Tara Brach - Love and Fear During Times of War: Interview with Lama Rod Owens

Episode Date: July 24, 2020

Love and Fear During Times of War: An Interview with Lama Rod Owens (2020-07-22) - This is a time of darkness and war. Fear lies at the heart of much of the violence we are experiencing. How do we befriend our fear and offer it permission to teach us how to move through it into a state of freedom? How do we use our fear to connect to the fear so many other people are experiencing? Ultimately, how do we begin to love what is unlovable, especially our fear? We will call on the teachings of Buddhadharma as well as our own intrinsic wisdom to lean into our fear with love.

Greetings. We offer these podcasts freely and your support really makes a difference. To make a donation, please visit tarabrock.com. Welcome you, Lama Rod, to our community and our larger community. Just fabulous to have you here and I love the title and the topic that you offered, love and fear during times of war. Here we are during these times and maybe just, to begin. How are you doing? How's your heart with what's going on these days? Yeah. I'm exhausted, actually. I'm tired. And I don't think that's anything particularly new, but I think the fatigue comes from the way in which I, like many of us, and probably yourself as Waltaur, where, you know, we're stepping up the practice to hold, not just our particular struggle,

but also the struggle of the world of so many folks around us. You know, there's deep conflicts, you know, right now. And when I talk about war, I'm also talking about spiritual warfare happening. I feel like there's the spirit is in. And it's in conflict for many of us, you know. And I'm really being called, really to the cushion, to really, like, dig into love and compassion and gratitude and patience, you know, and empathy right now.

Because I think those are, you know, how we, I don't know, how we care for ourselves and care for the world. But having said all of that, I am still doing very well. At the same time, I'm still really grateful for practice. And that tends to the ways in which maybe sometimes I can get hopeless and experience hopelessness and fear. You know, that the world may go off the ledge into something that may not be conducive. freedom of many of us. So I guess I'm wondering because you you wanted to explore love and fear and fear is so big right now. And is that a primary way that fear takes shape in you that the

world, the degree of suffering and it can just get worse? It's the fear. Yeah, it's the fear. Yeah, it's the anxiety that for me comes from waiting into this future. and wondering, well, is there a place for me in the future, is there a place for my freedom and the freedom of the communities that I belong to? You know, is there a space for us to be happy and well and restored and tended to in the ways that we need to be tended to? Is that the fear you're feeling from others also? Yes.

That sense of there might not be room for these bodies and hearts to be. have a life, really. And I think that that is really contributing to this kind of shutting down that many of us may be experiencing. It also tends to feed into or express itself as

like deep fatigue, you know, as well. You know, where many of us are saying, I have no idea what's going to happen, nor am I looking forward to what's going to happen. So I kind of shut down. I think for me, that's also an expression of trauma. You know, that kind of numb shutting down, which I also call this association as well.

I can't really deal with how my body is processing, this anxiety, the fear, and so I need to take a break. I need separation right now. And so I kind of exist, you know, not me, but I'm just saying that, you know, I see people existing within this kind of limbo, or where there's really disconnected from how their bodies are showing up right now.

I'm right with you. I think I'm feeling the same that there's such a sense of uncertainty about the future that it's almost like waiting, but waiting with fear for something bad. And in that tensing, we get exhausted by tensing. And we also sometimes shut it down with depression. And I'm also seeing huge loneliness like it isolates. Yes, absolutely. And that disconnect. that's also about not only am I afraid of a future, I'm also afraid of people. You know, because I don't know who people are.

I don't know what they think. You know, I don't know what they believe. You know, and so I still need to protect myself. You know, that's always a reality for certain communities, you know, certain large communities where, like, they have to be really careful.

about who they're with and where they go. You know, that all just adds together, you know, just all compounds back into the fear. Yeah, but I hear what you're saying, and that trauma has to do with cutting off. And when you cut off, you don't trust it, that you really belong to anybody. You have to kind of, the vigilance is there.

