Tara Brach - Finding True Refuge in This Living Dying World - Part 1

Episode Date: April 13, 2023

Finding True Refuge in This Living Dying World - Part 1 - This week, I began a two-part series inspired by Pema Chödron's newest offering, How We Live is How We Die. It's a powerful book that I highly recommend! One of our deepest inquiries is how to find happiness and peace in an inherently insecure world. In these talks, we'll explore the ways we habitually try to control our lives, and the practices of presence that allow us to cherish this living world and find freedom in the midst of change and loss.

Greetings. We offer these podcasts freely and your support really makes a difference. To make a donation, please visit tarabrock.com. Namaste. Welcome, friends. So the title of this talk and reflection is finding true refuge in this living, dying world. And maybe just to share from the start that in recent months, I've lost several very dear beings and I am currently accompanying several more friends who are in their last days. So I wanted to reflect together on maybe one of the most, I'd say, central and often not named questions in our lives, which is what helps us face loss and death?

You know, how do we open and learn to relax with the groundlessness, with the uncertainty of these lives? And I know many of you are familiar with the story of the Buddha, how as the young Prince Siddhartha, he lived in these very luxurious palaces. and he really never left the grounds of the palace area because it was huge until he was 29. And at that point he went on some outings, went outside his father's kingdom, and he encountered three people, a sick person, an old person, and a corpse. And this shook his world. And that's when the driving question his life emerged, which is how do we find

peace and happiness and freedom given the inevitable losses, the inherent insecurity of life. And so that set him off on his quest. The psychologist William James wrote that all religions and spiritual traditions begin with the cry help. And there's really deep wisdom here that no matter how well our life, lives are going, we humans all face the same predicament, really. It's that life's inherently insecure, that changes happen, it's uncontrollable, and we all die. Not only that, we lose that which we love. We lose others, and for many, we lose jobs or homes or capabilities,

feelings of relevance. So even if we're sheltered from loss, kind of like the young prince, even if we deny and we don't face the truth of change in mortality, part of us knows. You know, we sense in the background that basic insecurity. And so we look for ways to find some refuge, you know, to find what helps us with that existential angst and insecurity. And I think often of this, it's an anonymous quote, you know, that this life is a test.

It's only a test. If it had been an actual life, you would have received further instructions on where to go and what to do. So remember, this life is only a test. And, you know, we often do look outside ourselves for instructions. for protection, for shelter, for the guidance from others. Somebody sent me this recently, a man writes, Today I was jumping with a parachute for the first time and I was scared to death.

It began when the guy who was in the tandem with me asked how long I had been working as an instructor. The point being, you know, we are of the habit to seek, safety and something outside ourselves. And yet from the perspective of a human facing death, we're jumping on our own and we each need to learn inside out really how to navigate, you know, how to wake up our awareness. I'll toss in a related Zen-like metaphor for the spiritual path I've always liked, which is the spiritual path is like jumping off a plane with a parachute and then realizing, whoops, there's no parachute, and then realizing there's no ground

to hit, and then realizing there's no one who jumped. So these are realizations that actually unfold as we open and let go into moment-to-moment reality. But for many listening, it may, might have sounded a little bit woo-woo and you might be thinking that I'll opt for having an instructor in a working parachute. So, okay, without jumping ahead, so to speak, let's look more directly at this domain we're in, this living, dying moment-to-moment world. And in Tibetan Buddhism, and there's a teaching that really there's birth and death in every moment, birth and death in every moment. And science says the same.

You know, one million cells in your body die and are replaced every second. And all the cells in your body within 80 to 100 days. So there's supposedly a kind of new you. through the day there's continual arising and passings of experience of thoughts, feelings, images, sounds, the mood you might have been in at the beginning of the day entirely different world.

That once died and you're in some other one now. And in larger sweeps, the beginnings and endings of exercise routines or phases of our work life, relationships, seasons, births and deaths. And that includes the birth and death of these physical bodies and of stars and of galaxies. So change is always happening and how we relate to change. And speaking to the daily ones and the great ones actually determines the way you experience your life, the quality of your life.

And in a simple way, the question is, do we meet change and resist and try to control what's happening? Or is there a deep quality of accepting this unfolding reality, of going with the flow? And the Buddhist central realization, he went on this quest, realization was that it's really only by meeting this changing, uncontrollable life with presence, you know, with compassion, with an allowing quality of presence, that we find peace and freedom.

