Tara Brach - Discovering the Power of Prayer (2018-08-15)

Episode Date: August 17, 2018

Discovering the Power of Prayer (2018-08-15) - We all know the pain of separation and have a longing for connection. When we silently listen to and contact the depth of that longing, we are at the root of transformational prayer. This talk looks at what prayer is, who/what we are praying to, the shadow side of prayer, and ways of cultivating our prayers so that they become authentic vehicles for spiritual awakening. Your support enables us to continue to offer these talks and meditations freely. If you value them, I hope you will consider offering a donation at this time at www.tarabrach.com/donation/. With gratitude and love, Tara

Greetings. We offer these podcasts freely, and your support really makes a difference. To make a donation, please visit tarabrock.com. Namaste and welcome. Before starting this talk and before starting most talks, I do a brief prayer. And it's usually something in the nature of may this serve us all waking up together. and if I take some time with that prayer, you know, if I say it enough until I get really sincere, something falls away and there's a sense of really being part of something larger together with everyone. I feel more intimate, you know, as we're here. And this is a lead

into exploring tonight the nature of prayer and what we might call really spiritually transatlantic transformational prayer, mature prayer, mindful prayer. Pick your favorite term. And what's interesting to me as starters is that many people don't think that prayer has anything to do with Buddhism. And there are many people that would identify themselves as Buddhists and say prayer, well, isn't that really dualistic? And aren't you thinking you're, you're supplicating some other being out there and, you know, it's who's praying anyway if there's no self and all that stuff. And so I just want to even start by saying prayer is part of every spiritual path, religious path and beyond. It's actually a universal part of being human. We all have wants, wants of different

levels of deaths, and there are times in our lives that we are definitely going, oh, please, oh please, you know? Just that kind of feeling, whether it's because we're praying, because we really want somebody that we love to be okay, or you might have to do with the lottery or something more shallow, but we're saying, oh please, oh please. So the kind of prayer we're going to explore is the prayer that actually is a practice. Meditation is how do we pay attention. Meditation is about paying attention. And prayer is a particular way of paying attention that has to do with silence, a deep listening, and a communing with the most vast expression of our belonging.

So we're going to explore that. And I'd like to begin by saying also that often amongst Buddhist or amongst mindfulness practitioners, there's a sense that it's kind of prayers really private and intimate and and it feels awkward to talk about. And even a little shyness like it's something embarrassing because there's an assumption that mindfulness is secular and there's a rationality and this is getting into more woo-woo land. And that's why I on purpose like to talk about it because since we pray anyway, when we make it conscious, when we really bring our full hearts to it, it becomes one of the most

powerful pathways to change that I've ever experienced. So I'm curious to first start by asking you all, how many of you pray? Can I see by hands? Half the group I'm seeing. In the United States, over 55 percent, and mostly by themselves, you know, alone and silently. So we're going to look at what is prayer, you know, and we're going to explore shadow. how it can serve, and ways to practice. Now, again, I'm just back to mindfulness. Most people that practice mindfulness get that it is radically transformative. That when we start being able to be aware of our experience without judgment,

we get unstuck from our reactivity. We start sensing a capacity to work. sensing a capacity to witness what's going on, and yet be really in contact with the aliveness, and there's a lot of freedom. And yet most people I know who practice mindfulness share with me that when really, really intense moments of their lives occur, like crises, somebody's dying, a birth, a peak experience, something scary, whatever it is, that prayer arrives. arises very naturally or spontaneously and really it's the thing that most expresses where

they're at. And I think often when I'm reflecting on prayer, the example I like to share is of Baba Ram Dass and I'm curious how many here are familiar with Ram Dass, who will be here now, good, okay? So you might know that he had a massive stroke some 10 years ago or maybe a little long longer. He had done decades and decades and decades of spiritual practice. He's one of the pioneers that brought to the West Buddhism and Hinduism and Vaita practices. So he was in the thick with different practices, but he reported that when he had his stroke, there he

