Tara Brach - Loving Ourselves into Healing - Part 3

Episode Date: December 30, 2021

Loving Ourselves into Healing - Part 3 - We are often at war with our difficult emotions—judging and hating ourselves for our fear, anger, clinging or shame. And as a society, we turn on others as lesser or bad, as the enemy. These talks explore how, in both domains, our continued evolution, healing and freedom depends on learning how to embrace what we have pushed away.

Greetings. We offer these podcasts freely and your support really makes a difference. To make a donation, please visit tarabrock.com. Greetings and namaste friends. I'm really glad you could be with us. We're exploring the theme of loving ourselves into healing. And this is the third part. Part one, we explored embracing our own lives, so really befriending and bringing compassion and care to all the parts of our own being. And then in part two, we extend that to those that we're regularly around. How do we really open our hearts and see who's here and be with them in an authentic way? And so this is part three and this is really widening the circles out in a full and inclusive

way so that we're including all beings, human beings, non-human beings, including all beings in our hearts, and transcending that sense of us and them. And I really think of this as the evolutionary shift in consciousness in our species. It's our hope for survival, really, for peace, for the healing of our world. And in the Buddhist tradition, this is described as the Bodhisattva path, the path of awakening beings where we realize the truth of our connectedness of our belonging. And we live from that. We live with love and compassion for each other. So many of you are aware that the beloved Desmond Tutu died a few days ago. He was a great bodhisattva. really human rights activist, spiritual teacher. And he wrote this. He said, God's dream is that

you and I and all of us will realize that we are family, that we are made for togetherness, for goodness, and for compassion. And I really love that, that sense that this is what we're, we have the potential to realize and live from, that sense of family. And Martin Luther King Jr. talked about this in terms of beloved community, saying that beloved community is our only salvation. So the path to beloved community to realizing our belonging, it's not an abstract one. It actually involves in a very, I think, daily way reflecting on and remembering our connection with each other, really examining how am I relating with others, what's my impact on others,

what's the state of my heart and what kind of thoughts are moving through, what are the ways I'm speaking and acting, when I'm with others, and how does it affect them? So that the intention really is presence and love. One of my favorite bodhisattva stories is about longtime prisoner and meditator Jarvis Masters. And he was in the exercise yard at San Quentin when he saw a big young inmate who was about to throw a stone at a pigeon. And the unspoken rule in the yard is to mind your own business, but Jarvis immediately raised his arm to stop him and antagonize the young man shouted, you know, what are you doing? And so everybody's watching and they're all expecting a fight.

But Jarvis spontaneously responded. He said, that bird has my wings. and the tension dissipated. And for days afterwards, inmates would come up to him and say, so what did you mean by that, Jarvis? And, you know, in our hearts, we know what Jarvis meant. That if you pay close attention to another person or to your dog or to a favorite plant in your home, these life forms start feeling like a part of us, they matter to us.

We share the same wings, the same longing that all beings have to live, this longing to live fully and freely. So the good news is that we have the capacity to realize our connectedness and belonging and to feel from that a genuine kind of compassion. and care. And the challenge, as we know, is that when we get stressed, the more primitive parts of our brain take over and we're more inclined to mindlessly throw the stones, to blame, to defend, you know, to feel separate and to be ego-focused, to ego-centered. And when that happens, others like that pigeon, is an unreal other. We don't sense that others are sentient,

subjectively alive beings that they feel pain. And instead it's more that we're like the protagonist in a movie and we're moving through our life, living inside the currents of our own wants and fears and worries and plans. And everybody else is a kind of two-dimensional character out there in the cast. So a note here is that it's developmentally natural. that in early life were self-centered, we're not so attuned to the realness of others. You know, I think of a story told by a woman who was doing carpool for some preschoolers, and she picked up one child and she could see the older woman at the door waving goodbye.