So tell me a little about how you're working with. What's your process? because I feel like we're all trying to find a way, find a refuge in this. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, for me, every day it's getting up and making a commitment or recommitment to trusting my practice, you know,

and saying, you know what, my practice has held me for almost 20 years, just like half of my life now. And I want to continue to trust my practice to take care of me. you know, I come from the Tibetan tradition. I come from shamanic practices and ancestral indigenous practices. So I'm really into really developing relationships with deities, particularly Tara, right? And Tara, for me, is like a primary deity that I actually just, I am relying on as a source of refuge, right? as a reflection and an emanation of my own innate compassion,

you know, particularly my own innate liberatory compassion, freeing compassion. I rely on that and continually to take refuge and this deep belief and trust that my compassion actually is enough, you know, to continue to touch into the discomfort, continue to always remember that I am not the only one that struggling in the world, you know, that even the person that I despise the most in the world is also suffering, like me, you know.

And if I hold that perspective, then I can maintain my humanity and continue to relate to the humanity of everyone around me, you know. And that's such an important practice for me to remember that we're human and we're trying to make the best choices we know how to do. how to make, but we're all coming into this world with different resources. And not everyone got the resources that they needed coming into this world that helps them to feel connected and loved and a part of something. Yeah. You know, I know there's intense deficiency that people are operating out of. And I want to show up for that, but at the same time,

the same time, you know, and this is another part of my kind of coming out of my own toolbox around managing these times, which is setting boundaries to, which means that, like, yes, I can see your suffering, but I don't have to actually stick around for you to use me as a target, you know, to blame me for your suffering. And so just really, I call it protecting my energy, you know, So that means that, like, yeah, I'm not going certain places. I'm not in interaction with certain people. I'm not reading certain things. I'm not getting involved in certain situations.

I allow myself to not like people, you know, because me trying to like people becomes a burden of emotional labor that I don't feel is necessary, you know? But again, compassion is what I do feel is necessary. right? Everyone deserves compassion, you know, and love, but I don't have to like you. I just want you to be free from suffering, you know. So, first of all, what you're saying is so resonant that you really trust in the power of compassion and you trust that it moves through you and you have a way to access it. You actually have very deep practice to access it. And what I wonder about so often is that you said something that really caught my attention, which is that not everybody comes in with the resources to have that kind of sense of contact or belonging.

You know, Mother Teresa says, you know, our sufferings because we have forgotten our belonging to each other. And some people have less ability. Like you can use the goddess Tara to, and you have ways of reconnecting. And I'm wondering, how do you, I can understand you holding another with compassion when they're cut off, but how do you help people find their pathway to compassion when they've been traumatized and are cutoff? What are the ways that you use to help them? I embody compassion for them. So I become an example, a living, live, embodied example, what it looks like. to experience compassion, to express compassion, to be compassionate.

And I let the practice speak forward you. You know, often, you know, I think sometimes we get into this habit of always feeling like, oh, I have to like tell people, I have to explain things, I have to like give people a list, right? But I have often found in my practice that really just showing you is a transmission that is deeply, moving, you know, and for my teachers, I choose my teachers by the example that they embody, not by necessarily their teachings, you know, but how do I feel around them? And if we can deeply embody compassion, then we can move into interactions with folks, and folks will begin to sense, you know, maybe in a way they're not conscious of, or maybe not in a way they're able to

articulate that they begin to sense that we're not there to hurt them. And they begin to let down defenses. They begin to let down their guard. And that closeness, that belonging, can begin. And of course, the embodied expression comes through also how we're speaking to people, like how we're holding space for ourselves, how we're connecting to our own discomfort, how we're actually doing emotional labor. for ourselves, you know? So when someone's really holding themselves in this compassionate energy,

being with everything that arises, right, when they enter into relationship with others, there's a sense that like those folks don't have to do a lot of labor in that relationship. And so you can relax, you can open, you can take a break and say, ah, this is so refreshing. There's a Shanti-Dabra prayer that I love to recite in some of my practices. And in the prayer, Shanti-David says, you know, may I become the medicine. You know, may I become the medicine? Our practice actually helps us to become the medicine for folks in a way that we're not even trying to be medicine, but we become medicine because we're doing the practice for ourselves.

So as I'm taking in what you're saying and also just the energy of that, I can sense how you create a field that's safe. And so let's say with me, I could feel, okay, so whatever ideas and defenses are here can drop away. And then in the space that opens up, that is compassion. So another, your transmission will actually create the environment that another person's true nature, their heart can unfold. You know?

