Tara Brach - Happiness is Possible: De-conditioning the Negativity Bias - Part 1 (2017-05-31)

Episode Date: June 2, 2017

Happiness is Possible: De-conditioning the Negativity Bias - Part 1 - There is an inner freedom that expresses as happiness and peace, and it is accessible when we arrive in openhearted presence. As the Buddha said, "If it were not possible to find liberation I would not teach about it." In this two part talk, we will look at the conditioning that blocks happiness and two primary pathways of practice that evolve our consciousness and free our hearts. Your support enables us to continue to offer these talks freely. If you value them, I hope you will consider offering a donation at this time at www.tarabrach.com/donation/. With gratitude and love, Tara

Greetings. We offer these podcasts freely, and your support really makes a difference. To make a donation, please visit tarabrock.com. My first introduction to Buddhism was when I was in high school attending a world religions class. And after being introduced to all the different religions, I decided that Buddhism was at the very bottom of my list of what I would be interested in. And there were two reasons and one of the reasons was there was this incessant focus on suffering. Like, why are we focusing on suffering? Suffer, suffer, suffer, suffer, you know. And the second was that the only way out of suffering was to get rid of your desires.

And I thought, get rid of your desires. You know, I had a healthy kind of dollop of hedonism in my way of doing things and it seemed like, you know, the very opposite of the life I'd be interested in. And I share that because I feel like it points to probably the two biggest misunderstandings about Buddhism, which is one that, you know, there's a kind of thought that desire is the source of suffering and that we have to eliminate desire. And desire isn't the problem. The challenge is when desire leads us to grasping and addiction

so that to be happy we have to have things a certain way. We have to have our fix, that's suffering. And the second thing, Buddhism is about suffering. Actually, Buddhism is about our capacity for freedom, which includes and naturally expresses a great amount of joy and peace and love. And the understanding is that in order to be free, we need to open to reality. And reality includes the 10,000 joys and the 10,000 sorrows.

We just open to the whole thing. And because we tend to avoid suffering, we need to include that. So I always, I like to bring up the story because it's really critical to recognize that we have this capacity for happiness and that it's integral to the path to recognize it and inhabit it, realize it. The fact, Ticknaut-Han says it's not enough to suffer.

You need to touch peace too and happiness. And I like that because it feels true both individually and as societies. You know, how our news is always fixating on the what's wrong. And to also include people's generosity and people's goodness and beauty is a critical. So we're going to explore this some. We're going to explore our capacity for happiness. And often as soon as I bring up the subject, there's this thought in the mind of, I'm just not cut out for being a happy type person, you know. And I love the Buddhist teachings on this. He said, I would not be teaching you about genuine happiness and freedom if it were not possible

for each of us. So the title of the talk, this is two parts. I found I can't seem to fit a talk into one night, so is happiness as possible. That's the title of it. And we'll look at what blocks happiness. And then we'll look at two very synergistic pathways that work together in really opening our hearts and minds and allowing us to really touch profound well-being. And when I say profound well-being, meaning a quality of happiness or well-being that's not hitched to the ups and the downs.

So the first class will be really one of the pathways which is bringing a full presence to the 10,000 joys and sorrows. It's what Anthony DeMello, who's a Catholic, mystic and writer, described as absolute cooperation with the inevitable. I think it's perfect. So that's really what we'll be looking at tonight. Like how do we really open ourselves to reality as a pathway to happiness? And then the next class will explore the ways that we seed the grounds of happiness very intentionally, by what's called gladdening the heart. And that's essential because we have what's called this negativity bias

where we are so habituated to thoughts that keep us anxious and depressed that it takes being intentional to be able to wake up out of that. As I mentioned, when we just even begin to approach it, you might look at how your mind goes because we begin to start noticing our habitual state, which can be kind of grim for many. So I thought I'd begin with one of my very favorite poems by the poet Hafeus, and he says,

what is the difference between your existence and that of a saint? The saint knows that the spiritual path is a sublime chess game with God and that the beloved has just made such a fantastic move that the saint is now continually tripping over joy and bursting out in laughter and saying, I surrender. Whereas, my dear, I'm afraid you still think you have a thousand serious moves. A thousand serious moves.