And she asked him if that was his grandma. And he said, yep. And she said, where does she live? And the response was, oh, she lives at the airport. We just pick her up there when we want to see her. And, you know, so it's true. We live in our, you know, when we're young, our worlds are kind of rotating around us. We're right at the center and we don't really understand the reality of others in certain

ways. And while we grow out of that self-focus, unless we're very present, unreal othering to some degree easily takes over. We regress, especially when we're, as I mentioned, stressed, when we're fearful, when we're dissatisfied with life, when we're insecure. One of the stories I like a lot is told by a man who was retired and, you know, people would always ask him what he does to make his day interesting. And his response at one point was, well, for example, the other day, Mary and my wife and I went into town and visited a shop.

When we came out, there was a cop writing a parking ticket. So we went up to him and I said, come on, man, how about giving a senior citizen a break? He ignored us and continued to write tickets. So I called him a creep. And he glared at me and started writing another ticket for having worn out tires and Mary called him a bonehead and finished writing the second tick and put it on the windshield after the first and kept writing tickets. And this went on for 20 minutes, the more we abused him, the more tickets he wrote. Just then our bus arrived. So we got on and we went home. You know, we try to have a little fun each day now that we're retired. It's important at our age. So this is unreal othering. And a silly example.

But the reality is that if we consider, let's say, a recent time when we were stressed and we were internally uptight or anxious about something and we are in conversation with another, it's quite likely that they were very unreal to us. And you might check that out, you might scan and just sense this last week or two, maybe a time that you were stressed and with another person. You might as you reflect sense, you know, that maybe you were relating to them like an unreal other and hone in a little. If you recall that time with them, you might notice how much awareness did you have of what might have been going on for them in their lives, their wants or their fears, how much

real empathy was there, real attunement. Maybe how aware were you of your impact on them? Just sense how real were they to you? Or were they more like that two-dimensional character and a play, an object out there? And it can be interesting to contrast that, maybe to sense in these last days, sometime talking with someone when you felt present, when you were more fully there, And the quality of realness of that person then, perhaps how much you were taking in about them, attuning, how much you were aware of your impact on them, the quality of that sense of togetherness, the here we are kind of feeling. So if we look in the larger view at human society through the ages, we can see the themes of both relating

from a sense of mutuality, a sense of we, and we can also see the themes of us and them. We can see it through history. Our evolving brain, when we're in that kind of an integrated brain, say it's allowed for amazing communication and collaboration across the globe. I mean, it's propelled forward the arts and science, amazing initiatives and science. initiatives towards health, environment, justice, and peace. People working all around the world together, holding hands, trying to move forward what can benefit all beings really.

Our evolved brains allowed us to serve together and pray together and create beauty together and celebrate together. That's our human potential. And we also know, of course, the forces of the survival brain when we're God and that what I often describe is that limbic hijack of fear or greed and how that has fostered continued war and oppression and racism and sexism and more. I often think of Gandhi when he was asked, you know, what do you think of Western civilization and his response was, it would be a good idea.

And of course, it's not just the West. There are hierarchies and oppression and violence and signs of the primitive brain across the globe as well as bad othering, you know, the condemnation of anyone who doesn't agree with us, those with different beliefs. I love the story of this Taoist master sitting naked in his cabin, mountain cabin, he's meditating, and a group of Confucianists entered

the door of his hut. They've hiked up the mountain intending to lecture him on the rules of proper conduct. They're profoundly disapproving. When they see the sage sitting naked before them, they're totally shocked and they say, what are you doing sitting in your hut without any pants on? And the sage calmly replies, well, within me is the entire universe. And this little little HUD is my pants, what are you fellows doing inside my pants? You know, so here we are. We're in a time of extraordinary stress and vulnerability and uncertainty. And we can see the shadow. We can certainly see the unprocessed limbic fears fueling so much anti-democracy and anti-black and anti-mobile anti-Muslim and anti-Jew and anti-woman and anti-immigrant, so much anti-life.

And we can see the greed that prevent us from taking care of our earth. The big question is, how do we humans respond to this juncture of stress? And we know from an evolutionary perspective in the midst of big stress, life forms either maintain the patterning of the past. us, that means our survival brain reactivity, are they evolved in an adaptive trajectory, which for us means really acting collaboratively for the sake of life everywhere. That's what's needed. We need love in action and it arises from sensing we're all a family.

