Tara Brach - Deepening Practice

Episode Date: February 3, 2010

2010-02-03 - This talk and question/answer format addresses the attitudes and practices that cultivate our natural wisdom and compassion.

Just to say that tonight's format's a little different, I'll be doing what we sometimes call a Darmat, which is like a little mini Darmatoc. It's shorter. And then opening the evening to any of your questions you might have on meditation practice, formal practice and daily life. And just out of curiosity,

how many of you came here tonight with an idea of a question you wanted to ask? Can I just see so I get a sense of what's in the room? Wow, overwhelming. Maybe I'll do more than a Darmat. I'll just keep talking. Well, I'm going to hope that as I speak and as you reflect that you may have some questions. I actually got one sent to me that's a good one.

Maybe to start with, one of my favorite stories that I think informs us about practice real well, I'll share. And this took place in northern India. A Buddhist monk lived some centuries ago, known as, as a brother of mercy. And he was a healer who could be with people and touched their hearts in a way that allowed them to heal their sorrow. So he really held a space of compassion.

Did it for decades. And found he was getting exhausted and dispirited. And he heard about a very great teacher who lived hundreds of miles to the south, an older woman, whose reputation had spread far and wide. And she was a Buddhist nun. And she was known for her directive healing style and her way of strengthening

the capacity of people to see into the nature of reality. So he was very drawn to this and decided he needed her wisdom. So he set off across the country barefoot, vowed to walk all the way to where she taught and meet with her. Got halfway one night into his journey and found a shelter in a temple where Pelgrams stay. And there he encountered an old nun and told her his story how he had spent his life trying to help, but had become exhausted, lost inspiration. and sympathetic with the situation the old woman

offers to guide him to the residence of this great teacher. So they arrive at the edge of a bustling village and are warmly received, and it turns out that the old nun had been none other than the much-loved teacher he had been seeking out. And over the years, she taught him how to set limits and how to empower others

and teach them how to really look deeply into the nature of reality. Many years later, she lay dying, the old nun beckoned the monk to her side. She said, there's something I never told you. On that day we met, I too had lost heart. I was headed north seeking a great healer I had heard about. Then she smiled and squeezed his hand and peacefully passed away. So how might we understand this in terms of our practice here in this world today. For me, what I love about it is that we need both qualities of heart and mind

that are in this story. I mean, we need that heart that just embraces and accompanies and tenderly holds whatever is arising. And we need that clarity that looks to see what's true. And it's not an either or. In fact, one can bring alive the other if we really are sensing a draw to becoming more whole. And so this is what I'd like to kind of lay out a bit

of how our practice and our path really brings alive both of these qualities that are expressed through that monk and that nun, these two wings of wisdom and love. And to begin with, as you kind of explore your own practice and sense, okay, so how does that live through me? I think the starting place, and this is really true for anyone that gets, that our minds are so conditioned to be confused and not see what's here, and also to get hardened and not hold what's here, that it takes training.

It really takes training for us to come home to that wholeness. And so I think that the elephant in the room, whenever we're in gatherings like this, is that pretty much every teacher I've encountered has encouraged students to in some way have a regular practice. I mean, that's just in the Dharma and this path of spiritual awakening. It's just out there.

And yet, in each of our hearts of hearts are many peoples, there's a sense that I'm not really present. practicing right. I don't do it enough. I don't put enough into it. I'm not doing it well. There's a kind of undercurrent. And what I've found is that there are, I mean, the Buddha basically taught 82,000 skillful means, different ways that we can wake ourselves up. There are tons of different practices to choose from. But what makes the difference in terms of spiritual freedom is the attitude that we bring to it. And if our attitude is I should be doing this, I'm not doing this well enough, I'm not really cut out for it, I'll just kind of do a kind of feeble, half-hearted

attempt. Any of these ways of relating that are in some way putting ourselves down are not honoring the potential in us, that undercuts the whole process. So, the beginning of this path of sensing both that wisdom and that compassion is to look at what's our attitude. What's our attitude in approaching the path? So let me just invite you to check in for a moment and to consider to whatever degree you have a meditation practice. And for some of you, You may have been around for a really long time but not have a daily practice or now and then

and some may be practicing rigorously but take a moment to sense whatever your practice is you know how Rumi puts it he says do you make regular visits to yourself such a good line isn't it just sense the practice your way of visiting yourself

