Tara Brach - Flow and Presence

Episode Date: July 6, 2011

2011-07-06 - Flow and Presence - In the moments when we are truly happy, there is a sense of both aliveness and presence. This talk reflects on three key ways we remove ourselves from living presence; and offers guided reflections that can re-open us into the flow. Please support this podcast by donating at www.tarabrach.com or www.imcw.org. Your donation makes a difference! Thank you!

I'd like to begin tonight by sharing with you. Some of you might remember I mentioned an article that was written by a woman who had spent years palliative care working with the dying. And she wrote about the regrets that are most commonly voiced by the dying. And I thought these were really interesting and important. And the main regrets were that I really didn't live true to myself, that I let my life be pulled around by the expectations of others in the world around me and related to that, and this was more men than women, but women too, I worked too hard. It's familiar.

The third one I want to mention is I really didn't let myself be happy. and I think that's really interesting because it has in it that sense that there's a choice that the dying we're saying in some way I let myself get pulled away from happiness I got waylaid from experiencing the playfulness and aliveness and silliness and joy that's possible

I got pulled away because we do get grinned We do think we've got Hafiz, the poet says, a thousand serious moves still to do, right? So it's an interesting reflection for us

just what gets between us and happiness. It's a really, it's an important inquiry, and then when we ask ourselves, and this is something to explore for yourself, when you're really happy,

what's going on? What's going on in you when you're really happy. And you'll find there's two dimensions. And one dimension is that there's presence. When you're really happy, there's a quality of you're here for what's going on. The second dimension is aliveness. And they're entirely intertwined.

When you're happy, there's a sense of life flowing through you. They're intertwined. if you bring your attention in an embodied way to the life that's here, you'll find the sense of presence or the space of presence that's aware. And if you're really occupying presence, you're going to feel the flow of aliveness. So that's what I'd like to explore tonight, is this twined dynamic.

That what is it really that lets us enter the flow? So we are not bystanders so that we don't go to the end of our life and realize, I didn't really feel the life flowing through this body and heart and mind. And I didn't engage intimately in the energy flow of aliveness and love with another. That we don't skim the surface. And we know that meditation and the reason I think we're intuitively drawn to it is it's training to come back here to the one. one place where happiness is possible and love and peace.

It's training and presence. And I think often of this story that this young man in his 20s was doing, I think, a month-long kind of meditation training. And at one point there's some parents were visiting and they were talking to each other. And one parent was saying, well, what is meditation? And the other parents said, well, I don't know, but at least they're not sitting around doing nothing, you know. So these two facets to being require this willingness to stop doing.

It doesn't mean to stop being engaged, but to stop tumbling forward in our minds and be here, and be here. And when we're here, to open to the life that's here. And those two things, being here, we tend to leave. And opening to the life that's here, we tend to leave and go, into our minds don't happen that often. So people wonder how come I don't experience more living joy. That's because we're not in that being state. So the training come back here and one of the images I like a lot in this arriving in hereness and

really arriving in this flow of aliveness is if you imagine the Atlantic and the Gulf stream, if you have a straw and you put it in the Gulf Stream, if you have a straw and you put it in the Gulf Stream. If it's aligned with the Gulf Stream, the flow of what are moves through it, the universe moves through it. It's total grace. And if it's misaligned, you know, if it's not attuned to the flow of aliveness, it gets all spun around and off. And this is a metaphor that's really beautifully connected to the word duca in Pali, which it means suffering or dissatisfaction. But originally the term had to do with a wheel that wasn't affixed properly to a wagon that was off so the wagon couldn't roll down its course, its path of life

in a smooth, graceful way. It would wobble and have disorder and discontent and unpleasantness. And so it is with us when we're, instead of being that straw that's aligned and letting this flow of life moved through us, being awake in that, we're moving away, we're in reaction, and we're not able to be one with the flow. So the question is how we typically remove ourselves from the channel through which our life flows. And so I'd like to explore three primary ways that I found that most of us take ourselves, out of the flow regularly. So much so that we can look back at today or the last few days and perhaps notice that there weren't that many moments of really inhabiting our bodies and our

hearts and our awareness, that we were off somewhere else, that we weren't really aligned with the Gulf Stream. Okay. So the three ways. The first one, way that we pull ourselves out of alignment, that we leave the flow comes out of a desire to control. And it's universal. I mean, being an organism that's anxious about its existence, we are rigged to try to manage things so that we feel better. And so most moments, there's some movement of trying to have more pleasure and less pain. And so we're somewhat in reaction. I mean, that's going on anyway. When controlling takes over, when our whole identity is in the persona of the controller, we are removed from that quality of presence and freshness and spontaneity.