It's the only way to find peace and freedom in the midst. So I want to slow down here. In fact, pause with you. And just as you're listening, if you can let your attention go inward for a moment and reflect with interest, no judgment, just notice, well, how do you relate to the insecurity of change? How do you relate to the challenging changes and losses, to the reality of your own and others' deaths? Maybe there's a change, something that's major going on right now, kind of marking the landscape of your life, to have some access to presence, to opening and relaxing with what's unfolding.

And if not, are you aware of the ways of resisting, of controlling? It's an important reflection, how we relate to change. A few weeks ago, I read a book by Pema Children, How We Live is How We Die. And I'd say that this book is really the inspiration behind these talks, these two talks on this subject. How we live is how we die. It's a super high recommend friends. I hope you'll read it. It really touched me. And the book's really a really approach. powerful invitation to practice relaxing and letting go into the groundlessness of day-to-day living, really to consciously face the insecurity that's always in the background, the uncertainty,

the change. Because really, it's that day-to-day relaxing with groundlessness that allows us to meet the death of our body with a fearless, relax. open awareness. And it's that capacity to relax the change that actually allows us to cherish this life. Okay. So daily, this whole practice of surrendering to the changing flow and in a larger way the teaching is to stay aware of the impermanence of this lifetime. That's powerful. and it might sound morbid, you know. But I consider this from Bhutan. This is an anonymous quote that contemplating death five times a day brings happiness.

Now, how is that? Contemplating death five times a day brings happiness. And I'll just speak personally that I've found, and this is probably over the last couple of decades, that the more I intimately sense and face and experience this body changing, getting older, the reality of death, the more love awakens. You know, I find that there's a direct correlation. Facing death awakens love. You know, sensing my mortality, sensing others, letting myself recognize in any given

moment, you know, taking a hike, this might be the last time that I see these trees that are so familiar that I love so much or this, the movement of the river or the geese, or being with the dear one and some part of me remembers, wow, I don't know if I'll see this person again. It brings up a huge here and now cherishing. And I know so many of you listening have experience the great loving that comes alive, like really alive, fills our body in a very visceral way when we are aware of a dear one who's going to be passing soon, or if we just imagine the cherishing of it's that comes if, wow, this might be the last time of hearing this person's voice or seeing the light of consciousness in their eyes or hugging them.

when we really tune in to impermanence, it brings forward a sense of the preciousness that's here. Okay, so I mentioned that it's quite natural that we as humans, unless we're forced to get intimate with impermanence, actually have the reflex to avoid facing it, to avoid the fears and the grief that comes with loss and death. So we have the conditioning to control and resist. It's universal. I mean, you might remember the story. I remember first hearing this decades ago.

A guy falls off the edge of a cliff and he grabs onto a ledge. There's rocky crags, hundreds of feet below. And he calls out, God, God, are you there? And there's a booming yes. And he says, God, can you help me? And there's a booming, yes, God, I'll do anything. And then there's another booming, just let go. Is there anybody else there?

It's really the last thing we want to do is let go into what's happening, to open to uncertainty, to dying. You might remember that definition of death. Patrick Henry's second choice. So what this means is that much of our behavior, much of our day-to-day behavior has to do with trying to manage and control this predicament of an insecure life. We're managing and controlling. And in my book True Refuge, I describe this managing and controlling in terms of false refuges. It's just the habits that we all develop that comes out of that help, you know, how do I deal with this insecure life? So the way I define it is that a false

refuge is a habit of resisting reality and a true refuge is the habit of entrusting to reality, opening to and relaxing with the truth of what is. So it's resisting reality, are really entrusting to reality, relaxing with what's unfolding. And here's the situation that if false refuges, the ways we resist, are played out unconsciously, they prevent us from finding true refuge in the face of uncertainty and death. If our habit is to be unconsciously trying to control this ever-changing world day by day by day, we don't open to the kind of awareness and heart that really can carry us. But here's what's important, because we all have the false refuges and we all do them in a daily way.