This is about entering through interactions and relationships where we're transmitting this, this truth that I don't need anything from you. Like I'm not here to take anything away. I'm not here to take your time, to take your emotional energy or labor. I'm here just taking care of myself. And I'm inviting you into this space to sit with me to have whatever we're doing. We're having a conversation. We're having some tea.

You know, whatever we're doing, it's just like, let's just be together. I don't want you to work around me or to work to have me, you know, in the space with you. I just want you to open. And that opening is the restoration, you know, and the compassion itself. I feel as if, you know, sometimes I think many of us who are joining in to the discussion, I think right now people want to do something. People want, okay, what can I do? You know?

And I want to challenge people into considering non-doing. Maybe consider being instead of doing. That's a very subtle practice, but how do we just be ourselves? How do we just be compassionate? How do we just be loving and gracious, you know? especially when I don't know what to say. I kind of just be and hold space for everything. So I wonder if I am coming to you and I'm feeling fear myself.

And if you say to me to just be, don't try to do anything with it, what easily could happen for me is my, there's a subtle doing. I'm doing about the fear, which is avoiding it. Like I'm finding ways to get away from it. So when you say just be, I'll go and do my thing of kind of turning and getting distracted. And, you know, one of my favorite increase is, what are you unwilling to feel?

Because when I ask myself that, almost always I can start sensing, you know, some sort of a kind of an existential gripping. And as soon as I become aware of it, and there's the space of awareness, it no longer. there's no identification. But I can't just be until I've already in some way intentionally set the groundwork often if I'm caught in something. So I'm just bringing that to you to see how that lands for you. Yeah, absolutely.

You know, and I would also add to that too, that being for me also means that I'm allowing the fear to be there. as well. Like I'm feeding, feeding the fear, spaciousness. In that practice, in my practice, I call that loving. I'm loving my fear, which means I'm accepting it. I'm allowing it to be there. And in that space that opens up, then I enter into experiencing it, you know, because I have the space to do it. The fear isn't consuming me, but I begin to consume the fear when I offer space to be there. But, you know, another thing that also happens too, when people come to me and say, oh, Rod, I'm really afraid. And I say, you know, me too. Me too. Like, I want you to know that I'm there

in that space as well. Being a Dharma teacher doesn't mean that like I'm this like superhuman, completely like realized enlightened being that doesn't experience fear. It means that I actually do experience fear, but I allow it to be there. You know, in my experience, and that's what it means for me to be human, is to experience, is to hold the space for all the material in my mind. And that's another thing that we begin to communicate is that presence of being with in a way in which we're just like, yeah, there you are. You know, there's the uncertainty.

There's the fear. And if I hold my space like this, then I can anchor other people in holding the space for their fear as well. I love the way in your language, Lamarad, that you use the word space. And I feel like it's one of the, it's one of your Dharma gifts,

because I know for me, and when you said, I feed space to the fear. I have a practice with fear where I'll kind of sense the interior space that it's coming out of just the way and all the particles of an atom will come out of emptiness. And I also sense the space that's all around it. And I sense that interior and the space around it as continuous space that's just innately tender. And then the fear's there, but it's floating.

there's no identification. And space is such a powerful way to loosen that identification. It's so beautiful. Absolutely. It's a beautiful practice, too. You know, another really important part of how I work with fear is actually by remembering my ancestors, you know, as someone who is descendant from Africans and African enslaved folks and indigenous folks, you know, in the South, as I deeply connect my ancestors, they gift to me this kind of fearlessness and letting me know that I'm actually not alone and facing the fear that comes up from me, that they've faced fear, you know, in their life

and that they, in a way, hold the space in back of me. They like, they kind of form this wall. you know, and then when I feel blown over by fear, they catch me. You know, say, you know, you're not alone. And to feel that unconditional, direct support from these beings, I think is a resource that I really encourage so many of us to do the work to connect to, you know, as well. For me, I believe that our ancestors are whole. holding tight right now. We're holding tight.

