Tara Brach - Embracing Uncertainty: Sheltering in Love - Part 9 (2020-05-20)

Episode Date: May 22, 2020

Embracing Uncertainty: Sheltering in Love - Part 9 (2020-05-20) -  How we tolerate uncertainty - during current times and throughout our lives - has a powerful effect on our capacity for presence, aliveness and love. This talk explores the conditioned ways of reacting to insecurity that contract us, and pathways of letting go of resistance, opening to Beginner's mind and discovering a timeless, wise and loving presence in the midst of inevitable change. 

Greetings. We offer these podcasts freely and your support really makes a difference. To make a donation, please visit tarabrock.com. Namaste and welcome. It's really a pleasure to have you with me here again for another one of our sheltering and love talks and together listening with others from around the world. As you know, one of the words that we hear again and again in describing our current times is the word uncertainty. And we're going to be spending some time with this word. It's uncertainty around our bodily safety and uncertainty around the future of our finances and uncertainty over, you know, when and how we'll ever spend real personal time with

our dear ones. Uncertainty in terms of our government, whether those who are able to vote in the United States will actually be allowed to many, many levels. And of course, while a lot of people are in denial, there's that deep shared uncertainty we have really about the future of life on this precious planet. So it's big. It's the undercurrent that's now not only an undercurrent, but in the foreground of so many people's experience. The truth is that life is always uncertain. That's the bottom line. nature, everything changes. Economies come and go and governments change and stars get born and die and these very bodies,

you know, they age, they sick and they die, we lose all that we love. It's always uncertain. And yet our daily habits can cover it over. So we get lulled into thinking, okay, so this is how it is. And then inevitably our daily habits get disrupted. There's an accident or sickness or some long-term relationship crashes or some upheaval regarding work. Or maybe on the societal level there's the outrage or heartbreak of another publicized racist killing or a mass shooting are right now this pandemic. And here we are. The bottom falls out and for some time we can't avoid.

avoid reality, life's out of our hands, out of control. It's uncertain and we feel it. And our bodies feel it. It feels very vulnerable. We have an inner controller that does not like insecurity, uncertainty. So in reaction, when we're stressed, our inner controller becomes what I've often called an over-controller. And I know you know what I'm talking. about. You probably know your own over-controller when the mind gets narrowed and fixated and obsessive and always trying to figure things out or fix things. And often when we're in our over-controller, we're also blaming others or trying to control others. But we're mostly mentally caught in this state of fearful anticipation. The word worry, the Anglo-Saxon roots,

are to strangle. So we get caught in the over-controller and of course our body goes along for the ride. When we're in our over-controller our muscles tighten, our shoulders might go up, our belly tightens which of course affects digestion. Because we have all that tightness in our body we also can get fatigue. The over-controller is exhausting. And then the heart, when we're in our over control are the hearts, either numb or anxious, and so we're not so porous and able to give and receive love. So what I'd like to explore tonight is to reflect on facing uncertainty. And by that I mean both the glaring unknowns of current times, but also just that that ongoing background anxiety we have about change, about loss, that's always here. So,

So our inquiry really is how do we let go of our resistance to uncertainty? I mean, that tensing we have against not knowing, that tensing against change. And I want to say right from the start that opening to the reality of uncertainty doesn't mean passivity in any way. It means we open and come into the kind of presence that actually lets us respond to uncertain times with a lot more balance and wisdom and with a steady heart. Given that, as we know, uncertainty activates our brain and we get caught in it for many of us, incessant thinking. And it's a kind of mode where we're trying to figure things out. We're just trying to find some

certainty. There's an American Buddhist monk, Ajan Samado, and he has some advice and how to work with this incessant thinking. And I'd like to read a very short essay from Ajun Samedo. He says, the practice of letting go is very effective for minds obsessed by compulsive thinking. You simplify your meditation practice down to just two words, letting go. Rather than trying to develop this practice and then develop that and achieve this and go into that and understand this and read the sutas and study the Abidama, and then learn Pali in Sanskrit, and then the Majumakaya and the Prajna Parmita, and then have ordinations in Hinayana, Mahayana,