And we know how it happens. We know that when there's tension with another person, with our child, we know how it is. when it's not just, oh, our child didn't cooperate, but there's that surge of anger because our ego, the controller ego feels really violated. You know that one, right? I mean, I know that one, right? We know it with our spouses when there's tension

and we want that person to cooperate and to be the person we want them to be and meet our needs in a certain way and treat us a certain way, right? and the controller gets tight and tense. And we lose a fluidity and a capacity to respond from a wiser place, a more compassionate place. Okay, so this is, I'm trying to give you a little bit of a feeling for the controller. The controller is concerned about safety.

The more insecure we are, the more the controller really gets activated. And so that we're spending a lot of time when we're in. insecure, trying to control how others perceive us. So just check it out when you're with another person and if you're feeling somewhat anxious, you'll notice the controller in you that's trying to manage what happens in a way that you're experienced in a certain way. So the more insecure, the more the controllers in action. Now there's all sorts of different levels. Sometimes it's a low level of just a kind of

kind of a manipulating that we the controller is framing things or presenting things in a certain way to get a certain response okay one example soul and mort are walking from religious service soul wonders whether it would be all right to smoke while praying mort replies why don't you ask rabbi schwartz so soul goes up to rabbi schwartz and asks rabbi may i smoke while i pray the rabbi says no my son you may not it's utter disrespect to our religion soul goes back to his friend and tells him what the good rabbi told him mort says i'm not surprised you asked the wrong question let me try so morke goes up to rabbi schwartz and asks rabbi may i pray while i smoke to which rabbi schwartz eagerly replies by all means my son

by all means so we we frame things a certain way Some children learn it really early and are really good at it, getting a certain response from their parents. Some children get really good at controlling so they get a very positive response, and some are wanting attention in a different way and do it to get a negative response in those same controlling patterns we have as adults. So that's one. Some of us control by withdrawing. You know, okay, if you don't like me and want to treat me this way, I'm pulling back, so we control by withdrawing ourselves, shutting down. One coach talks about an exchange with a former football player. So I told him, what is it with you?

Is it ignorance or apathy? He said, coach, I don't know and I don't care. I thought that was good. We control things mentally by worrying. It's not effective, but that's what we do. We worry and we obsess. We think we plan. So we think we think we.

need to manage things and we overdo it and get tight. Our mind gets tight, our body gets tight, and of course our heart gets tight. Now here's what is important to remember that it's quite natural and it's quite part of our biology and our predicament that we need to manage things. The question is, are we doing it in a way that our identity is completely wrapped in it? And the deeper question is, can we have the wisdom that knows that while we can manage some level of the affairs of our life, the big things we can't, right? I mean, aging, can't do a thing about it. Sickness, dying, other people dying, other people acting in ways we don't like. It's out of our hands. So the question is, does chronic control, and get locked in because when it does, we get locked in to an experience of ourselves as an egoic self, a tight egoic self. We lose sight of who we are. We pull away from that flow of aliveness. I can explore it in a moment, but just to share, I love this little story. Tom Wolfe

writes about in the right stuff in his book. He describes how in the 1950s, A few highly trained pilots were doing kind of adventures into space where it's life or death tasks flying at altitudes higher than that ever before been attempted. So here's what he writes. He says the first pilots to face this challenge responded by frantically trying to stabilize their planes when they went out of control and they'd apply correction after correction. Because way out from the Earth's atmosphere no longer the ordinary laws of thermodynamics. so the planes just went crazy.

So they try correction after correction, and the more furiously they manipulated the controls, the wilder the ride became. Screaming helplessly to ground control, what do I do next, they would plunge to their deaths. This tragic drama occurred several times until one of the pilots, Chuck Yeager,

inadvertently struck upon a solution. When his plane began tumbling, Yeager was thrown violently around the cockpit hit and knocked out. Unconsciously, he plummeted towards Earth. Seven miles later, the plane re-entered the planet's denser atmosphere where standard navigation strategies could be implemented. He studied the craft and landed. So he discovered the only life-saving response that was possible in this desperate situation. You don't do anything. You take your hands off the controls. The solution, as Wolf puts it, he says, it's the only choice you

