Tara Brach - Disarming Our Hearts - Part 1

Episode Date: June 6, 2024

If we realized how profoundly our chronic judgment creates separation and blocks the flow of love, we'd dedicate more deeply to disarming our hearts. Drawing on practices from the Bodhisattva path, these two talks explore the process of disarming—bridging divides with those close in, and opening our hearts to those at a distance who we consider a 'bad other" or enemy. As we cultivate the capacity for true disarming, we experience a growing sense of belonging, Oneness and the freedom of an awakened heart.

Greetings. We offer these podcasts freely and your support really makes a difference. To make a donation, please visit tarabrock.com. Namaste friends. You know, I always start with namaste. Many are aware that the meaning is I bow to the sacred that lives through all of us. And I love beginning this way because it It connects me. It helps me feel that shared field of awareness of love that we all belong to. And Namaste can be done really mechanically. But when we're present for it, like I find for myself when I'm embodying it,

and I really invite you to experiment with this, there's a sense of I, thou, a kind of, of a real honoring, a reverential sense, a sense of intimacy, of connecting with essence, really. A friend of mine who has been exploring, you know, just deepening that sense of Namaste, practices it on the subways in New York City. And he says he'll have somebody, he'll just kind of settle his attention on someone. And he doesn't go up to them and that might be a little alarming to them. But inwardly, he does it.

He's bowing in some way, sensing into and acknowledging the goodness, the light in that other being. And he says, when he does it, the other person becomes this kind of living mystery. I love the way you put it. And he can feel the shared spirit. There's a magic to it. So, I don't know, can you imagine, you know, not necessarily using the word or the gesture, but in some way when you encounter someone, you know, a sibling or a friend or your parent or child, colleague, you know, like this guy, a stranger on the subway, if your attention was like that,

where you were in some way sensing and honoring the spirit in them. You know, I think if that was our whole entire spiritual practice, it would suffice, you know, and imagine people around the world. More and more people were actually very consciously, deeply, intentionally honoring each other with namaste. Well, I start here on purpose. you know, it feels to me that the deep suffering in this world is forgetting our belonging, and this is a way of reconnecting.

But it's really about forgetting belonging. It's when we're having a hard time, whether it's with our partner or child or those of a different race, religion, politics, forgetting our belonging. There's a story I've always loved. It was told by social activist Fran Peavy, she was walking on the Stanford campus, and some researchers were there with chimps and with video equipment. They were doing some sort of an experiment, and a crowd had gathered around, and the male chimp was running loose.

The female was on a long chain, and the chimps, they were, there, it was mostly men in the gathering. And they were trying to get the chimps to mate. And of course, the male didn't need much encouragement. He was really eager, grunting and tugging at the smaller chimps chain. And she's whimpering and trying to avoid his advances. And Fran Peavy was witnessing this, and this whole wave of empathy went through her. And I want to read you what she wrote. She says, suddenly the female chimp yanked her chain out of the male's grasp. And to my amazement, she walked through the crowd, straight over to me, took my hand. And then she led me to the only other woman in the group and joined hands with one of them. And the three of us stood together

in a circle. I remember the feeling of that rough palm against mine. The little chimp had recognized us and reached out across all the years of evolution to form her own women's support group. When we're aware of our connectedness, when we feel connection with each other, we don't mistreat each other. Instead, there's a sense of shared beingness. And if the suffering arises in one of us, it's that suffering that we tend to because we're part of each other. There's a line from the poet Hafeis that I really love. He says, I've come into this world to see this. The sword drop from men's hands, even at the height of their arc of anger, because we have finally realized there is just one flesh to wound. It feels that the healing in each of our own hearts

and really in our world requires a kind of training and a growing of. of consciousness to realize there is only one flesh to wound. There's only one sacred awareness that's living through us all. So, this is kind of the warm-up this week, what we'll be exploring and next, calling really disarming our hearts, realizing our connectedness with family, friends, those we might consider in some way the end. enemy. And we'll be really exploring disarming our judgments because judgments are the main ways that we cover over our hearts. There was a group I was teaching recently and we were exploring this and one of the men in the group said, well, you know, there's a lot of people in the world

