Tara Brach - Engaged Spirituality during Times of Upheaval

Episode Date: March 11, 2022

Engaged Spirituality during Times of Upheaval - Engaged spirituality means responding to our world's suffering with wisdom and deep care. This talk looks at three blocks to aligning our actions with our heart – "bad othering," dissociation and overwhelm. We explore how we can awaken from each reaction to suffering by drawing on our practices of presence and remembering our larger belonging.

Greetings. We offer these podcasts freely and your support really makes a difference. To make a donation, please visit tarabrock.com. Namaste. Greetings, my friends. So thank you for being here, being with us. I recently received an email, a very caring, dedicated woman who's in our meditation teacher training program, she lives in Europe, close to Ukraine, and really close right close into the heart, to the violence that is unfolding with over million refugees from the war. And she wanted guidance, you know, how do we hold such a huge collective suffering?

You know, how do we hold the emotions of fear and anger and in our heart? and how do we respond in a healing way? And I've been in touch with so many expressing grief and despair and outrage and fear. And of course it's not towards the Russian people. I was struck by one video of a young man who had been taken prisoner in Ukraine and he was talking to his mother who was in Russia and they were both weeping. He hadn't known he was going to war. there's the horrors of violence and of course it's happening around the globe, the genocide of the Rohingya and

Myanmar and the war in South Sudan, wars in Colombia, Syria and beyond just all over. And, you know, while violence against others has been this basic weave in our history, in the history of our species, it's heartbreaking to have to keep reckoning with what we're capable of in the the 21st century, you know, the war and genocide, the growing movement towards authoritarianism and the decline of existing democracies, just our continued violating of our larger body this earth. So on a path of awakening, a real deep inquiry for us is how do we respond with a wise heart to this human-generated suffering. And this is the domain of what sometimes described as engage spirituality. I think of it as love in action, which really is bringing our spiritual

values of compassion and mindfulness and really respect for all beings, bringing that into the way we respond to our world. So this is what we'll be exploring in this talk. reflecting together. And we'll look at three primary blocks to engage spirituality. And there are really three ways that we react to suffering. And one of them is with anger and blame, kind of that aggressive bad othering. And another one is that we dissociate. We kind of cut off from what's happening. And then a third that we'll talk about us getting emotionally overwhelmed by what's happening. But I'd like to start in a different place, which is really what energizes and inspires engaged spirituality. And that really is this realizing

of our human potential, that we have a vision of something more that's possible. Because as many know, it's written in the gospel that without a vision, people parent. perish. And I often think in an evolutionary sense, you know, that our human brain has tripled in volume over the last several million years. And a major cause of this has been that our relational capacities, our social capacities for empathy, for bonding, for compassion, for collaboration, they serve our species. And those are the qualities we most need today. So, Not only do we have them, these pro-social qualities, they're actually hardwired in for our surviving and flourishing. And if we view the species over the many centuries, we can see how these capacities have shaped our trajectory

because there's generally less violence. There's less tolerance for torture, for race, for slavery, for civilian killing. There's more collaboration around the globe in addressing poverty and disease and natural disasters. And under all of that, there's this increasing capacity to connect across difference, to realize or belonging to each other.

I saw a cartoon and in it, there was this big wolf and a pretty little, little lamb and they're sitting at a table and they're in an intimate conversation, you know, holding paws, their eyes into eyes. And she's saying, you know, we should be more concerned about your parents' reaction. And generation by generation in much of this interconnected world, we are getting more fluid and more tolerant and it's happening. We're widening our sense of belonging beyond differences in

race or religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, many domains. So, the evolution of consciousness over the longer stretch of history, less violence, more evidence of our capacity for love. And I think for me, the most compelling evidence is when I sense my own unfolding and I bear witness to so many of you. I mean, if you look at your own evolving in the past years, can you see how you've become kinder or more present, are caring more about being kind and present because that counts,

you know, more responsive to other people suffering? I mean, my sense is if we can feel that awakening of, consciousness in ourselves and then others around us, it's happening. It's happening around the world. And it's natural that evolution towards a more compassionate world isn't smooth. It's fits and starts. And I guess we're in a real fit right now, but there is a dialectic. And, you know, if you look through the in the last, let's say, 30 years. We can see progress, you know, we can see, I think, of restorative justice, you know, learning to reconcile conflicts and difference nonviolently and growing a more real democracy. And so there's this progress that happens and then backlash.

