Tara Brach - Metta - Lovingkindness

Episode Date: August 18, 2010

2010-08-18 - Metta - Lovingkindness - This talk explores what gets in the way of loving presence and the training that awakens and frees our hearts. Please donate at www.tarabrach.com or www.imcw.org. Thank you!

The last couple of weeks, the classes here, the theme was on forgiving ourselves, and then last week the theme was forgiving others. And the forgiveness practice traditionally and practically clears the way of our heart for loving presence. It gives us a real inner freedom to love without holding back. And one of the descriptions of that freedom is, is the word metta our loving kindness. And what I'd like to do over these next few weeks is explore with you what are called the Brahma Vaharas.

Metta are loving kindness is the first of the Brahma Vaharas. Brahma Vaharas mean divine abodes. The Brahma Vaharas are considered to be the expression of our awakened heart and mind when we're fully here. that hereness gets expressed in these four qualities. One of them is loving kindness, metta. The second is Karuna, which means compassion.

The third is Mudita, which means joy. And the fourth is Upeka, which means equanimity. It's got the quality of wisdom. They're entirely interrelated. And with each one, there are practices that we can take on on purpose that can help us to awaken these qualities of heart and mind. So we'll be exploring them. And if you can't make one of the four weeks now that we have everything available to download

or podcast, you might want to keep up with them. As I mentioned, they really fit together in a very beautiful, amazing way. So that's the invitation. one of the bumper stickers I most like I've shared in here before, which is that if you lived in your heart, you'd be home right now. And that in a way is the main teaching of META, our loving kindness, which is it's home. That when we really relax and open to love,

it feels very natural. We feel like, ah, this is where I belong. And we know that we spend a lot of time distracted and love is a abstraction, truly. Most swaths of moments, love is an idea. So there is, it's entirely about presence that we have to kind of come home to presence to feel that love. But then when we do, we know that's really what we are. because we're so conditioned to not be here, and I often describe it as if we're on this bicycle and we're anxious and we're wanting things to be different, so we're madly pedaling away from the present moment, and we're just over and over again. We might arrive for a moment, but we then get busy again, and we're just, we keep leaving. And because that's so deep in our conditioning to not be here,

to cultivate a heart of loving kindness takes a deliberate practice. And for many of you, you'd be familiar with a lot of the recent studies in literature on mastery. And deliberate practice is one of the key words there, that to get our 10,000 hours and be a master at anything, we really have to commit. And it's really not different. We have millions of mind moments of in some way sensing separation and being at odds with ourselves and others. And so it takes a kind of deliberate commitment to retrain our attention and decondition that. And some of the features of deliberate practice are, you know, we put our time and energy in,

and it comes from a real sincerity that we want to come home. And we often do it in a way that we keep playing our edge. We don't get habitual. And one of the challenges, as we'll explore with the meta practice, very easy to get habitual, to just start routinely saying phrases or something. So right from the start, I want to invite you into this as an adventure that can be really fresh.

And if you commit yourself to it, There's a freedom of the heart that is hard to imagine and totally beautiful. To live as a bodhisattva, and by bodhisattva that means awakening being, is to touch the spirit of the Buddha within us and to allow that to shine through our individual life. Now, what does that mean? That what we're touching is already who we are. and yet there's an intentionality so that we bring it alive so that it actually manifests in how we are at work and how we relate to our co-workers or how we are with our children or how we treat ourselves that it shines through the day.

So that's what we're going to be exploring in these weeks of how to make this really practical, not some spiritual ideal. A favorite quote from Thomas Merton. He writes, Then it was as if I suddenly saw the secret beauty of their hearts, the depth of their hearts where neither sin nor knowledge could reach, the core of reality, the person that each one is in the eyes of the divine. If only they could see themselves as they really are. If only we could see each other that way all the time, there would be no more need for war, for hatred, for greed, for cruelty. I suppose the big problem would be that we would fall down and worship each other. I love the word secret beauty.

What they mean to me to be able to see the secret beauty, it's not that it's really a secret. It's just that it's usually obscured. It's just that our filters of our mind, we don't look at each other and we're not looking to see that sacredness that's there. We're so habituated to having kind of a veil, and we're filtering for other people's egos in the same way that we don't see the secret beauty in ourselves. We're filtering to see what's wrong, how our personality is navigating, how we need to be different. So I'll be coming back to this term secret beauty as we explore this. the bottom line is that loving kindness arises spontaneously when we have the eyes to see the goodness that's here

loving kindness arises absolutely on its own it's already here when our filters drop away and we see the goodness the Dalai Lama had this so at the center of his teachings that over and over again If you listen to him, he'll say, my religion is kindness. How many of you have heard the Dalai Lama say that?