I know many of us in very different places with this. Some of us, this is not anywhere in our practice or in our belief system. But just for those of us, they're called into relationship with our elders. I encourage them just to rely on our ancestors as a support for our fear. I'm at this point in my practice where my fear is,

on one hand, really uncomfortable, and I'd rather not deal with it. But on the other hand, my fear is so precious to me. There's a preciousness to it, you know, because in certain ways, my fear, in complete ways, actually, my fear is teaching me something. You know, and I'm so, there's a part of me that's always desperate to be taught by everything, you know. There's so much a part of Tibetan Buddhism, Vodrara Buddhism or tantric Buddhism, where the phenomenal world, including the material of our minds, everything's teaching us.

Even in suffering is teaching us. Even in terror, even the trauma is teaching us. And I try not to waste that precious opportunity to be taught. I love that. It's so beautiful to perceive fear. I think of the Tibetan art where all the fearsome deities and the idea is to get to sacred space it's going through them. It's not like you try to get rid of them and then get there. It's the actual engagement with fear, which is really nature's protector. It's just part of our

organism that helps us to realize that that's not our identity. There's a formless presence beyond that. So what I keep doing, Rod, in my own practice is when fear comes up is in some way I'm reminding myself that this belongs. And I'll actually whisper that sometimes, this belongs. And then it goes beyond that, beyond this belongs to this knowing that the only way to love is to actually practice that dying that goes with letting fear be. It's really just a dying of separate selfness. But fear is the pathway to, to love. I mean, it's why you link those in my mind is because it's the way. And for me, it's every single day. I mean, there's not a day that I don't feel some clenching that I have

to lean into. Absolutely. You know, and, you know, for some of us, the fear is just still so completely overwhelming. So completely it just completely shuts us down. And in those cases, cases, when I am helpless, I just fall to the earth and let the earth catch me. And I imagine just giving the fear to the earth, just offering the fear. This is why in the practice we did this, just moving through earth, moving through gratitude and so forth, because we have to, as we move to this period, we have to allow sources of refuge to emerge within our practice and get really creative. you know, and understand this, the earth is strike under us, is always under us,

is always holding us, is always loving us. You know, why can't we let the earth take care of us? Why can't we offer to the earth the things that we can't hold for ourselves? And when I find myself falling, how can I just say, ask the earth to catch me, just to catch me, you know, or ask my compassion or our gratitude to catch me or ask my communities to catch me, ask my loved ones, to catch me ask Tara, to catch me or ask my breath, to catch me or ask spaciousness, to catch me or ask the ancestors, to catch me. One of the things that I'm saying over and over again to folks is that we have to ask

for help. And I tell people to literally say that out loud, you know, whenever they feel, you know, whenever they overwhelmed, I say, please help me. Whatever there is around me as a source of refuge, please help me. And allow those sources of refuge to emerge because often we can't get the help we need until we call into the space for that help. Beautiful. And we have to imagine it. I feel like so much of this path is imagination. Because if we can imagine it, it's already there. and we bring it into its fruition.

And I love that you talked about the goddess Tara because it's such a deep part of my practice too, to call upon and invoke and surrender into and have hold me. And what I've noticed is that I have to keep repeating it and repeating it. And I sometimes do it many, many times. In some way, I'm bowing and saying, just take this life, you know, take this body, take this fear. But the more I do it, the more it actually becomes a spontaneous surrendering.

It's like whatever you practice gets stronger. And so there's this whole invitation to keep being imaginative and experimenting that's so powerful on this path. So much, so much of that imagination and creativity is what has helped me survive. in this body and this world. You know, it's something that's offered through my ancestry is the innovation, the creativity, is the transformation of rigidity into fluidity.

You know, we speak about Tara, you know, whom I call the mother, you know, in the same way that you do, Tara, it's, I offer everything that I struggle with to the feet of the mother. You know, I make an offering, you know, just please take this. please, please take this, this anger, this sadness, this fear.

Please take this. And in that practice, that's really, that begins to remind us of the space. Yes. You know, over and over again, because without space, it's hard for us to get creative and innovative. It's hard for us to give rise to wisdom and clarity if we're being swallowed by the suffering itself. And when it's consuming us, there's no liberation. but when we began to offer to the feet of the mother, we begin to consume the chaos.