and Vadriana, write books, become a world, we know, an authority on Buddhism. Instead of becoming the world's expert on Buddhism and being invited to great international Buddhist conferences, just let go, let go, let go. I did nothing, at this for about two years. Every time I tried to understand or figure things out, I'd say, let go, let go until the desire would fade out. So I'm making it very simple for you. To save you from getting caught in incredible amounts of suffering, there's nothing more sorrowful than having to attend international Buddhist conferences. So I've always loved this. You know, it's such a such a simple approach. Just tell yourself, let go, let go, when the over-controller is really

just getting carried away. And as you can imagine, it's simple yet really, really challenging. So let's look at the challenging part of it. The very last thing in the world our over-controller wants to do is to let go. I mean, you have noticed how tenacious worry is, how it just recycles and recycles that planning in our mind. The over-controller is dedicated to having the future turn out in a certain way and it wants certainty. It wants some ground to stand on. It wants to know what's going to happen and it holds tight to its ideas of a predictable world. One of the best kind of illustrations of this that I've heard is in a classic Taoist story, and many of you probably heard this, and it's kind of fun to bring this back into our shared awareness.

It's a story of an old farmer who had worked as crops for many years, and one day his horse runs away, and upon hearing that news, his neighbors came to visit, and they say, oh, such bad luck. They're really sympathetic, and he goes, maybe that's his response. The next morning, the horses returned bringing three other wild horses. How wonderful the neighbors exclaimed. The farmer's response, maybe. The following day, his son tried to ride one of the untamed horses, was thrown and broke his leg. The neighbors came again to offer their sympathy on his misfortune.

Maybe, answered the farmer. The day after, military officials came to the village to drag, young men into the army and seeing that the son's leg was broken and they passed him by. The neighbors congratulated the farmer on how well things had turned out. Maybe, said the farmer. So you get the idea. This story is a reminder. It's that we might assume what's next, but we really don't know how life is going to unfold.

We want to assume we know, but we want to assume we know, But we don't. I mean, look at your own life, maybe from the view of your much, much younger self. Could you have possibly anticipated what relationships would have been emerged, which ones would have lost, the shape of your, which ones you would have lost, when I'd have failed, or the shape of your life work and the saga of sickness and wellness and maybe what you might have learned from the mistakes and the losses, what really brings you happiness, what brings you peace, we don't know what's ahead. We don't know on any level really what's going to happen. We just have ideas, but we're hooked on our ideas. We're hooked on our expectations. And we generally filter reality

as long as we can to support how we think things are and are going to be rather than to inform us. And our beliefs, some of them, are like child's magical thinking. There's a story one mother told, she described how when her seven-year-old lost her tooth, she asked her mother, are you the tooth fairy? And the mom figured it's just time to let her daughter know she was old enough, so she told her daughter the truth. And her daughter absorbed the information thoughtfully. And then several hours later she came back to her mom and said, well, so what I want to know is, how do you get into the other kids' houses? We don't want to let go of our ideas. We'll just keep adjusting. And of course, we can see magical thinking in our current crisis, that idea that,

well, if I gather with others of faith, to pray together, we'll be protected from the virus. that kind of magical thinking. Are the virus, and you can substitute the word plague, because this is magical thinking for centuries and centuries, the virus hurts people? Well, it had it come from some outside bad place. It's remarkable that even when an expectation in our personal life is fearful and unpleasant,

let's say, I'll never really be intimate with anything. or I'll never be successful at something that matters or I'll never be happy. Even when it's like a really negative expectation, we are loyal to our limiting beliefs. The point is this, that we're much more comfortable thinking we know what will happen than being uncertain. The mind does not like to rest in uncertainty. So we can see our attachment to certainty from an evolutionary lens and I find this really interesting that recent brain science refers to the brain as an advanced predicting machine.

Predicting. It gives us some level of feeling in control. It gives us orientation. It helps us make decisions, helps us protect ourselves to navigate. It gives us ground to stand on, security. So it's really the central tool of our inner controller and of our executive functioning. And when the reality of change and unpredictability rears its head, you know, when there's some sense of the chaos that's behind things, our inner controller freaks out and turns

up the heat. And then that's when we get all the whirring and the planning and the rigid thinking and the controlling of others. We're trying to find some ground. We're trying to get secure again. So let me make a note. I'll step back a little here and say, we need our executive functioning. We need our inner controller. We need to predict to be able to navigate and survive. But there's a limit to what we can predict and to flourish. In other words, not just survive, but to flourish and keep evolving, to wake up, we also need to know how to make peace with the truth of uncertainty. Otherwise, our inner controller, as I mentioned, flips into an over-controller.

