Tara Brach - Loving Life: Gratitude and Generosity

Episode Date: November 24, 2010

2010-11-24 - Loving Life: Gratitude and Generosity - Love is innate, and blossoms as we intentionally cultivate it. This talk on two natural expressions of loving life--gratitude and generosity--includes several guided reflections that awaken the heart. Please support this podcast by donating at www.tarabrach.com or www.imcw.org. Thank you!

So it is, it's kind of always has a special feel for me doing these the night before Thanksgiving. And I know for a number of people traveling, having the courage to go on an airplane, there's a sign at the airline ticket office in Copenhagen. And it said, we take your bags and send them in all directions. I thought that was great. So what I usually like to do is take. this evening given the season. It's a good holiday, this Thanksgiving holiday, the spirit of the intention of it to give thanks and really explore what it means to live in a way that with a

grateful heart and with a generosity of spirit. And I actually feel like it's a talk on love because those are just those are expressions of love so it's this is a love night not as a virtue but it's just an expression of who we are when we're fully who we are so I'll do as I sometimes do a reflection I'll do several reflections little kind of mini guided meditations and we'll see what happens one of the Indian teachers that's yeah very been always drawn to he's no longer alive. Mnindraji was asked by his students, well, what is the purpose of all these practices we're doing?

And his response, and this is very much his character, he said, it's to live the life fully. And I think that's a really beautiful way to describe it. And what I'd like to do is we talk about gratitude and generosity is talk about it in terms of a little bit with the breath, that gratitude is just like breathing in when we're able to take in life, when there's that quality of receptivity that allows for truly breathing in and taking the nourishment from the air and from the field of this earth,

we live, we live, we get touched, we live. And when we can breathe out, when we can let what is ours be offered into the world, our creativity, our intelligence, our talent, our love, that's generosity. So we'll kind of explore it with the breath, because I found that the breath is actually the meditation on the breath can teach us about everything. That's a big superlative statement, but it teaches us about a lot. So put it out that way. Love is innate and it is meant to be developed. It's a gift that we develop.

It's absolutely a part of what we are and we need to pay attention. And we find that when we cultivate love and these expressions of feeling appreciation for life and wanting to give to others, it's completely correlated with our happiness level. And we can kind of sense that. It's pretty intuitive that when we're filled with gratitude and when we're touched,

it's one of the most sweet feelings in the world. It's really a lovely feeling. But this has also been very much studied. And there have been a lot of studies on happiness and a lot of studies on gratitude and on giving. And each one of them, when they scan the brain and somebody is in a state of generosity, you know, feeling wanting to give or a feeling of appreciation,

that left prefrontal cortex lights up. All the correlations with happiness and positive emotions and not being caught in the limbic systems fight-flight. There is happiness. So we know that intuitively too, and we value gratitude. And I'm going to take them separately, and we're going to meditate on them separately. But most everybody I know thinks gratitude is a great thing.

And when we're honest, we really investigate, what we find is that a lot of times when we're talking about gratitude, it's an idea about it. Like that was an awfully nice thing for that person to do. I really feel grateful for it. Or it might be a sense of relief like, few, I'm glad that person didn't charge overtime. But it's not a visceral experience of gratitude.

It's not that deep upwilling of appreciation that's very embodied when we send somebody's goodness or sense of beauty or gratitude or appreciation for the sense of waking up, of becoming more at home in ourselves. So it's somewhat rare. I think that's what I'm trying to say. When I explore this with people,

it's somewhat rare that we have that embodied sense of gratitude, that it's awakened us in that way. So the question is really how come? I mean, how come we really don't have that, much and in a simple way what seems true to me is that you have to be here to feel appreciation we can't be in a virtual reality and we have to we have to actually be connected with what's going on right here there's a sense that now is enough and I like that that expression that that sense of enough because when you

just investigate how many moments is there Really, okay, I can just rest in this. I don't need something else. I'm not having to get somewhere else. I don't have to do something. Now is enough. Sometimes I think of, okay, I could just die now. It's just enough, you know. You can do it without the dying, but it's enough, you know. And what we get is that it's not our conditioning. We're very, we're kind of eager for the next thing or apprehensive about the next thing. But there's, most of the time there's a sense of I'm on my way to something else. And there's a bit of a restlessness in us about it. But the point is that we're preoccupied. We're already occupied, which means you can't be grateful if you're preoccupied. That makes sense? You're already occupied. You're not receptive. Some of you might know the Sylvia cartoons. One of the Sylvia cartoons, she's typing a list of responses you hope to have the occasion to say. Okay?