Can I see by hands? A good number. Yeah. My religion is kindness. Again, one of our starting points is to acknowledge without any self-judgment that most of the time when we reflect on love, it's an abstraction. It's an idea. and it might have its tendrils into some juiciness,

but we're not usually in touch with that. We're one step removed. So the conditioning that obscures love is the first place we pay attention. We start to look at, okay, what is between me and this moment really feeling that essence of the smile I was talking about, that kind of receptivity and tenderness and appreciation?

What's between me and feeling that? And when I ask that, what comes up is a little bit of a squeeze in my chest, which has to do with fear, which has to do with some sense that something could go wrong. So I'm kind of stealing against what might go wrong. You know, I might forget what I really wanted to communicate tonight or if I'm in another situation, things I need to get done might not get done. And so rather than that presence that's really open and tender, there's some tension about things not being okay. This is in Management 101, the first lesson given in one training. A crow was sitting on a tree doing nothing all day. A small rabbit saw the crow and asked him, can I also sit like you and do nothing all day?

And the crow answered, sure, why not? So the rabbit sat on the ground below the crow and rested, and all of a sudden a fox appeared, jumped on the rabbit and ate it. Management learning. To be sitting and doing nothing, you must be sitting very, very high up. Now, in a way, I think that's really perfect, because that's our idea, is that it's okay to sit and do nothing as long as there's no danger in sight, as long as we're kind of way up and beyond and outside of, you know, any of the threats that can come near us. but most of the time our survival brain is scanning for danger most of the time and even when it's not overt danger like the big cat that's about to pounce it's the danger we'll forget something we should have done or that we won't look the way we want to look to other people or something and i've i've shared with you that one study or some research show that we wake up 10 times a night and we then fall back asleep and we don't remember it unless we have a sleeping disorder, but when we wake up,

we're scanning the environment for danger. And that's so interesting to me because even if that's not exactly accurate, we know that we're constantly on some level, we have a restlessness about what can go wrong. So it's this universal wiring and it comes out of a perception that I'm separate. We live our most basic story that we exist in is this being in here is in here and the world is out there. So imagine that every tree was having this thought, well, I'm here, the rest of the world's out of it. You know, it's like this is separate from the rest of the world. No interconnected energy field, no inflow outflow of information. This is separate. And it's got to be defended and it's

got to get things. We live in that story. And when we're in that story, it's very hard to relax and open to loving presence. Man calls home on a cell phone, and his wife is relieved, he's safe, because she's just heard on the radio that a driver was going the wrong way on the Beltway on 495. Heck, Emma, he says, all the drivers are going the wrong way today.

So you get the idea. So we have this filtering of I'm separate, and then most of our thinking is organized around how can I get more comfortable? What can I do to make sure things work out for me? And it can be embarrassing to say that out loud, but if we're really being honest, we know how many moments we're really concerned about moi. I mean, we know that. So sometimes we call this the selfing trance, and it's just the preoccupation with how this separate self is doing. And what we find is whenever we have an agenda that's based on this selfing trance,

where it's just this kind of riveted attention on, I need things to be a certain way. If we have an agenda and we're with someone else, I need you to be different or me to be different or something to happen in a certain way in this interaction or something not to have happen, if there's an agenda, we can't see who's here and we cannot feel the truth of our togetherness and that tenderness that's possible. Any agenda interferes with loving presence. What happens when we have an agenda, when we have in some way, some outcome we want that comes out of either feeling defended or needy or whatever it is, is that the other becomes what I often call an unreal other. They become the object that either we want to have approve us or give us

something or get away from us or leave us alone. Or they become the object that doesn't fit any of our needs or aversions and so they become not relevant. They're not important. Unreal others. Often there's a need clash in close relationships and the other becomes the unreal other that is in some way interfering with me getting my needs met. Here's a personal's ad. It says free to a good home. And on one side of this ad you have a cat. It says beautiful six-month-old male kitten, orange and Carmel Tabby playful. friendly, very affectionate, I deal with family for family with kids. And on the other side, you have a picture of a man, handsome 32-year-old husband, personable, funny, good job, but doesn't like cats, says