he might encounter and judge, but the real charge is with those that matter the most. And I think we know that, that are sometimes our deepest, most painful sense of blame, anger, judgment are right with those close in. And part of the challenge of it is it becomes so ongoing because we're in continual contact that we get very stuck and habituated. One of the little stories I like the most is when a little girl asks her mother how the human race appeared and her mother's answer was God made Adam and Eve and they had children and all mankind was made. And she asked her father the same question a couple days later and his answer was, well, many years ago there were monkeys from which the human race evolved. So she's

confused. She goes back to her mom and says, how come it's possible you told me the human race was created by God and dad said that we developed from monkeys? And her mom said, oh dear, it's very simple. I told you about my side of the family and he told you about his. So what we're really going to be exploring is how any judgment creates separation. Any judgment we have. Now, I want to distinguish between judgment and the wise discernment of, oh, when I do that, this, it causes another person pain or when you do this it's an unhealthy thing, it causes harm.

That's wise discernment. But judgment is when we're making others bad. Okay. The deal is, as far as I can tell, is that we get accustomed to it. We get accustomed to, in some way, demoting people in our mind and in our hearts. And we get accustomed to the distance it creates. We don't think about it so much. It's almost like we've just resigned to, okay, this is how it is. So we're going to explore disarming ourselves of these judgments and we'll be drawing on the model of the bodhisattva path. Many are familiar. Bodhisattva means an awakening being, which is all of us. and the archetype of the Bodhisattva is really just the full potential of our human consciousness. It's that full potential each of us has for presence, for love, for compassion, for wisdom.

So the key trainings on the bodhisattva path which we'll explore, and the two primary ones that I want to focus on, they both are really, rooted in mindful presence. And one of them is from that mindfulness seeing suffering and feeling compassion, responding to others with care. And the other training is learning to see the goodness. And from that capacity to see the light in each other, there's a natural sense of loving kindness of namaste. The gift of these trainings is really a deep kind of contentment or happiness because we're living from more of the truth of who we are. There's a shift that goes on as we do these

trainings from feeling like a separate self and really being identified with our judgments and our fears and our defenses to an enlargement where there's really a sense of our aliveness, our awareness belonging to a vast and infinitely vast field. So we actually are intimately interdependently connected with the chimps, with the trees, with each other, with this living earth. There's a real sense of that oneness. One flesh to wound, one spirit to revere. So, during these weeks, I'd say our basic understanding or premise is that we can't separate inner spiritual work. We can't go off into a cave and just think our spiritual life is often a cave, that inner

work, from how we relate to each other, how we respond to each other in the world. My immediate motivation to really just live. look at disarming, disarming judgments. I'm imagining many of you are sensing as I am that people call it this moment in our world, that there is a kind of fragility and unraveling. There's so much fear, so much dividedness, that it's threatening the demise of democracy,

it's fueling authoritarian regimes. Those are some of the expressions. So much violence, so much violation of our earth and of other species. And somehow rather we're accustomed. It's the kind of lobsters in the pot that's heating up. One person just said, it's like we're rolling forward like a massive lemmings program to go over the cliff. this kind of inexorability and it creates in many people a sense of powerlessness.

It's too big, it's all happening, I can't make a difference. I want to say on behalf of the Lemmings, it's a myth that they commit mass suicide. They get overpopulated and they need to get to food sources and they have to cross water and sometimes some of them die in the crossings but there's no mass suicide. But there's a reason humans have latched onto this because it's a great metaphor for the kind of trance that we're in, the business as usual trance, right, in the midst of a true existential crisis. So that's kind of on a global level, the trance, and it's in our personal lives because they always come together, that we get caught in our own. kind of sense of isolation, loneliness, our own cocoon of how things are, and very stuck in resentments and blame and anger, dividedness from others. So there may be a civility with

the people in our lives, but there's people that it's clear, our hearts aren't open. There's not an empathy or tenderness. We're kind of going through the motions. We're shut down. And that can go on for weeks and decades. One man shared his story. He had been estranged from his father for his whole adult life. Just too much criticism, too many fights about politics, never feeling approved of, that kind of thing. So he had a strong relationship with his mom. He'd talk to her weekly and periodically visit, and she'd be in the kitchen and they'd hang out in the kitchen.

