Tara Brach - Happy for No Reason - Part 1 (2016-05-18)

Episode Date: May 21, 2016

Happy for No Reason - Part 1 (2016-05-18) - These two talks explore the two different kinds of happiness, the blocks to happiness, and the ways that mindful presence and intentional gladdening the heart (positive neuroplasticity) can open us to our full potential for true happiness. 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 matters. To make a donation, please visit tarabrock.com. Namaste. Many of you are aware there's been a lot of increasing amounts of research on happiness. And some years back, a Gallup poll had an interesting finding, which was that we are least happy in our 20s and then our happiness is less in our 20s than it is in our 80s. And one of the psychologists that was involved with studying this says it's not being driven predominantly by things that happen in life, this happiness in our 80s. It's something very deep and quite human that seems to be driving this and then the pointers

go to acceptance. that it's acceptance of whatever's unfolding that enables us to really derive pleasure from the simple things. It's not any longer hitched to certain highs, having things go a certain way. So this is the kind of happiness that's sometimes described as the blessing of an awakening heart. The happiness that's not hitched to circumstances.

And the good news is that it's still within reach for those of you who are not that near to 80. So what I'd like to do at this class and the next week is look more deeply at happiness at what blocks happiness and two key pathways that are very interweaving that bring the peace and happiness, the appreciation, that really are the heart qualities that we think of as happiness. And one of those pathways, very familiar, I hope at this point for many of you, is bringing a full presence to what's right in the moment. It's what Anthony DeMello described as absolute cooperation with the inevitable,

which is what's happening right now. It's like completely open to it. So that's mindfulness and acceptance of what's right here. And then the second pathway, which we'll explore next week, which is really complimentary, is intentionally paying attention in ways that gladden the heart, which means ways that bring up the qualities of gratitude, loving kindness, forgiveness, compassion. And together, because the latter is what you might think of as positive neuroplasticity, it changes the patterning of negative thinking and so on,

together, this full presence and this intentional way of paying attention, really allows us to discover what sometimes is described as happiness for no reason. It's just that happiness that can then spontaneously emerge just out of beingness. So, often when I think about happiness and Buddhism, confess that my first introduction to Buddhism was in high school in a comparative religions class and we went through all the world religions and then we were asked in a way to sense you know which felt most resonant to us and when I kind of listed them Buddhism was right at the bottom you know because I interpreted it as desire is bad get rid of it you know and a kind of a grimness that went with it all and

And for me, you know, I really wanted to be happy and happy meant all the positive sensations that came with, you know, adventures, whether it was drug, sex, traveling, dancing, sports, whatever. It was like fun. And Buddhism seemed like it was saying, mm-mm, drop it all, you know. So it was a misunderstanding, really, because the teaching, the wisdom teaching of in Buddhism is not that desire or pleasure is a problem or wrong. It's a natural part of life to enjoy.

The suffering comes when we grasp on and have to have life a certain way. It's the grasping, the addictiveness that causes suffering. So there is a tendency though out of kind of mistrusting our bodies and mistrusting desire and not just in Buddhism, to look with really suspicion at desire. And one of my favorite monk stories that some of you probably all remember is when one new novice is just beginning at the monastery and he's invited to help the older monks copy the kind of the old canons and laws, but they're not copying from an original manuscript, they're copying from copies. And he's concerned that if there was a mistake in one of the originals, it was

would just get carried forth in time. So he shares his concern with the abbot and the abbot says, well, you have a point, but we've been doing this for centuries, but I'll check the original. So he goes down below the monastery into the cell deep down in the earth where the original vault is there holding that first copy and he's gone for hours and hours. And so the young novice gets worried. So finally he goes down to find him and he's down and the old act. habits down in the cellar, he's banging his head against the wall and crying uncontrollably. And the young novice says, father, father, what's wrong? And, you know, the response is, the word was celebrate. So we have this negativity bias and you can see it on the spiritual

path that there is this quality of grimness and striving like we've got something we have to overcome and somewhere we have to get. And I love it the way to Ticknaut Han describes the path. Many of you know Tickna Han, a wonderful Zen teacher and poet. He says, it's not enough to suffer. You have to touch peace also. Peace and happiness and beauty. It's part of the path. I remember one story of Tickna Tad Han was invited to a Zen monastery on the West Coast where they were really ardent practitioners and after some days of being with them, they asked him, you know, venerable sir, what else can we do to deepen ourselves on the path? And he said, just two things.