was on a gurney, simply looking at the pipes on the ceiling, and no uplifting thoughts, no No inspiration came to him, no practice could help him. He couldn't regard what was happening with mindfulness or with self-compassion. And the way he summarized it, and I think this is fantastic, he said, in that crucial moment, I flunked the test. Now this is interesting, because I think all of us in our hearts and hearts are wondering, you know, when we hit the wall when something really heavy happens, are we going to be able to draw on this stuff? So he's saying apparently well, in that moment, he couldn't access mindfulness or self-compassion. So what he did, and there was a lot of physical anguish and despair, what he did was he began to pray to Maharaji,

who's his guru, who no longer was alive, but he had a very, very living relationship. to him. And he said, I prayed to him and then I started sensing he was all around me and his love was as full and present as ever and that to him was pure grace. And what made him available to that grace was that he reached out in prayer in a moment of desperation. Now, Romduss would be the first to say practicing mindfulness might have helped him to remember that, remember to even reach out. Practicing mindfulness gave him, you know, a kind of balance and a presence through so much of his life that, you know, he would have described the freedom from it. But in some moments, what Sri Narcurghattata says, he says,

the mind creates the abyss, the heart crosses it. We need a way to reconnect with our hearts. So reaching out in prayer is a way of reconnecting with our larger belonging when we feel cut off. And feeling cut off is the suffering. So as we'll explore, prayer has different depths. You know, we all have our layered wants and so when we're praying can arise from a different part of our being. I love these, I've got a lot of these children's prayers. this book with children's prayers, one of them says,

Dear God, thank you for the baby brother, but what I asked for was a puppy. I never asked for anything else before. You can look it up. So what are we praying for is the question, and one of the questions. And Joseph Campbell writes that every religion begins with the cry help, that we humans, because we're self-aware,

we apprehend our mortality, the fragility of our experience, and the deepest way we're saying, help, I want to feel more secure, I want to feel more safe. And so that's kind of one of the core ways of where prayer comes from because we're dependence. You know, we depend on the larger world for love and respect and for food and for, you know, being taken care of. So there's these levels and sometimes we might cry out for help because it's a migraine or beg to be selected for a job or pray for the wisdom to guide our child through a different time. There's all these different levels. But the most basic, if we get really quiet, if we're in that silence,

is this longing to belong to something, to feel connection. John O'Donohue, who many of you know of, he's no longer alive, a wonderful philosopher, writer, Irish mystic, he says, prayer is the voice of longing. It reaches outward and inward to unearth our ancient belonging. I'm going to read that again and you're going to hear it again from me later. the voice of longing, it reaches outwards and inwards to unearth our ancient belonging. So as I've mentioned, I've been with many, many people that have felt like they're hitting a kind of bottom in their life, whether it's addiction or depression or some major loss.

And I've seen over and over, like Rondas, that there are times when we're just in that complete helplessness and the only thing left, there's nothing we can do, the only thing left is prayer. And when I remind people, I say, have you been praying? And then we talk a little bit about it. In some way I can sense it gives them hope because they know the truth of that. That even when we can't do anything else, we can feel that longing and there's something healing.

John O'Donohue puts it this way. Our prayer is the bridge between longing and belonging. There's something healing when we sense the prayer. This is Clarissa Estes. You might close your eyes and just listen to her words. She says, refuse to fall down. If you cannot refuse to fall down, refuse to stay down. If you cannot refuse to stay down, lift your heart toward heaven.