and what's the attitude that surrounds it Just be honest as you look. Is there a quality that I should do this? Is there a sense of striving, trying to perfect something? Is it half-hearted? Do you feel like you're a deletante going through the motions? You feel like you're in some way postponing and then some point when you have more time in your life

than you'll practice? But not liking yourself for that? Just check it out. Perhaps when you check it out, your attitude is one of a real caring and a curiosity about awakening. Maybe you're at ease, friendly towards your practice. So this is the first step as we really explore what it means to awaken these wings of wisdom and compassion. We know the trainings involved, but how are we approaching it? Now here is, this is Ticknott Hahn, a story about him that I've always liked.

when he was invited to the San Francisco Zen Center. This was years ago, decades ago. So he was invited there, and very rigorous practice they were doing, and they met with him, and they asked him if he would tell them how they could improve their practice. Here's what he responded.

Well, you guys get up too early for one thing. You should get up a little later, and your practice is too grim. I have just two instructions. for you this week. One is to breathe and one is to smile. One friend here in this room went to a retreat where the only instructions were relax and said it was the most radical and liberating week of her life. So attitude. The attitude around practice, if I had to say the main words, relaxed, non-judgmental, curious, like what's really, what's the truth? Friendly.

What helps is when we get in touch with our intention. So this is the other piece for both the monk and the nun. What would allow them to become more whole for both of them would be to remember what most mattered. If the nun was just thinking all that matters is that we develop our discipline and really line up our mind and collect her, she would have forgotten the bigger intention.

May this heart and mind be free. If the monks said it's just about embracing, embracing, but didn't remember, oh, seeing truth, what's really true? So there's this intention that can guide us. And one of the things I found when I work with people is that very often in any sitting, there's a sense of I'm trying to polish a skill or have an experience that will then help me in the future be this way or that way in my life. my favorite ways of approaching practice which cuts through that is to sense that this

sitting these few minutes are the last moments of my life to practice as if there's no future that you're just practicing to touch the freedom

and potential and awareness that's right here this is the last moment You know, we really, most moments were doing things on our way to something else or for the sake of something else. We forget. The children had all been photographed and the teacher was trying to persuade them each to buy a copy of the group picture. Just think how nice it'll be to look at it when you're all grown up. And you can say, there's Jennifer.

She's a lawyer. But that's Michael. He's a doctor. A small voice at the back of the room rang out. And there's the teacher. She's dead. That was great. because we might not be dying tomorrow.

But here's the thing with practice. You can't ride on the laurels of practice. In other words, realization can only be here now. So if you're doing it according to what you expect will be down the road or what's been in the past, there's nothing radical that'll cut through. If you sit down in practice and in that moment that you're sitting down,

you're dedicating your attention to the presence and the love that's possible here, then it'll happen. It's the only way it happens. If there's any notion of being on your way somewhere else, you are not fully arriving here. So that's the next piece of one dimension. These are all about attitude and intention.

One of the metaphors that I like about practice that I share sometimes really comes from the Wizard of Oz that we know that that little troop wanted they were going to the wizard for courage, for wisdom, for love

to get home, right? And they went through all this stuff to find out that everything they were looking for was right inside their own heart and mind. That's us. We think we're trying to

make something happen in our lives, get somewhere, and everything that matters to us is available through the presence right here, everything. So we train. And I last week shared that you might imagine that the training is kind of coming back to presence. I use the image of a wheel of awareness that we have. It's like these spokes and our attention goes out the spokes and it fixates to the rim of a wheel. We fixate on this plan and on that fear and on that thing we want to consume

and so on. And meditation, the first step, come back. Just come back. That's the training. Over and over again until the neuropathways

are really greased that detect we've left, detect the trance that are fixations on the rim of the wheel and go, oh, come back, be here. Now let me just say, because it always comes up,

that that doesn't mean we don't sometimes think or plan or remember or do those things. It's just that there is a space of presence that we have access to so that we're not lost in a trance. Because if we're honest, we know that we spend most of our time thinking, most of our time figuring out,

most of our time mulling over things. And that only a small percentage of it is really helpful. I remember somebody sent me this on Thinkers Anonymous. It started out innocently enough. You know, I began to think at parties now and then to loosen up. Inevitably, though, one thought led to another, and soon I was more than just a social thinker. So we train.