Just to share with you, Marad, since this is immediate, when I was leading up to our conversation today, I hit a major fatigue and then I, and a sense of, oh, what's this going to be like? And then the kind of more small-minded stuff of, oh, am I going to, well, I'd be able to show us. up in a way that's real and you know and then the whole white cisgender woman making you know not doing it well you know that whole so I the practice that came to my said okay this is all about fear so

here we are so I brought you to mind and I just mentally whispered we are friends and as you said we hadn't met, but I just said it. And the assumption of it brought the truth of it, the potential and what's possible, because we both have hearts that want to be awake and connect into a more immediacy. And all that anxiety dissolved. It's like nothing goes wrong if you trust your belonging. So I just wanted to share that with you because it had such a sweet feeling. And then when you did the gratitude practice, I was feeling my gratitude. for you and a deepen. So I wanted to name it out loud.

Yeah, I appreciate that. Yeah, I really do. Yeah, it's, you know, I have come a really long way. Now, I couldn't, obviously, I couldn't have this conversation in my 20s because it would have been a different conversation. But, you know, I came into Dharma just actually distrusting.

You know, a lot of stuff, you know, because in one way that Dharma felt really familiar. Like it felt like, oh, this is like, I know this. But then on the other hand, I was like, I just don't know about this love and this compassion. And like, I don't know if I would be able to do that. You know, but really, you know, for me, my early practice was learning how to be with myself. You know, and to trust myself. And that actually over the years has helped me to enter into relationships and dialogues like this,

where it's always remembering that, yeah, we're all trying to do our best. You know, we're all trying to do our best. We just don't get it right sometimes. And I want to trust that. That's one of the things I hold on to is that assumption. That even if you're doing something to hurt me, I just want a part of me still wants to believe, but you're, there's some part of you who's trying. And it's not maybe working, you know, but you're trying right now.

And I resonate with that really strongly. But, you know, a lot of us don't have spaces to open our hearts up in. You know, we don't have relationships and spaces and, you know, where we can just be vulnerable to process the vulnerability, you know, and the openness. and I worry about that. Well, so many people got completely violated and wounded so early that it's not safe to. And what you just said really struck me about that you're,

no matter how another person's behaving, or how I'm treating you, something in you wants to trust that I'm trying my best or there's some goodness in there. And it's very similar to your compassion practice. If you're dedicated to seeing my goodness, it helps to bring it out in me. So that even if I'm misbehaving, if you are steadfast and saying there's goodness in there somehow, it's going to bring it out. So I just, that seems like the companion practice to holding the space of compassion. Yeah, absolutely.

You know, and also a part of that compassion practice, too, is about boundaries. you know, and it's about articulating what's coming up for us. You know, what's coming up in any interaction with anyone, right? That's, you know, just to say, oh, you know, this thing was said, this is how it's landing for me, and having the courage to move into that. I think there's a level of, as you're, you know, as you rightfully pointed out, there's like a woundedness around trusting because of the ways in which we've been deeply hurt. And for me, I've had to retrain myself to trust.

It's not been so much, again, trusting other people, but trusting myself to hold other people. And as I hold other people, also holding myself and tending to myself. As one of my teachers would always say, and this is the quote I use in the book, you have to drink as you pour. So I trust myself that as I'm pouring and being open and vulnerable in whatever interaction I'm moving through, I'm actually offering back to myself. So I don't forget that I always have needs that have to be met. If those needs are not met, then I begin to shut down.

I begin to succumb to the fear. I begin to react to the fear. I maybe use something really harmful and hurtful for myself or for the person that I'm with. Right. And that's where, and you describe it powerfully in your book, which is that when we haven't tended to the fear, or if we hadn't tended to the brokenheartedness, then it comes out in violence. It comes out in violence. And sometimes I see and hear that violence as asking for help. You know, when people, or I just use myself. an example when I've done really harmful things in the past has actually come out of the ways in which I was not holding space for myself. I was not tending to my own broken heartiness and sadness, and I just reacted to it and then that created harm. And what I was really trying to say instead of

creating harm was that I just really need help. Like I'm just really sad. I'm just really isolated. I'm really lonely. And I have no agency in this. And so I'm prepared. held into this kind of compulsory relationship with this really tough material that comes up for me. So I'm just reacting over and over and over again. You know, and what the world needs are practitioners who are able to see that, to see that violence, the expression from others as them asking for help, but to do that seeing in a way in which we're also taking care of ourselves. We're also setting boundaries. We're also not just walking into being the recipients of violence, you know, because that's not compassion either.