There's white supremacy that becomes more in its fullness, walls against refugees, G's, and this is U.S. and Europe, then the United States, a growing percentage saying violence against government is legitimate. You know, restrictions on abortion, voter rights, banning books. And this is all the last few years, you know, outlawing the teaching of real history. So it's what we sometimes call a limbic hijack. It's a swing back. And this happens. This happens through history and there's huge suffering in it. And if we want to keep moving forward, we have to recognize the realness of it. But here's what's important. The qualities that can move us forward, which really are mindful presence, compassion, a real cherishing of life, they're in us

and they can be cultivated. In other words, and this is to me the big deal, we can actually consciously shape our evolution. We can further it. It requires having vision. You know, it requires being able to sense what is the world we want to see emerge from these challenging times? Because if you think of it, one of the most notable things about spiritual leaders, you know, Martin Luther King Jr., Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, and also about transformative social movements, you know, abolitionism, the movements for social justice and so on, there's a vision of the world that we sense as possible. There's a vision of a world that expresses our human potential and vision needs to be real

in our consciousness before it manifests as real in the world. You know, it calls us forward. It evolves us. It energizes us. You know, I think of the vision of Ruby Sales, who's a living spiritual leader. She's deeply inspiring to me, African-American social activists, who's also a scholar and a theologian. Ruby has a wonderful way of describing true democracy. And it's not inviting excluded people to the white table, but together, creating a new table, you know, one that honors the contributions and values of all people equally. And I listened to Ruby with kind of describe this vision and I just want to hold hands with her and with others and create that table. It's so compelling. So we need vision. We need to start with vision and like to invite us all to pause for a moment. let the attention go inward. Take this as a moment to arrive and just sense for yourself what that means, this vision of what's possible. Sense for yourself, what do you really long to see

unfold in our world? You know, we think of the word imagine. Most know the song imagine, John Lennon and why it touches us so much. There's something that we long for, that we can sense as possible, but not here yet. What is it? Maybe it's a sense of a non-violent world where there's peaceful, civil ways of resolve and conflict. Maybe democratic governments where each citizen truly is treated equitably, where there's real trust between people. Maybe it's this world where we really take care of the vulnerable, including non-human animals, including the earth. What is it you envision in cultivating engaged spirituality? We start with

vision and possibility and then we honestly look at, well, what's between us and the world we believe in. And you might think of this, that we already have the science, the resources, the technology, the capacity to problem solve, that's needed to respond to climate change in a way that avoids the worst catastrophes, that handles pandemics in a way that can eliminate poverty, bring good medicine, education to everyone on Earth. We have the science. We have the science. So what stops us? And it's really greed for money, for power, hatred, that bad othering, and then the aggression that's used to enforce power to eliminate the bad other.

And then the fear that's unprocessed and keeps us reactive. Greed, hatred, aggression, fear. You know, one general of the army, Omar Bradley wrote, Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war than we know about peace, more about killing than we know about living. We've grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the sermon on the Mount. Our real challenge is not a lack of know-how. NAR is it a particular bad actor.

The real challenge is when the universal and primitive energy, of greed and hatred, aggression and fear dominate when they take over. Because when they take over, they disconnect us from the more recently evolved capacities for reason and empathy and love. And you can see the mark of the primitive energies and the values and assumptions of most contemporary cultures. And just to name one is the green light on aggression, the attraction to strong men leaders, the rightness of leading with military might, aggression. One New Yorker cartoon had two highly decorated generals talking to each other and one saying, I had a bad dream last night. It really shook me. The meek had inherited the earth.

So the cause of suffering, the domination of greed, hatred, aggression, fear. It's It's in every human heart. I mean, I think of Zen Master and lifelong peace activist, Ticknaudhan, saying we often think of peace as the absence of war, that if powerful countries would reduce their weapon arsenals, we could have peace. But if we look deeply into the weapons, we see our own minds, our own prejudices, fears, and ignorance. So if we want to pursue a path aligned with our heart, we have to ask ourselves, how might these energies be in me? How may they be blocking, moving forward? And we start with anger and blame because I know for myself, I don't think of myself as filled with hatred and aggression, but I can see daily how easy it is for me

to react to the suffering in the world by focusing on a bad other, you know, a group of people or bad actor. And I know this creates separation. It's the root of war and I'm also not alone. It's entirely natural to do that. And yet unless we do the inner work, you know, mindfully, compassionally uprooting what Ticknodhans pointing to that's in each of us, we're perpetuating the energies that cause suffering. And perhaps one of the most well-known verses from the Buddhist scriptures is this, that hatred never seizes by hatred, but by love alone is healed, that this is the ancient and eternal law. So for our words and actions to be transformational to help evolve our world, they must come from a spiritually awakening heart. Gandhi famously took a day a week for just spiritual