And isn't that a bit what it's like that we kind of look at our lives and we look at what it's ahead and we're pretty serious and grim and focused about how we're going to get through the day, you know, get through the day? So we'll pause here for an inquiry and invite you to close your eyes and check in. And this is a honest reflection on what you perceive as your own level of happiness or well-being. You might ask yourself, do I experience well-being often? It's going to look through the last few days today. Are there moments that you felt that ease, that openness?

This moment is enough, that feeling. When you're happy, what do you sense brings it about? In other words, is it pleasure that you're feeling good or pleasure and beauty, touch, a certain kind of activity that engages you, connection with others? What brings up happiness for you? Do you have moments that you're happy and it's arising without any cause? It's just spontaneous happiness? You can keep on as we explore together and of course we'll do a practice together on this too, but just to keep a sense of reflecting on how is this relevant for you.

In Buddhist psychology, there are two types of happiness that are described. and one is worldly happiness and by that it means we're actually happy because of the way certain things are and that is the Polly word is Pomoja it's linked to a cause

and then the other kind of happiness is happiness that just happens on its own it's called suca without a cause it's not dependent on anything and it's now very commonly turned as happy for no reason which I think is a great phrase.

And it's a real place of freedom. Now we're going to look at Pomoja, the happiness with a cause first, and the reason is because it can be very wholesome. For us to be able to be responsive to things and feel that sense of happiness and pleasure and joy actually can create the grounds for Suka happiness for no reason. It starts getting us acclimated. It creates an atmosphere.

and as you can imagine it can be unwholesome too but when it's wholesome often it's very fleeting and that's fine but we're receptive it might be that you know how it is if you have the perfect strawberry or a piece of fruit that just like that first bite and you just absolutely stop and go wow you know that's pomoja that's like really getting it really receiving it or the happiness that comes after exercise, you know, when all the endorphins are going and you just feel all cleaned out, that's pomoja. The happiness when you've just received like a perfectly aimed compliment, like somebody's gotten something and reflects you well. I have to say they're not always perfectly aimed. I mentioned last week I just turned 64. It's like someone saying, you know,

you don't look a day over 62, you know, that kind of thing. Oh, well. Okay. So there's these two dolphins talking and one saying, one of these days I want to swim with a big hairy investment banker. And the other says, yes, I've heard it's really magical, you know. So it's that, that we have certain things that bring us great pleasure. And then there's the pommode of the happiness that's really more sustained when we're really in a rhythm with some creative project that we love or where we're having a real gratifying truly intimate relationship with someone and that's bringing a lot of warmth and

aliveness or loving being outside or gardening or you know that kind of gratification. So here's the point that when Pomoja, this worldly happiness arises, if we hold it lightly, you know, kiss the joy as it flies by, you remember Blake, if we hold it lightly, it really begins to acclimate our body, heart, and mind to an open, receptive quality of well-being that's really wholesome. One of the poems from Mary Oliver that I feel is a really beautiful expression of Pomogia, this worldly happiness, is called Winter and the Nut Hatch. Once or twice and maybe again, who knows, the timid nut hatch will come to me

if I stand still with something good to eat in my hand. The first time he did it, he landed smack on his belly, as though the legs wouldn't cooperate. The next time he was bolder, then he became absolutely wild about those walnuts. But there was a morning I came late, and guess what? The nut hatch was flying into a stranger's hand. To speak plainly, I felt betrayed.

