Tara Brach - Finding True Refuge

Episode Date: January 2, 2013

2013-01-02 - Finding True Refuge - This talk explores the three classic gateways to peace and freedom and includes a living ritual that invites us to bring a conscious, sincere dedication to our awakening on the spiritual path. Please support this podcast by donating at www.tarabrach.com or www.imcw.org. Your donations allow us to continue to freely offer the teachings!

So I wanted to, as the beginning of a New Year's talk, share a story that has been drifting around, and I think many traditions. And it's about a diamond thief. He's also really well-known pickpocket. And he hangs around the Diamond District in India. And he's just to see who's purchasing what. And one day, a very well-known diamond merchant purchased one of the most beautiful, valuable gems around. And this guy followed him. And he boarded a train. And for the next

three days during this journey on the train, he tried to pick the merchant's pocket and get that jewel. And at the end of the journey, he hadn't found it. And he was completely frustrated. So he was an accomplished thief, and kind of his pride was wounded. So he finally confronted the merchant, and he confessed and basically said, I've used all the skills of my art. Where did you hide it? Like, how did that happen? And the merchant responded, well, I saw you.

I suspected what was going on. So I hid the diamond in the place you'd be least likely to expect in your own pocket. And I share that because the understanding is really that the treasure we seek, what we really long for is closer than we can possibly imagine, that the treasure we seek the freedom, the happiness, the love is already and always right here. It's right inside us. And yet we move through our life as if in this trance that it's somewhere else. So we not only look in the wrong place,

but we forget really what we're looking for. that's kind of an opening to what we'll be exploring. Thoreau says that we spend our life fishing only to find out it wasn't fish that we were after. So there's this deep recognition really that the spiritual path is simply a process of forgetting and then remembering and then forgetting again and then remembering and we go back and forth. We kind of begin to get that. And one of the very enlivening things about beginning a new year is there's a kind of collective sense of stepping back and looking. It just happens. We do that with these little time segments in our life.

And it can be a very valuable moment if we bring our hearts to it in that stepping back and looking to actually re-engage in our life in a more wholehearted, intentional way. So that's the possibility. So different spiritual traditions have different practices and rituals and ceremonies that help with remembering. And what we'll be exploring tonight is a ceremony called taking refuge. And it's very well-disclose described in the Buddhist tradition, but the process is based on three gateways that help us realize that diamond, that radiance, that clarity, that purity, which is our deepest nature. And the three gateways you'll find in many, many spiritual traditions. And the first gateway that is described is called taking refuge in Buddha or Buddha nature.

Buddha means awaken nature. So the first refuge is learning to see and perceive and inhabit that purity of awareness itself. The second refuge is called taking refuge in the Dharma in the Buddhist tradition. And that really means taking refuge in the truth of the moment. Right here what's happened. happening. And the third refuge, which is taking refuge in the Sangha, Sangha means the community of spiritual friends. It really means taking refuge in loving presence. So we'll be exploring each of these domains and then ending the evening with a, what I think of as a living ritual.

It's very, it's, we'll bring ourselves into it fully and it's quite beautiful. I love it. And I'm curious how many of you have done this with us before, the refuge ceremony. Yeah, a good number. So another language for the three refuges that we explore is the triple gem, which is really different facets of that diamond that is within us. And my book True Refuge is organized around these three archetypal gateways. and the basic teaching is that our suffering is because we live in a trance or a story of a limited self that's separate from the rest of the world.

And that as we turn towards each of these ways of paying attention to truth, to love, to our belonging, to awareness, we awaken out of that narrow belonging. We awaken to that diamond is free to really shine. We get to inhabit the fullness of who we are. So we'll be beginning, actually, in a way that I find most useful by looking at how we forget, how we forget the diamond, how we forget that what we cherish and what's true is really our own deepest essence.

and I often call this process one of we get hooked on false refuges that instead of turning to love or turning to awareness or turning to the present moment we get hooked on substitutes okay and one of the ways that I've heard it's described is that we we put the ladder on the wall and we climb up only to find we've been climbing up the ladder on the wrong wall you know we took all this energy. And not only we climbing up the ladder, we race up the ladder and we're racing away from something. So it's all based on this innocent misunderstanding

of what will bring us happiness. A huge amount of activity of our day and a huge amount of our mind states comes from this misunderstanding of what will really free us. And in both Buddhist and Western psychology, that misunderstanding is described in this way, that we have this reflex when there's pleasantness to think, to be happy, I need to hold on. Or I need to run after it and get it.