We train so that we have the choice to not be entraned. dance, okay? So that we invite ourselves back over and over. Okay, right here. And the tool that we use a lot in Vopasana, which is from the Buddhist tradition that I was kind of born and bred and that was the main meditation strategy was having an anchor. You know, for some people it's the breath. That's probably the most common. But your anchor could also be sound, just listening. Your anchor could be the whole field of bodily sensations. It could be just feeling your hands. But we have some anchor that lets us know when we've spaced out again

so we can come back to it. Not only that. Let's say your anchor is the breath. As you train to kind of absorb the attention in the breath some, there's a real deep quieting. And then you can sense the gap between the breathes, the thoughts and a real luminous awareness that shines through those gaps. So we trained to quiet with the anchor, to come back with the anchor. So that's one step, is coming back. And we're going

to go back to the Wizard of Oz for a moment. So they get to Oz, right? And they're finally having an audience with the wizard, right? And who is it that pulled the curtain? right toto so we have our inner toto that pulls the curtain on our thinking that goes oh thinking pulls the curtain and says oh lost in that trance if you've practiced some you know that that's what goes on we kind of it's not a will we don't will it

but there's some alertness in us that goes oh been off gone tension at the spoke has gone out to the the rim, we kind of pull the curtain, and then we come back again. That's our inner toto. So this is one step of the training. And it's something most of us do because our minds are pretty busy. Have an anchor, notice we've left, come back. Is this all pretty familiar? I'm hoping for those that have. The second, if the first step is coming back, the next step is being here. really being here, awakening to what's going on right here.

Now, I've shared, there's two questions that really allow us to fully be here. And one is, what is happening? What's happening inside me? The other is, can I be with this? There's a quality of attention that's really helpful in this coming home and being here. And it comes out, I think, in this little Zen story, some of you might remember. Master and a young monk are eating a simple meal on a mountain trail. Student says, Master, how do I enter Zen?

Which is the same thing as saying enter experiential awakening. There's a long silence. Finally, the master says, do you hear the sound of that mountain stream? Now, the student's mind had been busy, so first he strained to hear. But then he relaxed and just listened in a very receptive, alert way. And finally, the hardly perceptible murmur of the small stream in the far distance was perceived, and he said, yes. The master said, enter Zen from there.

So he had a what's called a Satori, this non-conceptual understanding. and kind of an enlightened experience. Everything's alive. But then he had a thought, which of course messes up with Sotori. A thought. And then he said to the master, what if I hadn't heard?

Enter Zen from there. Do you understand? Whether or not we perceive something, what matters is the quality of the attention, this listening receptive attention. You know, when you're listening for sound, You can't drive yourself into the sound to get it. You can't grab onto sound.

It's a kind of a resting back in an awareness that receives. And I think sound is a very good template, listening to sound for how we can be here with anything. I sometimes use the language of listening to and feeling the whole moment. a relaxed attentiveness, very receptive. Okay, so what we've covered so far is coming back, being here, the first part, noticing what's happening. The second part is, how do we let it be? So much of our conditioning is to, we might notice things, but it's to be at war with them. You might notice that you have a stomach egg. Okay, I get it. I've got a stomach egg, but I don't like it. I want to push it away. I don't want to sit still. We get restless. We leave. Or we might notice that we're

angry at somebody, but we're really possessed by the anger and we just keep tripping off into all the reasons why they really insulted us and acted badly. So the second part of really being here, can I be with this? Can I be with this? Can I let this be? Opening our hearts to what's here. There are levels of being with. The first level I think of is just our willingness to pause and not do anything about it. And I want to talk about levels because sometimes letting it be, we might say, can I bring a compassionate presence to this? Well, no, I can't.

I don't feel compassionate. But we can pause and be willing to feel it. That's the first level of being with our experience. as we pause a kind of space opens up and the agreement to be with deepens there's a sense of yes okay it's like this right now I've shared a number of times with those that have been here

that one of my first meditation retreats I was in an incredible state of being at war with everything going on I was feeling physically sick I was in the process of getting divorced and so I was angry at myself and angry at the situation and feeling torn and guilty and all this stuff was going on. And so I started a yes meditation. And what I meant by that was whatever I would feel, you know, physical discomfort, annoyance at what was going on at the retreat, you know, upset about what was going on at home. I would just add a little yes to it.