You know, that bird has my wings. Every part of life is intrinsically precious. So, it's really this trajectory towards beloved community that, as Martin Luther King, Jr. said, is our salvation. And evolving on that trajectory requires that each of us be purposeful. Each of us be purposeful. And here's why. For millions of years, our huge.

human survival brain has scanned for difference, not sensing family, but scanned for difference, clumped others of difference into a category of threat and less than inferior. So that's the non-adaptive patterning that's alive and well in today's world. You know, we regularly operate off stereotypes, each of us. And the reason is because it takes less energy for the brain than a tuning deeply to who's here. You know, our brain is designed to use minimal amounts of energy to get things done. So we have huge conditioning to make these flash judgments and to do unreal othering to stereotype. And stereotypes are often demeaning and always distancing and that they have something to do with this category of other people, the, the, the,

them are less intelligent, less moral, less beautiful, less capable, less trustworthy. And so these judgments are generated and sustained by the dominant populations of society and they arise instantly. In other words, the moment we see a person of another race, or a person of a certain religion, our certain class, our gender, our occupation, our country. In a flash, we've got these ideas about who they are. So you might be thinking, well, not me, I don't have stereotypes like that. But really, for any of us dedicated to waking up, to evolving, to helping fuel the evolution of consciousness, it's so...

important to be humble and curious about the ways that we perceive each other and groups of others because we're conditioned by our society. It's not our fault. It's conditioning. We can be responsible which means look carefully, see what's here. But we think society's thoughts. I've always been inspired by this story from Desmond Tutu. who talks about, he says, I think we have gravely underestimated the damage that apartheid inflicted on all of us, you know, the damage to our psyches, the damage that has been made. He describes, he said, I went to Nigeria when I was working for the World Council of Churches. I was due to fly and so I go to the Lagos airport and I get onto the plane and the two pilots in the cockpit

are both black. And we, I just grew inches. You know, it was fantastic because we've been told blacks can't do this. And we have a smooth takeoff and then we hit the mother and father of turbulence. I mean, it was quite awful, scary. Do you know, I can't believe it. But the first thought that came to my mind was, hey, there's no white men in the cockpit. Are those blacks going to be able to make it? And of course, they obviously made it, here I am. But the thing is, I had not known that I was damaged, the extent of thinking that somehow actually that those white people who had kept drumming into us in South Africa about our being inferior, about our being incapable, it had lodged in me somewhere.

So I share this because that stereotyping, that toxic demeaning, can be against a group we belong to are another group. And either way, it locks us in separation. It blinds us to our essential worth and to our belonging. So unreal othering and stereotyping bias is usually unconscious. And this is why we have to be purposeful because the only way to evolve past this is to make get conscious to examine and deepen our attention to what's true. And we'll just pause for a moment to do a kind of stereotype scan. And you might just take a few breaths and let yourself arrive here again. The intention is just to scan for where you sense you might be doing some stereotyping, have some bias. And you might consider a range of jobs that come to my own.

mind of occupations and I'll just say a few and just sense what comes to mind. Doctor, banker, janitor, police, truck driver, CEO, grocery clerk, realtor, what brings up stereotypes? You might think of levels of education. Oh, that point person while they graduated from high school, or that person they graduated from college. That one has a graduate degree. What happens? Are for so many the big one is race? Think of different races, what comes to mind?

Or perhaps religions? Or maybe if your mind roams and you send certain countries on the planet, do you have stereotypes of the people in that country? China, Afghanistan, Germany, Norway, Canada, Mexico. Or maybe you might consider people's life situations, people who are homeless, people who are in prison, people who live in the inner city, an inmate on death row. What happens? we just begin to pay attention with this lens and honestly look what are the negative characteristics that come up? Can we be really honest? And can we start noticing when it's happening?