had. You take your hands off the controls. Now, in our training with meditation, we end up getting to bypass being knocked unconscious, right? And I think that's kind of cool. It's like we hit the stuff that's completely out of our control, you know, which is every day, things to do with how others are, things to do with how the world is, our own moods and emotions that sometimes are really strong. We stop controlling and arrive in a deeper presence. So I'd like to, we're going to do three reflections tonight on the three different ways we pull ourselves from the flow and see if we can explore how you can reenter a little. And this is the first of the three. So please sit in a way that's comfortable. Now in our meditation training, when we notice that we have left presence, and we

notice we're often some controlling, worrying, whatever. The practice is to pause. The practice is to notice what's happening, what's this like, and to come back into our bodies, into the flow of aliveness. And this is what we're going to be practicing for these just very few moments. And for many, these reflections are too short for really diving in so you can practice on your own. So in this pause, sense yourself arriving. And you might let your mind open to some place in your life where you know you get caught in the controller. We all have them, where you overmanage,

where you get controlling with another person, trying to make them agree with you, make them behave a certain way. Or maybe you get controlling with yourself, trying to make yourself act a certain way. Where do you go into control mode? When you've identified a spot, you might let your attention go to a typical situation.

Just imagine what you might be saying, who might be there, or if you're on your own, how you're relating to yourself, your self-talk. Notice your sense of your own being when you're in controller mode. You know, what's your body like, your heart? What's your mind like? Is there space at all? Do you like yourself

when you are identified as the controller? What would happen if you just took your hands off the controls a little and let yourself come home right now into the energy in your body? Let yourself

inhabit your heart your presence. As you do this, as you take your hands off the control, it's important to bring compassion to what you come into in this flow of presence. Because often behind the controlling is a kind of anxiety. So we begin as we take our hands off the controls to bring a kindness to that. Bring the attention inward. Sometimes it helps to even put the hand on the heart and just feel

the anxiety that's behind that controlling energy and just breathe with it and feel that your hand, your touch, your energy is really... offering kindness to that insecurity. And just notice if there is an increase in presence and aliveness, if you can sense that the who you are is becoming a little more aligned with the flow, what's real in your life, a kind of homecoming. It doesn't have to be easy, but it's a kind of process of arriving back in the flow. When you're ready, take a few full breaths and come on back. So this is the first way that we very regularly pull ourselves out of this flow of being and into some identity that's smaller than who we are.

Okay. The second way I'd like to discuss with you is that we live with a demand that things be different. A demand that things be different. This is the place in this that I want it this way. I don't want it that way. And what happens is we make ourselves tremendously unhappy because we're making demands of ourselves are others that things be different.

So underneath that, I can only be happy or I can only be okay if such and such changes. And it's very interesting to look how this happens in our life. It arises from a real misunderstanding about happiness. we move around with some kind of formula in our mind that if I have this in place and we have a lot of if-onlys, that will make me happy. You know, if only I feel more healthier, if only my partner treats me differently, or if only my boss would quit so I could have a different boss. Or, you know, if only, and we lose the 20 pounds or have a change in finances, on some level we keep leaning towards and hitching our well-being. So there's some demand that it be different for things to be

okay. Now it happens in small ways and it happens in large ways that we're waiting for our happiness and linking it to something changing. An example of a small way I noticed with myself yesterday I was driving home and I have my own accustomed speed and the person in front of me was going much much, much, much slower. Now, a lot of you know what it's like. It wasn't like I was trying to get to the airport or something, but it didn't matter. It's like they were going at a speed that was really different than my speed. And so when I went, stayed enough of a distance, I felt the impatience and the anxiety at going their speed, and it kept building. And it was like, on some level, I had a sense that there's not enough time and I'm not going to get something.

done because they were going slow. Everything in me was leaning forward. I had a demand like I could not be happy and be okay unless that changed and so I saw that demand and I you know in some level I tried to let go of it but I've noticed with myself and with others that it happens not just in those small ways but in large ways so much that we're in this trance that we really don't even assume that happiness is possible because X, Y, and Z hasn't changed. Does that make sense? It disempowers us. I have one friend that described a situation where she was really very, very upset that I think it was the state of Maryland had not voted for a change in same-sex marriage.

