Tara Brach - Morning Question and Response on Retreat (2016-05-11)

Episode Date: June 19, 2016

Morning Question and Response from Retreat (2016-05-11) - Tara responds to questions including deepening our meditation practice, working with desire, and the RAIN practice. Free download of Tara's 10 min meditation: "Mindful Breathing: Finding Calm and Ease" when you join her email list.

Greetings. We offer these podcasts freely and your support really matters. To make a donation, please visit tarabrock.com. First question here. Would you speak about the notion of taking refuge in the Buddha? Dharma and Sanger are clear to me. The Buddha feels distant historical. What is the movement towards finding that refuge? One of the, in writing true refuge, the ways I describe the refuge is Buddha as awareness. You know, there's the historical Buddha, but that historical Buddha is an inspiration of our potential to realize luminous, loving awareness.

And so we can use that as a bridge in our mind, but the direct refuge is really turning towards that innate original awakeness and tenderness of our being, that openness. And one of the descriptions of like best Chogam Trunk by Tibetan teacher at one point brought out a big white sheet of poster paper, and he drew a little Veon, and he said, what is this? And most people guessed it was a bird, and he said, no, it's the sky with a bird flying through it.

most of our waking moments, a key characteristic of the trance we're in, is that our minds are fixated on the V and interpreting it as a bird, and we're forgetting the space of beingness and awareness that everything's happening in. I sometimes think of it like we're sitting in a movie theater, we're fixated on the screen, we're mostly inside the story that's on the screen, and now and then we come back and we realize we're sitting here and there's a kind of a sense of a self that's here.

And what we forget is it's the mind and awareness, our mind and awareness that created the whole movie and the whole movie theater and belongs to the hills and the sky and the ocean and everything that compose that movie theater and that self. We are bigger than we imagine and we forget. So taking refuge in the Buddha is taking, turning our attention away from the particular fixations of our mind and remembering,

reconnecting with that mystery of presence and heart that really is our source. And this morning's instructions were really a bit of a shift from the foreground that we normally attend to. Normally we spend our time, you know, notice the sensations, notice the feeling, to notice the space they're happening in. Notice the silence that's listening. Notice the awareness that's looking through these eyes right now at colors and forms and shapes. So there's a shift to notice the background of experience,

the sky, and then include the bird, but not just have that narrowed aperture. Our Buddha nature, our awake nature, is all of it. It's the sky with the bird, with the bird, it's the ocean with the waves. So today, as you practice, if it's helpful to you, to periodically, intentionally open the attention from the particular sound or sensation or feeling to sensing the space it's in and the what's aware of it, the presence behind, the background, you'll find that it adds the very dimension that's most needed for full

presence for full realization. And of course, a wave is very, very strong. We just keep paying attention to it with as much kindness and presence until we discover its ocean-ness. So there are many different ways. The next question, why do we bow? Is it to the Buddha, to our own hearts, to the teachers, or all of the above? I meant to mention this on opening night. Because, you know, those of you that knew you come in and we're saying namaste and bowing. And some of you know namaste, but what it means is, I bow to the light or the sacredness that lives through you. It's a very universal sense of honoring our inner beauty. And the bow is a way of, in some way, sensing that this small self isn't the all that we are

and gnar is whatever mask we might habitually see in the other. So we're seeing to the beauty in each other and all beings. And sometimes we do it formally towards the altar as just a representation of that. But you can be outside and bow to the new blossoms and the green and the goats and you're doing the same thing. And of course it's optional as a gesture of heart and mind. And there's a kind of, you'll sense a theme here, to be on this path, though I have to be a Buddhist. A favorite story that some of you might remember, Swami Satchananda, Hindu yoga tradition, and one student said, you know, to do this yoga, do I have to be a Hindu?

And his response was, no, I'm not a Hindu, I'm an undo. Undo. And I love it because, I mean, think of it, that all the trainings are trainings that undoing this narrowed attachment to an ego cell. We're undoing the habitual conditioning that keeps us believing that we're less than we really are. We're undoing our kind of feeling possessed by feelings and emotions when there's so much more that can hold it with kindness. It's an undoing. Now, just to add a bit on that, Chogh M. Trunkpo was teaching at Noreopa, the first Buddhist college.

