Tara Brach - Cultivating a Courageous Heart - Part 1

Episode Date: October 24, 2024

In the face of violence, hatred and loss, how do we handle the reactivity we feel? Our own anger, hatred and fear? These two talks offer guidance and practice in letting our own vulnerability be a portal to responding - to ourselves, each other and our world - with courageous, wise hearts.

Greetings. We offer these podcasts freely, and your support really makes a difference. To make a donation, please visit tarabrock.com. Namaste. Welcome. Thank you for being here. I was reminded recently of this quote. The gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education, are the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry, are the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate, or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither the wit, nor our courage, neither our wisdom, nor our learning, neither our compassion, nor our devotion to our country. It measures everything in short, except that which makes life worthwhile. So as many

of you are probably familiar. This is Robert Kennedy. It was done when I was 15 years old. And here we are today with so much resonance with what we know is true. And he was assassinated three months after giving this speech. You know, for much of my life, and I suspect the same for many of you, there's been this sense of our worlds on an edge and times are really intense and there's a lot of fumes and a lot of violence. And then with that, this yearning for a more loving, more peaceful world. And that only seems to increase as time keeps going. And what I think of really, what we need in navigating, its key element is a quality of courage.

I encourage this greatness of heart to meet what we fear and to stand in the fire of our vulnerability. And speaking personally, I can feel that vulnerability, the fears for our world, day by day. And it's a calling for attention. And it seems paradoxical, but only when I open to the vulnerability, to those fears, to the uncertainty, do I actually recon connect with that sense of courage, with a kind of wholehearted dedication to the values that Robert Kennedy pointed to so poignantly. You know, the joy and the beauty and the integrity and wisdom and compassion that we want to see in our society. In 2021, I offered two talks on cultivating courage. And as I listened again, they seemed ever more relevant to our current times.

So I want to share them with you and to say that at the time they were given, we were in the thick of COVID, and I was offering a live monthly online gathering called Satsun, which means a community opening to the truth. And in the talks, I'm referring to that gathering and some of the questions we were exploring them. And as mentioned, you're going to find them, I think, so alive today. So I hope you find this a value. Thank you. Namaste and welcome, friends. It's really lovely to be with you. Thank you so much for joining in.

I know a lot of people were looking forward very much to 20, 21, as a relief from the suffering of 2020. And so here we are. And the wild ride continues onward. I heard an exchange between a patient and a doctor, the patient said, you know, oh, doctor, I'm so so nervous, this is my first operation. And the doctor's response was, don't worry, it's mine too.

And it feels like that's kind of like our world right now, that those of us who are alive now have never been here before. There's just so much uncertainty in responding to pandemics and the violence of an attempted coup or government and we're just we're all trying to get our arms around and make sense of what's going on. Which, as I thought of it, brought to mind another story of a little boy who's asking his father,

you know, where does the wind come from? Father says, I don't know. Then the boy says, well, why do dogs bark? Father says, I don't know. Then he says, well, why is the earth round? And again, I don't know. And then the voice says, Dad, are you bothered that I'm asking you so many questions? Father says, no, not at all, son. Please ask. Otherwise, you'll never learn anything. So it feels really important right now to bring our curiosity to all that's happening, our care, not rely on answers but really have the courage to live with the uncertainty that's here. I had a different talk planned for tonight, but given the events of last week and how much is really churning for so many people. I shifted gears. Don't worry. It won't just be a string of silly

jokes, although maybe that would be the most, probably the most healing thing we could have right now. So, as many of you know, I do offer this weekly sat-sung, which is a gathering each Saturday where people, we come together, we meditate, and then there are different questions that are on people's minds. And the first question that came up I want to share with you, which is, how do we deal with our reactions to violence, to the loud, angry, hate-filled violence that we're experiencing in our midst? How do we work with the anger that comes up in us, the fear? And for this person, the question was not just about recent national events in the United States, but also how that anger and that fear comes up around, you know, historically around what she called

toxic masculine energy, the dominating, the oppressing in her personal life. So as we know, the expression of aggression and violence, it's not new suffering. It plays out in every continent. It's played out through this history of our species. And it's very, public right now with the last week's invasion of the capital by white supremacist incited by Trump and there are many indicators that there's more violence to come. So the inquiry, how do we respond to this but really to all expressions of hatred and violence and to the fears that come up in us? How do we work with that? Well, on an external level, clearly we do whatever we need to do to prevent more violence,