And one of them, he says, is to walk more slowly. And the second one is smile, you know, just smile. I think he said sleep more too, actually. So, happiness is part of our potential as we evolve. The reason to care about it, the reason that we talk about it is not as something else to grasp towards, but as something to honor as a domain that's a natural part of our being, our potential to awaken. And the Buddha said, I would not be teaching this if genuine happiness and freedom

were not possible. So we can touch it in any moment. It's an innate part of our being, our naturalness, and of course it gets covered over. It's our evolutionary capacity and the more primitive parts of our evolutionary brain tend to take over the survival brain and contract us. And the message is in those moments, something's missing or something's wrong. And when that is the message going on, rather than being open to the fullness of what's here, we contract and our tendency and you can watch it is to approach life like there's a problem

that's the filter there's a problem I have to solve and I'm curious I like to check in now then how many of you have noticed this that you're kind of trying to figure things out a whole lot a problem can I see it yeah good number okay so a lot of the times there's a sense that we're trying to get through the day We're on our way to something else. One of my favorite poets, Haface, has a poem called Tripping Over Joy.

And here's how it goes. What is the difference between your experience of 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 and that the saint has now continued. 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. I feel like this in some way sums up our limbic trance that we, when we get identified

by wants and fears, that's yet grim. We're trying to make it through the day and get controlling. And what that means is that we can't enjoy the landscape, the landscape that's just presenting itself. There's a little adage that says a truly happy person is one who can enjoy the scenery on a detour. How many days do we not have detours where we really want to get this done and that happens? And can we go with the flow and enjoy it? I mean, it's a really important question since we're always getting in some way laid.

Can we enjoy it? Maybe let's turn that into a real inquiry for the moment. If you want to just sit back and kind of close your eyes and check in, so this is a reflection on your own happiness or sense of well-being. And you might do it with some curiosity, not as a judgment, just interest. Do you experience well-being often? If you scan the last few days or today, were you making the thousand serious moves?

Or were you happy? When detours happened, did you enjoy the landscape? The scenery. When you're happy, what do you sense gives rise to it? Is it sense pleasures like you're feeling good physically or beauty to the eye, beautiful sound, touch? Are you happy because of activities that you're doing? There's a sense of engagement or flow.

Maybe a sense of mastery. Or is happiness come when you're feeling intimate and close with others? Does it come when you sense a kind of meaningfulness that you're belonging to something larger? Or do you find there's a sense of happiness without cause that there's just a spontaneous happiness that just arises? Open your eyes if you'd like. So in Buddhist psychology there's two different kinds of happiness that are described

and one is described as worldly happiness. The polyword is pomoja and it's the happiness that comes with the, we're experiencing it through our senses and it's pleasantness linked to life being a certain way at the time you know that something's happening with a certain person or a certain activity or a particular accomplishment. So that's happiness with cause. And the second kind of happiness, Sukha, this is a poly word again, is unconditioned happiness. It's happiness that's not dependent on anything.

Again, happy for no reason. And that's considered a place of freedom. So we're going to look at Pomodja first because it can create the atmosphere for Sukha. In other words, it can be very skillful to arouse that word. worldly happiness and that can create an atmosphere for a deepening into unconditioned happiness. Or worldly happiness, if it's conditioned by grasping and fear, can actually block the ultimate freedom of succa, of unconditioned happiness. So Pomoja, and sometimes it's very fleeting.