and she really wanted all of her straight friends to get just how painful this was for a lesbian couple that wanted to get married. And many of us got it, but those that didn't get it, it was so upsetting to her that she felt like she could not relax unless these other parts of her community really got just how much that was, how much suffering that was. and then she had a realization that she had given away her power that her demand that other people understand gave away her power and it was with that she you know in her own she could

really have kind of a sense of compassion for herself yes this is painful and yes people don't understand but not be hooked on this sense of I can't be okay because they don't understand I found this experience with myself in terms of physical sickness that on some level I have because I have a lot of chronic pain I have gotten this idea that well unless I'm feeling a certain way and able to walk a certain amount and exercise a certain amount it's not a good day and I can't really be happy

like in some way my sense of okayness is hitched to pain level and mobility so for the last couple of years, and this I don't always remember to do this, but I start noticing when there's a demand that it be different, that on some level I have a demand that it be different for me to feel okay. And then I'll ask myself, what would happen if I had no demand that this be different? What would happen? When I do that, when I remember, immediately some space opens up, immediately, there's a remembering of the who I am that's larger than a self that's navigating with a certain body. And in that space, there's a sense of peace and well-being. And it's the same amount of pain

and the same limited mobility. But there's more happiness possible. So giving examples of how we get misaligned with the Gulf Stream. We lose contact with this flow and this aliveness and this happiness because we're demanding that things be different. And sometimes the objection is, well, sometimes we have to demand that something change when it's really wrong. And it might be, you know, what if someone's hurting other people? Don't we demand that they change? What if corporations are dumping toxic waste into streams? Don't we demand that there be a change? What if our country is waging war on other people? Don't we demand that it stopped?

So there's a sense that sometimes we need to make a demand. And so I'd like to say that not making demands doesn't mean we still don't give our lives to healing ourselves in our world. It doesn't mean that we don't give our hearts to standing up against social injustice and fighting for the environment. but there's a real difference.

There's two problems with the sense of demanding something. I'm not going to be happy and okay unless this changes. One problem is that demands don't work in creating true transformation. The energy behind demanding,

the anger that's behind demanding actually doesn't bring forth the response we want. Deep attention, deep listening, really wise communication, love, understanding. That's what brings around about change.

It can be in passioned. We completely engage. But demanding doesn't work. But there's a second deeper difficulty is in the moment that we're demanding, we're basically shortchanging ourselves because we're saying, I'm not going to be able to be happy

unless this changes are at peace. What's happening in our body, heart, and mind in the moment of demanding something? It doesn't make us a better agent of change. So again, the aligning, when we find that we are attached to things being different to be okay, no matter what it is, the alignment comes when we notice that first. The first step is noticing, where am I insisting something be different in order for me to let this body, heart, and mind come into alignment?

the second step is to sense what it does to us to be attached to be demanding and then to come back right into this body okay so let's practice a little together so as you come into quietness you might reflect and sense for yourself where you're having an if only in your life where you have a demand that if only this changes then i'll be happy this has to change for me to be okay. I have to get over this difficult period of time for me to be okay. You have to change for me to be okay. I have to change for me to be okay. Where is that going on? Just now you might notice that it's happening in a lot of places. So if that's so, just sense one place where you're perhaps insisting that someone else change. And notice the whole story that goes around it. What's so

wrong about how it is right now, what you're worried about, what you're afraid about. Because just like control, the demand comes from a deep sense of insecurity. When you're close in with the attachment that it be different or the demand that it be different or the feeling you can't be okay, what's going on in your body? What's it like? What's going on in your heart and your mind? Can you sense how when you're in that space of demanding, expecting, attached, how it takes you from this present moment, from the aliveness and flow that's here. You might experiment in for a moment sense what would it be like to let go of the demand, just even for a few moments, to just put down the demand that somebody else change or that you

be different, that you feel different. It may be that you're in physical or emotional pain and the demand is, I can't be okay unless this changes. What if you just for a moment put aside even that, what happens? Can you sense the creativity that becomes possible? That's a sign of reentering the flow. Can you sense the aliveness? Now you might sense, as you put down a demand, the fear that's under it, open to that with kindness.

whatever's here with kindness. That's part of the entry back into the flow. A kind presence. Taking a few breaths when you're ready, coming back. Anthony DeMello, a Jesuit priest, and one of his books talked about an experience that changed his life. He wrote that he had been neurotic for years, anxious and depressed and selfish, is how he described it.

And he said, like so many of us, he had, well, what he had done is he adopted a self-improvement project and then another and then another. And when nothing seemed to work, he was on the verge of despair. Part of what he said was so painful was that even his friends agreed that he needed to change and regularly urged him to become less self-absorbed. Okay, so he had a demand on himself. Others had a demand on him. His world stopped one day when a friend told him, don't change. I love you just the way you are. Letting those words stream through his heart and mind felt like pure grace.