Just like a mental whisper of, okay, yes. yes meaning not that I liked it just this agreement that this is here right now so I started doing that at first it was really mechanical I just something would come up you know I'd feel like I had a sinus infection I feel pressure in my head and I go yes you know and then then there would be some cold air coming through the window because there was kind of a window war amongst the people at the retreat

some liked it open some liked it closed the wind the cold would come in and I okay yes to that a teacher was being long-winded and I was getting in pay yes to that you know it was mechanical but then it started being kind of amusing to me so I kind of softened some and then something really magical happened which was that whenever I'd say yes I'd relax into this space and there'd be room for whatever was going on that yes created a kind of tender space for the life that was here.

That's the second question. Can I be with this? Can we pause and agree to let what's going on go on? Even if it's uncomfortable, even if we feel queasy or restless, yes. Now yes deepens, and this is where the teachings of the monk are so powerful that the more we accept what's here,

the more we fall in love, with life. I want to say that again. The more that you accept what's going on in the moment, that space of acceptance becomes suffused with love.

The more unconditionally you accept if you bring another person to mind and you really say that's exactly who they are and I completely accept you, you'll find that that space is incredibly tender. My last story, and then I'm going to, we're going to take a few moments to sit

and then see what questions you might have. Rachel Naomi Raymond, wonderful writer, physician, describes this. She describes the head of a department at an East Coast medical school. Very, very wonderful man, and he would see patients who were pretty down and out, and some of them who were mentally unstable. he just was incredibly good-hearted and so she describes a story of one woman that would come to see him once a month

and she was homeless and she was confused and her speech was sometimes rambling and so on but as she describes it this deeply kind and respectful man was not troubled by this and he gave her the same courtesy

he gave anyone else in welcoming her to his consulting room listening to the details of her difficult life. After he had been seeing her for some time, he became aware that she sometimes came to the hospital on days when he wasn't there. Clinic nurses were puzzled by this at first, as she seemed to know in some mysterious way it was not her day to see the doctor. After talking with her, they determined that she simply wanted to go to his consulting room. Once there, she didn't go in but would stand on the threshold and slowly and deliberately

place her right foot inside the empty room and then withdraw it again and again. After a while, she would be satisfied and go away again. The places in which we're seen and heard are holy places. Anytime there's a space of acceptance that another offers, it's a place of healing. It's a holy place. And that's what we can begin to offer to ourselves when we make our visits to ourselves. The nun teaches us that we commit our attention to being right here and we look carefully what's happening. And the monk teaches us just as this doctor so beautifully demonstrated that whatever life inside us is coming up, we can hold a space of kindness. listening. And in that space, there's freedom that's possible. So let's take a few moments.

Just put some of these pieces together and then I'd like to invite whatever questions you might have. So as we pause to do a short sitting together, very short, you might begin by just sensing whatever attitude is here, perhaps sensing your intention just for these few minutes. Perhaps this is the last meditation, the last few moments ever. That level of a committed presence, it becomes a kind of adventure then. Sense the possibility of approaching these moments relaxed, friendly, curious. You might gently find your way to your breath or whatever anchor or home base feels supportive to you. Feels pleasant or at least neutral, comfortable, easy to find.

For some, it's the inflow and outflow of the breath, the nose. It might be the rising falling at the chest or the belly. Or you might find that by listening to sounds, that helps you stay right here. Perhaps your anchor what grounds you is the sensations throughout your body. Find yourself your attention being collected right here with the intent that when you notice the mind's drifted that there'll be some place in you that pulls the curtain that invites you back home again.

Come back right here. So even in this moment you can sense the now quality that's so radical and immediate. Let there be that interest that truly notices with curiosity what's happening, the sounds, perhaps areas of strong sensation, maybe a certain emotion or mood that you're aware of. Relaxed attentiveness,

listening to your experience, and sensing the possibility of saying yes, unconditionally yes, really letting this life live through. you this moment and this moment. No problem with drifting. Just begin again in a gentle way, noticing what's right here and seeing how fully you can relax with your experience. Okay, so we have live mics here. If anyone has questions or a few people do, you might want to just go behind the mics and we'll take turns from both sides.

sides this is my first time here wow welcome first time in this meditating a big group like this have a comment and two questions quick questions I really like the radical meditation idea of like you know this is the last moment and you're meditating for the last moment so that's pretty new and novel to me I had a question that came up when I was meditating the first time the daughter's like how are you familiar with or know of any study that shows how the group meditation can impact individuals' meditation and, you know, how is that compared to a private individual meditation?