And we have a reflex when there's something unpleasant to think, well, to be happy or peaceful, I need to get away from it. That basic dynamic of trying to control our experience actually obscures the diamond because it takes us from presence. Most of our moments, if we check it out, if we become aware of our own process, we're moving away from something or moving towards something. There's really an inner kind of stillness that has that equanimity that just open to what's coming and going. And yet, it's only when there's that unmoving quality of presence that we can sense the shine of what we are and the tenderness and how that same shine and

tenderness is in each being that we are in relationship with. So, there's this misunderstanding And we have this if only mind, that's what it's usually called in Buddhist circles, that we have this if only mine that has a sense that if only such and such I'll feel better. And it's usually if only I get this done or get past this event that's really demanding or scary or if only somebody that we love that's acting a certain way will just cooperate with the way we think they should be, then I'll be happy. Or if only my body is 20 pounds less, or has this kind of appearance, less wrinkles, or whatever it is. So there's this, if only, and then we're always moving towards what we think is going to make the difference. We're on our way somewhere. So the challenge is really to step back and look at our patterns and reflect, is this what I go towards each day or what I run from.

is that process bringing me happiness? Like a real honest, does that bring happiness? Is this serving freedom? I'll share that one of my insights into false refuge many years ago, I realized that when people said to me, Oh, Tara, you're so busy, I felt internally some pride about it. Like there was something, you know, good about being busy.

And the more I investigated it, there was this sense that what I was going for was a certain appearance of busy and accomplishing so that I would get respect, so I would feel worthy, so I would feel like I was a good person. So I had this whole worthiness project going on. And it was very fleeting, you know, whether, and it wasn't just the busyness when somebody would admire or something. There was this like inflation. But what I started finding out was that in the moments that I was feeling really happy, are really peaceful, or really freed up, it had nothing to do with any accomplishment, with any kind of admiration, any appreciation, any approval, nothing to do with any of it. Not only that.

In the moments when I was going for any of that, and by the way I'm not saying that activity and creativity and accomplishment can't be a part of our flourishing. But in the moments I was kind of grasping onto it, I was not in presence. It wasn't available to me. The diamond was obscured, that awakeness, that tenderness was obscured. So the challenges were hooked on substitutes. I mean, if we're not free, it's because in some way we're hooked and we haven't examined it. And for many of us, it's approval.

We're hooked on what the culture basically says is good. You know, be intelligent or make a lot of money or look a certain way or, you know, appear a certain way. I was really struck. We just came back, a number of us. In fact, I've been seeing the faces here from our annual New Year's retreat. And I was very struck by one woman in her 60s who was, she described herself as she's, you know, the type A that was always striving and never felt like she was enough. During the retreat, her mind kind of got quiet.

And she touched an experience that felt precious and rare of absolutely feeling like enough. Like there was just as I am, it's fine. And there was a real deep peace with that and she kind of sadly said, why did I have to wait so long to realize I don't have to always try to prove myself, even more of that, that in the moments of trying to prove myself, I'm clearly feeling underneath that not enough. It kind of reaffirms not enough. So we go fishing and it's just interesting to notice what we're fishing for and whether the moments we catch, we wouldn't be hooked unless we got a temporary lift from it.

We have to get some benefits. And I talk to people that are constantly over-analizing what's going on and at retreat, one woman was describing as she's always figuring out everything and analyzing and judging and comparing. But she's got very bright. She's gotten so many benefits, so many kudos from this bright mind that it's hard to remember that that intellect, figuring things out, will not reveal the real true essence of who she is. You can't think your way into freedom.

It's a tool, but it's not going to carry us. So we go fishing and we do it for sensory pleasures and many moments of the day just noticed you know, what are we trying to get? One story of a woman in Miami, she's sitting on a bench, and the guy comes and sits next to her, there's a park or something, and she says, so, what's your story?

And he says, well, actually I just got out of, in prison 25 years. She goes, oh, what were you in prison for? And he says, well, I murdered my wife. And she goes, so, you're single. You know, they say it in India, that when a pickpocket sees a saint, they see the saint's pocket. It's like, you know, what are we fishing for and what are we missing out on? Zen Master Rio Khan, he says, if you want to find the meaning, stop chasing after so many things.