Lift your heart toward heaven. Ask that it be filled. You may be pushed down. You may be kept from rising. But no one can keep you from lifting your heart towards heaven. no one can keep you from lifting your heart towards heaven. Everything can collapse in our life, but we can still turn towards that belonging

and in turning towards it, we become available. So I'm thinking now of a friend of mine who's a doctor in this area, and he's always been struck by the coldness of the medical system, because he deals with people facing in a huge loss and fear. And he's been bringing mindfulness into his meditation practice and into the clinic and so on, which is really cool. And he describes being with one woman who had terminal cancer. And he was at the end of the exam he was doing,

and he surprised himself. He just said, he was quiet for a moment. He said, would you like to pray together? and she was so the tears and the sense of intimacy, it was really a sense of refuge for what was occurring. There wasn't something else to do. Okay, so what is prayer? One of the ways I think of prayer is as a relational meditation

that we're coming into a relationship or communion with the source, with a larger field that we've felt cut off from. Now, some people might call the larger field or source God or they might describe it as Jesus or that we're praying to an entity out there. Or you can just sense that it's really the whole of your being, it's reality, it's the loving awareness that is this universe that the small self feels cut off from.

But it's a communing with that with which we've been cut off from. It can also be an expression of gratitude for sensing the blessings of that larger belonging. So what really are we praying to? It's like very interesting when you start sensing in yourself, well, what are we praying to? Some of you might know I was brought up Unitarian and I've been teaching Unitarian churches for a really long time. And the Unitarians, when they talk about prayer, they talk about to whom it may concern is the prayer, you know?

They also say, which I've always liked, is that Moses received the ten suggestions. And sometimes I think of when I think of, well, what are we praying to? One story of one little boy who said, our father, who does art in heaven, Harold is his name. That's really one of my favorites. Our father who does art in heaven. I mean, why not? It's just as good as any other story, isn't it? So many feel a larger presence and have different names for it. Sometimes it's just a formless kind of beingness and we're just saying, oh please, oh please, the entire universe.

So with students often when I'm with a smaller group, we'll start investigating. Well, what really are you reaching out towards? And it's very wide-ranging. You know, sometimes there's a sense of reaching out to our own high self. sometimes the Divine Mother, bodhisattva of compassion. And again, Jesus or God or this, that awareness that shines through all the natural world. So that's one of the investigations. But it's important, and this is where mindfulness becomes so powerful,

to sense the shadow side of prayer. Because I think one of the reasons that we sometimes are so considered prayer dicey is because we're so aware of the shadow side. Campbell puts it that religion is the opiate of the masses and that in a way the prayer and the religious ritual is covering over the mystery. So that can happen. You see it with immature prayer. and immature prayer is, in some ways, it's, you know, being governed by the limbic system, by grasping, by fear.

Sometimes it's just developmental. I've been mentioning children's prayer. I always like this story of the little seven-year-old who asked her mother, are you the tooth fairy, you know? And the mother's saying, you know, she didn't want to take the magic out of childhood, but she figured her daughter was really kind of old enough. so she confessed that she's right, she was. And her daughter seemed to absorb this information pretty thoughtfully.

But then she, several hours later, she came around and asked her mom, so what I want to know is, how do you get into the other houses? We hold on to our ideas. So one of the shadows is mechanical recitation, that prayer can be just mechanical. We're not mindful, no, we're not present. Another one is it can be a habitual fear reflex that whenever there's pain or discomfort, the habit is to leave our body and go, oh, God, get rid of this.

Don't want to feel this. Don't want to feel this pain. Don't want to feel this unpleasantness. Again, my favorite stories are with children. One family had a larger-than-normal Thanksgiving gathering, and the mom's speeding around all nervous, wanting everything to go well. Finally, the guests arrive, and they're all around this huge table. and she turns to her little six-year-old and says,

honey, why don't you say the blessings off of the Thanksgiving prayer? And she says, well, I wouldn't know what to say. And she said, just say what your mommy says, you know. And the daughter bows her head and says, Lord, why on earth that I invite all these people to do her? So it can be that habitual reflex. And another way that prayer has a shadow side is that it can be self-demeaning.