I'm not aware. It's a great question. I'm not aware of research studies. I'm just aware of reports over the decades. And also of the fact that in every spiritual culture, every tradition, people have gathered together because it reinforces, it's called Sangha community, it reinforces their practice, their sense of belonging, their inspiration. So people talk all the time about how there's a kind of field, a group field that gets created that helps you to remember more regularly.

So it might be off on your own, in your own bedroom, and the mind will drift, and there's not a strong anchor, but the group becomes an anchor, kind of a reminder to come back. So that's why people get drawn to this. Thank you. The second one is, how do you deal with like when you're hungry, you know, when you're meditating?

When you're hungry and you're meditating? Is that what was happening tonight? Well, here's a couple of things. When you ask that, what do you imagine? Let me just ask you, when you're hungry and you're meditating, what would you think would be a way to work with that? Think of something I like to eat. That's what we usually do.

So if we're hungry, we start thinking of what we'd like to eat. We start planning when we're going to eat it. Oh, we've got to stop at the store and get it for, you know, that's where we go. If we're sleepy, we start thinking, when can I take a nap? Can I fit it in? And so that's where we go off into what I call a trance. The alternative is to feel the hunger and say, oh, just hunger. and then notice what it feels like

and not make it wrong, not judge it, but just to be present with the sensations of hunger. The reason that the Buddha taught that the first foundation of mindfulness is sensations because what happens is we miss out on that level of just sensations and we immediately trip off into the, I've got to have some food, oh my God, maybe I should eat that, that'll ruin my diet.

We just leave. So come back to a kind of very simple presence with the actual sensations and see what happens. That's a great question. Thank you. Yeah. My question is in regard to trance, which you cover at great length in your first book, Radical Acceptance. And I notice that you never really addressed the idea of positive trance.

And I know I speak for a lot of people here. We come here on Wednesday night because we want to leave in. some kind of positive trance, either a big positive trance or a little one. Will you address that issue in your next book? Because as a psychologist, you know that there are various kinds of trances and various levels. And the Buddha himself said that if you're making progress in enlightenment, you don't lean on trance as a crutch.

But I'm a Christian Buddhist, and I struggle with, I can't tear myself away from the Catholic tradition for reasons I don't understand. So I go to Mass, but I can't stop myself from coming here. And all... Because I don't even bother to talk to Catholics about John 10, where he says he has other sheep, and he's going to lead them because we're the other sheep, those of us who are split. But anyway, this all got mixed up with trance in my mind because I cannot meditate successfully on my own. It only works for me when I'm in Sanga.

I know it's going to be much better for me than trying to meditate on my own. So if I haven't thoroughly confused you by now, could you address the issue of trance and in the various traditions? Sure. Thank you. Stay there just in case there's something we might want to say back and forth. It might help to clarify if we distinguish between trans and positive mind states because trance

the way I talk about trance is actually a very narrowed sliver of reality it's kind of like being in a dream where we've forgotten what's actually going on in the present moment we've forgotten a more whole sense

of who we are we've forgotten what we really love we've kind of lost touch with the actual experience of being here and we're in what I call a virtual reality and by a virtual reality we're in an idea

about life, but we've disconnected from the vibrant immediacy. Now, positive states, which is, I hope, what many people experience when they come to a gathering like this, is when we begin to direct our attention, we begin to touch into the present moment, we begin to remember what matters, and we're actually shifting from our habit of being narrow, being down on ourselves, judging others to a more open mind state. And sometimes we direct our attention so we get quite calm. Sometimes we direct it so there's a lot of peace or rapture. Those are positive mind states, but they're not trance because there's a sense of connection with what's in the present moment. So I just want to offer that too because it's easy to confuse them. Now the most deeply freeing