he goes or the cat goes. And you can pick either one. It says, call Jennifer and come and see both, decide which you'd like. So one of the, with this inquiry of what's between me and really loving, me and loving presence, basic to this. inquiry really is, you know, is there some sort of an agenda, some sort of an undercurrent of fear or wanting? And so we'll be doing a few reflections tonight, as we do. And so the first one, if you will, if you'd like to just let your attention go inward and begin by taking a few full breaths and with a kind of interest with curiosity. You might review a few recent interpersonal encounters. just people you talk to or spent time with in the last few days

and just review with this kind of inquiry about the quality of presence that was there just noticing if there was any agenda and just to kind of remind you as you're selecting your encounters you might sense were you wanting something in some way were you wanting to appear a certain way or to prove something, to reassure the person, to have a certain impact, to change anything about them, or how they're doing things.

Were you trying to avoid anything, protecting yourself from any judgment, covering over something? Were you wanting not to be there? Or was there a kind of neutrality where the person just wasn't important, so you just weren't engaged? just sensing if there was an agenda if you were wanting them to be different in some way or wanting yourself to be different, wanting something to happen that was different. For some of us, we'll find the agenda was we wanted to get on to the next thing. We weren't quite okay about being there. Or we feared the other wanted to get on to the next thing.

What was between you and open-heartedness? It can be particularly interesting to look at a close relationship, someone you live with that's important. And again, ask that question, what today or yesterday got between me and open-heartedness? So this is a question you can continue to explore through the week. The invitation will be to be practicing this week

with the loving-kindness practice that we'll be doing soon. But let me ask you, open your eyes, how many found that what was between you and open-heartedness was some expression of fear, some form of fear. Let me just see. Okay. How many of you found it more took the form of wanting? There was something you were wanting. Yeah.

Usually it falls in those two categories. It's a good bet. And they're very much flip side of the same coin. Now, fear is very common in relationships. we're a bit scared of each other. Even if we don't think of it that way, there's a tension that in some way we won't be accepted or appreciated.

In a larger way, fear basically tightens our heart. And so the original stories of loving kindness came from in the Buddhist time. The Buddhist monks were, this is one particular story, had been out in the rainy season. They take a few months to practice

and they'd set up camp in this woods or this forest that turned out to be pretty haunted. And there were tigers and poisonous snakes, but mostly it was haunted by all sorts of pretty grotesque creatures and spirits and ghosts. So the monks were having a hard time being mindful when they were practicing. I mean, there were just freaks and all sorts of kind of psychic attacks and so on. So they fled, and they went back to the Buddha and said, please let us go and find another place to meditate. And he refused. He said, no, you've got to go back to the haunted forest.

But he said, but you can take this with you. And he gave them the meta meditation. That's what they took back to the forest with them. And so they practiced and practiced, and they reached a place of real loving presence. And in that space, all the angry ghosts and wild creatures became wonderfully transformed into benevolent beings. because when you're around a field of loving kindness,

it's just very hard to keep up your attacking and defendedness. So they got transformed. The relevance of the myth, and I like this myth, is that it's a given that we have a conditioning to be afraid. I mean, that is just a given. It's through all creatures, you know, at different levels of complexity. So that's a given. And the wisdom is that when we reach towards,

Connectedness, it helps to release the fear. Why? Because when we reach towards connectedness, it wakes us up from that habit of feeling separate, which is really the source of all fear. And you can see it. They've been doing a lot of research on the difference between the way men and women respond to stress. And women respond to stress with tend and befriend. The way they soothe their nervous system is in the relational way. Men seem to lean towards fight-flight, but are evolving into 10B-friend. I'm not usually one to, like, say, women are more evolved. But in this particular biological system, 10-be-friend does seem to be really workable. Interesting research, how, you know, they've done experiments where someone's given an electric shock,

they're holding hands with another person, even with a stranger. The centers in the brain that register fear show a reduction in activity. Just holding hands. It's very deep in our system that when we sense belonging, when we sense connection, fear is reduced. So the meta-meditation, one of the beautiful gifts of it, is that it wakes us up out of that fear and that separateness. But it's not just a practice for moving away from fear. It's moving towards the truth of who we really are. That while we have a perception of separation, that's not the end of our evolutionary unfolding. It's possible to sense separation, but in the deepest way, a sense a unity of being, sense our belonging. So it carries us home. This practice of reflecting on goodness and connection.