And perhaps you have one in mind right now that stands out to you where you really could sense, okay, I'm stereotyping there and you can sense the negative characteristics that come with it of the other, of them, and then what's your sense of your own being, your heart, when you hold a group in that view and do you like yourself? We'll return to this, but for now you might simply sense your intention to be awake, to be open-hearted, your intention for enlarging your sense of belonging. And we'll look closer now because I'd like to explore how our spiritual practice can help us awaken in these ways, can help us in the shift from us, them, to that inclusive way where we really very authentically live with compassion and kindness. And in Buddhist

meditations, there are two key trainings that we've been exploring really through each of these sessions on loving into healing, and both arise out of a ground of mindful awareness. One is called Karuna, which is the word for compassion, which means that we're intentionally bringing mindfulness to vulnerability and suffering, and then feeling that in ourselves or in others, and then actively offering care. So that's the first of the two Bodhisattva trainings. and the second is Meta, our loving kindness, where we bring our mindful attention to goodness. And we see and trust the goal that lives through all beings and we express it in love. So we're going to look at how each of these helps us widen the circles of loving

to so we can experience belonging really to all of life. And the key to both of these, whether it's loving kindness, our compassion, is what the attorney and human rights activists and author Brian Stevenson calls proximity. You have to have proximity or be proximate with others to awaken compassion, to awaken love. And when you read his book, the most well-known book, the one that I read was called Just Mercy, which is wonderful, you get to know close up people he's tried to help on death row or people, who are imprisoned for life and no parole. You get to know those that he works with that have been living in poverty, those who've been violently abused, those people of color who have been entrapped

by a system that's rigged to put them in prison. And so these people shift from, let's say, some idea of a death row villain to a very real dimensional, struggling, suffering, human. And so whatever you were imagining is that stereotype, all of a sudden, Brian brings us proximate with the person. So one story he shares, and this one went to the Supreme Court, he was representing a young person who had been imprisoned at age 13 for life without parole for a non-homicide crime. And that happened a lot. And this young man had mental disabilities. You've been abused and neglected growing up, which is, of course, the story of so many in prison. He was put in an adult prison at the age of 18 where he was repeatedly sexually assaulted, raped,

developed multiple sclerosis, lived in a wheelchair. So this young man, as Brian describes it, and you get to census, was incredibly sweet. and kind and curious about others' lives. You hear him asking Brian these different questions are very precious, you know, and when it became possible for him to be released due to Brian's interventions, his efforts, this young man wrote this to these people who is going to live with. He said, roses are red, violets are blue, soon I'll come home to live with you. My life will be better, happy I'll be. You'll be like my dad and my family. We'll have fun with our friends and others will see. I'm a good person. I'm a good person. I'm a good person. I'm a good person.

Told Brian that he wasn't sure of the last line and then he just remembered, I'm a good person. I was just so touched by that that we so deeply want to trust our goodness. We get all the messages to the contrary and as you can imagine those in prison, that's such a deep suffering. So reading these stories that Brian shares makes humans real. It opens our hearts to caring. And just to name that he won the case at the Supreme Court and it's now considered cruel and unusual punishment for juveniles to be condemned to life without parole. So I love this word proximate because unless we deepen our attention and get proximate in some way through our imagination, through reading, through actual contact, with those that we stereotype,

they stay unreal to us and we can't really care. And I often center getting proximate around racism because the wound of racism is so core in many of our societies. and it's such a crucial domain on the bodhisattva path. We cannot truly experience our belonging with each other if we haven't unpacked and woken up beyond racial bias stereotyping, if we haven't gotten proximate in some way with the realness of racial others. And as a white woman, you know, I didn't realize how far I,

was from a true experience of belonging. You know, I'd had meditative experiences being alone and feeling one with the cosmos, but a true embodied sense of belonging until I started investigating and undoing my own racism, which of course meant getting proximate with the suffering of black, indigenous people of color. And for me, this process has not just been around racism. This process of waking up out of stereotyping. It's waking up from classism and speciesism. I keep finding over and over again the more deeply I sense, oh, you are my friend, you know, with a tree or with a cow or a pig, or with a person that I have in some way in my mind because of classism sensed as different from me and less for me, our racial other, whatever the othering,

the more it becomes clear we belong, like in any moment of, oh, we belong together. There's this enormous tenderness because I start realizing this is the possibility that I can never really be alone if there's really true belonging. So this process has been going on now for decades, and it continues to be profound and difficult and beautiful on the spiritual path, this getting proximate with unreal others. One very memorable time was after the 2014 killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, I attended a vigil of grieving mothers in Washington, D.C., and everyone in the vigil that presented had lost beings they loved. Sons primarily shot on the streets for being black.