I wanted to say, Mr. That nut hatch and I have a relationship. It took hours of standing in the snow before he would drop from the tree and trust my fingers. But I didn't say anything. Nobody owns the sky or the trees. Nobody owns the hearts of birds. Still, being human and partial to my own successes, though not resentful of others, fashioning theirs,

I'll come tomorrow, I believe, quite early. So as I mentioned, this taking pleasure and enjoying it and holding it lightly creates the atmosphere for sukkha. It gladdens the mind, it makes us available for sukkah. Now, the difficulty is we don't tend to hold things lightly, right? When we like them, we kind of go after them and we grab on and we think about how am I going to get more of this. and this is part of our evolutionary conditioning to kind of grasp after what brings us gratification and especially if we have unmet needs

from our culture and our childhood for food, for a sense of esteem, for safety, whatever, we'll grasp after comforts and after nourishment. So what happens is that rather than Pomodja where we're just enjoying the joys as they come, there's a contraction where we're mostly chasing after our pleasures and holding on to them and not wanting them to go away. And there can be this chronic mind state of something's missing.

Something's missing. And then what happens is that we get very attached to certain substitutes for feeling good and develop what's called if only mind and I'm going to invite you to check out where you sense you have if only mind I'll say some more about it though because it drives us daily the if only mind is saying if only I got a few more things done then I could relax and feel good

or if only I lost 10 pounds or if only right now I could have you know exactly that particular cupcake I've been craving with the different layers of whatever, are if only I had the right partner. You know, it's got something in mind that if we could have that, then things would be really better and different. Sometimes it has to do with our child behaving or our partner changing or us changing.

I heard a story. Jim 45 has a midlife crisis and he decides he's going to reinvent him. So he gets the new wardrobe and the slick Mazda meata and he starts lifting weights and doing sunbaths and the whole thing. You know, his chest grows by, what, five inches. He's well-tintaned. He decides to top it off with a sporty new haircut. And right after that, stepping out of the barber shop, he's hit by a bus. So he's lying there dying and he says, God, how could you do this to me?

And a voice from the heaven's response, to tell you the truth, Jim, I didn't recognize you. So, here's the problem with if only mind, with us getting attached to things being a certain way. First of all, it doesn't work. It's like no matter what we think is going to bring us happiness, it doesn't. We're regularly wrong.

And there's a lot of research, you know, about the relationship between our wants and our happiness that shows that we have a set point for happiness, you know, kind of biologically and psychologically, we have a certain set point. And when things go our way, we might spike up, but we return. Usually it's within five months. And when things go wrong, we spike down, but we return.

We're very habituated in that way. Our mood doesn't change so much over time. So even when we get what we want or what we thought we want, it doesn't really work. And again, another illustration, that involves God. Man on a California beach is praying. Lord, please grant me one wish. And the sky darkens and there's a booming voice and he said, you've lived a good life, I'll give you one wish. And so the man says, please, would you build me a bridge to Hawaii so I can drive over

when I want and see the beauty and get distressed and so on? And God says, you know, that's awfully materialistic, you know. Plus, I mean, think of all the steel and the concrete would take and how deep we'd have to build the supports. Can't you come up with something a little more inspirational for me to offer my benevolence towards? And so the man thinks for a while and finally says, Lord, I wish I could understand women. I'd like to know how I can make a woman really happy. And after a few moments, God says, you want two or four lanes on that bridge. So one reason that if only mind is problematic is that we really don't get any real happiness from it.

And the other is that while we're busy pursuing, and this is really where I think there's a poignancy, because we do spend a lot of our moments pursuing what we think we want, we're not present. You can't have an agenda, kind of that, you know, that tension of going after something, and really actually be here and open and contacting what's going on in your heart or attuned to another person or taking in the beauty of the springtime. You just can't do both. So it blocks presence.

Now, in addition to if only mind where we're kind of chasing after things, another way that we cut ourselves off from happiness is that, and I mentioned this earlier, that we have a kind of negativity bias. And this is, again, one of our inherences in an evolutionary way. Way back when, you know, we needed to learn what was going to cause trouble and keep it in mind, really in mind, so we didn't make the same mistake again. And we lived in a much more physically threatening world for some of us.