they can become the portal for awakening if we deepen our attention. And so really a key part of the spiritual path is becoming aware of the ways we resist, becoming aware of our habits of false refuge, and learning to meet them with a non-judging presence, and that shifts them. And we're going to go into this. In fact, we're going to review the false refuges so you can begin to explore this in your own life. But I want to name that we all have this habit of thinking our particular ways of controlling and resisting are very personal and their flaws. These are universal patterns of conditioning. They're survival strategies. I mean they don't serve us anymore but they were intended to help us live. And they're

false just because they seem like they're going to provide us some benefits, they sometimes give temporary relief, but they don't do the job. And the classic example that probably many can relate to is if a young child's parents are abusive, punitive, the child in early age will develop the habit of dissociating from the body to avoid the raw pain and hurt of that. They might develop the habit of lying to protect against punishment, maybe overeating to help soothe what feels intolerable emotionally. And these are all initially adaptive coping strategies. And yet if over the years there's no presence and there's no support to help unwind them, they cause suffering. They prevent healing and freedom.

And while our habits of resisting are formed within our family or with our caretakers, they're driven by society. If you're in a society that's characterized by overconsuming or by speed or by addiction, that's going to shape your particular false refuge or society and they usually come together aggression, if there's racial or other caste systems, if there's a mainlining of deceit, you know, if those who are rewarded are rewarded because of their body size or material wealth or power, these are going to become false refuges that will seek out in order to protect ourselves from insecurity. Okay, so I'm going to review the most common ones.

And they kind of fall into three main domains and one of the domains is what we're chasing after or grasping in our daily life. And the other is the habit of running away and then the third is fighting. And these should be sounding very, very familiar to you. They're all ways of just controlling our uncertain world. So chasing after, we're really chasing after what will make life feel more secure, more stimulating, more full. And we see it daily in the ways that we seek the next hit, you know, whether it's through social media

or gaming or sugar or caffeine or sex or approval. We also see it in this background kind of belief or mind state that says if only, and check it out in your life. You know, my life will be okay, secure, happy. If only I have the right partner, I'm at the ideal weight, or I get the promotion, or my child gets into the best college, or I get the recognition and approval I'm seeking,

then I'll be happy and secure. And a big one of those is chasing after, grasping after getting things done. It's almost like the more we're in the doing self, the more we avoid that deep insecurity that comes when we're just being, like something's going to go wrong if we're just being. So there's chasing and grasping after happiness in all realms. I mean, it's spiritual realms too. There's that story of the Zen Abbott and he's at the monastery and a new student comes to the door who wants to join the monastery and the student says, well, how long will it take me to be enlightened? And the abbot says, 10 years. And the student

says, what if I try really hard? The abbot says, 20 years. And then the student said, wait a minute, you said 10 years, Abbott said for you, 30. So we grab. We chase after and it can preoccupy us for decades really, keeping us from opening to the preciousness of the life that's right here that's happening. That's the first domain of false refuges, grasping, chasing after. The second is running away. And again, listen for ways this might be happening in your life. And that dissociating from the body, leaving the body, just staying completely lost

and virtual world of thoughts, numbing, avoiding, different ways that we might lie or misrepresent, procrastinating, pretending, denial. Something's not happening, looking away. So we control by avoiding what we're afraid of, intimacy, challenges at work, the judgment of others. heard a story of an elderly Jen invited to an old friend's home for dinner. And the friend's impressed by the way as Buddy proceeds every request to his wife with an enduring term such as honey or my love or darling or sweetheart or pumpkin or sugar muffin. The couple had been married for almost 70 years and clearly they were still very much in love.

So while the wife was in the kitchen, the man leaned over and said to his host, I think it's wonderful that after all these years, you still call your wife those loving pet names. The old man shook his head and said, well, of course I love her. And I have to tell you the truth. Her name slipped my mind about 10 years ago and I'm scared to ask her what it is. So completely silly. And I read that the average American lies four times a day. It's such a deep habit to protect ourselves by misrepresenting and also to be dishonest with ourselves. So running away includes denial, which is the first stage of grief, not acknowledging what's right here. And running away includes depression, which is a pulling away from aliveness. So what's going on when When we're denying, depressing, avoiding, experiencing what's here in our inner life, when we're

denying the realness of hurt, grief, loneliness, loss, is that we often end up using substances. We use substances to get us in a different mood so we don't have to face insecurity. One friend I was with recently was telling me about being with her mom when her mom was first informed that she had cancer. And the mother's first response was, I want to drink. And then she paused and said, and I mean right now. And it was so clear to my friend that her mother had been drinking throughout her life to avoid insecurity.