experience is when we're not directing our attention to achieve a certain, even a positive state. It's when there's such an openness that we can really trust reality itself and we're not even trying to have a certain experience. But that still's different from trance. So I hope that distinction helps you. Yeah, it does. I also want to say that if we did, someday we could do it, did a hand raised, there are many people that feel a deep affinity to different faith traditions, Jewish, Christian, Islam, many different faith traditions, but find these practices, these trainings in waking up from trance actually deepens their experiential appreciation of their faith tradition. So I don't see any conflict between feeling devoted to a particular religion or

tradition and using the practices of mindfulness. So I just wanted to kind of name that. I think they actually go beautifully sometimes. And thank you. Thank you for coming up. Yeah. I'm curious what's the best way to catch yourself before, you know, maybe saying something that you don't, you know, you regret or, or getting angry and losing yourself in that, you know, talk about being on the rim. I mean, completely on the rim. Some context. I mean, I usually think of this in the situations of in business where I'm working well with co-workers I guess too but usually you know when you're a customer and and something goes wrong and I find it really easy to kind of get tweaked about that not so much with family I don't know why but but also it wouldn't work too

I find it much easier to get frustrated and I'm certainly not an angry guy but but sometimes you know you just go over and and you really lose it and I can think of a few instances like within the past year. And I was trying to figure out a way to just never get to that point, to never, ever, ever act or say or even countenance in a way that I would regret. So first, I want to really honor that question

because you're talking about it when we kind of get triggered off and say what we'd regret, somebody else could say, I want to really not get triggered into overeating. And somebody else could say, I don't want to get triggered into blaming myself. You know, we each have our ways of,

they're all forms of a trance. They're kind of a false refuge. Because in the moment of bursting out in anger at somebody, you kind of in some way, soothe yourself. You know, you kind of get rid of that energy. Or in the moment of binging on food, so it temporarily makes you feel better, but in the long run,

it doesn't. So I feel like this is one of those questions about really how to bring spiritual practice alive and daily life. And so I'll just name a couple of things. So it's a big, big question. You know, it's a challenging one. One is to know that's your intention and make it very specific. Because if you say through this whole day I want to be mindful and loving, that's not going to do it. That's too big. But if you say, in this, particular situation at work especially with this person and that person I know I'm inclined to do that my intention at those moments is to absolutely not act but to pause instead and feel my body and if it's if it's confined enough

in other words if you narrow it enough so that you can you have a flag and you can remember it becomes very interesting because what you'll find is the times you're most triggered it almost feels intolerable and side to pause. Even if you can pause 10 seconds more than you did before, but you still say something, you are beginning to retrain your kind of your neural pathways. You're creating new conditioning. So set your intention, make it confined enough, and then practice the sacred pause, because that's where if instead of acting, you start having the courage and capacity to stay with what's there, you can start making different choices.

Thank you for your question. Yeah, good question. Hi. Hi. Thinking about trance again, I think of a couple of three different kinds of experience, and I would like your opinion about how you deal with this. Take someone playing a video game.

It seems to me that it could be trans or it could be so completely in the moment exactly like what we're saying here or playing a chess game again is that the trance or is that just so much there that there isn't anything else and that you're yeah it's a good question so when you're meditating one form of meditation's concentration and it's a narrowed attention but you're completely absorbing yourself in that moment-to-moment experience and that's what you're talking about when somebody's playing the piano.

I mean, there's plenty of examples of a wholesome state of mind that comes from narrowing the attention and being right in the moment. Now, if you're narrowing your attention, but you're actually stimulating greed or aversion, violence grasping. In other words, some people get very concentrated on how to make more money. Some people get concentrated on how to beat somebody else, somebody had to get back at somebody.

They can vengeful concentration. That would be a trance because it is taking us away from a more whole sense of who we are. So there's skillful ways to concentrate and unskilful ways to concentrate. And what will guide us is mindfulness. If there's some sense of, okay, so what's actually happening right now? You can notice your state of body mind if it's, if what's being created is going to serve free. In other words, if there's more clarity, you know, more heart, that's a healthy form of concentrating. Does that make sense?

Concentration can go either way. It can be healthy or unhealthy. I hope that's helpful for now. Yeah. In radical acceptance, one of the most transformative events that you wrote about is the night or the morning, the Buddha was being attacked by Mara. and Mara asked him, who are you? And he puts his hand and says, I am the earth. And I was curious what your interpretation of what he meant.