Don't change. Don't change. This is a pure letting go of the demand. I love you just the way you are. Paradoxically, it was only when he felt permission not to change that he was free to change. Only when the demand was dropped, did it allow him to then unfold into who he could be. So I share that because we have this fear that if we let go of our demand of ourselves or others, that it's going to go to hell in a handbasket,

that it's just going to get worse and worse and worse. But it's actually not the case. In the moments that we sense something that feels like we can't be okay unless we change this about ourselves, and just for a moment's sense, lifting that demand, you will find that you have access to the who you are, the stream of presence and aliveness, that actually allows you to transform in quite a beautiful and healing way.

Try it. So that's the second. We've done letting go of control. We've done the demands that we put to change our expectations. The third piece I'd like to explore tonight is that we argue with what is. We have an argument with what is, meaning whatever's going on, let's say, with somebody that we don't like, it should be different. And should is the main word I'm going to focus on, because it's amazing how deep it is in our psyche and our vocabulary.

I should be different, you should be different, this world should be different, and then with that, it gets blame and resentment. okay so should so we start to explore where that's what how that's true for us somebody hurts us and our minds think that person should be different okay somebody's addicted to something they should be able to get over that addiction I have one friend that struggled with binge eating since she was a teen and her parents are very liberal kind understanding parents still were baffled at how she would be destroying herself with binge eating and held the belief you should be able to control that darling and that belief was in her I should be different and something's wrong with me because I'm not so then we have the ways we get irritable with other

people I shouldn't do this it's happening and I shouldn't do it now so we move through the world with these notions of there's how it is and how it should be. And in any moment that we're arguing with reality, we lose. Okay? Any moment. Because no matter what we think it should be like, it is as it is. Okay? So we might be right that if it were different, there would be less pain. But it is as it is. And the should only adds violence to the moment. It makes something wrong and bad. So I'll speak a little more to that. We know how many times growing up. Parents tell their children, this is how you should be. And then the child grows up and as an adult, it's been internalized. How I should be and how I am are different. I'm not

okay. So we know that violence, right? That the pain of that one. Now it doesn't always sink in that way. some parents shoulds are not internalized. One mother was preparing pancakes for her two young sons, age five and three. And the boys began to argue over who would get the first pancake. So the mom saw a great opportunity for a moral lesson. And she said, if Jesus was sitting here, he would say, let my brother have the first pancake. Because I can wait. So Kevin, the older, turned to his younger brother and said, Ryan,

you can have the first chance at being Jesus. So we still managed to. A little boy was overheard praying, Lord, if you can't make me a better boy, don't worry about it. I'm having a real good time like I am. So it doesn't always get internalized in this way. But often it does.

And often we buy into the should and we live with a sense of not okay. And I see it very much in spiritual communities and people on a spiritual path that on some subtle or not so subtle level we have a notion of how we should be unselfish and equanimous and non-controlling and all the things we're talking about.

Everything we're talking about becomes a should. Like that's how I should be. And so there's a kind of subtle but gnawing sense of I'm not there yet. I'm not really okay. Dan Gottlieb, who had the good fortune of doing a radio show with, he's a radio show host, he's also an author and a psychologist, and his book I'm reading right now, letters to Sam is awesome, if you should get hold of it. But in another book he wrote, he recounts a letter that a young man from Korea sent to him. And this was a young man who had felt very wounded by some colleagues. And he wrote this. He said, because I am not a

perfect person, sometimes it is very hard to forgive my colleagues who have hurt my feelings. That eventually causes depression. I know that Jesus asked us to forgive our brothers and sisters, always and consistently. However, I am not a perfect person like him. Sometimes what Jesus asked of us sounds like another violence to me. Because I'm not a perfect person like him. It is very difficult for me to live like him. So I was very struck by this language, as was Dan when he described it,

that this man believed that Jesus was asking him to forgive when he was unable to forgive. That he should forgive, but he wasn't able to. And there's a violence when we expect the should and it's different than the what is. There's a violence whenever a spiritual teacher or a religious leader or our super ego in some way tells us that how it is is not okay.

It should be different. Now, I want to mention that that's very different than someone who helps us to sense the potential in us. The potential is, there and all of us for infinite possibilities of manifesting wisdom and compassion and and our goodness but the should ends up binding us what the should does is it locks us into an egoic sense of not enough self of insufficiency so I'd like this third reflection if you will just to come and sit in a way that's helpful we'll be on on

this ways that we argue with reality And in this reflection, you might invite to come forward somewhere that you know with yourself you are holding, I should be different, where there's the reality of how you are, and then the add-on of I should be different. And just take some moments to sense when there's some identification with that, when you're believing that. What goes on in your body and your heart and your mind? What's it like to believe I should be different? Can you sense the contraction, the painful contraction, how it pulls you away from really the possibility

of more full aliveness, openness, presence? Explore, if you will, what might happen if just for a few moments you put aside the should and you just let yourself sense how it is and just open into the experience in your body, the aliveness that's here. As you do, as before letting go into that and feeling that kindness towards the pain that's in there.