And underneath that, that sense of everything can. can be taken in a moment. Okay, so that's the second of the domains of false refuges running away. And the third is fighting and we know that one too. In fact it's often the most obvious control mechanism, you know, the chronic blaming and anger and aggression. I mean anger is the second stage of grieving. We face threat, loss, deaths and fighting is this universal attempt to control, life to protect ourselves. And we can see in a daily way the habit of feeling fearful of things

going wrong and how quick we are to assign blame either to ourselves or another person. You know, it's easier to lash out. And again, inwardly, outwardly, it's easier to blame, to fight than just to open to the reality of, okay, insecurity, fear, sorrow, loss, So in the deepest way, all of the false refuges are trying to control what is ultimately uncontrollable, trying to seek ground or certainty. There are reflex in the face of insecurity. And I want to pause here again and invite you friends to reflect for yourself, to take a moment as you've probably been doing as I've been speaking and just scan.

for the false refuges, for the daily ways that you control, and it may be some major in chasing after, maybe hits of physical pleasure or getting things done, chasing after other people's affection or approval, or you might have been noticing ways you run away, the way you numb, maybe avoiding with being online a lot, or certain kinds of reading or TV, or maybe running away by pretending with others or misleading. And some may have been really focused on how you might be fighting, and most of us all of it, but fighting, you know, caught in chronic blaming, judgment. So for yourself, sense if any particular false refuge jumps out as something that you sense

as a real strong part of your daily life, something you sense as trying to control that deep insecurity. And as you let yourself reflect on that, keep sensing that it's not personal. It's a universal conditioning to try to console insecurity. And sense how it's asking for your attention, that this is a place of potential transformation so that for now you can just hold this with your wiser self a conscious place for deepening presence as you move forward. So friends, this is where meditation comes in.

meditation helps us to shift from reacting, from trying to control this ever-changing, uncertain life, to relaxing with what's happening. And I'll give you an example in daily life because the more we practice daily, the more we are capable of relaxing with what's happening with the great losses and death. So for myself and I have been tracking false refuges for decades, you know, I can see how insecurity triggers all the common ones actually. You know, when I get anxious, how I tend towards blaming myself or blaming others, how I'll hide by numbing, how I've used food to kind of get rid of anxious feelings.

I'm just naming some randomly here, you know. I want to name the most chronic chasing after, which is getting more done, that there's this underlying insecurity that I've been encountering over the decades about worth and that my way of trying to secure worth is overdoing, overworking. And I'll slow down here because I know how big this is for many. It's very much a societally driven one. Our worth is easily hitched to feeling, you know, if we're worthy than others, hopefully will love us, respect us, not exclude us.

And if you think back to our history as a species, being excluded or rejected or scorned was actually the recipe for death. So for me, in working with the false refuge of overdoing, I do it both informally and formally. I'll sometimes in the middle of the day just catch myself, you know, really fixated on trying to get something done and all grim and tense and so on and pause then and just reflect. And sometimes it'll be when I'm meditating, I'll sense, you know, my mind going towards doing and I'll use that as a time to pause. But either way, the deepening of attention is really saying,

well, what is actually happening inside me right now? And if I get behind the urge to do, there's an anxiety driving it. And it has the tenure of, I'm not okay or not enough, or I'm going to fall short in some way, or if I don't prepare, I'll fail. something can go wrong. It's really that basic insecurity about the frailty and uncertainty of life. Something can go wrong. There's this groundless sense. So then I lean in. It's a choice to be with and to feel fully primarily, to feel it in my body and feel it with presence and with kindness.

and to the degree that that presence and that tenderness is fully there and embodied, the contraction loosens. There's some untwerking. And then that pure energy that's been twerked is free to move through me. And the experiences of being more enlivened, more loving, more present. There's a transformation. When I'm resisting, when I'm feeling driven to do, there's a twisted tightness. When I just be present with that anxiety in my body, it loosens up.