He wouldn't even go into the TV room where his father usually was. In recent years, his father had had a stroke, and he came by a few times and checked in on him. it was very cool, stiff, distanced. So there had been about a year where both in his 12-step work and then he came to a meditation retreat where he really focused on his life of feeling resentful and angry at his father and had a face deep down that he was never going to have the father. he wanted. And he did a real deep practice of self-compassion with that and was able to see his father a little more clearly that he was just, he was doing the best he could. And he just felt a real

huge wave of regret that he had put up such a wall against his father all those decades. So after the retreat, he went and visited, and his father was the one that answered the door, and his father said, oh, I'll go get your mother. And he said, no, dad, I came for you. And the older man kind of shook his head, but they sat down together. And this man just started in. He said, I am so sorry. And he couldn't get the rest out.

He just started crying. And his father had tears for the first time. He actually saw his father have tears. So I'll just say that it was an awkward reconciliation, but it was a real one. He could feel in his heart that something had landed. And when he laughed, his mother hugged him and whispered, you know, you've just given him the greatest gift you could have given. him. He loves you so much. And then the next morning his mother called to let him know that his father had had a second stroke and was gone, that he had passed during the night.

I'm sharing that because we act as if we have forever with those close in or people that we care about and that matter, but that we've just locked into some sense of separateness from distance, and we don't. We don't have forever. So we'll use the remainder of this talk to explore disarming with those close in. And just to say that it's part of the architecture of our brain to perceive ourselves as separate and to scan for threats to meeting our needs and when somebody gets in the way of meeting our needs to evaluate them as bad.

For this man, you know, his father's judgment and lack of approval, it shut down his capacity to have empathy. He just locked into judging. No blame. That's just the way our brains are designed. And the reality is that the more we've been wounded or have unmet needs, the more reactive and quick we are to feel unsafe, even with those who did not create the original unsafety, the more quickly we feel not valued or unloved.

And more quickly we judge people. Judge and create divides. It's not our fault. It's part of the way the mind is designed and there are ways that we can wake up out of it. But as I mentioned, it can be most insidious and corrosive in the closest circles because those are the ones that matter the most

in terms of meeting our needs. It could be the ongoing judgment. judgment or resentment towards the teen who is just not doing their part or a partner who works too much or has different wants around intimacy or sex or could be the sibling who's been so rigid and controlling. Any judgment or resentment contracts the flow of loving. And as I mentioned, it can last for a really long time. I often think of a of Ram Dass, who many of you are familiar with, a real icon, spiritual icon of a generation. And he talks about how all his life, he and his father were at odds, thinking the other should

be different. There was that distance, really rigid. Near her's death, that dropped away, that idea you should be different, dropped away. And they accepted each other, and they became friends. So, undoing this trance we lock into, this arm where we're just living with armoring of anger, blame, judgment, it includes the undoing includes releasing the blame for major transgressions, which take a long time and need a lot of care, to releasing the ongoing resentment for leaving the mess in the kitchen are for disagreeing with us. I mean, you know what it's like when somebody disagrees with you. I mean, it affects our bodies. I can feel it in my body. There's one of my favorite stories of a Taoist master who's sitting naked in his mountain cabin meditating

and a group of Confucianists enter the door of his hut. They've hiked up the mountain because they want to lecture him on the roles of proper conduct. And when they see the sage sitting naked before them, they're shocked and saying, what are you doing sitting in your hut without any pants on? And the sage responds, this entire universe is my hut. This little hut is my pants. What are you fellows doing inside my pants? So, judgment occurs and locks in around religion, around beliefs, around politics, and around you should be doing something differently. So I mentioned that this is part of our evolutionary predicament. It's driven by the survival brain, and it's part of our evolutionary potential to bring the capacities of mindfulness,

of what's called metacognition, seeing what's going on in our mind, of compassion, these bodhisattah trainings to enlarge our sense of our being and disarm. The shift from I to we, from that kind of self-centeredness to a larger field of belonging, to sensing what it's like for other people to be inside their experience. As most are familiar, you'll find teachings and contemplations, about disarming, forgiving, and many different traditions. We're drawing on the Bodhisattva trainings because mindfulness and compassion are so powerful in doing as a very explicit focus practice in disarming.