So this is one way that we are out there, you know, trying to steal the diamond, get the diamond, and just not remembering. We're chasing after things. The other way we kind of leave and obscure who we are is in the moments that we're resisting what's unpleasant and we all know about that. I mean, it's like when there's pain, we want it to go away. And that's part of our conditioning,

but it's so pervasive that we get locked into our strategies and what are they? We run away from unpleasantness or discomfort by going online. I name that a lot these days because I'm so aware of it as an addiction. And we do it in many numbing activities, whether it's using drugs or alcohol or shopping or whatever it is, but we do it that way. And we do it through our anger and our aggression and our judgment. We try to get rid of unpleasantness by controlling it with our judgment.

judgment. You know the line that the world is divided into those who think they're right. And that's the whole line. This is everything. So our probably our biggest way of trying to get what we want and avoid what we don't want, our kind of substitutes is through obsessive thinking. We're addicted to thinking, to figuring things out. And in the moments of obsessive thinking, those moments we can't open to and recognize and inhabit what's here. They take us away. So it becomes a really valuable and important inquiry to find for ourselves, well how am I trying to seek satisfaction or relief or peace? Like what's my strategy? And is it working? And it's a beautiful way to begin a new year because we have the opportunity to look with

some honesty and some clarity. And we can decide in any moment, hey, there's a way of deepening attention and coming home that's possible. So this was the question the Buddha asked. He looked at his life and he said, you know, okay, there's aging, there's sickness, there's death, everything's insecure, I'm going to lose everything. what I'm doing and the way I'm living, I'm serving happiness and freedom. And this is the way he described it. He said, why should I, whom subject to birth, old

age and sickness, death, sorrow, and suffering, why should I take refuge in that which is also subject to change? Let me find that which is changeless, which is deathless, which is unborn and undying, that is a true refuge. And that's what he did. I mean this is why So many people are following the teachings and practices of the Buddha. And this is not just the Buddha. This is really the inquiry of every saint and sage and mystic through history. And this is our inquiry. We get it.

These lives are insecure. We get it that everything that is conditioned to exist is also conditioned to non-existence. And that really, if we want to feel peaceful, we have to find a refuge that is timeless. Sometimes that refuge is described as loving awareness, as God, as spirit. It's a quality of wholeness of being or beingness. Many, many names. But regardless of the name, as the Buddha described it, this whole world is changing. is changing. What is changeless? What's always in a ready here? And again, this is,

I love the diamond metaphor, because you can sense the, a kind of luminosity and purity that is really at the source of all being. So how to realize that, how to come home to that is really the inquiry. So we begin to explore these three gateways of turning from that, which is kind of chasing after or resisting to a quality of timeless presence. And we begin with the first gateway that I described. Actually, I'm going to do them in a different order. In the traditional Buddhist teachings, it's the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha. I'm going to start with Dharma because Dharma has to do with the practices that we all do together.

And I think it's a very good ground for this. Now, in each of the three gateways, there's an outer expression and an inner expression. And the outer expression of Dharma, and I'd be asking you to reflect for yourself on what most resonates for you, because it really covers the whole path. The outer expression of Dharma is all any teaching, any practice that really serves your awakening and freedom. So for you it may be coming to classes, it may be retreats, it might be books, it might be listening to audio talks, it might be certain reflections.

For you taking refuge in the Dharma, which is the path of freedom, could be anything that helps you to feel a sense of spiritual strength, a sense of inspiration, a sense of really understanding more clearly the nature of reality. That's the outer. The inner refuge of Dharma is the practice of paying attention to what is right here now. It's the truth of the moment. So the inner practice is really learning to pause because we're all rolling forward into what next can I have to make me more comfortable or how do I get away from this? relieving the moment, taking refuge in the Dharma, sometimes called the truth, means taking refuge by pausing and sensing, oh, what's right here? It's that question, what is happening inside me right

now? And then it's that inquiry, and can I be with this? That is taking refuge in truth. the challenge is learning to stay. We dip in a little bit and we sprint off. This is Charlotte Joko, back a Zen teacher. She says, return to that which we have spent a lifetime hiding from. Learn to return to that which has spent a lifetime hiding from to rest in the bodily experience of the present moment, even if it is a feeling of being humiliated, of failing, of abandonment, of unfairness, learn to come back to what we've been running from.

