Tara Brach - Instruction and Question-Response during Retreat (2017-05-02)

Episode Date: May 28, 2017

Instruction and Question-Response during Retreat (2017-05-02) - Topics include individualizing your meditation practice, working with the "tangles," forgiveness practice, and using the "nurturing" of RAIN. Let us know if you find this kind of short clip interesting and helpful!

So again, the landscape of the practice just to name that you keep hearing from us that it's almost as many body minds as there are here, there's going to be different contours of how we're practicing, different ways we're going to be leaning and even your way will keep adapting. There needs to be a fluidity to really respond in the moment in a way that most allows you to be here. But the basic ingredients are the same. That for all of us there is, because our conditioning is to leave and dissociate, there's a tremendous skillfulness in arriving again and again and waking up our bodies. And because our minds are scattered

and generally, you know, the fear kind of drives us to clutch, being able to relax and and stay and stay and stay with concentration, really sustained attention, allows for a kind of settling and clearing and penetration that's really valuable. And this embodiment and this kind of settled collectiveness supports, which, and this is the heart of the practice, this presence that knows what's happening. that can hold what's happening, that can be here. Now, one of the questions that comes up often in practice is, well, when do we bring in all the refined kind of attention of inquiry and so on?

So I just want to name that often we're noticing waves arise and we're being with them and they come and they go and we come back to just more of a resting with what is. Sometimes the waves are really big ones and they're knocking us around. There's a real tangle. And that's when we start bringing in these skillful means of mindfulness and heartfulness. And what we call rain is not some other practice. Rain is just energizing these two wings.

of deepening mindfulness and deepening heartfulness. And so when there's a tangle, to untangle the tangle, the mindfulness we recognize it. And then with the investigation we deepen that recognition with some questions that bring the attention right to what's there. The recognizing and the investigating with the allowing and the nurturing, we open to that tender heart space that has room. So if you feel like there's a tangle, then just, oh, this is a time to energize these two wings of mindfulness and heartfulness and begin to explore the kind of questions that deepen your

attention and the ways of nurturing that soften your heart. It may be that there's a tangle and you ask the question of what's happening and what does it need and then the nurturing maybe just like. touching your heart and sending a message that really calms and opens you. It might be that simple. Enough words for me. Let's get a sense of what's in the room, what questions are here. I ran into an obstacle last night in the forgiveness practice.

The question is, what if I set the intention and what if I actually manage to forgive? what if I am also unwilling to tell that person? What does that do to the practice? You're unwilling to say it out loud, Jamie? Yes. You know, sometimes there's no way we can say it out loud, and there's a lot of different reasons the person could be dead or not around. Our saying it out loud might not serve.

Us are them. Right. They might not be able to receive that. It doesn't, it's really your intention. And if your unwillingness comes out of wanting to deny them a pleasure, out of in some way a fear of something that you haven't processed, then process that with kindness. So just check your intention.

Okay. Yeah. But there is a real deep intelligence to the process of asking for forgiveness and forgiving ourselves before extending forgiveness. it makes us a lot more porous and available and tender. Okay. Yeah, thank you. Thank you.

I've got a question about the N of Raine. When I first got involved in this practice, I believe I was told that N was non-identification, and now I understand it's nurturing. Are they the same, or am I missing something? No, but thank you. Because probably many others are wondering the same. Rain has for some of us morphed, as things do.

And initially, when it was first offered into the Dharma field by Michelle McDonald probably 20 years ago, the end was non-identification. And I found that many people would go through the process and they would have kind of an intellectual process of recognizing and letting something be there and investigating, but non-identification, first of all, they didn't really untangle the tangle, and second of all, it wasn't meaningful to them. What I found was the missing piece was, in terms of the two wings,

we were missing the wing of compassion. So I found that rain each step actually has a slight skillful doing, which is you're on purpose recognizing, you're on purpose creating space, You're on purpose investigating and you're on purpose offering, nurturing. And it's after the rain, just like after the real rain that things unfold, that you actually rest in the presence that realizes non-identification, not as a concept but as an actual experiential reality. So that realization is still in the process, but it's it flowers spontaneously.

after those four steps, which are really the two wings balanced out. So it's really up to you. You may create a whole new acronym for yourself. See what feels right. But for many people, this more recent version of rain has been extraordinarily helpful. I found myself thinking through, why can't I have that kind of meditation all the time? that was that was I felt so much in my body and so present so I thought why get involved in all the different types when there's this I guess I was part of me was like clinging to this and was like this is just so beautiful and so it feels so good that I want more well first that's all wonderful so yay and you know at different times there's going to be different instructions or ways to lean that are going to serve you

that this particular balance might not as much. And there'll be other people in the room that said, I just slept through that hold it at it. So, you know, so, but find sense what serves you of this. And what happens is we internalize our inner coach or inner guide and you'll be, you'll be guiding yourself in certain ways that work. And then that's, you'll be, you'll be, you'll be guiding yourself in certain ways that work. And then that's, you'll be internalize. drops away and there's this kind of a spontaneous resting back in that presence. So thank you.

Have time for one more? I'd like to speak to rain morphing and it's morphed here because when I look outside and see all the birds and the greenery and feel all that, that's just brought another aspect to it and so to bring that rain and it's almost like I feel a little bit wet

sometimes. it's all good. I love the word to feel a little wet. The Tibetans call it that when we start waking up, there's a kind of moisture or tenderness that is very much sensing this world belonging in our hearts. So thank you for that. I want to reiterate that at the very end of the practice

I invited you just to let go of all doing. And especially if there's some quieting today, sense with the practice that you can find some parts of it where you just stop any directing or guiding and just sense what happens when you let life be just as it is because that really is the portal to the full blossoming of presence and freedom. Blessings and enjoy. Thank you.