to protect ourselves, protect the institutions of what we want to have as a democracy. We do what we need to do to work and contribute to really creating the world we believe in. But this question is an internal. one really? How do we work internally with what comes up? And especially when it feels so threatening. And during the satsung, there were about 600 people. You know, I asked for a hand raised saying, you know, how many are feeling anger, feeling fear right now, what's going on? A lot of people. Most people raise their hands. And I can speak personally that when I I take in the particulars of this terrorist attack from last week, you know, I really let it in

and see the Confederate flags, you know, in the Capitol building and the wooden gallows with the noose, lynching stand outside. It's like this horror. Real revulsion and anger, feeling of the other, the mob as enemy. You know, all of that comes up in my body. body. So here's the challenge that while that anger and while hating back actually is completely natural, we know that if we lock into that, that becomes the habit and sustain, it just causes more harm to ourselves and to others. And we can see that in society. We also see it in our personal relationships when we lock into hatred and blame and anger. So this truth is found in the ancient Buddhist texts and in many face, and I think Martin Luther King spoke most memorably

recently that hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate. Only love can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate. Only love can do that. So you might be sensing your own reactions, you know, wherever you live, to the cruelty and the bigotry and the violence, the losses that that's caused in your own life and in others. It may be for some of you, because this has been brought up so many times in Sotsung, the reaction to those who threat, you by not wearing a mask, or to those who subscribe to what seem like lies, and to those who are causing harm. And so what is the pathway from reactivity to love?

What is the pathway? So this will be what we'll be exploring this week and next week. It's really about how do we cultivate a courageous... compassion? How do we awaken through the vulnerability that's here? And our times are calling for courage. The word courage, it means greatness of heart. It's the greatness of heart that allows us to face what we fear, to stand in the fire of vulnerability. So it's really this willingness to feel what's difficult to feel. And that's going to be kind of at the center of what we're exploring, is how do we become willing and able to feel what habitually

we don't want to feel, the vulnerability. And compassion is what arises when we do stand in that fire. Compassion, it's the transformation of vulnerability. We become incredibly tender and open. So compassion goes together with courage. When we have the courage to stay, and open to what's difficult to feel, our hearts open. So while our focus will be on our individual practice, really how do we grow that courage and caring and relating to our inner life and relating to each other, this is the grounds for healing our world. So the good news is that our capacity to open to vulnerability and to cultivate compassion is in our wiring. It's an intrinsic part of our evolutionary unfolding. And there's been a lot of recent research that shows that if

we're deliberate, we can actually train ourselves in a way that deepens and strengthens and enlarges compassion. We can actually train ourselves in a way. that wakes up compassion. So compassion has two elements then. This is the alchemy of it. It's being touched by suffering and then responding with care. And it's not just empathy and they're often confused. Empathy is feeling another person's feelings. But compassion is when there is a mindful presence that opens to the vulnerability that's here. And then there's an active response where we actually offer our care. It could be through a prayer, it could be through, you know, going out and actually doing something physical for somebody else. So then the question is,

well, what stops us? What stops us? Even with our family, with our friends, what stops us when others are suffering. And I'm talking about situations where we're not being threatened by them, but what stops us from feeling compassion? And if we look closely, we'll see how in situations where we're encountering pain, whether it's our own or another's, our survival a brain kicks in, it kind of takes over, and there's very strong conditioning to pull back from that pain. There's conditioning to not feel what's there. And you can see it daily if you really look, that if you just sense, well, when's the last time somebody that's close to you, shared their pain, a wound, a hurt, a fear. And just to sense, well, did you pause and

feel with them what was going on, that sense of, well, what's it really like being you? Or did you, in some way, pull away from the pain by moving into problem solving or presenting a kind of persona of caring, but it being a little more automatic and not really feeling. Or you might even sense on your own by yourself, when you might have recently felt anxiety, or insecurity, fear, hurt. Did you pause and really feel your body and your heart and let it be there and listen inwardly? Or in some way, did you, when we're anxious it happens so often, did you get busy, go online, try to do something more? Fix. And what we see is that we have a very deep conditioning to avoid vulnerability. Okay, a weird example. Two hunters are out in the woods

when one of them collapses. He doesn't seem to be breathing and his eyes are glazed. The other guy whips out his phone and calls 911. He goes, my friend's dead. What can I do? And the operator says, calm down, calm down. I can help. First, let's make sure he's dead. And there's a silence, then a gunshot's heard. Then he's back on the phone again. The guy says, okay, now what? it's barely funny and it's considered to be the funniest joke in the world. But here's the thing, is that it points to this habit of our survival brain that we will do anything but stay in vulnerability and not knowing. We'd rather do something than nothing.