And what I'd like to do is invite each of you to choose someone in your life. in your life to explore this with. Someone who you care about, who matters, where there's just been a kind of lock-in of distance or divide. Not traumatic, but in some way you've become habituated to a distance and you can, and you feel that there's resentment, judgment, that's feeling the distance. And what we'll do is explore. how these art trainings and will be using the rain practice to explore that combo of mindfulness and compassion can help to reduce that distance to enlarge your sense of belonging. The grounds of all trainings that evolve our consciousness are aspiration.

In other words, we have to have energy and some dedication in order to to evolve our consciousness. And we start with that and I'd like to do a brief reflection right now where you bring a person to mind that you'd like to feel closer to, undo the armor. And if you'd like to take a moment to get still, to close your eyes or lower your gaze, take a few breaths. Let yourself arrive. Let this person be in your awareness visually and the felt sense of the person. Then imagine that you're at your end of life. You're looking back from the end of life and open to a sense of how this judging and blame, resentment, how it limited the full expression of loving, how it shut you down.

Just get that vantage from the end of life looking back, just noticing the pattern, the habit, the closing down in blame. You'll get a felt sense of it. And then ask yourself from this vantage point of the end of life what most matters to you with this person. And if you're with them right now, how might that wisdom, that end-of-life perspective guide you? And just take a few moments to let your heart feel the aspiration to connect, to be open, to have more of a flow of loving. And as you're ready, take a full breath, if your eyes are closed, you can open your eyes. I want to acknowledge and respect that even when it matters, it's hard. It's hard to break the patterning of judgment and blame. Forgiveness is a great idea until we really

have something to forgive. And it's like that. Annie Lamad talks about giving up all hope for a better past, that that's what forgiveness is. We hold tightly to blame. And it's interesting. to look at how come. And James Baldwin addresses this on a more societal basis, you know, in terms of race. He says, I imagine that one of the reasons people cling to their hate and prejudice and judgment so stubbornly is because they sense that once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with their own pain. It's the same thing, even when it's not hate, when there's judgment, when there's some aversion, if we let go of it, we're forced to deal with our own pain. And if you want to explore this a little bit, I'd like to invite you to bring to mind somebody

where you actually feel very strong blame or resentment towards where it's stronger. If you don't have somebody in your personal circle and somebody outside your personal circle, but just take a moment. And this can be done very quickly, actually. Bring someone to mind that you just know that you feel is wrong or bad in some way, sense how come you feel it, what have they done? And then ask yourself, if I let go of considering this person as bad, what unpleasant feeling would I have to feel?

And notice, is it if you stopped blaming them, considering them bad, would you feel powerless out of control, now I can't change how it is? Would you feel afraid that they just go on mistreating or undermining or hurting you or others unsafe? Is it that if they're not wrong then you're the one that's wrong? the vulnerability underneath the sense of your bad, that sense towards them that they're bad. Will you feel hurt, deficient, unlovable, have to accept that life isn't fair, accept a painful loss, grief, just sense how blaming feels easier and safer than facing that vulnerability.

Blaming gives some illusion of control. You can open your eyes if they're closed. So if we want to disarm, it requires us to make what I call the U-turn and shift from blaming another to what is going on inside me? For a little bit of a light example, mediators working with Henry the 8th and Anne Boleyn and saying, you know, when you say off with her head, what I hear is I feel neglected. Sorry, I had to share that one. I just think it's so cute. So in order to undo the arm ring of blame, we have to open to vulnerability. It's the only way. It's the process of disarming.

And there's a wonderful story in a movie that I saw long ago about an African people called The Coo, and they have this ritual drowning man trial. And the way it goes is this, that when someone is murdered, there's a year of mourning, then the killer is taken into a boat, bound, taken out into the water, and dropped in. and the family of the one who was killed have to make a choice. And they either let that person drown or swim out and save them. The coup believe that if they let them drown, they'll have justice but spend the rest of life in mourning. But if they go and save that person, that very act can take away their sorrow.

