful.

So you want to make sure that, that we're not dehumanizing, otherizing, demonizing, or creating a them. It's tricky. Language is tricky because our brains think dualistically and we get pretty quickly sucked into, you know, I and you, not even that thou with the, with the real reverence. So it's just tricky, but I hear you. And I think that having ethical guidelines for some can be useful if they know how to hold it lightly and keep on re-arriving in the belonging and let it come out of that. But I see. Except that somebody from the Roman Catholic Church, which has sort of relied on this kind of, you know, a thing that has never, it's never issued in inclusion where we say everybody is unshakably good and we belong to each other and there are no exceptions to that.

So for me, the question is sometimes, why do we not make progress? I was glancing at a editorial in the L.A. column or something in the New York Times yesterday. And I just looked at it and I haven't read it. So I don't, you know, but it was about these random, very odd, where people randomly go up and punch women in the face. I don't know, did you read this? but I could see the subtitles

and it was kind of saying why are we talking about mental illness when we should be talking about misogyny? And I thought, oh, it was so clarifying for me and I haven't read the article, so I'm speaking out of class here. But I think,

you know, if it's about misogyny, then it's about them. And then it's about denunciation. Rather than acknowledging, that I really think that we are in the grip of a very intense mental health crisis in our country, where you can draw a straight line from everything from the unhoused to fentanyl overdoses to gang violence. I mean, there's so many points of disconnection. Otherwise, we're just shaking our fists at everything, misogyny, racism.

and it's why we don't make progress. But the minute we can say nobody healthy, whole or well or rational has ever walked up to a woman and punched her in the face, I think that's helpful because then you don't

you don't make a them of anybody. You just say, we're in trouble and we need help and we need to help you. I agree with you. It's more about healing, rather than denunciation. And that's my issue with the kind of the moral quest. If I embrace that, then it's about me, and it can't be.

And it's about creating a them. And not only a them, a bad them. But a them is always bad, I think. But it ends up charging up the heart in a way that really creates animosity. And this really leads to something. you speak about, I think, really powerfully, and it's important, which has to do with, in our society, part of the moral and ethical kind of overlay when somebody has committed a crime, when somebody is violated another and in a certain way, is that rehab means they need to take responsibility

for what they've done. They need to be accountable. And you, and you hear this all the time, But what about accountability? What, you know, your view and you write about how it's not really about bad choices, you know, because you say all choices are not created equal. It's about chances. So I really would like you to unpack that because I feel like it's really important. Well, because part of the narratives, you know, I grew up in this city, in the gang capital of the world. And I never would have joined a gang.

but not because I'm morally superior to those who have. Just where we grew up, white privilege, my parents, they were really together people, they were loving, my siblings, all that stuff. So it's hard to kind of, you know, lately I've been kind of dobbling and reading Robert Zupolsky, who talks about the free will. And it's really quite interesting

because he's trying to get away from praise and blame, And I think it's quite good. I mean, it's very challenging for people because they don't want to let go of free will. But, you know, none of us are healed until all of us are healed. And none of us are well until all of us are well. And so it's kind of without having some value judgment. Sometimes there are health assessments, you know. I mean, I am not superior because I did.

not join a gang growing up in Los Angeles. But there was no chance I ever would have just because of my life was never proximate to gang life. And then you realize that the enormity of what folks have had to carry in abuse and in violence and what they were exposed to. And you just, then all of a sudden you go, wow, these people are the most heroic people I've ever met. And even if they went to prison, you know, for something horrible, you just kind of, you can see their precious soulfulness. And you go, wow, yeah, there's their Buddha nature. You see it. And yet, you know, they had to carry more than I ever had to carry. And kind of navigating all that is really quite difficult. And so everybody, here has stories that are jaw-dropping, really, in terms of what they've endured. And so I think that's important. I mean, if we know that the answer to every question is compassion, then how do you apply that to folks who have carried so much and how do you stand in

awe rather than in judgment? And I just think that's important, you know. And there are so many things that people don't choose, you know, but I think I have two nephews who took their own lives and adults and five years apart from each other. And they inherited great mental health issues from their father. And they didn't choose this mental anguish. It chose them. And for me, it's kind of a parallel to every single person of the 10,000 people who walk through our doors every year, there's so much that they didn't choose, you know, in terms of torture and abuse and violence. They just didn't choose it. It chose them. And trying to negotiate all that is really quite extraordinary and difficult. But we focus so much on behavior. You know, please modify your behavior. Please,