And then we're on this full-time vulnerability management mode, trying to protect ourselves from uncertainty by tensing against life itself. And that is the suffering. That's the suffering. The over-controller tenses against life itself. And so you might think of it when we're run by the over-controller, you know, when we're defending against an unknowable future, the body gets tight, so we're cut off from our full aliveness.

As I mentioned, we get fatigued. The mind gets fixated, and so it's kind of being small-minded with repetitive thoughts, and there's no capacity to learn. We can't learn when we're caught in over-controlling. And the heart gets armored. So we're not able to really be with each other with tenderness. The poet and philosopher John O'Donoghue, who I really love his work, he says that we're so busy managing our lives that we cover over this great mystery that we're part of.

describes it that this wild, mysterious existence gets reduced to cookie-cutter days. So this is what happens when we don't know how to face and come to peace with uncertainty, that we kind of get run by the over-controller. And there's another option. And we can see that option in our evolving species and also individually on a spiritual or a healing path, that we can actually learn to meet uncertainty with a compassionate presence. We can do that. And this is what then allows us to actually be available and be able to respond to what's

going on in adaptive and creative ways and loving ways. We become available to new possibilities. When we're over-controlling, we're not available. in the deepest way, and we're going to come back to this towards the end of our reflection, learning to bring that presence to uncertainty actually shows us who we are beyond this changing body and mind. It shows us and helps us come home to a more timeless truth about our awareness and our love. So let's explore more about presence with uncertainty and there's a wonderful description of this in the Zen tradition.

And Suzuki, very well-known, has passed away but contemporary Zen master, calls it beginner's mind. And beginner's mind is the mind that doesn't need to have an answer, doesn't have to grasp onto rigid beliefs or interpretations about what's going on. You know, the way it's bad when the farmer's horse runs away. It's good that it comes back with new ones. It doesn't have to make interpretations or judgments. And it can let go of expecting things to be a certain way.

So it's not trying to control anything. It's just being with what comes. And he writes this is one of the most famous lines he's written. He says, in the beginner's mind, there are many possibilities. In the expert's mind, there are few. We can know a lot about a lot of things and have a lot of ideas and theories and interpretations, but that holding onto our views can actually block us from in the moment being open to possibility. And only if we're open to possibility right now in these uncertain times and through our

life, which is always uncertain, can we wake up on the path? So I want to pause here and invite you to reflect a little, just to bring your attention inward. And these pauses to reflect are a chance to really come back, so you might take a few full breaths, scan through these times that we're in, these times of global crisis, and how might uncertainty and insecurity be appearing in your life? there's some reactivity to not knowing what's happening, to having life be disrupted in these current times. And as you scan, have that inquiry of, you know, how am I relating to change, to loss,

to uncertainty? Is there an over-controller activated? Usually the signs are worrying or blaming or overmanaging in some way. Or is there some sense of beginner's mind? Able to rest in not knowing. Open to possibility. Okay, if you'd like to open your eyes, come back, please do. So, thus far, we're basically looking at how life's uncertain now and always.

How we do go into a daily trance that can cover it over. but it's during the times when our life feels in some way threatened, when there's disruption, it gets exposed. And one of the pervasive reactions, as we're talking about, is that over-control, or it's really the limbic habits, the survival habits of worry and obsessive thinking, perseverating, the rigid beliefs. We can go that way, are uncertain times can put us on what some people call the spiritual fast track where we start to cultivate beginner's mind, where there's a real sense of presence

and openness, where there's a letting go of that reactivity and being with what is. Now, you might wonder as you hear those words that when we hit these more tumultuous times and certain times are we supposed to do nothing and what about addressing the threats that are right here? And I think one of the great guides for many of us is the serenity prayer, that we naturally we change and address what we can. And we let go where there's nothing that we can do. And we try to be wise in knowing the difference. So, of course, during these times we're going to want to, as a society, build up our testing

and of the virus and be using protective equipment and taking really care and our contacts with each other. And yet, the uncertainty is still here. And can we stay with and live with and let ourselves feel that even as we act? Because facing uncertainty means that instead of the over-controller, you know, instead of, let's say in these circumstances obsessing or getting angry at other people or getting lax about socializing because we can't tolerate what's going on. We purposely, and by the way I said getting lax about socializing,

it actually mean physical distancing, not socializing. Actually, instead of that, the over-controler, we actually purposely learn to tolerate the rawness of not knowing. We purposely learn to tolerate those feelings. We let go of the thinking. and we open to what's going on inside us so we can live consciously with not knowing because it's an immensely fertile space when we don't cover it over. And you might be wondering, well, what does that do for us?