carries us home. It wakes us up out of an identity that's small and painful. I saw a segment on 60 minutes, this is about three years ago, that I loved, that felt very much about the metta practice. And in this segment, Vi Higginson and Marion West were featured, and both of them, Vye is a woman, Marion's a man, did a genetic kind of tracing to know their ancestors and find living relatives. I mean, they both wanted to feel their family, their belonging. And so Vye is this urban African-American woman. She lives in Harlem and directs a choir there. And she locates Marion. She discovers that Marion is part of her genetic ancestry. He's a white cattle rancher from Missouri. White cattle rancher from Missouri. He's a huge guy, an older southern

guy with cowboy hat and so on. So he's also been doing the tracing, he's told that he has some blue blood, some British royalty. He comes upon his relative Vye. So he invites her down for a visit. And what you get when you watch 60 minutes is great footage of their initial encounter. And there they are. You know, Vye just, you know, is all of a sudden there and there's Marion Greetinger. And they are in tears hugging. And his first words were God put us together. God put us together. You see the next footage. And he's, he's, then visiting her up in Harlem and you see him again with his cowboy hat and his boots and he's in he's there at one of her gospel gatherings and with the choir and he's having the time of his life swaying and singing and it goes on but the beautiful element of this is both we're seeking a sense of you know what is my belonging and we're so open to it and in that found this open heartedness this this beautiful quality of the oneness that lives through us This is the metta practice, awakening connectedness.

I read you a very brief. This is about an old Hasidic rabbi. He asks his pupils, how can you tell when the night has ended and the day has begun? He said, and this is important to know, because this is the time for certain holy prayers. So one student says, well, is it when you can see an animal in the distance and tell whether it's a sheep or a dog? No answer the rabbi. Another says, is it when you can clearly

see the lines of your own palm? It shakes his head. Is it when you can look at a tree in the distance and tell if it's a fig tree or a pear tree? No answer the rabbi each time. Then what is it? The pupils demanded. It is when you can look on the face of any man or woman and see that they are your sister or brother. Until then, it is still night. So this is the secret beauty that we can see past the veil that might think, oh, that's not my type of person. You know, whether it's socioeconomic or race or age or just appearance or whatever, that we can see past the veil to this secret beauty, which is really this goodness, this awareness, this love, that's who's looking out back at us. This is the Buddha on the meta practice. He says even as a mother protects with her life, her child, her only child, so with a boundless heart should one cherish all living beings, radiating kindness over the entire world.

So tonight, what we'll do is practice a few elements of it together. And just to say that there are two basic components to training this heart, this deliberate, practice of awakening what's already there, really putting down the veils. And one of the elements is to intentionally look to see the goodness that's here. And as I mentioned, because of fear and because we're vigilant about what might be wrong, we don't tend to look towards the goodness. I've sometimes described it. We come into this world and it's difficult. So we kind of take on a space suit where we're trying to navigate and get through the day and we use our personality and our cleverness and whatever we can to protect ourselves and to get what we need. And that's

our ego structure. And we need an ego, but we get, this is what's sad, is we think we're the spacesuit. We forget who's looking through the mass. And the more identified we are with the separate self space suit self the more when we look at others we just see their space suit does that make sense the more we're circling around the what's wrong with me what do i need this all the the ego sensitivity the more that's what we see in others their wants their needs their fears their personalities so seeing the goodness is a deliberate practice we need our 10,000 hours hours. And just to have a commitment as you leave here to spend a little time each day intentionally reflecting on one person and their goodness begins to open the door to this incredible power

and beauty of loving kindness. So seeing the goodness is one element. The other element in the loving, kindness training is to actively express our care. You know, in compassion, we'll be exploring this next week. When they study the brain, they do brain scans when compassion is aroused, the part of the brain that is activated includes part of the motor cortex that has to do with action. In other words, compassion is not just a, what we'll describe it next week, a quivering of the heart and tenderness when you see suffering. It's also that inclination towards action to relieve suffering. Meta's the same. It's not just seeing the goodness and appreciating. It's this movement to want to in some way express thanks, express appreciation, mirror back goodness, offer our wishes. So it's both

perception and action, okay, in this training. So we'll begin, we're going to be doing several pieces of the metta practice, but as a story, just to give you a sense of the power of this practice, a story I shared several years ago. This is about a high school math teacher who really knew the secret of the power of seeing goodness. And on one particularly difficult afternoon, she told her class to stop all academic work, and she let her students rest. And she wrote on the blackboard everybody's names. And then she asked them to copy the list. And then the rest of the time, they were just to consider the person on the list, each one,

and just write down everything that they admired or appreciated about that person. So no math for the rest of that day. They just did that, and she collected the papers. They went home for a long weekend. And the following Monday, she handed each student the sheet of paper with their name, and she had pasted all the good things that everybody else had said about them on their paper. And they kind of smiled and just felt really struck, you know, really kind of amazed. Other people thought that about me, that kind of thing.