take responsibility for your behavior. And it's why we don't make progress sometimes because we don't get underneath. The homies always talk about find the thorn underneath. And I think that's brilliant. Once you do and once you decide to be curious and to lean in and to ask a question

and what does this mean, I wonder. then it's not off with their heads you never do that you know because you're you're reverent for the complexity of what people have to carry but you're as i think i think i heard the quote through you this black spiritual which is see beyond the fault to the need and there's such wisdom you know it's really the whole practice of compassion is to be able to see beyond the mask to just the vulnerability that's there. And that includes the vulnerability in here and the vulnerability in you. It's like the shared human vulnerability. And if we can see that, then far from judgment, there's just a tenderness that arises. But we're very programmed to react to

behaviors. I mean, it's part of our survival apparatus, you know, because if you behave in a certain way, then it's going to make me feel bad. So that takes, it's a training. It feels to me. A practice. Yep. But I also feel like, you know, Western Christian kind of view of sin, you know, it is, it kind of ends conversation rather than, it doesn't start, it doesn't continue conversation. But Buddhists kind of can look at stuff and they can see suffering. whereas Western Christians sees sin. And it's just not that helpful. Suffering is more helpful.

Yeah. Because then sin becomes an old world map. You know, and it's, you know, and Jesus, to his credit, I remember Levi, he's the tax collector, and he goes and eats with them. And people are grumbling because they see sinner. but he sees somebody who has suffered and that's when he says, you know, I haven't come for the healthy people. I've come for people who are not well. So it was a kind of, it's, for me, that's kind of a helpful thing. And this is why I'm sort of drawn to. I'm Irish Catholic with Buddhist tendencies. But I, because I think that's very important because gang members have taught me that. You know, you know, sin doesn't really make that much sense to me. I see suffering. I see, I see, you know, burden and, and hardship and torture and, and just extraordinary abuse. And you just go, my God, I would not have survived a single day of any of their childhoods. Yeah. So then you kind of

get to this place where you say, yeah, it's about, it's morality is, not that helpful here. As an overlay, it's just not, it doesn't help you make progress. Because then you're just wagging your finger and shaking your fist. And it's all denunciation all the time. As opposed to you must be in a lot of pain. That's right. That's right. It doesn't see truly. I mean, because what's really going on? Suffering means that you're feeling separation. I mean, all suffering comes out of separation. And if you're saying you're bad, you've sinned, you don't belong in the garden, that means you're not actually seeing clearly to the real source of the pain where the thorn is. And then the effort becomes attachment repair. That not something I magically do,

but it is something that happens here. You know, I don't believe I've transformed anybody's life. But I do think that transformation happens here, that everybody with our own kind of particular unique dosing, you know, allows people to to repair what is severed, that there is severed belonging. And that if separation is an illusion, then belonging is our truth. and so how do we how do we get people to feel it's kind of an occupational hazard here as everybody feels so eventually essentially connected that it's hard to leave this place that's the thing that's really hard for us you you know people can move on and then they come back for another dose you know and they they you know a homie i said what are you doing here Oh, it's my day off. I came to get my fix. One guy was sitting in the lobby and he had worked here for 18 months, but then we found him a job. And I thought, oh, no, he lost his job. But he said, no, this is my day off. I know everybody here. And it doesn't cost nothing, he said. But I knew exactly what he meant that this was like home.

This is nourishment. This is nourishment. And, you know, that whole Cousalino who says is not the survival of the fittest. It's a survival of the nurtured. And this is the pool of nurturing. And so I'm curious because the more we're nourished, the more there's that overflowing fountain and a natural widening of the circles where there really is a joy in extending it beyond the familiar and the comfortable. And do you find that with the homies and those that are involve that there's a kind of will not just a willingness but a draw to touching to continue to touch others in the same way beyond the community yeah i think it's part of the byproduct of the sturdiness and resilience that is born of being nurtured and cherished is that what is eternally replenishing is you're participating now in the same and it's it's so glorious to you know, especially people who have come up through the ranks who now run the place or vice president of operations or head of security. You know, they have this kind of thing where they're, you know, cherishing is love fully engaged, its tenderness and action, but it's love with its sleeves