And there's this list and one of them says, yes, it is unusual to have won an Olympic medal and a noble peace prize. And could you bring me those leather pants and a size two? You know, but the best one is, no thanks, I have everything I need. It's kind of that type of thing.

I remember once getting one of those cards that has a picture of the Dalai Lama on it and he's with all his friends. he's surrounded by monks and happy people. And he's got this big package with a ribbon. And he's looking in and he's exclaiming happily, wow, nothing, just what I always wanted. So this is the attitude that would destroy our economy, right?

Isn't it true? I mean, think of it. We've got this economy based on ever-increasing consumption. There's a billion-dollar ad industry that's actually totally geared to make sure that we don't relax into another. enough, totally geared, to go for everything in us that wants something else. Isn't that true? You know, it would crash if even a small percentage of the time we lived with a sense of enough,

it would crash. So another cartoon said, executive quits fast track to spend more time with possessions. So we usually want things more are different. And a major zone that that plays out in is our close relationships. And, you know, when we're, when we investigate, you know, just the ratio of in some way feeling critique or wanting something to be changed, you know, versus gratitude, it's interesting. The ratio of, in some way, wanting to control another person so that they, you know, cooperate or are impressed with us or approve of us or do what we want. to when there's a true receptive listening, just interest, just taking in, who are you? You know, just being there.

Just that ratio. It's just interesting. Some of you might remember this is one of my favorite kind of stories. An old man in Phoenix calls his son in New York and says, I hate to ruin your day, but I have to tell you that your mother and I are divorcing. 45 years of misery is enough. Pop, what are you talking about the sun screams? we can't stand the sight of each other any longer.

The old man says, we're sick and tired of each other, and I'm sick and tired of talking about this. So call your sister in Chicago and tell her, and he hangs up. She calls Phoenix immediately and screams at the old man, you're not getting divorced. Don't you do a single thing until I get there. I'm calling my brother back and we'll both be there tomorrow. So until then, don't do a thing.

Do you hear me? And she hangs up. The old man hangs up his phone and turns to his wife. Okay, he says, they're coming for Thanksgiving. and they're paying their own way. So this is really a description of rather than a receptive presence, we are controlling things a lot. And the Buddha described Dukha, our suffering,

which really he meant that the other translations really discontent, as in some way wanting things different than they are in the moment. So this is an explanation of a way. blocks gratitude, this kind of restlessness that wants it different. So then we turn to how do we begin to train our attention and our hearts so that we're here for this life? You know, that saying of life is what's happening while you're on your way to something else. Like, how can we be more here for it? You know, if we leave here tonight and there's just a little more of us that says, I really want to be here for this life. I don't want to be here for this life. I don't

want to skim the surface and race to the finish line, you know, death and not have arrived. Because this is really a training in being in love with life, not that, you know, that understanding it's not a, life isn't a problem to be solved. It's a, it's a mystery to be lived. How do we get here and live it? Okay. And I'm going to describe the two basic, um, kind of pathways that I think of as really encompassed by this path of awareness. And one of them is, is that training to come back and be here. I've sometimes described the wheel of awareness where it's like these spokes that go out from the hub of presence and we're always leaving on these spokes through our thoughts and our planning and our remembering and our judging. And then we're on the rim just

circling around and how do we just keep saying come back how in this moment we say just be right here so this is the practice of mindfulness where there's a paying attention on purpose to this moment and this moment and the basic quality of mindfulness of of tending to what's happening right here is that we're not judging it we're not in any way way contriving anything. There's a simple allowing. I sometimes use the word yes. It doesn't mean we approve. When you feel some pain in your body or you feel that clench of anxiety or you feel restlessness or anger, it's not like you're saying yes. I approve or I want it to keep going. It's that quality of mindfulness that's really saying, okay, this is the actuality of what's

here right now, letting be. There's an understanding with mindfulness that it really doesn't matter what's happening. I sometimes say what the weather is. Like if I say check in right now and ask that question, what's happening? And let's see you find that you're stirred up in some way or anxious or upset. What matters and where your potential for freedom is isn't how you're relating to it. can there be a quality of interest? Like if you were with a friend, interest, like really interested in what's this like for you? Can there be a quality of interest?