So how come? Why would we want to have to come back and hang out with unpleasantness? And what we start discovering is that first of all, there's some wisdom in us that knows that if we're running away, we'll never be at peace. Because we'll always sense that there's something there that's lurking, you know, under the covers or something around the corner that's going to get me. So only by facing the reality of what's here and befriending it and making peace with it, can we find a sense of real refuge. So something wise and us already knows that. And what happens is as we learn to stay, as we bring presence to what's here, we discover in that presence a sense of space, a sense of tendering,

fairness and a sense of clarity. In other words, we find our refuge just by staying. I give you example very, very recent for me, again, a false refuge. I had my family, my sisters and my son and his partner come in about a week before Christmas to stay with me. And that meant I had a mob, real mob for me, of people staying at my house, a week. And I was still like, to me, well, I'm still working, but they were there. And so I had to figure out a way to keep communicating that I'm not ready to take off and party. So there I was, and I had a very, very busy lead-up to the holidays. I had to put together a lot of talks and deal with a lot of things to do with this book launching and so on.

So I was kind of over my head. So when I was with them, I found that I was constantly, feeling either guilty or apologetic, but trying to angle so I could get out of a conversation and go back to my desk. Like every encounter on some level I had in the back of my mind, how do I really cut this one short? And I was really kind of mechanical. And then it hit me that, hey, wait a minute, you know, I'm hooked on my, have to get things done, I'm on my way somewhere else mode and these are very, very dear beings and who knows how long we have. So I said, okay, I'm going to learn to stay. So I'd be with, say, my son and he'd be telling

me something he's really excited about and I would just, you know, I just feel in my body, I'd just say, okay, what's going on? And I'd feel the anxiety because this is just kind of a clutching and just kind of inwardly name it, okay, anxious, want to get things done, name it, name it a few times, breathe with it. And I found that if I just stayed and stayed really honest with my own discomfort, gradually there was this kind of presence that would open up that there was actually room for him. And I could listen and I could be there. And it was true with my sister who's visiting and we'd take walks and rather than sure cutting the walks, we'd take more time and the space would open up again. It's so very, it's so

easy for anxiety about getting things done to override what most matters. It's like we spend our life on our way somewhere else. At least that was what I was realizing. So during the retreat we were doing a gratitude reflection and I was overwhelmed, I mean really tearing up with sensing, wow, that precious moment with that person and that moment with that person and if we you know all died tomorrow it was like this is what mattered that there was that genuineness of presence and contact well take let's take a few moments to reflect together I'd like to invite you to sense for yourself this refuge in Dharma and that story is just a brief example for me

of choosing to turn towards the present moment and in turning towards the present moment coming back to that kind of diamond quality. So you might begin by just letting this be a pause, closing your eyes, and sensing what helps you to arrive right here. Maybe you're aware of the ways you leave the present moment in your life or in a meditation, what the fears are, what you're running towards or what you're running away from. But you might want to ask that to yourself. Even in this moment, What might I be running away from? What might I be hiding from?

What might be asking my attention? It might be something, it might be unpleasant, or it may be something like there's a longing there that's asking for your attention, a longing for more contact, more intimacy, more space, more creative time. Or maybe it is some anxiety or feeling of powerlessness. For many, we run from a kind of loneliness, a feeling of separateness. And for others, it's really running from a deep sense of doubt. This fear of I'm really not okay.

I'm not an okay person. What are we running from? To take refuge in the Dharma and the truth of the moment, we pause and notice what's here. And I'd invite you to let go of all thoughts and just see if you can bring your attention fully to the experience of your body, of your heart. Taking refuge has got the word faith in it.

In Polly means resting your heart and what is true. See if you can rest your heart in your experience. It's a kind of faithing, as if faith is a verb, a surrendering, so that whatever's going on inside you, you just bring your attention, your heart, a tenderness to it. It takes courage to take refuge in the Dharma and the truth. Courage is the greatness of heart. And yet this presence creates a space for that light, that shining of the diamond, that

awake heart. This is a poem called Trusting Prana, which is Energy by Dana Fowd's. She says, trust the energy that courses through you. Just trust it. and then take surrender even deeper. Be the energy. Be the energy. Don't push anything away.