rolled up, you know, that it's really concrete and it's really the person right in front of you and how are we going to deal? I always think of Miguel Lugo, who's the head of our security, and he's just a huge guy and he's Native American, spent 21 years in prison. And he's a good example of somebody who was kind of nurtured, cherished into a place where he's this wisdom, figure where he's kind of a master at cherishing others. And, you know, I was reflecting with someone the other day that where everybody hugs here. But his hugs come sometimes with a little pat down, you know, because it can be a wild thing. So he's kind of, and then he'll open up his big old coat because he's just huge. He's the tallest guy here. He'll open his

coat and he says, he do me a favor, put that in here in that pocket. And then after you see G, you come and see me. And then the guy will see him afterwards and Miguel will walk him way down the block and he'll open his coat and the guy will take the gun out. And Miguel will say, now, don't ever do that again because you will want to be respectful when you come here. All under all cherishing with its sleeves rolled up born of somebody who had this palpable unmistakable yet foreign experience to have been cherished himself and so now it's like i he he loves being loving he he lets love live through him he he knows that loving is his home and so this guy will never be homesick again because he knows how this gives him life and it's eternally

replenishing. So once you arrive at that kind of place, you don't stop growing and you don't stop learning things. But it's kind of an essential piece of the resilient, sturdiness that hope to have happen. You know, after you've gotten all these doses. of people hugging you, loving you. You have a phrase of discovering your true self in loving, which is so beautiful, just to say more, okay, so what is the true self? I mean, is the true self love in action?

Is the true self the space of loving? How do you think about that? Well, I think part of it is where you get to the place, where it matters not at all if your love is returned. And I think that's the place where you go, it just doesn't matter to me. I'm going to be loving because that's, I've landed on my truth.

And I want to live, the homies here always say that. I want to live from my truth. Well, that's the truth from which people live from, what bodhisattvas live from, where they think, oh, the other person is kind of center stage for me. And I'm going to love this person. And here, you know, only every day multiple times someone will tell you to fuck off. And you go, okay, I'm not going to stop loving you.

And this is going to continue. And then you just, and then you find that's your home. That's your home. It's not about, you know, maybe initially people come here because they received love. But then they discover their true self and loving. And then all of a sudden, that's a joy beyond anyone's ability to express. Well, as you're speaking, I'm just sensing into loving and how there's not like a sense of,

I love this person or this person loves me as a space of love. loving presence that is intrinsically what we are regardless. And that the more, what I'm hearing from you is the more dosing, the more you're established in that truth. And it becomes stable and utterly radiant. And then you're free, you know, then you just, and you're untouchable in this way that's really quite healthy, you know.

Now you've landed on something that nobody can take from you, which is kind of an essential goal of our living on this planet. Because it's timeless and it's infinite and it's beyond death. It's really beyond living and dying because loving is formless. The Taoists say the invincible shield of caring against being dead. Yeah, when we're in that, we're immortal in that. essence sense. And there's a fearlessness that comes with it and an empowerment. And I love that invincible shield. You know, the, you know, the kind of characteristics that, you know, I would say from my

culture, you know, of like authentic discipleship, if you will, or a bodhisattva is the same thing. It's, it's joy and fearlessness. And those are the two marks. And then because you can always catch yourself, wow, no, I'm being, I'm sad. You know, these are good cautions because the goal as you grow in love is joy and fearlessness. I find when I'm sad, I'm actually on my way to it. It greases the path. I like getting sad because there's a moisture in the heart that then just kind of frees up things. So say more about that.

When you're sad, it frees up the path to joy. To full loving and joy. Yeah. As soon as I start getting sad, I'm getting more real. I'm actually in touch with the sense of separation, which brings up a tenderness and a longing to belong, which then is actually a bridge to belonging. Because as soon as I feel a longing to belong, I'm there. It's coming from the awakened heart.

It's calling me home. So sadness is almost. like part of that calling me home. It's very tender. Yeah, I, you know, I think that's quite excellent, you know, and very helpful. Sometimes it's a caution in my, again, when I say in my church, that sometimes we're so fear-based that people are surprised that it actually, that they get stuck in a sadness, born of their fear, of what's right in front of them.