Sometimes it's just like the great flavor, great taste of ice cream or it might be a wonderful massage or maybe one of those perfectly aimed compliments that can make us feel good for about three seconds. There's one, really, you're 63? You don't look a day over 61, you know? I just turned 63 yesterday so I thought I'd share that one. Are the more sustained ones of Homoja when life is going our way when we get that job that we really, really wanted, or the new partner, or really... recognize, oh, this is my soul-made and there's that sense of, oh, now I'm really happy. Love this from the, this is printed in a singles ad.

Single black female seeks male companionship, ethnicity unimportant, I'm a very good looking girl who loves to play. I love long walks in the woods, riding in your pickup truck, hunting, camping, fishing trips, cozy winter nights lying by the fire. Candlelight dinners will have me eating out of your hand. Rub me the right way and watch me respond. I'll be at the front door when you get home from work wearing only what nature gave me. Kiss me and I'm yours. Call and gives a phone number, ask for Daisy.

This is true story. Over 15,000 men found themselves talking to the Atlanta Humane Society about an eight-week-old black lab retriever. So, happiness that's linked to conditions can be deeply rewarding, it can be wholesome. And again, as I mentioned, when there's some real sense of mastery and beholding beauty, writing a poem, really looking at the intricacy of a blossom, the mystery of it, painting, hugging, gardening, it can be really, really lovely. The happiness that comes when someone else is kind and we feel that, whew, a gratitude.

So when happiness is hitched to conditions, like I just mentioned, you know, the painting or the poem, and it's met with a kind of presence and openness versus the quality of a I have to keep this, I have to have it this way. When it's held lightly, and this is William Blake, you might remember the line Kiss Joy as it flies by. When it's that kind of pomoja, it's conditioned but it's held with openness, it does create the atmosphere for more unconditioned happiness. It starts entraining us to a quality of delight and openness.

it undoes habitual negativity that blocks a deeper kind of happiness. So we'll, as I mentioned, be exploring this next week, but there is wholesome Pomoja, wholesome happiness that is conditioned. The difficulty, as I've been pointing to, is that so often the conditioning there is that we fixate on certain vehicles of conditional happiness. we have to have things a certain way for us to be happy. And so in the body there's even this sense of something's missing, incomplete, have to have, or something's wrong.

So attachments like this, attachment to having this kind of person or this kind of feedback or approval or having this kind of food or this kind of fix, the attachments fueled by a delusional belief. We call it sometimes if only mind. It's like, if only I have this, and we all have this if only mind, so listen carefully, if only this happens, like my body finally feels better, I finally get my health back. They can seem really realistic, but if only this, then I'll be happy.

That's if only mine. And it happens around, as I mentioned, food, alcohol, accomplishments, possessions, another person treating us a certain way, or a child behaving, the right partner, the right body, if only this, then I'll be okay. One example of a man named Jim who divorced at 50, he was in a crisis, and it felt like his life was out of control, you know, again, if it's only I can get back into looking attractive and attract that person, you know, that was his. So, decides to change his lifestyle and goes on a strict diet, jogs, his weights, takes

sun baths, designer clothing, ends up reducing his waist by six inches, expanding his chest by five inches, swell tan, decides to top it all off with a sporty new haircut. Afterwards, while stepping out of the barber shop, he's hit by a bus. As he lay dying, he cries out, God, how could you do this to me? And the voice from Heaven's response, to tell you the truth, Jim, I didn't even recognize you. Okay, so the problem with, if only mind, here's the real problems. The first big problem is it doesn't work. It never delivers. Or if onlys just don't work. If only, there's all this research between wants and happiness. We each have a biochemical set point for happiness. What that means is that even when we get what we thought we wanted, we find

that partner or the perfect job or we, or let's say it goes the other way and something bad happens. We didn't want to have happen. You know, we lose something precious, a lot of loved one or a friend moves away. Either way, we seem to move back to our habitual happiness set points in about five months. It just doesn't work. The other thing is, while we're pursuing if only mind, which is if you look at the days of your life, a huge amount of our time is pursuing what we think is going to make us feel better. In those moments of pursuing, we're not in the one place where we can actually touch into true happiness. We're not right here in the present moment. We're not available.