Follow each sensation back to its source in vastness and pure presence. Emerge so new, so fresh, you don't know who you are. Welcome in the season of monsoons. Be the bridge across the flooded river and the surging torrent underneath. Be unafraid of consummate wonder.

Be the energy and blaze a trail across the clear night sky like lightning. Dare to be your own illumination. So this is the inner refuge of Dharma truth, opening to this aliveness, opening and opening. Okay, the second gateway. The second gateway we're going to explore is Sangha, which is this field of relatedness. And the outer way of taking refuge in the Sangha is really turning towards those relationships that help us to realize connectedness, open-heartedness, oneness. So that's really what it is.

It's to take the second refuge that I'm talking about in Sangha is really in those relationships that help to wake us up. And so traditionally, the Sangha was the community of monks and nuns that that grew up to be around the Buddha, it's really wide. And Sangha is really all those that we belong to, that remind us of what we value, those that inspire us, those that help us to remember our own goodness. So we find this community sometimes in meditation gatherings,

in healing communities. We have at the Insight Meditation Community of Washington, in this one, we have what are called spiritual friends groups, there's probably about 30 of them now, that meet once every other week and bring these teachings to their life. They explore what happens? How do we work with addiction?

How do we work with intimacy issues? How do we work when we've turned on ourselves? We're having conflict with others. It's a way in an intimate setting to explore the whole spiritual path. That's just an example of taking refuge in Sangha, this is outer Sangha. Those that help us see more clearly, feel more deeply. A friend of mind described her parents

and he was losing his eyesight and she was helping him to see by letting him know what was around and really bringing alive for him the beauty that was here. And she was losing our hearing. So he was helping her by letting her know what people were saying and just bringing her into the dialogue, into communications. I really loved hearing about that,

and hearing about it reminded me of the story of these two elderly couples who were having a friendly conversation. And one of the guys asked the other guy, Fred, you know, you went to that memory clinic. How to go? Outstanding, says Fred. You know, they taught us all the latest psychological techniques a visualization, association, made a great difference.

That's great. That's great. Then the guy asked him, what's the name of the clinic? Frank goes blank, of course. You can tell what happens. Frank goes blank. And he's thinking about it, but he can't remember. He can't remember. And then a smile broke across his face, and he asked, what do you call that flower with a long stem and thorns? You mean a rose? Yes, that was it. And he turns to his wife. Rose, what was the name of that clinic?

So we help each other out. So I really think of refuge and Sanga and this field of relationship as those that we awaken with. And I wanted to share a story I recently read in a book called A Monastery Within, which is very much what we're talking about tonight, this diamond that's within us all. And it's stories on the Buddhist path. It's written by Gil Franzdale. It's a beautiful book. a monastery within.

So in one story we hear about this man who arrives at the monastery and he's exhausted. He's discouraged. He's hopeless. Kind of a youngish man, but he doesn't feel he's capable of living a worldly life and he hopes

the monastery will provide a pathway to freedom. It's the birth of a second child that pushed him over the edge and the frustration demands on his time and he's also worn out by older child's constant pushing the limits of acceptable behavior. So he's seeking a place to practice and really a teacher to help him find peace. So to enter the monastery he finds out he has to do a

seven-day sitting in solitude. So that's the way to prove himself worthy. And so he does and it's exceedingly difficult. Just as when we have painful layers of the psyche and we start getting quiet and let go of all the normal distractions, they all come up. So the first two days that he's sitting, he's just crying and crying. And then for the third day, there's ways of nausea and fear that come up. Fourth day, he starts reviewing his life. On the fifth and sixth day, he questions every belief he ever had. Seventh day, he feels calmer and more rested, and he's eager to be admitted to the monastery and meet his new teacher. So the abbess comes in for him and she congratulates him on doing the solo retreat and says, I'll introduce

you to your new teachers. It took us a while, but we found the ideal people who can bring you both spiritual strength and freedom. So the abbess leads the man out the front gate of the monastery and waiting for him where his wife and two children. And they're very happy to see them. The man races out to embrace them. And then the abbess declares, your life and two children are your ideal teachers. In your case, nowhere else but in your family will you find the freedom you are looking for. And with that, the abbess closed the gate. So we might wonder in our own lives how often we are thinking the diamond is out there

and the weight of the diamond is one thing when all of our most profound waking up happens right where we are, right with the people, you know, our parents, our children, our friends, right with the people, especially where we're triggered. You know, it's if we don't work it out, it's still there. This is the place.