Some of us is still very threatening. But the addiction to what's going to go wrong is very big in most of our minds. We do chronically worry. There's a sense that around the corner something's going to be too much to handle. And so we're tensing against what's around the corner. That blocks happiness. So the 10,000 joys and sorrows, they come and go, but we're either very busy trying to get a certain substitute.

are tensing against and fixating on what's going to be wrong. If you could become the mindful witness of your life, there's an emergent wisdom that's possible where you start watching the ups and downs, start getting that it's inevitable that if we don't die by an accident, the body and mine are going to decline, mortality is inevitable.

and we start getting it that if we're hitching our happiness to things going a certain way we'll never get to relax and enjoy things. You just start getting it. It's like it's going to keep going up and down and eventually we're going to die. And if that's not okay,

we won't get to relax and be happy and enjoy the moment. I'm curious, does that resonate? Does that make sense? Okay. So, then the question is, how do we transform our relationship to those ups and downs so we can actually be here, like right now be here? And you might not be in a great mood, but if you're in a relationship with what's going

on that's present and open-hearted, there can still be well-being. This is a story from the snow leopard. Some of you might have read Peter Matheson's work, and he describes at one point visiting a llama who's got crippling arthritis, and the guy lives in a really remote region of Tibet, and so it's very clear that he'll never be able to go traveling again. He's never going to be able to leave for the rest of his life. So Peter asked through the translator,

what's that like, knowing that you've got this crippling disease and that you're never going to be able to leave your region? So the translator translates, and then this, I'm going to read what Peter writes. He says, this holy man of great directness and simplicity, big white teeth shining, laughs out loud and infectious way at the question, indicating his twisted legs without a trace of self-pity or bitterness as if they belong to all of us. He casts his arms wide to the sky and the snow mountains,

the high sun and dancing sheep and cries, of course I'm happy. It's wonderful, especially when I have no choice. I love these lines, you know. He indicates his twisted legs as if they belong to all of us, which they do. We all, every human has our vulnerability. and has the experiences in this condition life that are difficult,

especially when I have no choice. Why not? You know, life is going to be the way it is. So how we evolve that consciousness, this happy-for-no-reasoned consciousness, is really the essence of our training here in what we call the two wings of mindfulness and compassion. full presence.

And we're going to explore how we can, and I often use the acronym Rain, because rain unfolds the two wings. And if you're not familiar with Rain, and the way we would work when you get stuck, let's say you're stuck in grasping after something, you catch yourself, like that you're really going after a fix, whether it's with food or getting somebody's approach, approval are in some other way trying to get a moment of pleasure.

Or let's say you find yourself tensing and worrying and fixated on what's going to go wrong. How do you in that situation shift from reactivity to that presence that brings well-being? That's the inquiry. And so rain starts, these two rings, just to say that mindfulness, my favorite translation of mindfulness, or one of them, is present heart. That when you're mindful, you have a present heart, there's presence and heartfulness. So rain starts by recognizing that stuckness where you're blocked from happiness. You're recognizing, oh, again, I'm in an if-only mind. Or, oh, I'm just chronically worrying. Okay, recognize it.

The A of rain is allow. And I think of that allowing as instead of tumbling into our behavior of chasing after something or judging or whatever it is, we just pause. Allowing is a pause and it creates a space for awakening. If you don't pause in your life, if you don't know how when you're stuck, to just say, stop, just stop. There's no way to deepen attention and interrupt the patterning. So we recognize and we allow, we just allow it to be there in pause.

The third part of rain is to investigate. And investigate means that, okay, I'm clinging to something. I'm wanting things a certain way. To begin to get in touch with it, discover what it's like in our bodies. It's really open to it. It's the beginning of real cooperation with what's going on. The N of rain is to nurture. That in addition to contacting it, we bring kindness.