So that happened. And then several years later, this teacher received a call from the mother of one of the students in her class. the boy, his name was Mark. And he had been a real cut up and he had been sometimes real challenging, but he was absolutely a sweetheart and she had loved him. And in this call she found out that really terrible news that Mark had been killed in the Vietnam War, this took place a long time ago.

And so this teacher attended the funeral where Mark and many of former friends and high school classmates were there and they spoke. And just as a service was ending, Mark's mother went over to this teacher and told her how important she had been to Mark and then took out this worn piece of paper that had been folded and refolded many times and said, this was one of the things that was in Mark's pocket when the military retrieved his body. And it was the paper in which she had pasted those good things that others had said about him. So it was at that point that this teacher, she happened to be a nun.

This was in a Catholic school that it took place. She began weeping. And then as that happened, another student standing nearby opened her person, pulled out her own carefully folded paper and confessed. She always kept it with her. And another student said his paper was at home in his journal,

and another said had become part of their wedding vows and so on. So they all confessed how, absolutely important that was. And so this perception of goodness that was invited by this teacher had really transformed the hearts of her students in a way that she might not have thought was possible. It's hard to even imagine the power of what happens when we see another's goodness and in some way let them know. It's like we become this mirror for truth. And it's not. not this Polyana thing where we pretend, oh, you're perfect, there's nothing wrong with you, I don't see the flaws. It's, of course, that's there, but there's something larger. And it's as if

we have pulled the veil and said, I see you, and it helps to draw it out. It helps the person to trust what's there, because we so often don't trust our goodness. Rachel Remen, who's a physician and writer, and very wise woman writes this. She says, there are laws of our inner world that bind each of us as firmly as gravity, beliefs we carry about ourselves and about life in general that we experience as true in all conditions and at all times. A feeling of personal unworthiness is one such inner law. One moment of unconditional love may call into question a lifetime of feeling unworthy and invalidate it. So this is the power of the meta practice and that unconditional love can be what we offer to another in our silent prayer or actively and it can be

what we offer to ourselves to decondition the way that we might feel separate from ourselves in our world. So we'll practice and we're going to practice in parts. the first part of the practice, if you will, just to be ready. Sit however is comfortable, but it allows you to be alert. Okay, if you'd like to close your eyes. And you might experiment with the practice we used in our meditation earlier of just calling on that smile. Let your eyes soften, slight smile at the mouth. I'd feel the inside of the mouth smiling. Just invite a smile to unfold in the heart area, as if you could smile into the heart and also feel a smile just naturally called for it. Again, not to cover over anything, just to create the space for

what's possible. Gently feel your breath and feel yourself here. You're aware of the life, the aliveness of your body, a tenderness in the heart area, and awareness presence itself right here. You may bring to mind what sometimes described as a benefactor, someone who's at some point in your life, in a memorable way, has been kind to you, generous with time, with energy. And even if it was not a lot of time or a lot of energy, there was a genuineness of care. And even if it's not a personal relationship. For some, it may be someone that you've never met. There's something very pure and good and real about that being that has been a gift to you that you're grateful for. It's helped. So take a moment to bring someone to mind that's touched your life.

Let yourself feel that beings compassion or kindness, good intention, purity of heart. and see if you can sense what it means to let that in. And it's fine if you notice that it's hard to let it in, but just be aware. Maybe you took that person's care and considered it as obligatory or an exchange or something you now owe. Maybe you feel in some way that it's not about you. There's not really a connection. Or maybe you can let it in a bit right now, just starting. fresh and sensing that person's kindness. Just letting your heart be touched. Loving kindness arises

when we let another in, when we sense that goodness and let it enter us, touch us. Love is an experience of pure appreciation. So sensing the goodness of this being and a visceral experience of caring, the kind of energetic bond that happens with that. And take a moment to mentally whisper, thank you. Just in some way, the words thank you, the spirit thank you, and sense how it feels to say thank you. Sense your wish for this person, some expression of care that you'd like to offer.

Now, while we start with another person, this loving kindness practice is very importantly directed towards our, own being. It's rooted in a capacity to see our own goodness. So letting your attention now come to this life right here, this particular expression of aliveness and mind and being. And sometimes people ask, well, isn't that selfing? But you're not paying attention to a story of yourself, but rather the actual expression of aliveness that's here, of heart, of awareness. So you might reflect on your own being and sense the qualities within you that you appreciate. It may be your honesty, your curiosity, your humor, your care. Sense what you might appreciate about yourself.