So, many rounds in daily life, you know, it's a deep one of just discontinuing the doing and opening to that deep uncertainty, relaxing with groundlessness. And then it gets transformed into an intensified presence. It's a taste of true refuge. And as mentioned, it's the daily practice of being with insecurity of relaxing with groundlessness that actually allows us to open to the very huge feelings of groundlessness when our life or the life of a beloved is going to be passing. So, share a story.

This is from several decades ago. If you want to read it in its fullness, it's at the very beginning of true refuge. A woman had approached me at the end of a weekend, I think it was, retreat. and her partner was dying and she had come to practice for some inspiration because they were Catholic but he actually wanted her to be the person at his side to accompany him. And so she kind of asked me for a spiritual one-on-one and how do you be with the dying. And she said she was trying so hard on so many fronts and she was pretty exhausted. She was trying to find the right Aravadic healing and acupuncture and lining up his favorite

music and reading favorite passages. And I gently noted to her while you're trying really hard and sounds like you're really busy. And she said, oh yes, that's my way. And then she kind of paused and smiled in an, you know, acknowledging way. I get it. She said, maybe this isn't the time to be quite so busy. You know, I smile because, you know, our wise hearts know. But then she went And yes, but I can't let him go down without a fight. I don't want to fail them. I don't want to let them down. And I want to do this being with him. Really, I want to do it right. So I had her pause and I said, how long have you been afraid of failing someone of trying so hard to do it right? And again, that kind of smile of recognition. She said, well, all my life. And so this is just an example

in the language I've been using as we've been reflecting, this has been a false refuge through a lifetime. And I said to her, her name was Pam, I said, you know, again, your deepest offering is your presence. I mean, what carries him is the medicine of love. I just want to comment here that, as I mentioned with myself, so many, it's the fear of falling short. That's the kind of death that's being avoided. Trying to control that. So we talked about how she could practice when that false refuge, that addictive doing appeared. And what I suggested was to pause when she noticed it and just asked these types of

two questions I often ask myself, which is what is happening inside me right now? And can I meet this with kindness? And then she asked me something you might be wondering, which is, well, I get so caught up, how will I remember to pause? And it's a wonderful question because we all do and we forget to pause. And I just said, set your intention every day. Just set your intention to be aware. when you can, when you get caught in that doing, and to pause, just set your intention and

you'll forget, but you'll be more inclined towards remembering. Okay, so I heard from her maybe a month later, a week after her partner had passed. And we talked and she said she had struggled with that habit of being busy and she told me about one afternoon that he told her that he realized he didn't have much time left. And she had quickly bent over and kissed him and said, oh dear, today's been a good day. You seem to have more energy. Let me make you a cup of tea. And he feels silent. And that silence shook her because she could feel how her habit of being busy separated them. And inwardly, she could feel how it separated her from her own heart. And so as she was making tea, she just felt that deepening of the intention, her heart's prayer,

which is, may I remember presence? May I just simply love him? And in the days that followed, she was more quick to put aside the thoughts of, you know, what should be happening, what she should be doing. She stopped trying to seek ground and instead opened to the groundlessness, to the changing ways of fear and doubt and grief. And in that openness, there was more presence. In fact, she described as she had this much more intuitive sensitivity to him. And when they were together, she knew when to be silent and when to sing softly and when to massage gently. and just how that loving presence might be expressed.

And she shared the gift of last days with him. And she said this, she said, in the silence, I could see past a sense of him and me, and it became clear we were a field of loving, total openness, warmth, and light. He's gone, but that field of loving, is always with me. She had found true refuge, that that luminous field of loving, the truth really of who she was beyond this body and personality. And it was revealed by meeting the groundlessness,

the changing fears and grief, the depth of loss with this open presence. There's a beautiful teaching from the Tibetan tradition, that if everything changes, then what is really true? Is there something behind the appearances, something boundless and infinitely spacious, innately loving, in which the dance of change and impermanence takes place? Is there something in fact that offers refuge beyond what we call death. In the deepest sense, our refuge is who we are. It's that awareness, that wakefulness, that loving, that's behind the changing dance. It's the background of formless awareness. And the more that we touch daily into this true nature, what some call spirit or timeless presence