But to say, you know, I see you, I hear you, but you don't get to do that. Right. And I have to reflect back to you the ways in which you're creating harm because you're not able to be with the hurt. And maybe that's my activity is to feed that back to that. person. So a lot of what you're describing is how you work with students. And I'm wondering if how involved you are in peer group, collective activities that in some way together, here we are together working with the fears that are here. Here we are together working with the heartbreak. Are you involved with that? Yeah. Like any, you know, I have all kinds of

sessions and groups that I work with people online through, you know, I work with my own Sanga, Bumi Sparsha, around these very same practices and issues. For many years, I, you know, after something, some, some act of violence in the world, a killing of an unarmed black person. In the world, I would gather people in healing circles and hold space as this, way to offer healing and restoration, you know, as well. I have to live the Dharma. That's the only way that I survive. That's the only way for me in a black queer body. That's the only way I've been able to survive is to actually do this. For those of us who are occupying these intersections of a lot of marginalization, be, you know, being black, indigenous, people of color, trans, you know,

different abilities and so forth, like it's really for those practitioners coming into the space where it's like, ah, I actually have to really do this because actually my life and mental health are really in state. Like this isn't like something that I do on the weekends just to have fun because this is what, you know, cool people do. Now, this is like actually saving my life because this is the only way I'm surviving. You know, these systems of violence that are imposed on me have been opposed to me from the very moment you know, I came into this realm, this reality.

So my Dharma often, I call it a Dharma of struggle. It's a Dharma that, like, I've really had to test and really work out over and over again and wear out. you know, and I've earned that Dharma. So, like, for me, it's like, I don't think in theories. I just think from actual life experience, and where our lives actually become the sutras. You know, our life is actually sacred text

that begins to teach ourselves and others. This is why I think that the realm of the personal is such a profound tool of transformation and teaching for me. This is why I write in the way that I write. This is why I teach in the way that I teach because you have to know that this isn't me performing. You know, so to get you to buy into a version of me, this is just as me. and how I've had to consume the Dharma in other ways in how the Dharma is consuming me. So I love that because what I'm hearing

is that your life is an expression of the Dharma. It's how the Dharma is living through you right this moment and then this moment. And I'm curious if there's anything shifting or notable about how the Dharma is living through you right in this particular week or month or two months. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

I find that the Dharma is really taking me into the contradictions and helping me to make a home and contradictions. You know, and I think in our community, we have a tendency to actually oversimplify. things, you know, and I think oversimplification does not line up with our relationship to justice. And particularly when we talk about peace and how this idea of peace can be weaponized from Buddhist to suppress and silence those of us who actually do not have the privilege not to struggle, you know, and not to have to fight.

Like, I've had to fight to be alive. I've had to physically fight to be alive, to be able to sit here. And I want to honor that in my practice because I want to recognize that, like, everyone's coming from very different places, you know, in the world. in very different places and practice and very different identity locations. And so I find that the dorm was really just like throwing me into this space right now and it's really beginning to generate

the foundation for the next book that I'm beginning to work on. It's uncomfortable. That's what it really is. It's no longer about black and white is about this grayness where you're like, ah, I actually actually,

actually don't know what to think or I don't know what to do, but the only thing that I can do is just show up. So can you give an example of that when you talk about contradiction and the reason I'm asking that is because you said something, I'm somewhere else and I don't know where. But it's okay, that really got me thinking. And it was about nonviolence. Oh, yeah. And I thought that like that, you know, anything that shines a light on the, any, any notion that we have of things should be a certain way, that the highest thing is nonviolence. So I'm curious if you'll just speak a little more for you with. Absolutely. And I think I know exactly what you're referring to, which was a panel that I did a couple of weeks ago, where on that panel, I was supposed to be the peaceful pacifist, the Buddhist. That actually wasn't the case. So everyone was really confused on that panel.

but for me, I recognize the presence of skillful violence. And that means that if I see someone that I love in danger, I'm just actually not going to stand there and pray that they're okay. You know, I think about a parent and a child, right? I am 40 years old. My mother would still jump into a fight if someone tried to attack me. Even though I'm bigger than her, like she would still jump in. And this is what I mean.