There can be a sense of, I'm so bad, I'll never do it again, don't punish me. It's an immature relationship with some perceived punitive and higher being. So then we move to, well, let's explore how prayer, which happens again. I want to say this is happening anyway in us. There's some part of us that's wanting things a certain way. what turns it into a current, a transformational current, that actually carries us home to freedom, to larger belonging? And the understanding is that when we're suffering in any way, in any moment that you're having

a hard time, it's because you're identified or living in a sense of who you are, smaller than the truth. You're believing some story about who you are that's keeping you separate, feeling flawed, feeling apart from other people. Those are the moments of suffering. And so in those moments, it's skillful and wise to reach out to a larger sense of what you belong to and what you are. This is the poet Rumi. He says, in time, times of sudden danger, most people call out, oh my God, why would they keep doing this if it didn't help? Only a fool keeps going back where nothing happens. The whole world lives within a safeguarding, fish inside waves, birds held in the sky. All are held in the divine. Nothing is

ever alone for a single moment. All giving comes from there, no matter who you think you put your open hand out toward, it's that which gives. So these sincere moments of communing when we're in some way reaching out, help us awaken out of that separate egoic self into sensing the truth that we belong. I wonder maybe some of you have started talking to someone who's passed away. And in the moment of talking, feel that rising up of love and connection that's beyond time and space. I asked this because I'm aware of, I used to bring my mom to class week after week for the last couple of years of her life. And so I got very used to having, she was little at that point, this little, my little mom next to me in the car, and we

chat on the way in and then afterwards we talk about the Darmatog and this and that. And I remember so many times after she died, imagining her there and then just whispering a little or talking to her and feeling this real upwelling of sorrow but also of just this timeless loving that she might as well have been in California. There was something very real and there in the reaching out, the transcended time and space. We can reach out and connect. So I want to share a little bit of the process of prayer and my experience. The reason I'm going to talk about my own personal experience is I find that people don't

talk much about what happens, the more intimate experiences with prayer. and I wish we could. So it's not that easy to talk about it, but I want to just because it's been such a powerful pathway for me. And one of the kind of most memorable moments when my prayer life accelerated, it was about right after I started writing the proposal for true refuge to my last book,

And I had been getting sicker and sicker. And I remember it was a spring week because I had been too sick to go out on my morning walks and there's a week in spring when the bluebells start coming out along the river and so on. And I was just like, oh, couldn't go out for those walks because my knees were, I had lost the capacity to really go up and down hills and so on. And so I couldn't keep Jonathan and my pups company or anything. And in my mind it was like, okay, the future could be like this.

And, you know, I wouldn't be able to share the simplest activities with him because there was just so many things I was not able to do physically. And I'd just be like this kind of prisoner of my body and increasingly dependent. And I was having to cancel things. So it was like, oh, I'm not going to be able to teach. I'm not going to be able to write. So it just felt like I was losing my life. So this despair swept over me.

And I felt this, first it was this grip of fear, a sense of, you know, just being separated from everything I love. And I started crying and feeling this sense of, help me. I just want help. This is really, really hard. And mostly what I really wanted, I wanted to be able to walk, I wanted to enjoy the green of spring, I wanted to be living. And so then I started grieving, feeling the loss of it.

and this excruciating sense of in losing all this life I was completely alone. It was like cut off. When I recognized the loneliness, that was kind of an aha because this is what I had been resisting feeling. That was the core sense of this separateness or loneliness that I didn't want to feel. So I asked myself really this question, you know, like what happens if I open and really let myself feel this loneliness. And it was like this crushing mountain of pain in my heart. It was terrible. And then so I started like sensing I was going deeper and deeper into it, well, what do you most want? What is it you really want? This is the question. When you're

praying to keep going down and down, listening, what do you most really want? It wasn't specifically that I wanted to be with the bluebells, although I really wanted to be out with the bluebells. But it was deeper, deeper, deeper. What I really wanted was to feel my belonging to love, to presence, to life. I wanted to feel a part of that belonging. That was under it. That was the prayer. Now, I'm going slow here because if I hadn't been being with mindfully the experience I wouldn't have gotten down to the sincere depth of what the prayer was. I would have been hitched to, oh, I'm missing out on the walks.