So that's another example of refuge, is to really bring a wholehearted and interested attention to what's going on right with the people in our lives. Another expression of refuge is finding that when we're most afraid and confused, often we can find that in large belonging, sensing the care and the company of others allows us the space to then be able to be with the fear.

And I think as I say that of a dear friend, and I love bringing his name up, Alex, who was a beloved part of our Sanga, and now it's been, I don't even know, maybe eight years since he passed away, but so poignant of seeing how, as his community gathered around him during those final months, how much the community gathered around him, much the love and belonging to others, there was something timeless that he felt in that that gave him the space to be with the realness of the passing of this life. And he said it. I mean, he named that. So, Sangha, community reminds us of a truth that we can't

discover if we think we're going off into a cave to meditate, which is, it's not an ego self that is waking up to some enlightenment. What we're waking up to is the truth that we belong to each other, that this love that we sense, this field of loving, really is our true home. That is the warmth and shine of the diamond. So, in the seeking of outer Sanga, I'm just giving you some examples, A final way I'll name is that it's with this kind of engagement with others that we get touched

in the very place that is our deepest inner sanctuary. Again, a story from a monastery within an engineer visits the monastery. And he's been meditating and visiting the monastery regularly for years. And the practices make sense to him. They're logical. and they're pragmatic, and he's got some hope you might overcome his chronic unhappiness and deeply felt pain by just systematically applying the practices. So he tries everything that the abbess gives them, every single practice.

And at first he's real enthusiastic with each one, but each one in some way he suffers, he encounters his wall of suffering, and he can't get past it. And then as soon as he really realizes he can't get past it, he just starts trying to think his way out, and it never works. So after many rounds, the abbess decides to approach it differently. So she gives him a special practice, one that he used to do outside the monastery for the next two years. And then when he's done it, he can then come back and get what she said,

the deeper teachings. This is what he was assigned to do as a practice, to volunteer 10 hours a week at a maternity ward, at a hospital nearby where he would hold babies that were born prematurely. The understanding being that if they didn't have enough physical contact, they wouldn't grow in a healthy way. So he plunged in, he trusted the abbess, and holding these very small, fragile beings ever so carefully, and he really watched every breath because he had this sense that, you know,

didn't know if they would just stop breathing. And he found that the most effective way to care for these babies was to hold them very gently to his chest. Six months and he starts feeling something new and it's a little spot of warmth and softness right at the center of his being. And it's kind of foreign and didn't fit his ideas about himself. So he'd ignored it by not thinking about it, which was a very good thing because if he had thought about it, he would have moved away, it would have interfered with it. Over the months,

this warmth expanded to fill his whole body and gradually over those months it started to dissolve that hard, dark wall around his heart. So he completed his time. He returned and the Abbas saw that he was transformed, that he was no longer desperate. He wasn't running from something. He wasn't trying to fit everything into a conceptual framework. He was more there. And so he got his new instructions, which were when you meditate, don't think about what is happening.

Don't think about what is happening. Rather, let your awareness be seated in the tender warmth you feel in your body. If you can do this, any meditation practice you do will be fruitful. and the man found this to be true. So this is a movement from head, from thinking to heart, to this inner refuge.

This is the inner refuge for Sanga, which is that loving presence, which has a visceral sense of warmth and openness that allows life to be as it is. It's that allowing quality that in the moments that we're with each other or with ourselves and we're totally allowing. We're paying attention but totally allowing.

In that space of allowing, a natural tenderness and warmth shines through. We're back home again. So the inner gateway is really any way of paying attention that helps us to awaken that tenderness. And it may be that we look at each other and see the goodness and we feel that love and appreciation or look at each other and see the suffering and feel the compassion. Whatever lets us feel and open into that tenderness is taking refuge in Sanga in an inner way. Okay, so let's reflect again, if you will.