One mother described how her son was planning her birthday party for the next day. The day he died. Another was shot on his own wedding day, gone out in the morning to get some things. And another, her son died a block from a hospital in Bronx and the police prevented him from receiving medical treatment. And the stories went on and just listening and just standing there crying with others who were also weeping. It's just so easy to feel how they would feel to lose a son. I'm a mother. Words of one of my friends of color that all those being killed on the streets are my children. And you don't have to be a biological mother. Getting proximate is getting related, letting our hearts break open as we let in each other's suffering.

I remember several years later with the killing of Antoine Rose, who's 17-year-old, who's killed in 2018 in Pittsburgh. So he, this young man, community volunteer, and he was in high school taking AP classes, very beloved. And friends at his funeral read a poem he had written two years earlier when he was 15. This is what he had written. I see mothers bury their sons. I want my mom to never feel that pain. I try my best to make my dream come true. I hope that it does. I am confused and afraid. Just so clear that this, Antoine was a real being, a feeling, thinking, hurting person. He had no weapon. He was shot in the street. He was shot in the street. you belong to all of us. So this is the sentiment of that bird has my wings, that we get close

in enough to actually feel that. And maybe you're a parent listening or maybe you've been torn apart with the loss of someone dear, a tragic loss, or maybe you've had a recent tragic also lost due to the pandemic. I mean, we all know suffering. And if we deepen our attention and get proximate with those who have been unreal others, we can begin to sense family. It's an idea unless we actually get proximate. So one of the questions people often bring up is they'll say, well, but I get too proximate. I'm thin-skinned, I'm overly sensitive. I get overwhelmed by how often I feel like that bird has my wings, you know, that kind of thing. And I just want to say that it's true. If we feel like we're a separate self kind of opening

to the sufferings of the world, it's too much. I mean, the bodhisattva vow is to let ourselves be touched by the suffering in the world, but our self doesn't mean a separate small self. The deeper understanding is that your heart belongs to universal heart space. That's really what we are. And the idea is to sense that suffering is being included in that vastness of caring. You know, the Sufis, this is a Piravela Khan, say like the mother of the world who carries the pain of the world in our heart. Each one of us is a part of her heart. So when it feels like too much, just invite you just to breathe out and sense that you're letting the suffering being held in that larger heart space that you belong to.

The other question, and I think this is the biggest challenge for many, is that what happens is that our hearts closed down when we experience a group of unreal others as threatening or hurtful. You know, I often, it's a really deep inquiry because there are others who are angry and violent and who cause suffering to those who are most vulnerable. And, you know, I often think of this verse from a black spiritual. It has this repeating line which goes, Lord, you know, I love everybody deep down in my heart.

I love everybody deep down in my heart. So I think of the sentiment in that, you know, how it's possible to love everybody when when they've kidnapped or enslaved those of your race or more currently when they're demeaning and hating and violating you, when they're causing, when they're bodily threatening you. How do we love everybody in our heart? How do we love those whose political views are such that translate into that kind of violence? I feel like it's an important question because we don't want to go.

get proximate. We don't want to widen the circles to include them, yet it's still necessary to do so. Again, calling on Desmond Tutu, we said, if you want peace, you don't talk to your friends, you talk to your enemies. And if we're not in the position to directly engage, we have to read and get proximate like that or listen in some deep way to videos that tune us in more, or use our imagination to discover the vulnerability and realness and humanness under the idea of the other as an enemy. Longfellow writes, if we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should find in each person's life the sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility.

If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should find in each's life the sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility. So we're going to practice a little with the unreal others that are hard and there's two steps and the first is first we have to deal with whatever our reaction is, feelings of hatred, feelings of anger. It's crucial that we don't deny those feelings, there's an intelligence to those feelings, they're just not the end of the story. So I've seen so many who bypass the anger and try to just say, well, I just tried to be compassionate towards those people. And it's really premature transcendence.