So going down to that, so, okay, I want to really trust my belonging to loving presence. And then I kept going, well, what would that mean? What would it feel like? If something in you is listening and sense, yeah, I really want to trust my belonging, What does that really mean to you? Like if you check in, how would it feel if you trusted your belonging to love? If you felt a part of or belonging to a loving awareness, what would that really be? When I asked myself, there was a sense of wanting to be held by or unfolded into this

formless yet really sentient, immediately hear caring presence. And there was this almost this anguish to the longing that really was in a cellular way. And what rose up out of that was this sense of this luminous field of light and warmth surrounding me. It was infinitely vibrant and tender. And so that was the prayer. May I feel my belonging to this? May I be held in this?

May I trust my belong to this? And the more I was praying for that, the more that light was bathing me, it was washing through me, and I could feel that mountain of pain dissolving, loosening, becoming transparent. It was as if I was just offering all that pain into something so much larger that it was being held. And what I started realizing is it wasn't like the small self that was praying. I was becoming. that luminous loving light. So the prayer, it seemed to come out of a small self that wanted to be loved,

but it carried me into being the loving presence itself. Prayers the bridge from longing to belonging. So I want to unpack this a little bit and maybe to say that there's three parts to prayer. And if you kind of bear witness to your own prayers and remember these three parts, it can serve you very well. So again, I want to remind you of John O'Donohue saying, prayer is the voice of longing.

It reaches outward and inward to unearth our ancient belonging. Now, to me, I get the image of a tree and the roots are going deep into the earth. So we're going deep, deep, deep into where we feel the loneliness, the pain, the anguish, the separation, deep, deep, listening, listening, listening. And then out of that we're reaching out and, you know, I want to belong, please, please, may I belong. And then there's that silent presence that ends up experiencing that belonging that belonging, that does solution and belonging, going deep, listening, reaching out, and then total receptive presence.

Three parts. Now I'm just going to step out for a moment and say, when I got involved with Buddhism you know, some 30, 35, 40 years ago, there was no training in prayer. And so everything that I've discovered, I've been experimenting with, you know, some 30, 35, 40 years ago, there was no training in prayer. And so everything that I've discovered, I've been experimenting with, I've been experimenting But then along the way I find that other teachers and traditions and so on have experimented and it's kind of an arctypical pathway. So what we're describing here together, what we're looking at has been explored by many.

Mother Teresa says, God speaks in the silence of the heart. Listening is the beginning of prayer. Listening deeply. What is it really? What is it we really long for? So we're going to practice in a little while, but I'd like to maybe make a few comments on some of the particulars to practice that I have found really can make a difference. One of the particulars is that we listen, listen, listen into, well, what's really going on?

What do I really long for? and then when we pray, there's a reason people put their palms together. There's something in this gesture that's quite humble and beautiful, humble in the sense of it takes us out of any of the arrogance of selfing. I'm going to read again from John O'Donohue in hopes that you check him out because I think he's so good on this stuff. One of the most tender images is the human person, person at prayer. When the body gathers itself before the divine, a stillness deepens. The blaring din

of distraction seizes, and the deeper tranquility within the heart envelops the body. To see people at prayer is a touching sight. For a while they've become unmoored from the grip of society, work, and roll. It is as if they have chosen to enter into a secret belonging carried within the soul. They rest in that inner temple, impervious to outer control or claiming. The human body gathered in prayer mirrors our fragility and it makes a statement of recognition. To be gathered in prayer is a gracious, reverential, and receptive gesture. Whatever we approach something with reverence, whatever it is, then we're open to grace. There's a quality of porousness and receptivity that life can flow through us. So there's a couple of examples I'd like to give you

see if I can one of the directionalities of prayers that once we've opened ourselves in that way the circles naturally widened one of my friends' moms

she prayed for an hour each day and she had this circle of maybe a hundred people that she prayed for and she just would offering them all blessings and when my friend described her death it was so