We don't want to be there. So, our capacity for what's called affect tolerance to stay. to feel our feelings. Really, it depends on how much we've been wounded in the past, how much trauma there is. So if you, early on, because of your being abused within your family or because of perhaps being a non-dominant population and the danger of living, for instance, as a black person in this society, there's a lot of trauma from that, if that's the situation, if that's the situation, situation, then there's more need for protection. And it's much harder to feel the intensity and the rawness of what's there can be overwhelming.

So instead of feeling feelings, when we avoid vulnerability, we end up locking into fear-based anger, fear-based hatred. We turn it on ourselves as shame. So back to the question here from the Sotsam. How do we reckon with our reactivity of anger or hatred towards others who are violent? The answer is not to try right away to love them. Not to tell ourselves, well, hatred never seizes by hatred. It's by love alone and I gotta love these.

It's not that. And the reason is because we are skipping over what we're feeling and it's not authentic. We have to go through the vulnerability to get to authentic loving. We're going to loop around to that a number of times. But when the wisdom teachings say hatred never seizes by hatred, by love alone is healed, that doesn't mean we ignore what we're feeling and try to all of the same. sudden be forgiving and loving. The pathway starts with bringing a very courageous compassion to exactly what we're feeling and finding underneath it the vulnerability that we really have

been avoiding. Again, the pathway to love starts with bringing courageous compassion to exactly what we're feeling. We start where we are. It's really the most difficult difficult, powerful process that I know about, just to stop and say, oh yeah, what's really here and feel it. So during that time at Satsung last week, that's what we did. We paid attention to the anger and what was under the anger, as often happens, is a very huge experience of fear, of vulnerability. And if you look at the anger and hatred in this world, that's what you're going to be.

find that underneath it is unprocessed fear. Underneath the hatred and anger in our world is unprocessed fear. This is James Baldwin. He says, I imagine that one of the reasons that people cling to their hate and prejudice so stubbornly is because they sense that once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with their own pain. So this is true for violent white supremacists invading the capital. Underneath that hate, they'd have to deal with their own pain. And it's also true for any of us who've locked down in anger and hatred in response because it's easier to feel that anger than the vulnerability of fear.

And yet we can't open our hearts. We can't move towards opening our hearts unless we find a way to process fear. So the point is here that we've seen through history and we're seeing now again, it feels like this is just a continuation of the Civil War, that we can't end the cycles of violence. We can't evolve our species consciousness unless we can bring a courageous compassion right to the fear and the vulnerability inside us. And the big question really that leads us to is, well, how do we do that? How do we transform that vulnerability into compassion?

And that's where we'll spend the remainder of this class and the next. So I'd like to offer a metaphor I find tremendously helpful and I first heard it through Roshi Joan Halifax. And the metaphor is about cultivating a strong back and a soft front. And by a strong back, what that means is it's a quality of fearlessness that comes when we really feel safe, when we really feel, as I described with the mountain, that strength and solidity and belonging to the earth of a mountain. Or you might think of a tree that's rooted in the earth, you know, and that's held in place by the interlocking roots of other trees. And, you know, when trees are really strong, they have a strong heartwood. And that's what it's called,

the pith of the tree that allows the branches to sway with the breeze. So having a strong back means that we feel that sense of belonging and strength that allows us to then have a soft front, where we can actually be with the winds of vulnerability. We can be with the winds that move through of the different weather systems of fear and anger and hatred and open. So, for mature compassion, we need a strong back and a soft front. We need both. And often we talk about compassion and it's got more of the emphasis of that soft, receptive opening to what's here, but we need the strength.

And this is where a very evolved compassion has both the feminine and the master's, the masculine expressions. So how do you develop a strong back? This is an important inquiry. Because many of you might be listening and just feel like, well, I just will get overwhelmed if I open really to that vulnerability. Whatever helps to connect you with a larger sense of belonging will strengthen that back. I'll mention some ways right now and we'll practice a little together. One way very physically that gives us a sense of belonging is grounding, where we actually feel the weight of our body, feel where our feet are on the ground and our bottom is pressing against the chair and let gravity help us to feel that we really are on this earth,

part of this earth. The images that I've mentioned of that tree rooting in the earth and rising to the heavens can give a sense of belonging or the mountain that is really the earth itself, you know, and in its majesty, just really resting in a balanced way, gives us strength for all the weather systems. A bit of a different way of finding that sense of belonging and safety when there's fear. I've worked with different people. Well, I'll say, take your fear and a sense of. imagine you're sitting on a park bench and put the fear next you. So it's still right here in your environment, but put it so it's sitting next to you.