Okay. Just to bring you all in on this, this is to me probably the most beautiful and powerful part of the whole mythology of the Buddha. And he had been all through the night, he took the immovable spot under the Bodhi tree. and said, I resolved to stay until liberation. And all through the night, Mara is the Buddha's shadow. Okay? That's his shadow side. All through the night, his shadow side, Mara brought his armies and weapons to attack the Buddha.

And by the way, Mara means delusion. So basically, Mara's job, the shadow side's job, was to keep the Buddha entrance, keep them identified as a small self. Okay? So all through the night these challenges come. You know, Mara's hurling, you know, coals and weapons and arrows and so on. And through the night, the Buddha received everything with this clear, compassionate attention, and they turned into celestial flowers and fell at his feet.

But then, Mara issued his final challenge. And the challenge was, who do you think you are? It was the challenge of doubt, which was. goes right to the very core of the small self. Doubt is what holds the small self together. As long as we mistrust ourselves, we remain identified as a small egoic self. So Mara through that challenge of doubt at the Buddha.

And rather than the Buddha making some muscle of meditation, concentrating his mind or doing anything, He did what no small self would do, which is he reached out with his right hand, and he called on the earth, he called on the earth goddess to bear witness to the truth of who he was, to kind of be a mirror for his goodness.

He called on the earth. And as the myth goes, the earth responded immediately bearing witness. You know, great booming, shattering way, and Mara completely freaked out and split. You know, you can feel the content. temporary tone here. So the meaning of this,

and this is to me why I love this so much, is that in the moment that the Buddha put his hand out and called on the earth, he was acknowledging his belonging to nature. He was acknowledging the fact that this natural world is what we're made of and what we belong to, and that we cannot take refuge

in some out there transcendent we take refuge in the truth of what we are in this earth, in the elements, in the aliveness that's right here. We take refuge in this very fathom long body. So it's in a way the awakened feminine in the Buddhist myth because he's calling on the feminine,

on the natural world, and is belonging on the natural world to be freed. So I hope that is what you wanted. I'm struggling with do no harm in my day-to-day life and in each moment and in each interaction I could potentially evaluate my choice and have a mindful choice. In the bigger picture, I work for a big bureaucracy that does a lot of really good things that I am sometimes a part of and it does a lot of things that I have a lot of judgments about and so I can't get away from I can't say to myself I'm not

doing harm and it has to do with how many degrees of separation or but it's very frightening and I feel like if I go well that I'm going to judge myself very poorly and feel like I have to quit my job and then what about my kids education and it can go to this whole other like there's this real world with my obligations and the reality of living in Washington and ambiguity. Yes. So I feel like your question is for so many of us a live one because we cannot extract ourselves from this culture in this world so we pay taxes and our monies go in part

to in billions and billions of dollars of a military budget that's you know wreaking havoc around the world what to do you know so it's something every one of us grapples with being in a body part of a culture part of a system that has the shadow side of greed and aggression permeating it. So I think that there's a couple of levels that we can work on, but to me the

most basic is sense the purity of your aspiration, sense the sincerity to do no harm, and sense what it means in the most immediate ways in your life. The ways where you can actually in this day by

giving somebody a kind look or a hug make a difference. The way you can by whether it's to do with Haiti or the way you vote or other things. Find out how you can express your reverence and love for life. And then how you weigh what you participate in in terms of being part of the larger scope is very personal. Some of us can't afford to extricate too much in certain ways. It would cause too much harm to our families. So that's, but to know that it's there's not a right and wrong it's more the quality of your heart and if your heart

sincerely cares about reverence love that will keep coming out give yourself a break some it doesn't it doesn't help to be it's aggressive and violent to be too on our own case that doesn't mean to ignore the fact of what we're part of but it means to hold it with a wisdom give yourself some space thank you So I just said I have a question about daily practice. Sure. So first, how important do you think it is to try to have a daily sitting practice or some kind of practice? And then also do you have any advice for how to do that?

Okay. So the question, how important, I can speak for myself that to me it's really, it saves me. It's my salvation. I lived in a spiritual community where it was very, very easy for, 11 years because we are all gathering every morning. It's very easy when you have a group gathering to do it. Then I left, got pregnant and had a new child. I went from this easy, easy to not so easy.