peaceful so well held she knew her belonging she knew her connection and at retreats we often teach the loving kindness practice where we call it stealth meta because we're not talking to each other but where we suggest to offer silent blessings to other people because it creates this whole kind of web of relatedness when you might pause right now and just in your mind and consider one person that you have connected with today. You know, in any way, just talk to or whatever. So just take a moment, one person and sense that person and what really they might want

in their lives, what really might bring them happiness, and sense your wish for them and just notice the intimacy and just taking a few moments to bring someone to mind and offer them a wish. We can give you a sense of the deep, rich possibility of what a more regular practice of prayer can do for our hearts. It also inclines us then to respond to our world with a more fearless heart because we feel connection. I often describe Gandhi's practice of praying once a week. He took a whole day off for prayer and his intention was so that his action would come from the deepest part of his heart

to keep that clarity and that compassion right hitched into the source. So we widen the circles and there's many, many different styles or practices of prayer, but we widen the circles with it. I'd like to close with just doing some practice together. So maybe adjust to your sitting so you feel comfortable, feel ease. The poet Hafiz says, ask the friend for love. Ask them again, for I have found that every heart will get what it prays for most. whatever you practice grow stronger. And you might think about that. What kind of thoughts were you practicing today?

Were they thoughts of planning and worrying? Were they thoughts of self-judging or judging others? Did you have thoughts of gratitude? Did you have thoughts of well-wishing for others? when we begin to practice this kind of communing, this remembering what matters, the remembrance gets stronger and stronger, the connections get stronger and stronger. So as a closing reflection, you might ask yourself, is there anything right now in my life between me and really feeling happy or at home

or at peace. And take a few moments to reflect. Unless we're liberated, most of us have something that can get in the way, something going on that hooks us a little. So just sense for yourself, is there anything right now between you feeling at home with your life? The beginning of practicing prayers to let yourself listen inwardly. This is where the tree roots go down and sense So what's in the way? What is the feeling, the hurt, the loss, the pain that is in some way contracting me, keeping me small or separate? What's the fear, the upset? To bring a mindful listening attention inward.

Just as I was asking myself that question, what is it really? What's really getting in the way? Is it fear? Is it doubt? Is it loneliness? This is where the tree roots go deep where there's mindful contact with where the pain is, where the suffering is. And since if you can, what is that place most need or want?

What's the deepest longing? This is still the going inward, the listening, the silence. at that place in you could express itself. What is it longing for? What is it most want? And keep going, sense, well, whatever it seems to most want, what would that be like? What is it really wanting to experience?

How would you know if you were experiencing it? And from the most sincere place within you, feel your heart longing for and asking, for what really most matters. And if it helps to put your hands on your heart or your palms together, for many people there are palms together and bowing their head

and you might experiment with it. There's a sense of receptivity that you're really sincere and you're deeply receptive. So this is reaching from the depth, depth of the longing, asking your universe. It could be your own awake awareness, it could be God, it could be love, just letting that yearning be felt and express.

This is the tree branches extending towards the heavens. You might even whisper your prayer, don't be shy. It may be that as I describe for myself, please, I want to be. to feel belonging. Please, may I trust my belonging to loving presence? Because whispering it out loud, if not here, when you're on your own, can connect you with the fullness, the poignancy of the longing and that's what carries you. Sense what source you're leaning towards and reaching towards.

There may be a sense of light or love, formless presence, a very close in sense of sentient presence, a being that loves you. Experiment. Commune with what you long for. There sinks its roots into the dark depths and reaches fully up to the light, receptive, tender. And as you feel ready, just rest. in that complete receptivity, just listening. Just become the awareness, the love that's here, present and open.

Listening is the beginning of prayer. It's also the end of prayer. Ask the friend for love. Ask him again, for I have found that every heart will get what it prays for most. Namaste and thank you. For more talks and meditations, and to learn about my schedule or join my email list, please visit tarabrock.com.