I mean, really, what does it help to sit there in the caldrum of uncertainty? And certainly, if there's a lot of trauma in your system, then this isn't a time to open to rawness. it's a time to really lean in the direction of loving kindness and whatever it calms your nervous system. But if you feel that you have the capacity to tolerate it, why would you bother sitting with unpleasantness? And here I'll share another story. Again, it's a really well-known story that Kafka tells.

And he describes when he's an older man that he spent time sitting in a park. One day a little girl walked by him. She had tears running down her face and he asked her to stop and tell him what was wrong and she said, I'm missing my doll. She's lost. So he said he'd look around and he'd try but he didn't find the doll. And then he told her to come back. I'll see if I can find her. A few days later the girl returns and Kafka's there. He doesn't have a doll but he shows her a note from the doll and he reads it and the note

says, I've gone off to travel some around the world. Please don't worry about me. I'm fine. The girl's somewhat relieved and she returns to the park every week or so and Kafka is always there with a note from the doll and he reads it to the little girl and tells about the doll's adventures. Well, at some point, Kafka got sick and he went to the park one last time and this time he had bought a doll. So he hands it to the girl and and says, well, travels really changed her. Some years later, when the girl was a young woman, she found and read a note that it rolled up

and placed in the doll's hand. And here's what it said. You will lose everyone you love, but the love will always return in new forms. You will lose everyone you love, but the love will always return in new forms. So as you reflect on that, imagine in that story if the girl had been so upset about losing the doll that she didn't want to hear about the adventures.

What if she was so hooked on the doll being the same doll, she wasn't receptive to a different looking, a changed new doll? There's a really powerful teaching here. And I think it's what really inspires us to lean in to uncertainty. It inspires beginner's mind. And here's what my understanding is, is that the life that we cherish and the love that we cherish will keep expressing and changing ways.

In Buddhism, this is called Anitia, that everything changes. Everything changes. And if we're open to the changing flow of life, we're open to not knowing, we discover that which is changeless, a timeless love, a timeless awareness, and it'll keep expressing in infinite creative ways, and yet awareness and love are timeless. So we start learning that who we are is not that changing body and mind, that we are that awareness and love being expressed in a changing way moment to moment. Now, much of our life

is busy doing and thinking and controlling to avoid that core sense of insecurity. So opening is got layers and it's not easy, but the more we resist, the more we open to what we've resisted, the deeper, the inner freedom. So let's look at what letting go of resistance and opening looks like. This is the final part of our talk and then we're going to practice together. The direct opening into presence means letting go of the resistance. And I think of resistance. It's like a clenched fist. Letting go just simply means to stop clenching, to just relax the clenching and open. Letting go means to release what we're resisting, just to open to what's here. And in the mind, the clenching is in the form of thoughts. So we sense their resistance in the mind and we let go of thoughts.

And in the body, the clenching is tension in the body. So we consciously soften around that, around the tense places and give room for them to unfold and relax. And in the heart, there's a kind of an armoring and we soften around the armoring. It gives more freedom for the heart to open. I'll give you an example. One person, one friend is going through a lot during this pandemic. He is involved with a meditation center that can't survive without live gatherings. And so they don't know if and when things will open and don't know if they'll make it. And so he has financial fears for himself, his family. And he's doing what's possible online. It's been trying stuff, but he's worried he can't maintain the overhead.

the payments he still has to make. So there's a lot of the over-controler, he's been dealing with the worry and the predicting and being distraught up until a few weeks ago when he realized because he teaches meditation and he practices, he needed to embrace the realness of uncertainty, of insecurity. And so his practice has been, as we're describing, that when he has those thoughts, those worry thoughts, he does what he can, but when they come up and they're perseverating, let go, let go. And listen to the sounds because when you quiet the mind, you can start hearing the sounds again. So turn from the virtual reality of thoughts to the actual sounds that are here. Then in his body it just soften the shoulders for him, the shoulders

and the belly just soften there and feel the aliveness and soften around the heart armoring and just let himself feel vulnerable and we need to be compassionate with it so he often will do as I often do for him he puts two hands here and just breathes with it and then he just says okay let go and open to everything you know just open to it all and and just let that whole river of experience move through and when he can do that his sense of identity shifts and as he describes it, he can feel that in that opening, that he becomes an openness. He becomes more tender. And he, as I've described before, loves that teaching from Ajan Cha.