And then remind yourself of the earth underneath you and the trees, the plants, and the wildlife, and the sky around you. And so that there's room for the fear. There's room for the vulnerability. That's just another way, it's just to put the fear nearby, but keep it with you, but sense everything else that's here. For some people, calling on some being in their life who represents love, who creates a sense of safety and belonging.

It could be a dear friend, it could be a parent, it could be a grandparent, a teacher, a healer. You can call on a spiritual figure. So that's in a way like really reconnecting with belonging through another being, our sense of universal love, that kind of formless that we intuit, that sometimes we don't have access to but we intuit is there, that there's love in this universe. And then another way of feeling belonging is to remember that others feel this too. And that day in Shotsong where we explored together this woman's anger and underneath that her fear, we again look, by looking gallery view and seeing all the others that we're

experiencing the same, that creates a sense of larger belonging. helps to create the strong back. So let's just pause here. Let's explore a way for you right now. And again, any piece of what I say can become your practice for creating a strong back. It could be some of it, you can put together a few of the things I've mentioned. But here's just a simple guided reflection on cultivating a strong back. back and then we'll move it right into then having a soft front. So take a moment now, find a posture

that works for you, let your tension go inward. Be aware of sitting here breathing. Be aware of as you sit here the earth that you're a part of and sitting on. So grounding, feeling the weight of your body. Neither perhaps with the image of a tree or a mountain really feeling. feeling yourself belonging a part of an expression of this earth and the stability and strength that comes from that. So the earth below you and then sense the sky, vast sky above, vast enough so there's room for the different winds of vulnerability. There's room for the cries of pain and the tears.

there's room for the weather systems that move through, the earth below, the sky above. And you might imagine in front of you, just like the sun shining, bathing you with light, that there's just a universal love in this universe washing through you coming from in front of you. Let it in. And then feeling in the back, dear ones, you might bring to mind a few people in your life, that you feel have your back. Just imagine them behind you. The earth below, the sky above, the sun shining love and warmth in front of you, the dear ones at the back, and just sense the strength, the fearlessness, the connection that can include the winds of vulnerability. And then as you feel that and

continue to come back again and again to that strong back, you can bring to mind something that brings up reactivity, something going on in your life. It could be your personal life or the larger society that brings up fear, that brings up vulnerability, reactivity. And let yourself remind yourself by visualizing or sensing a situation. that really exemplifies this. You might have an image in your mind, you might be hearing words in your mind, then moving from the thoughts about it to your body and sense what's here. What are you unwilling to feel about this? What's the feeling, the vulnerability that you're trying to avoid, but that's asking for attention? You might place your hand wherever you're

feeling feelings the most, gently breathing with what's here and allowing yourself to feel right into the core of the vulnerability. As you do if it helps, remember the strong back that allows you to be soft and receptive and open. Strong back, soft front, letting yourself feel the feelings. and if at any point it feels like too much, go back to the strong back. You can discontinue at any time that it feels overwhelming. But if you feel that you can with the soft front, sense what that vulnerability most needs, how does it want you to be with it? What's the flavor of nurturing that it wants?

You might sense that there are words, a message, a reminder that's healing to this vulnerable place and let the touch be tender. So you're feeling the vulnerability, the soft front, but you might even imagine that that great sun, warmth, tenderness, love, bathing the vulnerability. Because when the strong back and the soft front are both here, there's pure tenderness. and then you might let go of any ideas or images or doings and just sense the presence it's here. Who you are when there's a strong back, soft front, a compassionate, tender awareness. And taking a few breaths and when you're ready, if you'd like to open your eyes, if your eyes were closed, please do. the gift really of learning to bring compassion to the vulnerability that's here is it frees us to live

our lives. There's a story that Rachel Naomi Remen shares. She's a doctor and author, wonderful, wise woman. And she talks about one of her patients, his name is Jeff, who she's described as one of the angriest patients she's ever treated. He was very young and he was an ass. athlete and popular and handsome, and he had cancer, that's what it was. And he had to have his leg removed. And he came out of that surgery really, really angry. And at one point, she was working with him, and she asked him to draw a picture of his body, and he scribbled a vase with a large crack in it. And then he tore the paper up when he finished the drawing. So he considered to see her and worked with her and worked with being with what was really there, she kept the drawing.

So after a while, he started asking about other young people that had lived with amputations. And then he began to attune to them, and he started more and more coming out of his anger. So Rachel just invited him to volunteer and work with some of the young amputees. So he did that. And one time he met a 21-year-old woman who was recovering from a double mastectomy. And she would barely look up from her hospital bed. She was really caught in what she was in. And after several attempts to communicate and get her attention, what Jeff did is he took off his prosthetic device and dramatically dropped it. And he started hopping around until finally she started laughing. And she looked up and she said to him, Phila, if you can dance, well, maybe I can sing.