And this is how they describe it. They say, vengeance is a lazy form of grief. Vengeance is a lazy form of grief. Something in us understands that. I mean, we understand that when we're getting back at, when we're holding against, when we're making another bad, we're not paying attention to something going on inside us. And yet there's fears about letting go of blame, resentment, anger. One is that, well, if I disarm, then I'm condoning and I'm setting myself up for getting hurt again. So I want to say that disarming does not mean that we're then saying, oh, what you did is okay.

And it doesn't even mean that we don't have boundaries. You know, you can forgive, let's say, a friend for betraying a confidence and create, why is good boundaries by no longer sharing what feels private? it, you're just not holding that fist of hate inside you. Or you can forgive an ex-partner for emotional abuse but choose not to be around them when you're alone, you know? Roshi Joan Halifax describes this in terms of having a strong back and a soft front, that your strong back is that discerning wisdom, oh, you're dangerous to be around, I need to protect myself. the soft front is and you're still in my heart, I care about you. Heart's not armored. So,

just it's like a nice phrase, strong back, soft front and it takes a lot of practice and wisdom to sense how that translates into daily life. And yet it's such a gift to know that we don't have to close our heart in hate if we want to take care of ourselves. So, another one of the misunderstandings about letting go of judgment, blame, anger is that it can feel like too much. Like I can't do that. I can't do that alone. And it's not a solo project.

Often there is deep wounding and we need support, especially if it's traumatic wounding and we need to go slow. So we might need some form of trauma therapy or work with a healer, spiritual counselor, with trusted friends. So disarming is not like, oh, we should all disarm and do it now and do it quickly. There's a compassion and wisdom to knowing that it's a life path and yet it's a path of freedom. The last thing I'll say in terms of the misunderstandings is that people say, well, I can't make myself let go of judgment or to forgive. And it's true. You can't will forgiveness. You can't will disarming, but you can be willing. It can be your aspiration. And that

opens the door. Let it be your intention. I think often of Gandhi who said, by a long process of prayerful discipline, I have seized for over 40 years to hate anybody. By a long process of prayerful discipline. We need to have that deep aspiration. I don't want to judge people. I don't want to close my heart. So, this last part, let's look at the actual process and do a meditation. The process of disarming is two parts. When we are blaming somebody else, we make the U-turn and bring rain to what's going on inside us, to the vulnerability. Once we have done that, once we have brought self-compassion, we will have reconnected the parts of our brain, mind, heart that are needed to have more of a sense of empathy, compassion,

care for the other. And I want to just say, I have had more people tell me I absolutely can't, I'm stuck, I can't forgive this person, and the reason they're stuck, is because they have not done step one. They haven't first taken care of the place of vulnerability in themselves. So I want to just make sure that you're not to skip step one. If we don't tend to the wound within ourselves, whatever the degree, we're not going to be able to open our heart to the other. I think often when I talk about chronic blame of those, close in of what I got stuck in with my son, Orion, when he was a teen. And this was maybe

sophomore junior year where his priority was socializing and his priority was playing role-playing video games and getting high. I was in a chronic state of tightness, judgment, anger, blame. I was always ready to be upset with him because it was just I was so upset about the situation and then it started hitting me. He's going to be leaving home soon, really in a flash and I don't want to be locked in this kind of judgment and resentment and division. So I had that aspiration we explored earlier and I practiced rain. The first I made the U-turn every time I was.

I'd feel angry, resentful, I would come back and say, what's going on inside? I'd recognize it, that's the R of Rain, I'd allow it, and then I'd investigate, and it would start to unlayer itself. And I could feel that under the anger, there was fear. He's going to have a bad life because of how he's acting right now. And then I'd feel the layer of shame, and it's because I've failed him. I haven't been a good enough mother. and then under the shame, this sense of grief and it's creating such a distance.