And can there be a quality of care? Because that's important. If there's not a kind of friendliness to the moment, we can't arrive back here. One man on a retreat, and in his interviews, he would report, you know, afraid or restless or bored or different... You know, the retreat just was like this rollercoachers.

or, you know, sorrow and grief and then joy and peace and then anxiety. He's just up and down. And on and on, each time the question was, can you just be interested in what's happening and regard it with a quality of tenderness, of care? So he did this whole roller coaster at the end when, you know, he described what did you get from this retreat? He said the joy was in getting real.

That's part of being in love with life, just getting real, being with how it is. It's that description I love sometimes that we're usually trying to climb up this ladder to get somewhere that we think is going to be really good and the difference between that and just turning around and embracing this world with all its beauty and messiness

and confusion and sweetness. It's an embrace. It's like the difference between trying to move towards perfection but instead moving towards wholeness. So I'm just speaking a bit about this first pathway of arriving here so we can really open to our life. And maybe take a moment even together. We'll just practice for a moment, this first pathway

of a kind of open-hearted presence. So to feel gratitude or open-heartedness, it's about being here. We can't appreciate this life unless we're here for it. So our first attentional training, if you will, is this simplicity of just inviting ourselves to be right here, listening to the moment and see if you can with the same receptivity of listening, just feel the moment, truly letting be. You might sense a river of sensation and sound that you're the space it's moving through. let it wash through the interest, care, letting the breath just happen to you, receiving the

sensations of the breath and awareness. You might experiment and sense what it would mean to really love the breath, that kind of an intimate, careful, close in attention, as if you're breathing in and you're taking in something totally precious, not forcing anything, just receiving it with the breathing out, letting go. It's almost a delicate breeze of an out breath, relaxing outward with the breath, as if your heart and your being, your whole world could be just riding this in-flow and outflow. And this changing flow of life, there's one choice that brings happiness to love what is. So this first pathway to arriving here and being,

available to this life is what we practice each week and this is a mindful presence, a coming back and a being here and an opening to the moment to moment experience. The second pathway to name is where we actually intentionally reflect on what we love, what we appreciate, what we might habitually overlook. And the Buddha taught in a very straightforward way, and I think this is just really clean that whatever you frequently dwell on, to that, the mind will be inclined. Okay? So if you completely dwell on, you know, something that might be going wrong in the future or something that's wrong with you, the mind's going to get more and more inclined like that. The mind's very plastic. In science, it's more described this way, that neurons that fire together,

wire together. So we create neuro pathways with our thoughts. Our mind just goes in certain directions and that creates a patterning that then creates a kind of habitual biochemistry and we get caught in patterns.

One of the patterns that we get caught in is anticipating that something's going to be wrong looking for what's wrong, thinking something's wrong with us. We just get caught in. that one. And, you know, it comes, it's part of our evolutionary inheritance that we had to be very vigilant to survive, but we've kind of taken it way out of bounds. So you might even reflect for a

moment. Just try this out. Next reflection here. Just to pause and close your eyes and feel yourself here with your breath again. Short reflection. Just bring to mind someone that you care about, someone that you see frequently and that you care about. And take a moment to remind yourself about what might annoy you about this person, what you wish they would change. Give yourself a good go at that one. Just let yourself notice that. It's usually not hard. And as you do, as you sense, you know, what bothers you, what irritates you? And just sense what it's like in your body when you're aware of that. And then switch your attention to what you really appreciate about this person. What do you really like? What are you drawn to about this person? What do you love

about this person? And then let them both be there. Just sense the imperfection and where you have some reactivity to this person and the goodness and just sense. a whole way. This is a larger reality than when we fixate on one thing or pay attention to just one thing. So you can open your eyes or not. We're going to do a little bit more of a reflection in a few moments, but just to say that we can choose what we pay attention to. For most people, because we are habituated to not really, when I say reflecting on goodness of another, it's again a kind of an idea,