Yes, and that would be for me more of a depression where you get locked in where it kind of grips. That's right. Because sad has more movement to it. And it's a sign. Sadness can be a sign of, you know, if you're not feeling, you're not healing. And so somehow you're connective tissue to what's right in front of you

as opposed to, you know, in the capital, the milieu, you know, make America, make the American church 1954 again. Well, you know, yeah, you want to do that if you're, if you're just really anchored in fear. And it's an avoidance of the eternal now and the present moment. You know, you want to, we're kind of saved in the present moment. So why would you go anywhere else? So you want to stay there. But that's what I wanted to. I actually wanted to you a little bit about that to say to just share a little what's your practice in terms of presence

and you have a mentor that you work with yourself i mean do you work with yeah i i always talk about this homie named sergio who's my spiritual director so we're always in communication every day actually wow we check in with each other early morning he i get up at 2.30 he gets up about an hour later so either I beat him or he beats me. And we're emailing or texting. Yeah. Occasionally we get together. But it's just a constant kind of checking in. And he's a homie who is, I have so much admiration for. But he's really, you know, a mentor in that sense.

I mean, I call him my spiritual director because it's what one does. He's a guide for me. And you bring where times that you feel in some way vulnerable or stuck or confused or any of those? All the time every day. Sometimes it's him and sometimes it's me. So it's quite mutual. It's, you know, it's not, I don't in any way at all ever feels superior. But it's so mutual and it exquisitely so,

that it's really so satisfying as kind of a part of the practice, along with my own little, my own practice, you know, of my own sense of. How do you practice? And what's your daily practice? Well, it's just morning, you know, silence, light the candles, sit in this particular chair in front of my little altar. But then it's also being mindful that, nothing is ever once and for all and neither is your practice if it's kind of anchored in the morning before you begin your day how do you carry that into the day how are you mindful you know mantras kind of helped me but the goal is to cherish with every breath you take so the more you can stay connected to your breath then you can be connected to the cherishing of the person

who, you know, has just started a fight in the reception area. Exactly. So right now, like just in these moments and today, do you have a remembrance or a mantra or something that's helping to keep it real fresh? Yeah, I mean, I always change, they're always changed them up or they'll come to me, you know. today was resting in you, resting in me. And it was kind of about rest. And, you know, kind of

to, it's a way of bringing the stillness to an attention to whoever is about to come into my office after we're done here. You know, where you just try to, stay in the living room, I always say, you know, as opposed to the place of lament, which is the restroom, or the place of anxiety, which is the kitchen. But we're meant to live in the living room, which is right here in the present moment. There's nothing overly profound in that, except that it's a way of being, you know,

you're always calibrating your consciousness to kind of say, right here, don't. go anywhere else. I know you have a meeting at 12, but right now is what you need to be concerned with. And it's hard, but that's why it's not once and for all. I mean, the homies, so many are in recovery. And they'll say one day at a time, and I always think that's way too long. Yeah, yeah, give it a moment at a time, right? Yeah, it's like every cherishing breath at a time. And if you can stay there, then, you know, you won't go off the rails, too much. It's hard to do, I think, you know. But you have your kind of rendezvous in the morning, which I have. And I get up early and so I have all these little things, you know, I try to,

I just, as soon as I get up, I turn the coffee on and then I go outside the house. And I just walk this little path. It's not a meditation or anything. It's just, you know, it's my grounding exercise. It's, I want my feet to feel the earth. And I just do it very briefly, rain or shine, and then I come inside. And it's a way of keeping me, you know, grounded, I guess. That's beautiful. I mean, the morning practice for me just makes it more possible. I'll come back to the living room more times, you know, during the day. But it is moment by moment. And I just got this flag. that we're having a living room chat here and I'm aware of time and I want to honor it and just say that, you know, your model, what you're doing, which so resonates is that

you're going for the core of suffering and responding to it. It's like not trying to fix on the other, you offer the other levels, but it's really about nourishing belonging and cherishing. And I'm wondering, you know, if you look at our world right now and it's such a complicated, beautiful, crazy suffering world. Anything you'd like to say about ways we can, and now I'm just kind of leaning into the way you end your book about undoing systems that keep us from belonging to each other. And so just anything you might say about us moving forward in a more global community. Well, I think what keeps us anchored in responding to what's happening in the world in our country

is to cling to the ideas that everybody is unshakably good and that we belong to each other. And my sense is if we if we never let go of those two truths, then we can really roll up our sleeves and we don't cut anybody off and we know that, you know, loving inclusion is kind of where we need to be where there's no us and them, there's just us. And so, but I think those are the two, those are the two principles here at Homeboy.