Sense yourself pausing. So you begin really by taking refuge in Dharma and the truth of the moment to pause. Feel your breath, your self-errorism. here so you're going inward rather than fixating the attention outward, you're becoming intimate again with the experience right inside you. You might feel the breath at the heart and bringing to mind someone who's dear to you, someone with whom it's easy to feel love, perhaps uncomplicated love. And that could be someone who's here alive, or someone who's not alive, could include a pet, and bring the presence of this being close

in so you can see the eyes and see the sentience shining through those eyes, the intelligence, the love, and just sense what you love about this being, what the goodness is that you love, and sense your feeling of togetherness with this being. just that space that's hard to name where you're really in a field together of loving presence. So you don't even have to think of the other anymore, you can just open into that warmth that's within, that radiance. Sometimes describe the radiant empty heart, empty because it's so open. It sense a possibility of just bringing others to mind and sensing them in that same feeling, same field of loving. You might call the person and other, but it's the same one

tender, warm, shining awareness. Mary Oliver writes, So every day, so every day I was surrounded by the beautiful crying forth of the ideas of God, one of which was you. I was surrounded by the beautiful crying forth of the ideas of God, one of which was you, sensing perhaps whoever appears in your mind right now as an idea of God, as an expression of the sacred. So this is taking refuge in Sangha and loving awareness. Okay, the last refuge is taking refuge in the Buddha, our Buddha nature, and the outer way that take this third refuge is by bringing to mind an embodiment of Buddha nature. It could be the historical Buddha or Jesus, the Divine Mother, Bodhisattva of compassion, someone

who to you is wise, loving could be a friend, a relative, a teacher. You bring to mind some being where those qualities of awakeness and tenderness and love shine through and that helps to remind you, your resonance with that helps to remind you of how that diamond is right within you. So that's one way. That's the outer way. The inner way of taking refuge in the Buddha is by turning the attention and directly contemplating, reflecting, experiencing and inhabiting this formless awareness that's right here. It's really sensing that and turning towards it. It's turning towards that which is looking through your eyes right now and it's turning towards that which is listening right now.

It's that alert, inner stillness that's really aware of all that's happening. You might imagine how your life would change if every day, many times there was something you that was recognizing and trusting that diamond of lucidity and awakeness and space that is always here, awareness is always here. So we'll do our final of these three reflections. Now we're going to do the formal ceremony as a closing. And so again I invite you just to close your eyes and sense the arriving right in this pause and sense your sincerity about exploring yet this third gateway.

And you might want to begin by bringing to mind some figure that expresses the third gateway. the enlightened heart mind. You can just experiment with that. This might or might not be your path but it's powerful to bring to mind some being it might be the Dalai Lama, it might be Mother Teresa or Gandhi, it might be Kuan Yin, Bodhisattva of compassion, can be a spiritual figure or deity or a living being. Just to imagine, imagine the awakenness of that being, the sentience, the kindness, and just allow that radiance to surround you.

So that if you imagine the mind of this awakened being, you can sense vastness and lucidity, clarity, and just sense that. within you, how that mind lives right here, vastness and lucidity. You imagine the heart of that being and let that fill you with warmth and sensitivity. So your direct attention now inward, this is taking refuge in Buddha nature, to see how that tender, radiant, all-inclusive awareness is living inside you. Perhaps feel your body and heart and mind light up as if the sunlight sky, the sunlit sky, suffusing every cell of your body

and shining through the places between the cells, the spaces. Just notice what it's like to pay attention to awareness. How is awareness experiencing sounds? You hear the sounds, listening, experiencing the sensations that are here, the feelings. Just turning the mind, what's aware of all this? And just relax and let go into the openness, the open awakeness that's here, the essential stillness that's aware of vibration, the silence that's listening, this mystery that's here.

Sri Ramakrishna says, O longing mind, dwell within the depth of your own pure nature. Do not seek your home elsewhere. naked awareness alone, O mind, is the inexhaustible abundance, the purity, the beauty, the true home for which you long so desperately. O longing mind, dwell within the depth of your own pure nature. So we close with a ceremony and only take a couple of minutes and it's a way of kind of bringing alive into your day a bit of what we explore tonight. And really this is about waking up from trance. And we all need a way to wake up from trance.