And here's what made it work for me, was that I committed myself to sitting every day no matter what. But I had a back door, which is it didn't matter how long. That's a very big back door. Because what that means is that, Most days my habit is 30 or 45 minutes of sitting. Now I actually do a standing meditation sometimes too. But there would be days when I would end up at the end of the day

and I would just sit on the edge of my bed and breathe in and out about 10 times and say, you know, bless the world and clunk, you know. But the value was, and I really feel like it's a gift to the soul to make a regular visit to ourselves, is that on some level my psyche or my inner life knew that I had that commitment. And that started cultivating more and more of a kind of spontaneous presence with what was happening, that dailiness.

So I really encourage it and not to be rigid, to do it out of love, out of love for waking up, and pay more attention to the attitude than the actual structure of the practice. Thank you. Yeah. you and so be our last question hi basically I'm kind of new to yoga I'm doing it about four years now and to meditation or you well meditation yeah and I think I'm doing it wrong I think it's like a short nap for me sleep has been a place that I've kind of escaped into I mean I barely survived Catholic school and with with all

the day dreaming and all the escapeism I've done with that and sleeping a lot. I mean, I just find that when I'm meditating, I just seem to doze off. And just lately, since I've been coming here, I've been, like a lot of my dedication has been to be awake and to be alert. But every time I kind of breathe and I slow myself down,

I'm just so programmed to be either on or off because I'm in a real fast-paced kind of profession. It just seems like I just take this dip, And it's just like when my metabolism drops, I just start snoring, you know. And so I'm just trying to find some better way to kind of stay alert in the meditation. Sure. So just to say, it first will help for you to unpack it and not make it wrong. It's like every one of us enters meditation and we have our tendencies.

Some people are like hypervigilant and tense and restless. It's like they're bursting out of their skin and they can barely sit still. other people fall asleep other people get caught up in the fear that's going on in them and other people are just planning what they're going to you know buy when they go to the mall you know it's just like all sorts of stuff happens it's funny because you were talking about sound and i just love music and sound and i i've noticed that when i'm in here i try to listen to the cars or other things out there and it keeps me alert and present like you were talking about so you're just you're just um one step ahead of me right so choosing your anchor will help you to balance out your tendency. So if your tendency is to fall asleep, it's better to sit with your eyes open, to emphasize an upright posture and to listen to sound,

because sound creates more of an open, fresh quality of mind. If you're one of these restless people that's all over the place, closing your eyes and being with the breath will actually settle and calm you. I'm actually both. Right, and you might do both

When you're feeling, if you're listening to sound and you feel really revved, listen to sound but feel the breath right in the middle. So experiment, but rather than making it wrong, here's what you can do. Get curious about noticing how it's happening. Notice if there's judgment and see if you can let go of the judgment. And then just get curious. If you're listening to sound but you start feeling that kind of a heaviness of sleepiness, you might even name it.

Just name, oh, heavy, sleepiness. use mental noting if you're feeling restless oh jittery jarring anxious feedy I want to invite you all to start experimenting with this more because and thank you for your question because I don't speak of it too much but part of what will freshen up your mindfulness is a very light noting of what's going on it doesn't need to be plotting or everything that happens you're kind of sticking a label on but periodically naming what you're experiencing will give you some space and some more clarity and awareness.

So you can use that. But especially in a situation when there's a lot of sleepiness or a lot of restlessness, it makes it less personal. It's not my sleepiness. It's just the sleepiness. So thank you for that question. And thank you all for folks that didn't come in with any questions. You did really well. It was good.

Take last moment just to gather the attention, the closing pause, as we've been exploring tonight, just to notice what's happening inside you. Breathe with it. Let it be okay. And as you sit widen your attention to sense the field that you're in, the other people that are here, our mindfulness can include in a very comprehensive way, this living world. We can put our hand on the earth and feel our belonging. I'd like to invite you tonight as you leave to perhaps stop and take a moment with one person that you have not spoken with to feel your mindfulness, feel your body, feel your heart and just say hello. Connect from that place of presence and mindfulness. Namaste and thank you for

The teaching you have received has been freely offered. If you would like to contact the Insight Meditation Community of Washington to make a donation or to learn more about our programs, please visit our website at www.imcw.org.