Your appreciation of beauty. You might sense the qualities of love, that love matters to you. or sensing your awareness, just that awakeness. You might sense your intention, the sincerity of your intent, your longing to love or to wake up. And if it's hard to sense what you appreciate, look through the eyes of someone who cares about you. Explore that. What do they see?

Someone that sees you and cares. A part of this is to see our goodness. and then the other part is to offer care and you might put your hand on your heart or your hand on your cheek as a way to deepen that presence with yourself. This is a beautiful part of the meta practice if you haven't explored it

and just vary the touch so that it's tender so that there's just the pressure that communicates presence and care as if you're putting your hand on the cheek of a child gently infused with presence and whisper whatever blessing to yourself

you most want to offer and it may be the simplicity of may I be safe from harm may I be happy may I be held in loving presence filled with loving presence may I be free whatever wish your offering

take it slowly offered inwardly and imagine and sense what it would be like to manifest, to experience that blessing. You might just pick one tonight to explore. May I be happy to really sincerely wish for your own freedom and happiness of heart, to energetically sense that possibility, to feel the care in just offering the wish in the traditional metta practice. We widen the circles bringing to mind others that we care about. And tonight we're not going to be able to do the whole practice, but this is an opportunity to bring to mind someone

that's dear to you, someone you care about. As you bring this person to mind, take some time to see behind the veil and sense this person's goodness, sensing just as you have an intending, tension to wake up or to be honest, to love, to be happy. So does this person, sensing this person's realness, kindness, patience, sense of humor. You might see this person's eyes lit up, the aliveness, the brightness. See this person when they're happy, when they're touched by beauty. And as you sense the goodness of this person, as you feel in a visceral way your appreciation, you might imagine offering a blessing just as you did with yourself. Just imagine if you were putting your hand on that person's cheek, that intimate kind of a blessing. May you be happy.

May you feel held in loving kindness. May you feel filled with loving kindness. Sense whatever blessing you want to offer, but imagine that person feeling and benefiting from the prayer. It's part of feeling your connection. You might just sense how much you appreciate this person's essence and goodness and whisper the word thank you. Thank you for being. You might imagine yourself in the days and weeks to come in some way letting this person know the way you appreciate their goodness and just sense how that would be for them. Ticknod Han teaches a hug and the reflection is I'm going to die and you're going to die and we have just these moments together. If you sense this impermanent world that can

and bring alive your appreciation even more for the uniqueness and goodness that lives through this particular being, the way it's expressed. So we feel the heart of loving kindness and then open it outward and outward. And the practice can include opening into people that are what are called neutral people,

people that we have no real reaction to, difficult people, to all the beings everywhere, everywhere. So as a way of closing this practice tonight, I'd like to just invite you to open your sense of awareness and attention and sense this earth we're on. Sense the beings, the humans and other creatures that walk, swim, fly. You might sense that you can hold the earth or mother in your lap and sense all beings everywhere as belonging to this heart of loving kindness. so that we close together with the prayer for this living world. May all beings everywhere be filled with loving kindness, be held in loving kindness.

No loving presence, this loving kindness as the very essence of being. May all beings everywhere live from and express loving kindness in action day by day. May there be peace on earth. May there be peace everywhere. May all beings awaken and be free. Namaste. A couple of comments before we close. This comes alive with practice.

So I just very much want to invite you to, even if it's for three minutes a day, pick somebody and find out what happens to that relationship if you, for a few minutes a day, reflect on that person's goodness and make a wish for them in your heart and potentially even out loud. Just find out.

And then you might even explore, and I'm not sure whether we might do another piece on meta next week or we might go on to compassion. I have to feel it out because there was a lot more I didn't get to cover tonight. But you might even explore

as you leave class today. one of the translations of loving kindness or of metta is friendliness. And just to expand to say hello to someone tonight that you've never seen or talked to before and just sense the possibility of seeing behind the veil. That is radical. That's what can change our earth. So I just want to invite you to keep experimenting in a very real way. So this is living Dharma, not just something that's abstract. So again, thank you for your attention and your good hearts. Blessings. The teaching you have received has been freely offered. If you would like to contact the Insight Meditation Community of Washington to make a donation or to learn more about our programs,

please visit our website at www.imcw.org.