or divine or God, the more we touch into true refuge, the more available it is when these bodies go through the transition, the natural transition they go through. You know, I think of one meditation teacher, she had incurable cancer, and she wrote this, and I find it so inspiring. This is Tamara Engel. My days are short, and as I grow weaker, I experience so. much gratitude for my meditation, not only the joy and ease it brought, but the hard parts, for every bored and restless sitting and every fearful fantasy, and every ache and pain I sat through, and every itch I didn't scratch, was a training for kindness, a training for the muscle

for bearing witness, for the trusting spirit that carries me now as I face me. death, the trusting spirit that carries me now as I face my death. So this is the gift of opening daily to the changing flow. It's a homecoming to the spirit that holds this life. And again, the very experience of insecurity of being vulnerable or not okay, it's natural that we try to control and resist. Let that be a flag so that we can deepen attention and find in that very place by letting go into relaxing with opening to the insecurity the sense of homecoming. So in a sense, our parachute is presence, you know. It reveals who we are beyond this changing body and mind. It reveals that there is no self who jumped and we intuit instead the field of

awake awareness that's always an already here as our home. Let's practice a little before we close. We'll do a brief practice with this and I invite you to explore more on your own. We'll use the presence that comes with rain, recognize, allow, investigate nurture to bring to a false refuge. So take a moment, if you will, to pause. And wherever you are, of course, if you're in a car, don't close your eyes, but wherever you are, let your attention go inward as appropriate. You might feel your breath and sense yourself in these moments inviting yourself into presence. And as we did earlier, you might scan your life and sense a false refuge that arises in daily life that is driven in some way by insecurity or fear, not trauma. See if you can

not bring the process to something that'll feel overwhelming. And you might choose what you identified in the last reflection. Some way that you're hooked on chasing after, grasping after something, running away, fighting. some way you're trying to create ground in your life. And imagine a recent time, bring it to mind that you were playing it out. Just bring yourself into the circumstances where you were, what you were seeing, what you were doing, what you were thinking, and let yourself pause right in the midst of it, right, when you're feeling the drive to in some way, go get something, do something, avoid something, blame, and discontinue that activity and the

R of Rain is recognized, just recognize what are the primary feelings you're aware of, feel into your body, sense what's most directly predominant, let your intention be to allow, the A of Raines allow, to let that be there, not trying to get rid of or change anything. And the eyes, of rain, investigate is getting more intimate with the experience. And you might sense, well, in these moments, what am I believing? Am I believing that I have to have something to feel better? That something's going to go wrong? That I'm going to fail. That I can't trust somebody, that somebody's let me down, that somebody doesn't care. What am I believing? And whatever you find there. Go under the belief to what you're feeling in your body. Fear, insecurity, hurt, the not okay

vulnerable feeling in the body. Just find where that is, maybe your throat, your chest, your belly, and see if you can even let your face and your posture express that vulnerability, feeling right into the center of it. You might even put your hand gently on your heart. It's a way of accompanying and inviting your attention even deeper. You can breathe with the feeling. So you're offering a full presence to feel it fully. Sense what it needs, what quality of heart at most needs, maybe the feeling needs to feel held in compassion, or forgiveness. or love, to be seenfully, and from your wisest, most loving self, the nurturing, to offer what's needed, to feel the energy of love and presence coming right through your hand,

right into where the fear or anxiety or vulnerability lives. You can feel it coming from your loving heart or from some vaster source. You can imagine the whole space around you as filled with the light, the luminosity, the warmth of love, just bathing, pouring into, filling the place of vulnerability. It's a deepening presence with, and letting yourself be the holder and the held. And sensing the quality of presence that's here right now, the wakefulness, the spaciousness, tenderness, sensing your own beingness, who you really are, that this space of awareness is more of the truth of who you are than any self-story. This is what you can trust in.

This is what will carry you. And this inquiry from the Tibetan teachings, if everything changes, then what is really true? is there something behind the appearances, something boundless and infinitely spacious, innately loving, in which the dance of change and impermanence takes place? Is there something in fact that offers refuge beyond what we call death in these last few moments sensing what you most want to remember what's important to you? And take a few full breaths if your eyes are closed. opening your eyes.

Okay, friends, I want to thank you for your willingness to explore, to deepen your attention. In the next session on this, we'll continue to explore the daily ways we can meet this changing life and how that is linked to how we die. How we live is how we die. What are the practices that help wake us up? Okay, take good care, loving blessings to each.