So, you might just sense for yourself for a moment if you just close your eyes and just ask yourself, what is it that really matters if you're at the end of your life looking back that you'd want to be experiencing in your days? you know, what is it that really matters to you? Is it kindness, connecting, really opening to what's beautiful, seeing beauty? Is it creativity? Is it serving? Is it beingness, being present? How many moments in the last few days did you touch into what really really? matters to you, you know, in a very deep or spiritual way. Did you really touch that sense of wonder or openness or creativity or kindness or present? And if not so many, what was in the way? Can you notice how the habitual pursuit, the if only, or the fear of what bad could happen,

that something's wrong, was blocking in some way. Can you sense that the shadow of Pomoja, of which is really the if only mind, blocks happiness? In the moments we're pursuing, there's an undercurrent of dissatisfaction. It's really like saying, right now it's not okay. And it reinforces our set point. And you're chasing after that which will then make it okay, the financial stability, the getting something else done, the losing weight, the in some way getting somebody's approval. In the moments of chasing after, we're leaving home, we're reinforcing our set point and

we're blocking happiness. So the evolution to true happiness is transforming our relationship with life. It requires shifting from hitching our well-being to life being a certain way, shifting from that to a full presence that allows what is. That's the grounds of happiness. It's this capacity for unconditional presence. absolute cooperation with the inevitable. If we begin to examine it, that presence begins with a sense of allowing.

There's some wisdom in us that says, okay, just open to the moment and let it be what it is, allow it. In time, it deepens to loving what is. That's the portal. When we start loving the life that's here, we find that happiness. You can open your eyes if you'd like. I know I forgot to tell you to do that, whichever you'd like. This shift from hitching to externals, we start getting it.

Oh my gosh, I keep not being happy because I'm not getting that and life isn't cooperating. The shift comes out of a deep wisdom in us that starts getting, there's going to keep being ups and downs. Life is not going to cooperate. Mortality is inevitable. We start getting that. and we start realizing that if I want to be happy, I'm going to have to be at peace with the moments however they are.

Bringing our hearts into our body and opening to however it is. Give you an illustration that touched me for this quality of happy for no reason, this unconditional presence and opening to how it is. And this was an example given by the author Peter Matheson in the Snow Leopard, his book. Peter died a couple of years ago. But in this story, he's visiting a llama with crippling arthritis. And the llama lives in a very isolated region of Tibet. And so Peter is wondering, how does it feel for this guy to know that because of his body,

he'll never be able to leave again? He'll never be able to travel, go anywhere for the rest of his life. So he asks that question through a translator. Now, the llama appears to be a very happy man. but he's wondering how this isolation could work from him. He hasn't left for eight years because of his legs. He may never leave again. So he asks this question and the translator translates it and here's what happens

and I'll write what Peter writes. He says, and this holy man of great directness and simplicity, big white teeth shining, laughs out loud in an 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 am happy. It's wonderful, especially when I have no choice. And Peter goes on to say he feels as though he's been struck in the chest with the power of this wholehearted acceptance, the power of it, the power of saying yes to the life that's right here, the freedom of it.

This is what gives us the capacity to have that happiness for no reason. So let's look more closely at how we can shift from our egoic level of happiness and the kind of grasping on and having to have things a certain way to this quality of openness. And it begins with this simple inquiry where we're willing to take a look and ask, well, really, what is between me and happiness? And just to ask yourself, what is between me and happiness this moment or this day? And what we begin to identify then is the way our habitual grasping and aversion plays out. We begin to identify how we're chronically wanting something else.

We're wanting the next moment to contain what this moment does not. We start seeing that. we start seeing how the habit of thinking something's wrong and how that's getting in the way. And so the beginning of opening to that, the power of that acceptance and the access to the true happiness is to notice those layers of fear and grasping and that's where we begin to come back to a kind of healing presence with ourselves. We make that U-turn where I'm grasping after this, oh, I see that now, that's keeping me from really being happy.