The compassion is more of an abstract compassion, not a living expression of heart space. So, honor the intelligence of the hate and anger that comes up because it's a signal that something you value is threatened. and the pathway is to open to the feelings that are there and then the root of those feelings, which is there's something you're caring about. Because if you open to that root, then you'll be able to, from the caring, see more clearly the others. And that seeing more clearly, as Ruby Sales says, is just you're in some way asking,

where does it hurt? because those who cause suffering generally are suffering. Okay, let's explore this together. Let's do a practice now of Karuna. This is the practice of compassion where we're really widening the circles to include those that we have pushed out. And the beginning, as always, is to pause, to take a few full breaths and to invite yourself right here and feel your intention, your aspiration for widening the circles of compassion,

for evolving your own consciousness and serving that evolution in our species, this trajectory towards beloved community. And please bring to mind a group of people that you're aware that you relate to as unreal others, as some way less than, And it might be because of their political views because they think differently than you. It might be because of their race or their religion, their class, their occupation, country. And if as you bring this group of people to mind those that you think of as them, it brings up reactivity. a sense of anger, fear, hatred, disgust. Then begin there, in some way, let yourself know

this too belongs. Give it some space. Feel into it. You know, sense what evokes it and feel into it. Feel into the anger. Feel into the fear. Feel into the hatred. The dislike. The disgust. and let it be as much as it is, and you might sense underneath it, what is it that's really mattering to you? What is it that you're caring about that's bringing this up? Under our anger, under our fear, something we're caring about, some life we're trying to protect and bring a full presence and kindness to whatever you find. There's something you care about that deserves your presence, your care. Just breathe with that, feel that. Now try to imagine if you can as you bring to mind this group, an individual in this group. Be as specific as possible, just imagining

one person in this group. And imagine that like you, they're living with fear. That there's fear in their bodies, fear in their hearts. Imagine that like you, they've experienced shame, self-doubt, insecurity, feelings of being separate. Imagine that like you they want to live, to love, to feel love, to feel safe. Try to remember that if they're acting in hurtful ways, somewhere they're hurting, their legs in a trap. And you might imagine what it would be like if they were more spiritually, fulfilled, more at peace. Imagine if they felt loved, safe, valued, just how they might be. You might widen and sense all that are in that group, vulnerable beings, beings with

essential goodness, just to feel your prayers for their healing, prayers for all of us, experiencing that sense of family connection. This is the first of the two Bodhisattva trainings that widen the circles of our love and compassion. This is getting proxient with the suffering, letting your heart be touched. And the second practice, Meta, loving kindness, is really the capacity to see the goodness.

To see the goodness in others. It's that sense of namaste that we can bow and sense the sacredness in all beings. And even when we're covered over, even when we don't trust her own goodness, we all want to come home to that essential goodness, just like that young man Brian Stevenson shared about. And of course, the challenges our survival brain keeps us fixating on what's wrong with us and with others. So metta, our loving kindness, is an essential practice to keep enlarging our attention to the truth of basic goodness. And it takes practice and intentionality.

We have strong conditioning to sort for what's wrong. So I am aware of how many of us without knowing it even get caught in that sense of fear thinking and a tribute to others, you know, that something's wrong. with them without paying deep attention. And one of the stories that has been the biggest wake-up for me was told by a minister, a Unitarian minister, describing a family trip. They were traveling on Christmas day. She was with her husband and two children and long grueling trip. Finally, they stopped that a restaurant was pretty empty because of the holidays. And her one-year-olding year old Eric was in a high chair, put in a high chair, and suddenly he starts squealing with

gleezing, hi there, hi there, these are two words he thought were one, hi there, and his face is alive with excitement. And when she looks at the source of his merriment, she says, my eyes could not take it in all at once, a tattered rag of a coat, baggy pants, both they and the zipper at half-mast over a spindly body, gums as bare as Eric's, hair uncombed, unwashed, and his hands were waving in the air, flapping about on loose wrists. Hi there, baby. Hi there. I see you, big boy. I see you Buster. My husband and I exchanged a look that was a cross between what do we do and poor devil. Eric continued to laugh and answer, hi there. Every call was echoed. This old geezer was creating a nuisance with my beautiful baby. I shoved a cracker at Eric and

he pulverized it on the tray. I whispered, why me? Under my breast. breath. Our meal came and the nuisance continued. Now the old bum was shouting from across the room, do you know Patty Cake? Ada boy. Do you know peekaboo? Hey, he knows peekaboo. We ate in silence, except Eric, who is running through his repertoire for the admiring applause of a Skid Row bum. Finally, we had enough. Dennis went to pay the check, imploring me to get Eric and meet me in the parking lot. I trundled Eric out of his high chair and looked directly at the exit. The man sat poised and waiting, his chair directly between me and the door. Lord, just get me out of here before he speaks to me or Eric. I headed towards the door.