If you let go a little, you find a little piece. If you let go a lot, you find a lot of peace. If you let go totally, you find total peace. as he described it, one out of four times he's really able to let go a lot. So he feels 25% more peaceful. I'd like to hear that. So what we're talking about is that presence and openness of beginner's mind, that we let go of the thoughts and we let go of the tightness

and just open with beginner's mind without adding interpretation and learn to tolerate that unsureness. and then we get to inhabit a more open awareness. And as I'm mentioning here, the gifts to letting go, we get more peaceful. We get more present. We're more able to respond intelligently to what's going on. And the deepest way, we come home to a sense of our being that's beyond the changing river. We become that spacious tenderness so that we can really include life without reacting.

In my own life, you know, because the over-controller kicks in when I get stressed, it can be many times a day that I'll simply pause and realize I've been caught in thinking and just say, listen, let go and listen. And then I'll just relax my shoulders because my shoulders go like that, relax them, soften my belly, you know, and just feel what's underneath any tension in my heart, just feel the vulnerability. And there's a homecoming. There's a homecoming to more space and more tenderness.

E. E. Cummings, the last verse of a poem that's called Let It Go. He says, let all go. The big, small middling, the tall, bigger, really, the biggest and all things. Let all go, dear. So comes love. So this is the great gift. that timeless love and awareness that becomes available when we let go into presents. And I'd like to conclude with a story that in some way gives us a taste of that gift. This is written by Paul Villard.

When I was quite young, my father had one of the first telephones in our neighborhood. I remember well the polished old case fastened to the wall. The shiny receiver hung on the side of the box. little to reach the telephone, but used to listen with fascination when my mother used to talk to it. Then I discovered that somewhere inside that wonderful device lived an amazing person. Her name was Information Please, and there was nothing she did not know. Information Please could supply anybody's number and the correct time. My first personal experience with this genie in the bottle came one day while my mother was visiting a neighbor. I'm using myself at the tool bench in the basement.

I whacked my finger with a hammer. The pain was terrible, but there didn't seem to be a reason in crying because there was no one home to give sympathy. I walked around the house sucking my thobbing finger, finally arriving at the stairway. The telephone. Quickly I ran for the foot stall in the pallor and dragged it to the landing, climbing up. I unhooked the receiver in the pallor, held it to my ear. Information please, I said into the mouthpiece just above my head. A click or two and a small, clear voice spoke into my ear. Information. I hurt my finger, I wailed into the phone. The tears came readily enough now that I had an audience. Isn't your mother home? came the question. Nobody's home but me. I blubbered. Are you bleeding? No, I replied. I hit my finger with the

hammer and it hurts. Can you open your ice box? she asked. I said I could. Then chip off a little piece of ice and hold it to your finger, said the voice. After that, I called information please for everything. I asked her for help with my geography, and she told me where Philadelphia was. She helped me with my math. She told me my pet chimp monk that I had caught in the park just the day before I would eat fruits and nuts. Then there was a time Pity or a pet canary died. I called information please and told her the sad story.

She listened, then said the usual things grown-up say to sue the child, but I was unconsult. I asked her, why is it that birds should sing so beautifully and bring joy to all families only to end up as a heap of feathers on the bottom of the cage? She must have sensed my deep concern, for she said quietly, Paul, always remember that there are other worlds to sing in. Somehow I felt better. Another day I was on the telephone, Information please. Information said the now familiar voice.