Then we come back and we open to that place underneath the grasping that needs attention. I'll give you an example of how it works. And of course my most inside-out and honest examples are of myself. And I'll, so I'm going to give you an example of where I've seen the shadow side of homoja, the kind of grasping over the last, you know, been very aware in working with this maybe over the last two decades and more and more so over the last 15, 10 years. The attachment is to get more done, get something else done, be prepared for what's next. And so because I always have this schedule, in a way my work

is preparing things for what I'm going to do, it can either come out of a place of service and creativity and aliveness and loving to be generous. generative, art can be marbled a little with, got to get this done, want everybody to like it, got to do it right, fear of falling short, it can have those threads in it. So, to the extent that the ladder's in there, what happens is the preparing, rather than being a flow state, a creative state, and a live present state, it's got a contraction to it. And when that's going on, that means I'm going from my walk by the river or I'm meditating or I'm talking to somebody else, but there's an undercurrent of got to get something done, got to get on to the next

thing, now's not okay. So that's the setting up the predicament there. So what happens is that especially as I mentioned over the last 10 or 15 years I've got, have this growing awareness of how I'm leaving home in the moments that preparing is being driven by this sense of anxiety and wanting to get it right when there's a grasping around it and how it means I'm postponing my life. If I'm always preparing for the what's next and that preparing is not got a quality of creativity and presence, I'm not here. So there's a wisdom place that sees that and can grieve that or feel sorrow about it

and has a longing to wake up around in, and that's where I have to make the U-turn rather than fixating on the what's next and how to get it done and how to check things off the list, the U-turn has come back to the actual sense of the grasping, the anxiety, and be with it. And the moments that I realize, oh, that's what's needed, I'm already like three-quarters of the way there. There's already a waking up out of the trance of the ego. heroic preparer and coming back home.

Does that make sense when we've recognized that we're leaving? Coming back. And then the process is something I've described many times which is being with the grasping, being with noticing the beliefs that well if I don't try real hard something will go wrong. It's just a belief. You don't have to believe it. Coming back to the clenched place. with, maybe offering that gesture of kindness of it's okay, sweetheart.

And gradually what happens is by offering presence to the grasping fearful place, there's a relaxing to inhabit that presence and the sense of my own being shifts from being the self that's driven to prepare to being that awareness that's perceiving in a tender way. the moment. That shift in identity is what allows for happy for no reason. Because once I'm back to awareness, then the light of the universe shines through. I can celebrate the moments, I can continue to do the work. But it's coming from a different place. It's not clenched. Now, just to say, this is not a one-shot for me or anyone I know. It's over and over again and seeing the habit of the more primitive parts of the brain kind of wildly, you know,

driving us over and over again into being grim or trying real hard or a fearing failure and going, wait a minute, that's taken me from the moment, come back, make the U-turn. Again, I want to say that the problem is not that we need to work, we need to prepare, we all have to do things like that. It's what's driving it. Because it's possible to do whatever we need to do from a being quality, from a place that, you know, we have this fear that, well, if I take away my anxiety, I won't be motivated to get it done and I won't do a good job.

And that's a false belief. There's a deeper motivation. There's a motivation that wants to fulfill our potential to really express creatively and to serve, to help, to be generative, to be alive. But we have to take the chance and make the U-turn and break the old patterning. For me, when it's fueled by anxiety, I'm on my way somewhere else and I'm not living my moments. It's like now doesn't count.

This is written by Kurt Vonnegut and he's talking about his friend Joe Heller, who you might know wrote Catch-22. He says, true story, word of honor, Joe Heller, an important and funny writer now dead, and I were at a party given by a billionaire on Shelter Island. I said, Joe, how does it make you feel to know that our host only yesterday may have made more money than your novel Catch-22 has earned in its entire history? And Joe said, I've got something he can never have. And I said, what on earth could that be, Joe? And Joe said, the knowledge that I've got enough. Not bad.

Rest in peace. This sense of enough is really critical. You might at different times pause and notice is it possible right in this moment to feel, sometimes we say I could die now,

that it's enough, that this moment's enough. It's rare. We're usually skimming the surface on our way somewhere else. And that's again and it's coming from that sense of if only. If only it's like this, then I can relax and enjoy it, but now it's not quite configured right.