Soon it became apparent that both the Lord and Eric had other plans. As I drew closer to the man, I turned my back, walking to sidestep him in any air he might be breathing. As I did so, Eric all the while with his eyes riveted to his best friend, leaned far over my arm, reaching with both arms in a baby, pick-me-up position. In a split second of balancing my baby and turning to counter his weight, I came eye to eye with the old man. Eric was lunging for him, arms spread wide. The bum's eyes both asked and implored, would you let me hold your baby? There was no need for me to answer since Eric propelled himself from my arms to the man's. Suddenly, a very old man and a very young baby were involved in a love relationship.

Eric laid his tiny head upon the man's ragged shoulder. The man's eyes closed and I saw tears hover beneath his lashes. His aged hands full of grime and pain and hard labor gently, so gently, cradled my baby's bottom. I stood off-struck. The old man rocked and cradled Eric in his arms for a moment and then his eyes open. and set squarely on mine. He said in a firm commanding voice, you take care of this baby. Somehow I managed I will from a throat that contained a stone. He pried Eric from his chest

unwillingly, longingly, as though he was in pain. I held my arms open to receive my baby and again the gentleman addressed me. God bless you, ma'am, you've given me my Christmas gift. I said nothing more than a muttered thanks. With Eric back in my arms, I ran for the car. Dennis wondered why I was crying and holding Eric so tightly and why I was saying, my God, my God, forgive me. When I heard this, I just asked myself, how many times have I not seen who's here? Have I unknowingly been living in unreal other? You know, not seeing the vulnerability. not seeing the goodness. Just imagine if we could slow down and deepen attention and really look to see the vulnerability and the goodness of who's here. I love that anonymous saying,

to be kind, we must swerve often from the path. And that's true in our immediate relationships. and that's true and how we process and perceive others at more of a distance. So, friends, we've been exploring this path of awakening, you know, loving ourselves and each other into healing, into wholeness, into freedom. And the key is that this has to be our heart's aspiration, that this loving is what matters because it takes intention. We need to pay attention on purpose. You know, truly all healing, including the evolving of consciousness itself, including the

creation of beloved community, it comes from love, from loving love, from knowing love is the essence of our being, from dedicating ourselves to waking up love. and it's helpful to think of it as widening circles because we have to keep grounding ourselves into loving the life that's right here to holding our own being with tremendous kindness and it's not self-centered it actually dissolves that sense of self-centeredness and opens our hearts to others it makes it more possible to sense oh that bird has my wings it's a homecoming so we'll close in a very simple way and invite you again as you've been doing throughout to just take a pause perhaps to close your eyes or let your attention go inward

to feel the life within in these moments if you're comfortable with it or want to explore putting your hand on your heart and sensing the goodness of the life that's here long to love fully. And that longing is an expression of love, to sense the honesty and the goodness of this being and just offer yourself whatever prayer or blessing is most resonant in this moment, feeling that you can include in this heart space, others that are dear to you. Let whoever comes to mind be there, sensing their goodness. feeling your care and widening out, widening out in all directions, sensing those groups of beings that you might habitually consider unreal others and sensing them as part of this

heart space, their vulnerability and their goodness. And you might imagine what it could be like to truly feel your belonging to your inner life, to all those you know, to all beings human, non-human. God's dream is that you and I, and all of us will realize that we are family, that we are made for togetherness, for goodness, and for compassion. Thank you, friends. Thank you for your attention and for being part of this communal reflection together. I'm wishing you all blessings, all happiness, all peace. For more talks and meditations, and to learn about my schedule or join my email list,

please visit tarabrock.com.