And these are the three archetypical pathways of waking up by paying attention to this moment, paying attention to love, paying attention to awareness. Now, what you have, each of you should have a thread, a red thread. this thread represents it's a symbol of blessing and it represents a thread taken from the robe of a monk and they're sometimes called protection cords and just to say when

Choggiam Trunpa a Tibetan teacher was asked well what are they protecting us from his response is why yourself of course because what is they protecting us from? They're protecting us from our forgetting, from the different ways that we chase after things, from the different ways that we reflexively push things away with our judgment, from the ways that we turn on ourselves, from the ways that we separate ourselves

from each other. So the purpose of wearing this cord, and what we'll be doing is we'll be tying it around our wrist or around your neck. The purpose is a reminder. Oh, judging. Is this really bringing me more happiness, more freedom? It's a reminder. So it's sometimes said that in the marketplace, when you wear this year a monk or a nun in drag. Because you're remembering your true home by wearing it. So what we'll do is, if you will take one end of each, one of each end in each hands like this. And we'll begin a reflection, and after each reflection, you'll be tying a knot into the cord. And this, well, this is, has been a very big part of the Buddhist tradition,

the reflections and the cord are really a way to bring you home to your own path and your own freedom. The first reflection we just explored, this is taking refuge in Buddha, our Buddha nature, in the awakened heart mind. So, just to take a moment to sense,

what does it mean to you? What does it mean to you to take refuge in the awakened heart mind, to sense in your own heart the possibility, the intention to turn towards this diamond, this naked awareness, this purity that's really at the source, your own awakeness. And as you sense this first of the three refuges, turning towards awareness, towards this natural luminosity of awareness.

Please tie the first knot into your cord. Again, the word faith means resting your heart in what is true. With this first knot, you're resting your heart, you're turning towards this truth of your own capacity and potential to be awake and free. So the second reflection, refuge in the Dharma, just to reflect what that means to you, whether the outer ways of taking refuge resonate, your intention and dedication to the teachings or practices that most you feel most help you become who you really are. And then in the deepest way, refuge in

your commitment to turning towards presence. And as you sense this refuge is alive for you, that this sense of dedicating yourself to this presence, sacred presence, living presence, then please tie the second knot. Okay, the third reflection is refuge in Sangha. Again, Sangha is loving relatedness. And just to sense what this means to you and how

So you might deepen your engagement in this way, sensing the beings in your life, sensing these relationships as portals to really awakening this heart, experiencing connectedness and oneness. So as you feel the meaning of taking refuge in Sanga for you and your intention towards it, then please tie the third knot. with tying the third knot, then this chord becomes fully activated. You've now infused it with a kind of dedication towards awareness, towards truth, and towards love. So just feel that, just sense that there's some living dedication in this,

to help you remember, to help you turn over and over again to the awareness that's here, the truth of the moment, and the possibility of loving without holding back. awareness, the truth of the present moment, and loving without holding back. And then deciding whether you want your cord around your neck or around your wrist, just place it there and you might want to stand up for this. If it's around your neck you're going to be putting it behind your head so that the two ends are on your chest. And then you're going to, and I'm suggesting you stand up because of be easier to work with a partner that way. You're going to turn to somebody nearby,

and if you find there's nobody around you, just become the third person with people. And you're going to take turns in silence, helping the person to do a kind of knot that'll keep it on their wrist or around their neck. So finding a partner, helping each other. This is where Sanga comes in. Very hard to do this ourselves. Yeah, and see if you can keep this in silence. Let your partner know how tight you want it. And when you're done, please come back to sitting down and just close your eyes, come into silence.

But take your time if you're not done. Sometimes this is a delicate operation here, I know. Yeah, so again, just to keep the mindfulness, you might close your eyes and let the attention go within. in the moment we're going to chant but as you're sitting just take a moment and sense your partner

whoever you helped and sense that they are wearing a protection cord that's infused with their longing and intention to awaken to turn towards awareness to turn towards the truth of the present moment

to turn towards love and just feel your wish for your partner may you find refuge, may you be free, and know that you too are receiving blessings. Okay, your chance sheet if you need it, to please use it, and we will chant together. Namotasa, Bhagawato, Arahato, Arahato, Sama, Sambudasa, Namotasa, Bago ato Aravāsa May the sincerity of our aspiration awaken our hearts and minds

allow us to realize the radiance, goodness, and love that's at our source. May this awakening ripple out to touch all beings everywhere. May there be peace on earth and peace everywhere. May all beings be free. Namaste. The talk you just listened to has been freely offered. If you'd like to make a donation,

learn more about my schedule, or about programs offered by the Insight Meditation Community of Washington, please visit either my website, which is tarabrock.com, our IMCW site, which is IMCW.org. Thank you very much. Thank you.