Take notice. The knowledge that we have enough, it's profound. That's happy for no reason. I know Jonathan and I have a kind of ritual because we're so aware in our own lives how easy it is to get caught up and think that the moment that we're going for is a moment down the road when all the conditions are just right, it's the right weather, we're doing the fun thing that we like doing or whatever. So we'll often be in the middle of something and I'll say or he'll say, this is it.

And then the other one will say, no, no, no, no, no, this is it. Like this moment. No, no, no, no, no, this moment, you know. But the idea being it's not down the road when this talk. is done or after you're listening to the podcast when you go do the such and such. It's not the next holiday. It's not the next time or with that particular person. And until we have the habit of this, right, this moment, and I really mean this moment is it. It's always going to feel like it's another moment and this moment's in some way just kind of preparing. Does that resonate

for you? So our training is to in a way undo that habit of charging towards something else we think is going to bring us happiness, are living with that trance of that something's wrong and I can't open to this right, this moment. And having the courage to really see if it's possible to find that enoughness to really open our heart to what's here, to love what is. So we'll do a reflection, a brief reflection on this and then we'll kind of finish up a few other comments. You might ask yourself that question, what is between me and feeling happy? What's between me and feeling that now is truly enough that this is it. And you might sense if there's a kind of, if only, well, if only I could be a little more comfortable physically right now. What are you waiting

for? Are you waiting to be more physically comfortable? What are you waiting to change in your life for you to finally feel able to say, okay, now? Sometimes it's real specific. Maybe it has to do with somebody else in your life changing so your relationship can be okay. Or maybe it's for the financial security, some kind of recognition or some type of contribution. Maybe you're waiting until you finish preparing for one particular thing and then you can relax, or losing the weight, or maybe it's the well-being of somebody that's dear to you. All things that matter. And yet if the habit is to be waiting, if the habit is, if only this could change,

Even if it's just a hair breath away, we are separated from true happiness. It's a sense what's there. And if you're conscious of a particular fear or want that's getting in the way, if there's a sense of leaning forward or that something's wrong with now, just from the wisest part of you notice how much of life is postponed or missed when you're inside that trance. How many moments are discounted as not really real life? In any moment you can make that U-turn, that homecoming,

of just choosing presence, and that is the key. It doesn't matter what's going on, in any moment you can make that U-turn and take your attention right to this moment, this body, this heart. Right now since, if there's any wanting, any fears, that you can bring a very gentle kind attention. You might put your hand on your heart and really accompany whatever is between you and

happiness with the breath, with your presence. So you're very consciously offering a gentle presence to the place in you that's feeling there's something else I want. the place in you that's feeling something's wrong, just offer it presence. Since how deeply you can give the experience in your body and in your heart the kind of presence that it feels like it's bathed in attention, bathed in light and warmth. How deeply can you bring a kind of yes and kindness to just what's right here? Let this be it, this moment. And you might sense and occupy the awareness and tenderness that's here when you are present,

to sense the quality of your beingness that starts really becoming accessible when you offer presence to the life that's here. Be that presence. Dorothy Hunt writes, Peace is this moment without judgment. that is all. This moment in the heart space where everything that is

is welcome. Peace is this moment without judgment. That is all. This moment in the heart space where everything that is is welcome. As you start choosing presence saying yes to what's here,

that yes can unfold into loving what is. Choosing presence. You can open your eyes if you'd like or keep them closed. So this is the key to Sukha. This is the key to unconditioned happiness, to happy for no reason, is that we recognize how we're leaving and we choose presence over and over until that presence becomes a loving what is.

There's one woman who's an inmate still there in a maximum security prison. some friends of mine are teaching and offering mindfulness classes. And she describes what happened to her that she says that for the first several years she was there, she was really scared. She was just constant fear. And then she says she was angry about being there. And then she moved on and under that there was a sense of guilt and then shame, regret, mortification. Then she got introduced to mindfulness.