And I had to bring a lot of presence and kindness and compassion to those layers of my own vulnerability, remembering that I loved him, that I was doing the best I could, and that many teens go through this, I had to bring that care and comfort inwardly before I could see him from a larger perspective. We can't see each other through the lens of blame truly. So when I could see through a larger perspective, I could see that, you know, he had gone through a real stretch of feeling lonely and disconnected and not respected by his peers. And now he was finding these ways to bond with others and he was finding some mastery. and I represented this controlling, disrespectful energy that was trying to get between him and

what he needed. So, because I could see that, I could still have the strong back and set boundaries, but it was from a much more respectful, loving, caring, honest place. I could name what was going on for me. I could name my care. Yeah, I was not putting him down in setting the boundaries. And I think that shifted both of our experience in a really important way. So the second part of the process, the first part, comfort ourselves,

the second part see the other more clearly. as many of you know, and many are probably familiar with a story of walking in the woods and seeing the little dog and a person goes and bends down to greet it and it, you know, lurches up with its bangs bared fiercely and they go from being friendly towards a dog to being angry at the dog until they see that the dog's leg isn't a trap. And then they might not get close because it might not be saved, but their hearts open. They can keep their boundaries but strong back, but they have a soft front, their hearts open. And here's the thing.

Most everyone that I've ever met has wounds and unmet needs and from that suffering at times hurts other people. You know, it's like if somebody causes suffering, they're generally suffering. And if we can see that suffering, we'll still protect ourselves and we'll still respond appropriately, but our hearts stay open and we actually become part of the healing. So I can say for myself that over these last, oh, it's probably been 20 years, one of my main practices in life is what I call rain on blame, that when I catch myself judging in some way blaming somebody, making them wrong, making them bad, I know immediately, okay, I'm creating division. Time is precious. I don't want to do this. I want to wake up from this trance. And when I first

started doing it. My father had one heart attack. Narayan only had a few years until he was leaving, and I felt time moving. And there's no practice I'm as grateful for as really that dedicated practice of disarming the heart. So maybe before we begin the practice, I'll say that it's a taste of freedom, to let go of the armor of judgment and really feel love flowing. And it's something that we all want others to disarm with us. We love others to trust us and feel safe with us and let us in. We don't want to feel separate. We all want to feel included in each other's hearts deep down. There's a story I read that I read a whole lot because to me it's a poem and it's a poem like any poem that keeps settling deeper in our spirit when we listen.

It's by author Scott McClanahan who tells of a man who left home after an ugly fight with his parents and he stayed away for many years, some of which he spent in jail. When he was released, he wrote to his parents and said he'd be coming home and gave the date and he asked if they wanted to see him and if they were not ashamed of what had happened, of where he wound up, they should put a blanket on the clothesline. On the appointed day when he got off the train, he became anxious and started having painful doubts that they'd want to see him. The doubts became more insistent as he got closer to home and remembered the horrible

words that had been exchanged. He was about to turn back when he saw a blanket in a tree. Then he saw another. And as the house came into sight, he saw the clothes line was covered in blankets. The yard was covered in blankets. The house was covered in blankets. His parents were standing there and they were welcoming him inside. Imagine friends, a world where we were putting out blankets of understanding and love and forgiveness and appreciation, where we disarmed our hearts and welcomed each other. Okay, let's practice together. Take a moment if you haven't to find a position that will support you as we explore rain on blame. You might take a few full breaths. Let the breaths collect you, let the breaths bring you right here and now, and bringing to mind a relationship

where you feel some conflict or separation, where you feel you've been caught in kind of a chronic judging or blaming or resentment, a relationship with someone who matters to you, where you'd like to be able to disarm to open more. And just feel your intention to begin with. May I disarm my heart. May I open? May there be more connection? We begin, reign with the R or recognize. And you might bring to mind a situation that triggers blame or anger or judgment and have that in mind so that you can honestly recognize the armoring that comes up, the reaction that comes up, it may be anger or blame, judgment, tightness. And we recognize perhaps by mentally whispering or noting what you're aware of.