practice and people would, you know, try to get in touch with him, but he was religious about carving out this day. And he did it, he said, because he wanted to ensure that his activism was coming from his heart, from his spirit. In a similar way, Nelson Mandela practiced daily meditation through the course of his imprisonment. He really dedicated to cultivating the good. And as many of you know on that February day in 1990 when he walked out of prison, he said he forgave all who had imprisoned him, tortured him, and murdered his countrymen. This is what he wrote. No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin or his background or religion. They must learn to hate and if they can learn to hate they can be taught to love for love comes more naturally to the

human heart than the opposite. Love comes more naturally. And we know this in the deepest ways, we know that when we feel most at home in our being, it's when we're feeling loving. And we have to learn love. We have to actively train in it because we're in cultures that train us to bad other each other, to have enemies. Again, I think of Tiknaud Han, many know peace activism started during the Vietnamese War. Well, he and the monks and nuns that were with them refused to take sides so that the U.S. suspected they were Viet Cong and the Viet Cong considered them the enemy. And so there they were and they're really young, late teens, early 20s, this group of monks and nuns and one night their encampment was bombed and all but

a few of them were killed. Survivors were asked to make a statement. And I'll never forget this. It was just a few days after losing dear ones. And he said, all are forgiven. This violence was done out of ignorance. So just speak personally for a few minutes on this theme that I was involved with social activism starting in my late teens.

And it was before I had a spiritual practice and I was en route to law school. And then midway through undergraduate work in college, I started yoga and meditation. So I started experiencing this really disconcerting swing where I'd go to, like on the weekends I'd go to rallies and meetings and so on and it would be very us-them, real stridency and aggression, you know, the enemy out there and the police officers were referred to. who has pigs and those were total distrust, dismissal of anyone that wasn't, you know, completely in line with a certain set of beliefs. You get the idea, this is not love and action. And then on Tuesday nights I go to my yoga class and meditate and this peace and harmony

and open-heartedness. And, you know, I remember one particular occasion where my body and mine were in the very same place at the same time. There was a real oneness. And, you know, you know, it became so clear that this loving place was home and this was my true nature and that any action, you know, for social change, it had to come from this, you know, how to have my work, my life come from this. So it was a 180-degree turn, you know, instead of going to law school, I spent 10 years in an ashram and then left and got deeply involved with the Buddhist path. and over the years increasingly engaged in activism and it only gets more real for me that our activism has to come from care, not from hate and anger. So it's a daily practice for me.

It continues to be to wake up at a bad othering because the reflex is right in there. And I share because I know it's deep conditioning for all of us and it's such an important element in moving forward towards more freedom, more justice, more healing to be able to face that and work with it. So we'll pause here. Just do a brief reflection. And in this reflection you'll be invited to choose something that stirs you up and then going on in the world right now that brings up a

anger and blame, bad othering. And whether it's you're thinking of what's going on in Ukraine or the politics in your own country or other places of suffering, let yourself become aware of some place where you're targeting, where you're looking at a group or an individual and fixated, sensing anger, hatred, deep aversion. And if some of you are finding there's none of that going on for you, then any place where you're having a reaction that's difficult to what's going on in the world, it might be fear or despair, and bring it to mind, bring to mind what's going on and let yourself focus in on it enough so you can really feel the reaction.

and feel what brings up your anger, your blame. And we'll practice a light rain, the acronym Rain, which is an acronym for mindfulness and compassion. And we begin by recognizing, just mentally whisper whatever the strongest emotions are that you're aware of. The A of Rain is allow, let them be there, not judging them, not trying to feel,

fix anything. The eye of rain is to investigate, to sense what you're believing and feeling. Perhaps you're believing that this person or group is responsible for great suffering and what you're feeling, just feel it in your body. Feel where you feel it most strongly. It might be your throat or your chest or your belly. And if it helps, just let your body take the posture of anger and blame, you know, maybe fists, maybe your jaws clenched, and feel deep into it, deep, deep into the place where you feel it most strongly in your body, and just sense what might be under that if you let the anger blame be there but feel under it, what's it trying to do? What's the deepest feeling in there? Is it trying to protect? Is it trying to help?

Is it trying to change things? The N or nurture is to bring a sense of real care towards the most vulnerable part within you. You might put your hand on your heart and just offer kindness. When we're angry, it's because we care about something. We care deeply. So just offer kindness to that vulnerability underneath the anger. that cares about something and breathe and be here and sense as you do that there's a larger

presence that you're a part of, that there's more heart space and you might sense that you're practicing with others and that this collective heart space can hold what's here. We don't have to be lost in the stories and take a few full breaths and come on back So one of the blocks to engage spirituality is responding with a kind of bad othering because it keeps us from the deeper care that's there. If we stay on the level of you're bad, we won't get down to what is really going on under the anger, which is that we care about something. Now, I want to explore two other blocks to engage spirituality. I mentioned them earlier. You might think of one as being dissociated and the other is being over-associated.