Everybody's unshakably good and we belong to each other. And both of those statements will always lead people to say, well, what about them? Are they unshakably good? Well, what if just a little different of the way to say it? What about those who are unshakably good, but out of their suffering are causing massive suffering to others?

How to keep them in your heart and say, we belong, you're unshakably good. I'm not making you bad. And how do we do what your Sergio? No, no, that's your, you know, your bodyguard does, which says, you know. Put your gun in my, and don't do that against disrespectful. How do you do that, but in a, you know, with some of our global dramas and tragedies, how do you get those who are unshakably good but causing massive suffering to give you their gun? It doesn't mean that people don't stop or aren't stopped, you know,

because, you know, we've had people here who are just stopped, their meds and are smoking meth and they're kicking in the front door and shattering all the glass. I love her so much. Yeah. And I'm okay with the police coming and stopping her because she needs help. Yeah. No point have I ever, you know, even felt that she was something other than unshakably good. And she belongs to us.

None of those things ever were in jeopardy. And yet, you know, the fact that she kicked in our glass, she doesn't need to be punished, but she does need to be stopped. You know, I think Donald Trump is unshakably good and unfit to be president. I can hold those two thoughts in my head at the same time, you know, because, you know, you have to be well to recognize that he isn't.

And so he belongs to us. And people's, uh, lack of brain health and people can't see the precious soulfulness that other people are seeing. But as long as you know that once you cut somebody off or say, no, this is a really bad person, then you know that, you've kind of gone off the rails. And so we want to help each other. You know, we, it's sort of like, you know, I have five sisters and two brothers. And, you know, and you, it's a little bit like, you know, trying to get the car keys from your mom when she's 92 and you go, we love you. Please give us the car keys.

You know, at no point are we, you know, disrespectful or less than loving or saying she doesn't belong to us. You're just kind of saying, no, we're going to do a little intervention here. you know and so i don't know i don't know if that but that seems to be hard for people to understand because our tendency is to because we're human make others wrong yeah make others wrong and to demonize and yeah as long as you catch yourself you know pema jodron always talks about catch yourself yeah and i think that's important to do you know because especially now because you go okay wait nobody is outside of this thing. It doesn't, it's not co-signing on bad behavior.

Let's say that somebody's unshakably good or they belong to us. You know, the bad behavior is an indicator that this person doesn't need to be punished or ostracized, but helped and healed. And, and I'm happy to be a part of whatever helps to heal that. So, but it's hard for us, you know, because it's hard for human beings to hold two ideas at the same time that are quite different, you know. We're not good at that. And yet, to me, the power, what I'm taking away and what I hope others take away as they listen is that, you know, you make this question of why haven't things changed and what really allows for true transformation.

and we won't transform in our own body's minds with each other, are globally with warring groups, if we keep on going back to bad othering, to making others others, to having them not belong, it's only if our actions come out of that totally awake heart that knows our belonging, will our actions actually create transformation. We just fuel the old patterns when we turn another into an, enemy. So I just thought it's intriguing. That's intriguing. So is there some other kind of othering that's

not bad? No, it's just some that is more glaring and that it's easier to catch. Yeah, that's right. Because it's so, so subtle. And most of us, the architecture of our brain is to create a sense of a self-inher and an other out there. So I think it takes a lot of stillness and openness and tenderness to dissolve that habitual sense of selfing. It's a beautiful path. And on the way, the more we love each other actively, the more it naturally falls away. Yeah, that's so good. Tara, I am so happier in the world. I've long, I've long felt that. So I'm happy to have spoken with you, but I just find you so extraordinarily helpful to me. So. my dear i'm humbled and i thank you um you've been an inspiration for so long and i'm so glad to share

you with others and i don't regret the not recording except i didn't cause you too much uh of a stutter allowed me to have another hour with you so i'm happy thank you i want to just close again and show those for listening i love this book this is the most recent i also recommend the other two. Singing to the choir is the smithful barking and the barking such a better word. Thank you. And of course the first one, tattoos on the heart, which gorgeous. So thank you. Thank you so much. Stay well and keep in touch. Yeah, many blessings.