but we don't really let ourselves be touched. We don't take the time. I mentioned this before. William James describes us in this ceaseless frenzy of always thinking we should be doing something else. and it's not so easy to pause and to pause and to pause and reflect on another person and really let in what we appreciate

so that our hearts feel it not so common so that's part of this training and it's not just with other people to take the time to sense what we love about the world whether it's the creativity that's going on around us the beauty and this, what a fall we've been experiencing

in these last few days with the moon. How many of you saw the moon? Oh, good, oh good. Yeah, it's been just incredibly sweet. Just to sense, whether it's music or the night skies, I mentioned, just the mystery of this life, there's something about taking the time to appreciate

so that if you go outside and you go for a walk into its wonderful natural setting, that there's some sense of the sanctuary that you're entering and really pausing and pausing many times to touch something that we don't often touch, which is wonder, which is gratitude. Vonnegut, Kurt Vonnegut says, when things are going sweetly and peacefully, please, pause for a moment, and then say out loud, if this isn't nice, what is? So it's actually a profound training to pause and rest. recognize when things are beautiful, good, touching you, sweet, to pause and recognize it,

to get acclimated, this body to get acclimated with appreciation. Again, a reflection for you, if you will, just to close your eyes and feel the breath. Feel that you can relax a bit right now, your shoulders, your hands, slight smile, so that as the breath comes in, you can feel yourself receiving the breath. breath. Let yourself be touched. Again, bring into mind the person you were reflecting on recently and sensing what you appreciate and just the way you let the breath in, sense that you can just let yourself be touched by that goodness. You might mentally whisper, thank you. Thank you for being, thank you for being in my life. And just notice what it's like to be pausing and appreciating.

Thank you, thank you. than another person, just bringing to mind someone else that you'd like to just spend a little time with right now, someone that is important to you. And you might sense what you appreciate. It might be the way this person shows his or her love to you. You might see that person's eyes and the way they look when they're loving or when they're happy to feel your appreciation. let that person's goodness in be touched. And again, you might whisper, thank you. You might even mentally whisper the person's name.

Thank you. Letting in another person into your awareness, bringing that person in the room, seeing the light in that person's eyes and the goodness, the way that person expresses their love or their happiness. Thank you, thank you. And then the natural world, the world around you, sense what you appreciate, whether it's the moon or a silhouette of trees,

listening to Mozart, fire, sense that thank you, that some way that your heart is bowing in appreciation. It doesn't have to be the blue iris. It could be weeds in a vacant lot or a few small stones. just pay attention then patch a few words together

and don't try to make them elaborate this isn't a contest but a doorway into thanks a doorway into thanks just pay attention and sense of sweetness of appreciating it's worth it as part of

your meditation to create a formal practice with gratitude I have one friend that always begins every meditation by reflecting on what he's grateful for, Pat Coffey in Charlottesville. And I know many people that have gratitude buddies where they every day are committed to sending an email that just says three things they're grateful for that day. And that's all. They don't have to write anything. They don't have to sign it. They just write three things they're grateful for. But it's amazing practice

to take the time to do that. So gratitude is the breathing in. gratitude is the pausing and taking in and appreciating. And when we do that, we can naturally receive the goodness of life breathing. And there's a fullness that lets us breathe out with generosity. If you think about people you know, anybody that's generous, they're a grateful person. And if they're a grateful person, they're also a generous person. They go together. Many, many different faces of it, but they go together.

So there's this breathing in and breathing out. but like gratitude, just in the same way, that when we sense, am I really generous? If I asked you, can you think of something in the last few days or weeks that you've done that you really felt was generous? And I do this sometimes in workshops. People at first say that, yeah, I came up with a few things, but then I started realizing, well, they weren't really purely generous. I mean, there was other things kind of marbled in, like, you know, we can sense the ego in it, like how others will think of us or guilt or feeling good about ourselves because we're being the helpful person or, you know, winning favor and pressing.