Now what happens, and I think of this as a U-turn, imagine that your attention's fixated on getting what you want. What you want is to complete a project and get a lot of praise for it, okay? and you can sense that you're grasping after that and anxious about it and so on. So you recognize what's going on and you just pause and allow and you investigate what's going on and you bring kindness to the feelings in you. What you've done is you've gone from fixating outward, on my way, getting a project done, you've made a U-turn

and you've deepened attention to the life that's right here. You've got presence to what's right here. And in that presence, there's a very visceral experience of well-being. There's a feeling of reconnection with the life that's here. And with rain, I think the most important moment is after you've done the different steps and you've offered yourself kindness, to just stop and notice the quality of present heart. It's like in a real rain, the rain comes down, the growth that comes afterwards, that nourishment comes afterwards when everything springs up a little more green.

So after rain, pause and just sense the quality of heart presence. So an example I'll share with you from my own life that is probably my most repeating example. when I work with the most over the years where I get blocked from happiness is when I, and I mentioned it as an example, is when I get hooked on getting things done. And the attachment is I want to be prepared so I can do a good job, so I can feel good about myself and others will like me and I don't want to fail so it has that whole cluster of getting things done. And I can see how, you know, I'll go for, part of my daily ritual is to go for a walk in the woods by the river and I can notice when I'm on that groove, if only I could get this done and do well on

it, then I can, I can see when I'm walking how it's tugging me away from the sounds of the birds and the, you know, the whole beauty that I'm in. I can watch it or I can sense when I'm meditating when that if only mind is tugging at me. And even when I'm in conversations and in the background, I'm trying to get over with the conversation so I can get back to work so I can get something done. You know, I know you get the idea. So about five, six years ago, I decided that I was going to bring rain into my daily walks and really get more honest with myself about how leaving, how much I was leaving really the one place where happiness is possible, which is in the moment. And so I would recognize, okay, I'm grasping after getting

something done in a certain way and I'd allow it to be there and sometimes I'd stop walking and just be still but other times I'd keep walking but allow what's there. And then I'd investigate and sense under the grasping some anxiety that if I don't try hard and I don't prepare a lot, then it's going to fall flat. Usually it's a talk, but it could be something else. The if-only mind in the teaching world, there's kind of an understanding amongst Dharma teachers that you're only as good as your last Dharma talk.

So it doesn't matter what you do. It's like then you're ready to get the next one done. Now, of course, nobody really believes that, but there is something, and probably many of you are familiar with it, that when you do if only mine, you get something done or even are successful, you get to enjoy it for about three seconds, and then all of a sudden the next challenge are opportunities in front of you. So, I've recognized, I've allowed, I investigate, and sense kind of that anxiety, and I usually breathe with it. And it's in those moments that I, if I bring kindness, that some space opens up.

And I start getting a bit of the lay of the land, a sense of the landscape of my life. And how many moments have I been preoccupied and not here to really cherish the world? And that can often bring us kind of soul sadness where I can really feel a sense of sorrow. but there's space and there's tenderness. And that's when there's that pause after rain where there's a kind of homecoming and a feeling of well-being because I'm back intimate with the life that's here.

I want to say this is never a one-shot when you're using rain, which is really mindfulness and compassion, to come home into the moment. and most of us have certain very sticky patterns, we just do it over and over again. Now there's a caveat, I don't want to say, this doesn't mean we don't pursue trying to do a good job on things. That's great. It doesn't mean that we don't try to have things go really well with finding a new partner

or up-leveling a relationship or doing what's best for our children. So there's still the intention to have things happen in life. It just, we're not hooked so that it's chronic and we don't get to be here. Desire is fine. It's the grasping. Can we sense that right now is fundamentally okay? That's really the question. Can we pause and say right now is really okay?

This has been around forever, but the contemporary version is you've got a contemporary Buddha who's falling from the 50th floor of a skyscraper. But because he's a booty, he's more floating than falling. And at the 25th floor, someone sees him passing by and says, are you okay? And he says, so far, so good. And I'm sharing that one on purpose because that's all we really can say. Of course, we're going to die. But what about right now? Can we be okay right now? So many times when I'm exploring happiness, people will come up afterwards and say, you know, I'm chronically and clinically depressed. And it's almost like it makes an expectation out of happiness.