It's like, what are times that drive us into violence to protect or to dismantle, disarm, or to decrease further harm from happening? And trying to practice a skillful violence that's really not about getting back at someone. It's not about trying to hurt others as much as they've heard us. about de-escalating because that is the only language that we can use in that moment to de-escalate harm in that moment. Is that different than Arjuna on the battlefield? You know, where there's basically, I'm going to go ahead and kill because if I kill here, that could save a whole lot of lives there, but I'm going to do it without any hatred. I'm just going to do it because it seems like the

wisest thing to do. Or June, or even the Buddha in past five. did the same thing, these archetypal stories of like, well, if I see more, am I ethically responsible to do something in the moment? And am I trusted enough to do this in the moment? I think that's a really important thing. And those are the ethical questions, that's ethical contradictions I'm really interested in. But yes, like, I think that, like, yeah, will this reduce violence? Will this reduce greater harm in the future?

And I think that there is something there for us to consider. You know, absolutely. I just don't, samsara, the cyclical existence is much more complex than I was led to believe in my early Dharma practice. So I'm maturing into this complexity and maturing into ethics. You know, I'm maturing into how actually enlightenment doesn't make sense. You know, it's like I have to let go, but I have to be in the world. Like, what is that all about? And I have to sit with that.

I have to sit with that and slowly to metabolize it to really just break it down and work with it and discern and talk about it and think about it and study and have discussions. It's really uncomfortable. So I want everything to be really clear. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's really don't know mind, really being humble because the right, right. thing is so nice when it's sharp and distinct, but it isn't. Yeah.

Yeah. So we just really have to trust our practice and we have to sit with discomfort. Well, and I think the body is the, I mean, the body is intelligent and if we can keep on paying attention, it'll guide us, but we tend to want to have in our minds the answers too quickly. And we leave our bodies prematurely. Absolutely. Yes, I think so much of my practice is about the embodiment, it's about just like as much as I can coming back over and over again. You know, because I've earned my rights to this body.

I survive these systems, violence or depression, which have forced me in the past to think about my body as being unclean. and unfits and dirty and not good enough, you know. And so I've survived that. And I just really celebrate the work that I've been able to do to love my body, even though I have much more work to do, but I celebrate the work that I've been able to do. You know, because that celebration becomes a way in which we begin or continue to disrupt these systems. They're feeding us these.

messages over and over and over again. And that is such an powerful form of activism for us. That just owning what I've been told not to own, celebrating what I've been told not to celebrate, right, being proud of who I am in a culture that tells me to shut up and to be silent, to be invisible, right? You know, to live within an administration right now that everyday attempts to erase so many of us and to still be out and proud, invisible, and loving, and joyful. That's part of how we wage political warfare. You know, in the words of Mother Audrey Lloyd, right?

Like my self-preservation is political warfare. I love it, and I love your words, reclaim. I mean, just reclaim this body, and I understand that as a black man, it's a whole other dimension of reclaiming. And I'm aware that we're almost out of time, and I would love you to, because you're riding us into the sunset here on a ride,

to close us with something in whatever spirit really is calling you right now. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. You know, I just want to kind of end the session just by dedicating the merit, actually. And I just want to, on behalf of all of us who've gathered in the space, I dedicate the merit, the positive energy, the virtue that we've generated. I dedicated on behalf of all of us to the liberation of all beings, that all beings may be freed to the profound revolutionary practice of compassion, love, generosity, that all beings find a practice that helps deliberation. them, that all beings find a home that takes care of them, and that we, those of us here,

become agents of healing, restoration, liberation, not just for our communities, but for ourselves as well. And may we all just be free as quickly as possible. Thank you, my friend. Really, really appreciate you being with us. And thank you to all who are joining us, wishing everyone many blessings. For more talks and meditations, and to learn about my schedule or join my email list, please visit tarabrock.com.