We're leaving guilt. So pure generosity when there's just a pure outflow like that. Some of you might remember this one. This is 11 people hanging onto a rope that's suspended from a helicopter. 10 were men and one was a woman. They all decided one person should get off because if someone didn't, the rope would break and everyone would die.

So they couldn't decide who should go. So finally the woman gave a really touching speech and she said, how she would give up her life to save the others because women were used to giving up things for their partners and children and giving in to men and, you know, they're just way of serving. And when she finished speaking,

all the men started clapping. So, mixed motives, you know. So, as I said, generosity comes out of a feeling of fullness. It's out of that feeling of enough. I was talking to a dear person about a mutual friend and how he doesn't have anything that most of us would consider what you want to be happy. Like he doesn't have a very impressive job. You know, he doesn't have, he didn't finish his education, so he makes very,

very, very little money. He doesn't even have a lot of friends. He has a few people, but he's incredibly content and incredibly generous with his energy in serving. So it's a kind of a fullness that if we have what we need, it allows us to let go. And I remember when my son Narayan was, I think he's like four or five, and this was a few days after Easter. Now, I had given him this vastly it with this huge chocolate rabbit. And he wasn't even into the sweets that much, but, you know, it was very exciting to have this huge chocolate rabbit. He started in on the ears and a few friends were over. So I suggested that, you know, he offers some to his friends. And he got very, very agitated. Immediately he went, no, no, no, this is mine, mine, all mine, you know, my chocolate

rabbit. So I could see that pain, you know. So I said, so I remember saying, you're right. It is your rabbit and that's why you get to share it with the others and he was quiet for a bit thinking and then he kind of lit up and there was this this great smile with his dignity he broke off the pieces so each you know child could have some all of a sudden he was full because it was his rabbit and he got to share it you know and i was thinking of that it's just so much that the buddha described that um it's a natural capacity, this loving to give. And he described it as that it not only expresses our spirituality, but when we nourish it, actually it allows us to come into our fullness. It's considered a parameda, perfection of the heart. And it was the first perfection that he taught.

It was the first one, you know, when he described really what it was for us to, fulfill our humanness, our potential. He described generosity. I love this poem, and this is called In Praise of Craziness of a Certain Kind. On cold evenings, my grandmother, with ownership of half her mind, the other half having flown back to Bohemia, spread newspapers over the porch floor. So, she said, the garden ants could crawl beneath

as under a blanket and keep warm. And what shall I wish for for myself, but being so struck by the lightning of years, to be like her with what is left, that loving? It's intrinsic. It's intrinsic, and it's something that we can cultivate. There is a way in which if we have the intention to give, and I have this kind of game I play with myself,

that if I have the thought to give something or do something helpful, that I know how I can second guess it and start thinking, do I have time, can I afford it, and so on. If I have that thought, you know, unless it's a totally bizarre one, I act on it. It's just a practice, just to go ahead and go for it, because there is such a freedom that comes and such a deliciousness when there's giving.

Naomi Nye describes an experience I wanted to share with you. She's a wonderful poet and writer, and she writes about wandering around an airport in Albuquerque. And this is the title of the poem, Wandering Around in Albuquerque Airport Terminal. After learning my flight was detained four hours, I heard the announcement. If anyone in the vicinity of Gate 4A understands any Arabic,

please come to the gate immediately. Well, one pauses these days. Gate Foray was my own gate. I went there. An older woman in full traditional Palestinian dress, just like my grandma wore, was crumpled to the floor, wailing loudly. Help, said the flight service person. Talk to her.

What is her problem? We told her the flight was going to be four hours late, and she did this. I put my arm around her and spoke to her haltonly. Shudawa, Shubiduk, Abediti, Stani, Stani, Shuk, Mind Faldique, Shobit Sui. The minute you heard my word, she knew, however poorly used,

she stopped crying. She thought our flight had been canceled entirely. She needed to be in El Paso for some major medical treatment the following day. I said, no, no, we're fine. You'll get there, just late.

Who's picking you up? Let's call him and tell him. So we called her son, and I spoke with him in English. I told him I would stay with his mother until we got on the plane and would ride next to her, southwest.