Can you notice how when you let go of a should and you open into even the pain that's there with kindness that is the beginning of aligning, that you're coming into the flow. You're coming home. Not easy, but it's a homecoming. This training is to recognize how we pull ourselves out of the flow of aliveness,

out of presence, to recognize and then to surrender that willfulness, the controlling, the shitting, the demands, to surrender that and discover when we surrender that willfulness, there's this amazing flow of aliveness here. Now the ongoing practice in meditation, when we're not caught in all sorts of reactivity, just even on a day when there's not that much going on of a should or a controlling, is to keep coming into this flow as we practice this

evening in the guided meditation, to sense the space of aliveness in the body, to come home into the senses. You can do this right now, just to listen, to listen and then listen to this whole flow of aliveness in the body, and allow it to be as full and vibrant as it is. And keeping that in mind as you open your eyes, just to continue to stay connected with flow. Close just a few other comments to say, Anthony DeMello again, the Jesuit priest says, enlightenment is absolute cooperation with the inevitable. Okay. Enlightenment is absolute cooperation with the inevitable and what he means, I think, is absolute cooperation with this flow of aliveness, that we absolutely open to the life as it is.

It's in opening to the flow of aliveness that we contact presence and we're able to then respond with creativity and compassion to our world. It's not passivity. In fact, we're opening to the universal intelligence, the universal love that can flow through us when we're aligned. When that straw is aligned, the Gulf Stream flows through it. When we're aligned, there's a kind of universal wisdom and love that just is our nature that flows through us. So we come home to that with this kind of practices we're doing tonight. And I think in a way we come home to grace.

Because you can kind of sense, and you know this, that when you're in a flow, there's a kind of a way, just the way water knows its way around rocks. When you're in a flow, it's you in an intuitive sense of how life is moving. You don't know where it's taking you. It's a mystery. But you are the life that's flowing. You're resting in that and you're moving with grace. And when you're in the flow,

in the moments that you're completely allowing this life to flow, you start touching that silent, awake presence that really is home. And that presence actually knows love. When you're in the flow, love naturally flows through. It's not, you know, when we're in our egoic awareness, there's a sense that what we care about is going to get taken away. So we're controlling and managing to stop it from being taken away. When we're in flow, the love is continuously manifesting.

Share one last story before we close of Kafka when he was an older man. He spent time sitting in a park and one day a little girl walked by him or tears running down her face and she stopped and talked to him, and she told him that she had lost her doll. She had to go home, and he said, well, I'll look around, I'll try to find the doll, and he didn't. A few days later, she returns, and Kafka said,

there's no doll, but here's a note. So he read it, and the note said, I've gone off to travel some around the world. Please don't worry about me. I'm fine. The girl was somewhat relieved. She returned to the park every week or so, and Kafka would be there with a note,

from the doll. And the girl was too young to read, so he'd read telling of the doll's adventures. Kafka, much sicker, went to the park one last time, and this time he had brought a doll, handed it to the girl and said that the travels had really changed her.

So some years later, when the girl was a young woman, she found and read a note that had been rolled up and placed in the doll's hand. You will lose everyone you love, but the love will always return in new forms. So I share this with you because when we wake up out of the trance that keeps us separate and come back again and again, and that's our practice again and again into this flow of aliveness,

we're coming back into this presence that really does know a timeless loving. And the love will keep on emerging. different forms. It's again and again this taking refuge in this aliveness and in the stillness that it's its source. So we'll close one last time just inviting you to come into meditation. You can ask in any moment as you're meditating or as you're informally meditating through the day, what is between me and presence? What is between me and this aliveness that's inherent in presence? Just to notice the thoughts or the tightness.

And to bring your attention to what's here is to discover the presence that's really the source of our happiness. We close with the loving kindness prayer, just to offer yourself whatever blessing in this moment resonates to you, offering to your own heart. And then our shared blessing to all beings. May all beings everywhere awaken to this sacred presence, this aliveness that's our source.

May all beings everywhere touch a great and natural peace. May all beings be happy. May all beings everywhere awaken and 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.