Well, he continued to visit her and help her. And it turns out years later they got married. But I want to tell you about his last meeting with Rachel Remen, she drew out that drawing of the cracked vase. And he said, oh, this isn't done. And he took a yellow highlighter and he drew vibrant yellow lines extending from the crack and the vase. And he said, this is where the light comes from. And I've always been so touched by that. The light comes from the cracks, the imperfections, the fissures, the hard knocks, the light comes from the places of vulnerability when we attend to them. We think of vulnerability as weak, but it's actually the poor to everything we value, brings light and love into our life. So here we are exploring,

what do we do when we get reactive, when we feel hate or anger? If we can turn towards the vulnerability underneath it, we enlarge. We can respond to our world with a wiser heart. And our world really needs that. There's an example I want to share just recently that's very related to our current events here in the United States. Many will remember that last June in Buffalo, New York, there was a Black Lives Matters protest and a 75-year-old man was peacefully demonstrating when the police shoved him to the ground. He cracked his skull, damaged his brain.

And Trump wrote it off saying he was a Tifa and he was faked his fall. So anyway, he was recently interviewed this man. And in the interview they were talking about the contrast of the police treatment of those rioting at the Capitol versus the police treatment at Black Lives Matters demonstration. And especially there was one particular incident last week where there's a video of a police holding a woman's hand who had been rioting and helping her down the Capitol stairs. So there's quite a contrast. So this man was asked for his response and here's what he said.

There are a lot of misguided people in America, he said of the rioters. You can't club every misguided person in America. And this is a guy who's been violated, he's still having a hard time walking, hearing, and with what a gracious, wise heart. Hatred's natural. Anger's natural. It's necessary. In fact, we need to listen to its message and do whatever we have to do to protect ourselves

and others. But the real deep message is not to stop there. It says, a Buddhist teacher Ruth King puts it, that anger is initiatory, but it's not transformational. We need to go to the vulnerability underneath the anger if we want to find that light that shines through the crack, that compassion, that strength, that courage. You know, we live with an illusion that life is not supposed to hurt. that we're not supposed to feel vulnerable, you know, that we're supposed to be able to control and get rid of vulnerability and that it actually means that we're weak or we're deficient

in some way if we feel it. And sadly, what that means is we resisted and then of course all the suffering persists. So what we're exploring now together, this path of awakening heart. is really how to mindfully turn to our vulnerability. Strong back, soft front, and let it be a portal for love. I want to read you, this is called Facts of Life, that you are born and you will die, that you will sometimes love enough and sometimes not, that you will lie if only to yourself, that you will get tired, that you will learn most from the situations you did not choose,

that there will be some things that move you more than you can say, that you will live, that you must be loved, that you will avoid questions most urgently in need of your attention, that you began as the fusion of a sperm and an egg of two people who once were strangers and may well still be, that life isn't fair, that life is sometimes good and sometimes better than good, that life is often not so good, that life is real, and if you can survive it, well, survive it well with love and art and meaning given where meaning scarce. that you will learn to live with regret, that you will learn to live with respect, that the structures that constrict you may not be permanently constraining, that you will probably be okay,

that you must accept change before you die, but you will die anyway. So you might as well live, and you might as well love, you might as well love. you might as well love. So, friends, we started tonight with that inquiry in a face of an uncertain world with overt expressions of violence and hatred. How do we respond? And we explored how the pathway to love starts with opening to and bringing compassion to exactly what we're feeling, to the hatred, to the anger that might be in our bodies and hearts, and to the vulnerability underneath it. And we explored the way we can do that by cultivating that strong back, that fearless belonging, and that soft front where we're willing to be touched by vulnerability

and offer care. So we'll continue this next week. How do we keep strengthening that back and softening that front so that we can expand our compassion to really hold the world in our hearts? So let's close together in a simple way, wherever you are, however you are. Just take a moment again

to bring the attention within, to again simply feel, that belonging to the earth below, that rootedness, and that great sky above where there's room for the winds of vulnerability to sense the light of the sun and warmth of the sun as universal love washing you from the front and to sense dear ones at the back, fearless, connected with space in your heart for the vulnerability that lives through each of us. With whatever's arising right now, the possibility of holding with great tenderness. You are the earth, the sky, the universal loving, that can meet tenderly, whatever arises.

You must accept change before you die, but you will die anyway. So you might as well live, and you might as well love. You might as well love. You might as well love. Thank you friends for your attention. Many blessings and I'll see you next week.