And dissociation appears as kind of being disinterested in the suffering around us, not touch, not caring, not feeling it affects us, that what's happening doesn't really matter to us. It reminds me of this co-gest, an athlete, what was the cause for his poor performance? He says, so what is it with you? Is it ignorance or apathy? and the response was, coach, I don't know and I don't care. It's easy to be in our bubble, especially when things are stressful,

handling our own difficulties or own concerns and forget that we belong to a wider, hurting world. And then whatever our expressions of activism, whatever our words are, they're not coming from a tender heart as much as a sense of habit or a sense of should, you know, a moral obligation. There's a word out slackivism, which it's a new word for me, but it means just minimal output through the internet. I wish I hadn't heard it, but I can relate. But more of what we're talking about with the association is generally when we do act or speak, we're doing what's convenient for us. You know, kind of reminds me of this story of

children on a school bus and they're in the back eating treats and one little girl brings a handful of peanuts to the bus driver and he says, oh, thank you, how generous. And she does it a second time, brings him some peanuts and he goes, oh, how kind of you, thank you. But the third time she brings him a handful. He says, no, no, no, you children keep it, you enjoy. And she goes, oh, no, we're just sucking the chocolate off of them. So you get the idea. It's not out of the depth of our caring that we're acting when we're dissociated. Our heart is not being touched. So the inquiry is if dissociated, what wakes up and widens our caring. And what it is, something in us knows we're not fully inhabiting our heart and our lives. And the beginning

of coming back is coming back into our bodies. Just to begin the practices like a body scan of just on purpose, feeling our bodies from the inside out, with mindfulness, with kindness. The second part of this, when we're dissociated, is to deepen our attention on purpose to suffering. That's our own suffering and the suffering of others, to really attend. And that means when we're talking about widening circles of suffering, learning, you know, tuning to what's going on for others and not the headlines, a deeper dive where we can really be asking, what's it like being you for those that are in positions of real vulnerability, reading the books, watching the documentaries, and most important talking to people who

are struggling, really listening deeply. I love the way Ruby Sales describes it, that kind of curious care that says, where does it hurt? Where does it hurt? My son and Narayan's 35 and, you know, for most of his life, he was informed but his care was pretty mental, pretty abstract, kind of dissociated from the world and the world's suffering. And then he became a dad and things started changing. And he became more tender in response to his own experience and his partners and his children, especially these last years, all the stressors of pandemic. And he started purposely attending and imagining into the experience of others in wider

circles, you know, perspective taking like, what's it like being you? And he called me a few days ago, because what had broken him open was the story of this terrified Ukrainian woman who was calling and talking to her mother who was in Russia, a Russian mother. And she was saying to her mother, my building is being shelled by the Russian military. And she was, you know, so scared. And her mother refused to believe her. Her mother just said, no, it couldn't be. our government wouldn't do that to you.

And she's saying, it's happening. It's happening right now. We're being chilled. No, no, that can't be true. So we're talking about this second block dissociation, what gets us more attending. And the word that I love is getting proximate with suffering. This is from Brian Stevenson, because the more close in we get to what's going on for people, the more will naturally care. Now, dissociation generally comes from fear. We're afraid of the rawness of what's there and when we start opening we can easily

swing to being over-associated or overwhelmed and I think that's what's most prevalent right now. It's not so easy to turn away from the horrors of the world and of course if we're caught in doom scrolling or if we're in a panic or rage or powerless or traumatized that is. more suffering, it doesn't serve. So this is the third block which is over-associated, you know, overwhelmed. And how do we deal with that? And there are many practices that are individual practices we can do grounding, feeling the earth underneath us, you know, feeling our senses awake. Okay, right this moment, listening, seeing, breathing, extending the breath, long, deep breathing. We can practice, you know, moving, walking, shaking, dancing. We can turn our

attention to what brings ease, you know, nature, music. But what I want to most emphasize, which is to me a key in working with the overwhelm that gets in the way of engaged spirituality is reaffirming a larger belonging, knowing what we belong to that's larger than our individual self. And this is the importance of being together in what's going on. You know, because our shared awareness has space, has heart space for what's here. We can't do it alone. Some of you might know I'm a co-founder of what's called the Cloud Sanga, and that's mindfulness groups that each have a mentor.