She talked to him. Then we called her other sons just for the fun of it. Then we called my dad and he and she spoke for a while in Arabic. Found out, of course, that they shared ten friends. Then I thought, just for the heck of it, why not call some Palestinian poets I know and let them chat with her? This all took up about two hours. She was laughing a lot by then, telling about her life, answering questions.

She had put a sack of homemade Mamul cookies, little powdered sugar, cumbly mounds, stuffed with dates and nuts out of her bag. She pulled them out of her bag and was offering them to all the women at the gate. To my amazement, not a single woman declined, not one. It was like a sacrament. The traveler from Argentina, the traveler from California, lovely woman from Laredo, were all covered with the same powdered sugar and smiling. There are no better cookies.

And then the airline broke out free beverages from huge coolers, non-alcoholic, and the two little girls for our flight, one African-American, one Mexican-American, ran around serving us all, apple juice and lemonade, and they were covered with it. powdered sugar too. And I noticed my new best friend, by now we were holding hands, had a potted plant

poking out of her bag, some medicinal thing with green furry leaves. Such an old country traveling tradition, always carry a plant, always stay rooted to somewhere. And I looked around at that gate of late and weary ones and thought, this is the way a life could be. What if we can all just pause. What if we can all pay attention? What a world of connected beings we could be. This is the possibility. You know, I think of these trainings really as trainings for our world to heal our world. And if we each one of us, if there's just a way that we even tonight leave with a little more intention to pause and let ourselves be touched, and savor. Out of that comes this fullness that just wants to offer, wants to give, wants to touch.

Yet it takes a kind of cultivation. One woman was describing a bit. This is a story about her father's death. And she said that in the weeks before his death, my father, a blustery man, a guy who had difficulty communicating anything that was not strongly held opinion, he just wasn't easy to talk with. But this other father, as he was dying, I could talk to him ways it would not have been possible in all the years before. She writes, as you know, my father was outstanding his profession and in one of these last conversations,

I had asked him what he felt was the contribution he had made to the world that made his life feel most worthwhile to him. I thought he would point to one of his many awards, winning projects, but he had smiled and said, you, of course. I do not recall ever having another word of praise from him in my whole lifetime, but it was enough. In a way, that feels to me like this ultimate generosity when we not just appreciate and feel our love for another person, but we let them know. Everybody needs to be let known about that, all of us, not all the time and not in fake ways and not always in the words I love you,

although those are pretty good words. But we need to be let known, and it's generous to let others know. Rumi says, find the real world, give it endlessly away, grow rich, flinging gold to all who ask. Live at the empty heart of paradox. I'll dance with you, cheek to cheek.

So let's close with another short meditation. mention these two pathways and the first is just arriving here to be here for this life. All gratitude, all generosity, all love comes from that. So let your breath help collect you into this moment. Sense how much you can relax with the in-breath and relax with the out-breath. And sense loving the breath that you could bring the most tender, delicate attention to receiving the in-breath. like a sip, slight breeze, feel how much you can with the out breath, let your heart and your being release outward, receiving and letting go. It's in love with life. It's a sense in this moment

what you feel grateful for, what you appreciate. And as we have tonight bring to mind someone you appreciate. And imagine letting them know with a full presence, imagine both of you very present in some way expressing your appreciation for them and imagine them being touched by your expression it starts with one person one moment and can become a way of living our lives we'll close with Annie Dillard who says each day is a god and holiness holds forth in time i worship each god i praise each day splintered down and wrapped in time like a husk, a husk of many colors spreading at dawn fast over the mountain split. Every day is a God, each day is a God, and holiness holds forth in time.

I worship each God, I praise each day, splintered down and wrapped in time like a husk, a husk of many colors spreading at dawn, fast over the mountain split. May all beings everywhere be blessed to come home to loving presence and to realize loving presence as their source. May there be peace on earth, peace everywhere. May all beings awaken and be free. Namaste. So I want to express my thanks and gratitude to each of you for being here and being willing to explore and come into presents and wish you many blessings on Thanksgiving Day. So thank you. Be well.

The talk you just listened to has been freely offered. If you'd like to make a donation, learn more about my schedule or about programs offered by the Insight Meditation Community of Washington, please visit either my website, which is tarabrock.com, our IMCW site, which is IMCW.org. Thank you very much.