And here's what she writes. She says, mindfulness works. Wherever a person lives, however a person lives, there is stress in every life. I look out my slit of a window and see the prettiest stars I've ever seen because I can really see now. Why was I here for 15 years before I realized I couldn't detect yellow flowers under low-pressure sodium lamps in the courtyard? That's easy. I never bothered to slow down and pay attention to be mindful. It's hard here not to make plans for when I go home.

It's harder to face the realization that when I go home I not actually ever get here. Those days make me have to be okay with today. As a Christian I know I always never promised tomorrow. As a mindful person I can see that this sky is pretty. This grass is green. And if this is the only sidewalk I'll ever get to walk on, I'm in a place where I can appreciate that it's not always a bad sidewalk. I have joy in pointing out Orion the Hunter when I leave my Mediterranean

group on Wednesday night. So this is the shift. This is the shift from operating out of something's missing, something's wrong, to begin to open to how it is and discover the pleasure and the simple things. Nietzsche writes, for happiness. How little suffices for happiness, the least thing precisely. The gentleest thing, the lightest thing, a lizard rustling, a breath, a whisk, an eye glance. Little maketh up the best happiness. Be still. How many of you have found happiness from the little things, the simple things?

It's really it. Yeah. What enables us to discover that is a quality of presence. In fact, the deepest happiness, we think it's happening because of the thing, but it's the presence that actually is the happiness. We think we're happy because of the beauty. of the clouds that are passing and moving through the sky or the sounds of a child's laugh. But what's allowing us to be happy is the background of presence, the background space of

awareness that's tender and awake. That's what's allowing it. Investigate this. Next time you are there with beauty or kindness or the recognition of a simple thing in your life that gives you pleasure, sense the background of presence, you'll find it's there. happy for no reason. It doesn't have to do with an external. I started tonight with the research on aging and people in their 80s and it got me thinking about my mom who moved down here when she was 81 and lived with me for about five years. And the first couple of years she actually was quite fit.

She was able to hike with me and kind of go up and down some hills and so on. And then it was like an amazing adventure. She just, it was for her, it was incredible adventure. And then we'd slow down and we'd walk along the river slowly and it was still an adventure because everything was really, she was very alive to everything. Then we'd walk even slower and we'd have to do it arm and arm. And then she kept talking about how fun it was to walk arm and arm.

And then when she was dying, last time down to the river, Jonathan picked her up and put her in her car. She had a... Her love was her... She had a cabrio convertible that was 20 years old, this cinnabar. It was all cinnamon-looking. And so he put her in the convertible, and she would...

And on the way down to the river, she was going, wee, feeling the air going through hair. And then in a wheelchair by the river, this was one week before she died, there were seagulls, and they were kind of mixing it up with the geese. And she's going, wow, we don't have to wait. We can all feel that. We know that tenderness of presence. We get so occupied with this narrative of being a self on the way,

that sense of that problem that we're solving. We don't have to wait. Tonight, it's really, you know, we see the thousand serious moves. we all know we get caught in it. Every one of us we take it so seriously. And there's this invitation. And there's a training that goes with it. And the training is over and over

to notice when we're in that trance of driving forward when we have to have something a certain way, when something's wrong or missing, and just pause and say, okay, let's make that U-turn and bring the presence to what's here. and if we stay and stay, we start occupying that presence, being that presence, having the space to then enjoy happy for no reason. Suka.

So let's take the last few moments just to sit quietly and let your only intention be to relax and just to say yes to the changing moments, letting life be just as it is, resting in the space, that is yes, that's open and allowing, gentle, sensing the possibility of loving what is, just letting that tenderness receive the life of the moment. Peace is this moment without judgment, that is all. This moment in the heart space where everything that is welcome. May we awaken to realize that heart space that includes this changing life and that can cherish

and celebrate the moments. May all beings everywhere discover this happiness for no reason, the freedom of an awakening heart. Namaste. For more talks and meditations and to learn about my schedule

or join my email list, please visit tarabrock.com.