Some of you might be thinking this. I have a lot of anxiety in my life. And it's almost like it tells me I'm not doing it right. if I'm not being on a spiritual path if I can't open to my happiness. You know, it's really hard. And so what I want to say about that is that there are many of us that have a biochemistry that's locked in with depression or anxiety. And it often takes therapy and a lot of different modalities to begin to move that.

And it makes a huge difference if we can begin to train our heart and mind in a way to befriend those moods, to be present with those moods in a way that we realize we're not the mood. By example, this is a quote, one awesome thing about E.Or, remember E.R from Winnie the Pooh? Okay. One awesome thing about E.R. is that even though he's basically, clinically depressed, she still gets invited to participate in adventures and shenanigans with all of his friends. And they never expect them to pretend to feel happy. They just love them anyway and they never leave him behind or ask them to change. The reason I think that's so beautiful is that for all of us to deal with depression, it's really hard to cope with,

but we can treat that depression the way IOR's friends treated IOR. In other words, we're not telling the depression you're bad, you shouldn't be here, I'm not going to be with you. But we need to remember that the depression isn't who we are and the anxiety is not who we are. And it doesn't have to take us over, it doesn't have to destroy our life if we can come into relationship with it, with kindness. So the pathway we're exploring tonight is that U-turn where when we find that we're fixated in some way, whether it's anxiety and worry or needing to have things a certain way, we

do rain. We recognize it. We pause and allow. We investigate. We bring kindness. there is inevitably, if we do it over and over again, a shift. And it's a shift in identity. What happens when we do rain, and this is the core really of the teaching,

is that before we start rain, when we're stuck, we feel like the stuck person. We feel like I'm an anxious stuck person, or I'm a fearful stuck person, or I'm a jealous stuck person, but we feel like a self that's stuck. By the end of rain, we sense that we're resting in a very compassionate awareness that's in relationship with the stuck parts of ourselves. But we're realizing a larger sense of our being. And that's what brings the well-being. Well-being.

We're inhabiting a larger sense of who we are. Often people will say, but isn't happiness self-centered? Like, you know, there's really awful things happening in this world. Isn't it self-centered to want well-being, to be going after it? What I've noticed is that when somebody is happy and has that well-being, they're actually less self-centered. It's almost like when we're anxious or depressed,

everything gets focused on me and what's wrong. And when we're happy, there's more like a fountain. There's an overflowing feeling. And there's less grasping and less consuming and less of a focus on me. And so that the upshot is, when there's well-being, there's more service, there's more creativity, there's more engagement. I read a memorable story about violinist Ishtak Pearlman and who's crippled with polio when he was a young child.

And I've heard subsequently different versions of this story and some questions about the story, but there's a teaching in it, and it doesn't matter whether there's some distortion in the story that really touched me deeply. So I want to share it with you. When he'd enter a performance, a very slow entry on his crutches,

and this was a story about a 1995 performance, performance at Lincoln Center in New York. And on this occasion, he played a few bars of what he was performing and then a string broke on his violin. The whole audience could hear the crack when it happened. So they wondered what he'd do, would he put on his knee braces, would he go, would he replace the, you know, the string? But he sat there and he closed his eyes and paused and he signaled for the conductor to begin again. He re-entered the concerto and he played with this huge passion and purity. And people watched him, could see him reconfiguring and modulating the piece in his head to make it work with the broken string.

And when he was done, there was this odd silence. And then, of course, this huge outburst of applause as people were cheering him from every corner of the room. And so he smiled and he wiped the sweat from his brow. He spoke, and this wasn't boastfully, as the story goes, but this is what he said. He said it in this kind of quiet and pensive, kind of a reverent tone, really. He said, you know, sometimes it is the artist's task to find out how much music you can still make with what you have left. And to me that's a response to the world from well-being.