And the primary focus in these last weeks has been reckoning with the suffering of our world, the grief and despair and powerlessness. And one person and one of the groups shared that this would have broken me without being able to share with others, being able to name what's going on inside or hear how others are resourcing themselves and widening her view, you know, just feeling part of a larger caring community. And you might be thinking, well, I don't have a spiritual group with a trained facilitator and certainly, you know, groups like Cloud Sanga help.

And all we really need is even one trusted person who's like us dedicated to engage spirituality and with that person sharing, listening. For some of you who listen to this talk as a webcast on Wednesdays, there's a mindful dialogue group that meets directly after. It's a lovely community that's growing fast. You can find that on tarabrock.com slash class. We need friends. We need beings that we can share our distress with, our fears, our despair, and our hopes and our vision.

because here's the thing, we are more intelligent and wise and caring together. I often think of a story that friend and colleague Frank Ostostaski shares. He gave a workshop in Berlin on grief and forgiveness. And as the workshop was ending, a woman in the very back of the room stood up and said, you know, I've been listening to you talk about forgiveness, but my father was a prisoner in the concentration camps and I can't forgive as Kellers. My heart is like ice. The whole room went silent. The only appropriate response was to bear witness. And then another woman on the other side of the room raised her hand to speak. And Frank was thinking to himself now

all the stories of the camps and the grief of those losses will come. And she stood and she said, My heart is like ice too. It feels like a stone. My father was a Nazi officer who was a guard in the camps. I know that he killed people. I can't forgive him. There was silence and then these two women did the bravest thing that Frank says he had ever seen. He said they made their way across this large conference hall, 200 people and they embraced. They didn't say a word. They didn't have to. They just held each other. They weren't alone in their pain. And as Frank put it for that moment, their suffering was all of our suffering. We need to feel grounded in a larger belonging in order to be able to touch the suffering, to care, and

to respond. Frank has a wonderful question. He says, what is love asking for? from me today? To me, that's an inquiry of engaged spirituality. What is love asking for me today? And we can ask ourselves that. You know, how is love and action going to look like today? And we can explore how can we best respond given our own skills and our personalities and the places of most concern, what most touches us? We can start in teaching. and sensing how we can actively respond. And for some of us, you know, for all of us, if we're in some version of democracy, it's voting. And, you know, we can give our time to protect and support others in their effort to vote.

Some it means speaking out more publicly, some it's writing, some it's more demonstrations and protests or peace walks. for many donating money, donating goods, donating time to organizations that serve the greater good. Giving of ourselves however fits us. But here's what's important. I found this in my own life that to sustain energy and heart, we need to team up with others. We need to talk and act together. We really need to know we're part of a larger movement of goodness, that there's basic goodness

in all beings and that we're part of that. You know, after the killing of George Floyd, African-American friend told me about being at a demonstration near the capital in D.C. And everybody was chanting there, Black Lives Matters over and over again. And when he looked up, he looked around, he realized, it's primarily white faces. And then he started weeping. You know, his thoughts, you know, they care. And it could feel the goodness of that caring it. And then as he shared, as I heard this story, I teared up, just feeling his good heart being touched by caring and how much that widened the field of belonging for me.

and that's the rippling and it happens. Martin Luther King Jr., I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why Wright, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant. Truth and love will have the final word in reality. On your path of engaged spirituality, it's a lot of true. It's this trust in what's possible and this knowledge of belonging to a larger movement of goodness that will carry you forward. And maybe as a way of closing we can reflect together, you might take a moment to very

consciously pause, come into stillness, perhaps close your eyes or let your gaze be downcast and feel yourself right here. and allow yourself to bring to mind a sense of our world, both the suffering in our world, and also to think of all the people in this world right now that are caring deeply. Think of the millions of refugees from Ukraine into Poland and how in Poland they don't have to set up a refugee center yet because people are opening their homes. think of the care think of all the people who like you really want a more peaceful and loving world

you might think of all those who are consciously working with their own experience trying to wake up more mindfulness more kindness those who are dedicated to a path of love in action all those trying to make a difference help the most vulnerable And just to think of all of those in the midst of great suffering who are vulnerable and helping each other through the war, through oppression, through pandemics, through famines, through floods and fires, the goodness. Again, all of us here now, hearts that care. This caring is our hope.

It's the grounds of what's possible for our species. and you might remind yourself of what you long for, for our world, and feeling millions around the world, most beings really deep down longing for the same. And putting your trust in the power of our human hearts because the more we trust, the more will let our hearts guide us, guide our words and our actions. We close friends with a simple prayer as we feel our shared heart space. consciousness across the globe continue to awaken increasing compassion justice and love may there be an end to war may we live in a world where all beings are peaceful and happy healthy and free namaste and bless you for your good hearts