Just acknowledge what's here. And then the A of Raines allow, just allow. Let the feelings be just as they are. I often imagine. the feelings as waves in an ocean and you're saying, okay, this belongs. It's just part of life right now. The eye of rain is investigate. And you might begin by saying, when this is going on, what are you believing about the other person or yourself or how they feel about you, the meaning of what's happened? Just notice if there's a belief in the background. Well, they couldn't care about me if they act that way or they couldn't respect me or I'm going to be hurt or somebody else is going to be hurt. And with whatever

you're believing, check your body and sense how does it make me feel when I'm believing this, when this is going on? And sense the worst part of what's going on and sense how you feel in your body, your fear about what's going to happen, your distress, what sensations and emotions you feel? What's the felt sense? When you're feeling, when you're not going to happen, your distress, what sensations and emotions you feel, what's the felt sense? When you're feeling this, whether it's anger or fear or hurt, you might let your face express what you're feeling. Explore what happens when you let your face express it and even let your body posture express it. It'll help you get more connected to the physical, somatic

experience. Let your body and face express hurt or despair or shame or fear. What's the deepest vulnerability? What's the vulnerability that you might not want it to be feeling? And from that place of vulnerability sense, what was it that you were hoping for from this person? What were you wanting that didn't happen? What's the need that you have that didn't get met? And you might put your hand on your heart or put your hand wherever you feel most vulnerability. And it's the beginning of nurturing the end of rain. If you haven't done this before, this physical touch, it's a very powerful way to cut through and actually deepen the relationship with the life inside us.

So sense it as a gentle touch to connect with vulnerability. sense what the part of you that's vulnerable most needs to experience right now. What are the words that would most bring some healing or ease to this part of you? Is it just knowing I'm with you, I'm not leaving? Trust your goodness. You're lovable. What's needed? Let the touch itself communicate it.

And if it's hard to offer yourself compassion or kindness, you might imagine it coming from someone that you trust, that you trust their love and wisdom, just some message, some energy of kindness to that vulnerable place. It may be somebody that's not alive anymore, could be a dog, could be from the natural world, from a deity, spiritual figure. see if you can imagine and sense light and warmth and care flowing in through your hand to your heart to the most vulnerable place in you like you're being bathed, bathed with kindness and care. And if you haven't imagined and tried that before, really sense that this can wash through into you this light and warmth right into where there's vulnerability.

Feel yourself breathing, aware, witnessing what's going on, and sense the quality of presence that's emerged. Whatever shift has occurred from the beginning, when you were identified as the judging self, to this awareness, this presence, this compassionate space holding vulnerability, maybe there's more spaciousness, more tenderness. And it's from a more spacious presence that you can bring your attention to the other person for the next step of this, which is to see them more clearly, to be aware of the conflictual

or difficult situation that triggered you and to sense inside them what might be going on? What is life like for you? Where does it hurt? How might your leg be caught in a trap? So you begin to investigate what that person might be feeling, what they were hoping for, what might be their unmet needs? it to feel respected, loved, important, understood, sensing the possibility of in some way letting your heart's care respond. However naturally that happens, perhaps to imagine that person

feeling their needs met. Imagine how that person would be if they felt. cared about, valued, understood. We started with namaste. And when we disarm, when we open, our own light shines through, and it's easier to see others' light, their basic goodness. So you might take these last moments to sense your own presence and spaciousness and tenderness, and sense the other when they're relaxed, happy, full with loving, how the light shines through them. You might sense, namaste, that you're bound to the light in both of you.

A light in a space that's big enough to hold our human imperfections with great tenderness. You might sense the words of Thomas Merton, he says, then it was as if I suddenly saw the secret beauty of their hearts, the depth of their hearts where neither sin nor knowledge could reach, the core of reality, the person that each one is in the eyes of the divine. If only they could see themselves as they really are, if only we could see each other that way all the time, there would be no more need for war, for hatred, for for greed, for cruelty. I suppose the big problem would be that we would fall down and worship each other.

Okay, taking a few full breaths. Your eyes are closed, opening your eyes. Thank you, friends. Thank you for your presence, for being willing to explore this disarming of the heart. we'll continue together next week. I just want to wish you many moments where you're putting out blankets of love and forgiveness, understanding for your inner life, and for others, and experiencing the freedom and happiness that that brings. Namaste and blessings.