How do you spell fix? I asked. All this took place in a small town in the Pacific Northwest. When I was nine years old, we moved across the country to Boston. I missed my friend very much. Information Please belonged in an old wooden box back home, and somehow I never thought of trying the tall, shiny new phone that sat on the table in the hall. As I grew into my teens, the memories of those childhood conversations never really left me. Often in moments of doubt and perplexity, I would recall the serene sense

of security I had then. I appreciated now how patient, understanding, and kind she was to have spent her time on a little boy. A few years later on my way west to college, my plane touched down in Seattle. I had about a half an hour, so between planes I spent 15 minutes. or so on the phone with my sister who lived there now, and without thinking what I was doing, I dialed my hometown operator and said, information, please. Miraculously, I heard the small, clear voice I knew so well. Information. I hadn't planned this, but I heard myself say, could you please tell me how to spell fix? There was a long pause. Then came the soft-spoken answer. I guess your finger must have healed by now.

I laughed. So it's really you, I said. I wonder if you have any idea how much you meant to me during that time. I wonder, she said, if you knew how much your calls meant to me. I've never had any children, and I used to look forward to your calls. I told her how often I had thought of her over the years and asked if I could call her again when I came back to visit my sister. Please do, she said.

Asked for Sally. Three months later, I was back in Seattle. A different voice answered. Information. I asked for Sally. Are you a friend, she asked? Yes, a very old friend, I answered. I'm sorry to have to tell you this, she said. Sally had been working part-time the last few years because she was sick. She died a few weeks ago. Before I could hang up, she said, wait a minute. Is your name Paul? Yes. Well, Sally left a message for you. She wrote it down in case you called. Let me read it to you. The note says, Tell him, I still say, there are other worlds to sing in.

He'll know what I mean. I thanked her and hung up. I knew what she meant. The key to finding peace in the midst of uncertainty to living and loving our way through uncertainty is really trusting this larger belonging, that which is timeless. And what carries us is the presence of beginner's mind,

letting go again and again of the thoughts that keep us tight, letting go of the tension or the armoring around the heart, opening to what's real here and changing, and behind that, to that timeless, formless presence, what Sally was referring to by other worlds, that vastness of presence that's our true home. It's the love that will never die. So with that, we will practice a bit, a very short practice, if you will. This is a guided meditation on encountering uncertainty and letting go, looking through beginner's mind. Again, take some moments for yourself to settle again and sit in a way that's comfortable and yet alert if you can. And take a few full breaths. and scanning your life as we did earlier and just notice where you might be feeling

insecurity and uncertainty right now or you might be feeling loss, difficulties of change, reminding yourself when you're feeling that, when you're afraid of what's going to happen to a loved one, unsure about your future financially, afraid for, the world in different ways, just sense what kind of thoughts and beliefs come up, where you get reactive and caught in that over-controller that's trying to find ground. And sense those thoughts, and then very consciously let go, let go, so that you can open past the thoughts to the sounds that are here, the space around you. And feel into the body and sense where there might be tightness,

resistance in the body and just gently let go. Open to the aliveness, let go in the shoulders, the hands, the belly. And notice as you let go, your senses wake up, you feel more. Whether it's pleasant or unpleasant, you're opening to life as it is. And feel the heart and to soften around the heart that helps you to smile into the heart to create some more space, do that. So letting go of the armoring that's between you and feeling your heart. You might feel vulnerability, more sensitivity. Just open. Let it be. And widen out and just open in a way that lets everything that's here live through you. Letting it all live through you and sensing the awareness in the background that's listening, feeling, that timeless presence, that vast presence, that vast.

a vast heart space of tenderness, the wider world, the truth of your true belonging. It's from this presence that you can move forward with beginner's mind, this openness, open to possibility. So you might be sensing again the insecurity in your life. And from the perspective of beginner's mind, perhaps there's a wise response for right now, one that's helpful. And perhaps there's also that wisdom that knows that the insecurity is just here. And it's possible to include it. And in so doing become more alive, more loving, more free. Let all go, all the resistance, opening. Let go the big, small, middling, tall, bigger, really, the biggest in all things. Let all go, dear.

so comes love, opening your eyes as you are ready. So thank you for being on this ride, on this adventure of consciousness with me and together, just to feel that togetherness that as you went through that you can sense a lot of us in some way befriending and opening to the realness of the times and to deeper truths of who we are. If you want to join a discussion group after this talk, just jump on again. The instructions are on Facebook and I wish you a blessed week. May you be safe.

May you find presence and inner peace. May you express your life from love. Many blessings. For more talks and meditations and to learn about my schedule or join my email list, please visit tarabrock.com.