It's like we have a certain amount left, there's ups and downs. what's possible what's really possible and when we surrender into the living moment when we really open to it as it is then like Pearlman we become

that kind of freedom that it just it takes over it's like we're no longer self-centered it's overflowing this is from David White you might close your eyes for a moment

as you listen enough these few words are enough if not these words this breath if not this breath this sitting here this opening to the life

we have refused again and again until now until now enough these few words are enough not these words this breath

not this breath this sitting here This opening to the life we have refused again and again until now. Until now. Continue with your eyes closed. We'll reflect together a bit on how we can wake up through the stuck places and open to that sense of well-being. You might be a witness to your life and sense, well, what is between me and happiness? You might reflect on how many moments am I on my way to something else?

There's an if only. I'm trying to get to the next moment, to the next experience, or how many moments is there sense? Something's wrong. This is not enough. This is not okay. You might choose one pattern, one habit where you know, you know, you know, You know you're very hooked on going after something, approval, food, somebody changing,

where you're not there for the moment. Choosing where your if only keeps you kind of hooked or stuck. What you're waiting for, linking your future happiness to. Is it financial security or a state of health? Where is there a sense of a broken string but it's not okay for you right now in your life? Once you've found something, some place you get stuck that you sense is keeping you from really opening to the moment and finding more well-being, some place you get fixated with something wrong or something missing.

Let this be the place you start practicing this present heart and we begin with recognize, to recognize, okay, so this is the pattern. This is where I get caught. I close off from well-being. Just an honest recognition and then we allow. And allow means there's really a pausing, that we're pausing together right now, just allowing. Allowing really means that we're letting it be, we're not trying to do anything. We're pausing together. not making wrong. And we deepen into the present heart with that U-turn where we start exploring, well, what is going on inside me right now when I'm hooked, when in some way I'm believing something has to

change in order to be happy. When I'm hooked on preparing or trying to lose weight or getting some recognition or financial security, what's going on inside? You might sense if there's anxiety in your body, restlessness, fear, anger. What's getting in the way with this moment being enough? It can be helpful at this point in rain. If you put your hand on your heart you can move into the nurturing by sensing what's needed inside. This part of you that's tense or anxious that feels like something's missing or wrong, just sense

what it needs from you right now. You might let it know that it belongs, that it's part of you, and sense the possibility of offering some kindness inwardly. What are the words you might want to offer yourself that could be comforting or healing? And if it's hard for you to offer it to yourself, you might imagine a very compassionate being, someone you know or don't know, that energy around you, sending love and comfort inwardly. after the steps of rain, we just sense the quality of a present heart, sense really the awareness that's here right now that may have been blocked before, that kindness and presence that's relating to the stuck place but not caught inside it so much, since after the rain

with that present heart, the possibility of more well-being that now is enough. The more we open to the moments of stuckness and bring this heart presence to what's here, the more we find our way into that well-being that really can celebrate life, that happy for no reason well-being. I'd like to close this reflection again with Mary Oliver, a different poem that expresses that happy for no reason kind of well-being. She says, my work is loving the world. My work is loving the world.

Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird, equal seekers of sweetness. Here are the quickening yeast. There the blue plums. Here are the clams deep in the speckled sand. Are my boots old? Is my coat torn? Am I no longer young and still not half perfect? Let me keep my mind on what matters, which is my work, which is mostly standing still

and learning to be astonished, which is gratitude to be given a mind. to be given a mind and a heart and these body, clothes, a mouth with which to give shouts of joy to the moth and the wren, to the sleepy dug-up clam, telling them all over and over how it is that we live forever. Let me keep my mind on what matters, which is my work, which is mostly standing still and learning to be astonished. So we close together with a simple prayer. that we each might open to this natural capacity for peace, happiness, deep well-being,

that all beings everywhere may touch and open to that capacity, to live fully, to love fully, and that this world might evolve in a way towards peace for all beings everywhere. Namaste and thank you. For more talks and meditations and to learn about my schedule or join my email list,

please visit tarabrock.com.