And one student said, how do I go home and be a good Buddhist? and he said, don't be a Buddhist. You know, be the Buddha. Be a Buddha. And so, again, it's that sense that if we find it's a skillful means to draw from particular traditions and views. Views are just views. And if you find it skillful and helpful

to pay particular attention to the way the Buddhists presented or the Sufis or the Christian mystics, great. But then let your being. being an expression of the sacredness that is at the very source of all those traditions. And whatever you affiliate with, hold it lightly, because when we get tightly identified, it obscures the truth. Is the hand on the heart appropriate in formal practice too, or is that just for the heart practices, or is there no separation between the heart practice and formal practice, even though they're separate on the schedule?

So, very good point. I like that because, you know, bottom line, this is all about awareness. It's like any moment that we relax back and there's awareness, there's freedom. So these are different ways of paying attention and the ground training we do here is cultivate that awareness that can be with the moments just to notice and allow with kindness. And then we strengthen the kindness factor when we pay particular attention in the loving kindness periods. And we strengthen that capacity to be aware of the sensations and aliveness as we're walking. So you can strengthen different elements and feel free to strengthen them during any sitting or any walking.

If you're in the middle of walking and you want to stop and sense your love and awe at this natural world, please. If you're here and you want to do meta, if you're in the meta and a lot of shame comes up because you feel your heart's closed, then you can put aside the meta practice and just bring attention to the shame with a lot of clarity and gentleness and presence. Keep experimenting with whatever in the moment for you most serves in an authentic way being here. Okay? This is probably the last one. I've been using the rain technique and often have found it quite helpful. However, there's one constant pattern that causes a lot of fear and doubt and grief.

And it's the belief I'll never find a romantic partner again or I'll always be alone. So when I use the rain technique, I have tremendous difficulty in nourishing this belief. In a big way, it's unsure and uncertain if I'll ever be in a partnership again. This is something I deeply desire and really feel as this connection is a healthy desire. I can't force it or make it happen. I'm terribly afraid and in these times convinced it'll just not happen for me. The only thing I have been able to do is feel the grief of not having it and letting go of this dream desire. Do you have any insight as to how to work with this?

How can I nurture this or do I have to just nurture the grief that's here with not having it and learn to live without that desire? This inquiry feels really important to me because it feels so real life. like how do we really bring these teachings? And one response is, really, you start right where you are. So if there's grief around not having, let that be the portal. And do open to the grief. It's really an opening fully to grief that we reopen to the heart that loves.

So reopen to the grief. and desire unto itself is not the cause of suffering. It's the identification around it. It's a sense of I have to have in order to be happy. To have the desire come and go, to have the desire be poignant and deep open to it. In fact, there's a practice that, well, the term that I like best is from a Zen Korean teacher,

Chanel that says tracing back the radiance and that desire like everything else comes in its depths comes from our longing for belonging. And so if you trace back desire, in other words, if you open to it and sense, okay, desires here and rather than fixating on what you're desiring, like this part, I want to have this partner, do the U-turn, and this is the critical piece, and trace it back and sense, well, what is it I'm really wanting? What's the want? What's the want really for. Okay? It's not just that partner, but it's a certain feeling I'm wanting. Well, what's the feeling? Oh, it's a sense of this. Go deeper and deeper. And if you trace back the longing far enough, you'll come to its source, which is the direct experience of belonging.

In response to this question, I wanted to just make that invitation to keep starting right with whatever comes up. I find I'll do rain and I'll start with one thing and then something that feels ashamed of that will come up or something that's afraid of whatever will come up and then you start right again with that including desire. But the trick with desire is to extricate yourself from the narrow focus of it and go right back into its roots of what you're really longing for. I have time for one more. I'm becoming very irritated and agitated no longer want to sit. And I want to say that I'll bet you 99% at some point said, first of all, why am I here? Why did I make that choice? And I don't want to go back into that room and sit, right? I'm not

going to ask for a hand raise, but first off, forgive the reaction, because usually there's this reaction of aversion, like I don't want to do this anymore. And sometimes I don't even notice behind that is we're then judging ourselves for even having that. feeling, like I'm a bad person to have that feeling. It's entirely natural. I mean, there's a reason that this practice is so hard, which is we have a conditioning to pull away from what's difficult or unfamiliar or challenging. And of course, there's layers there that we don't want to be with. And I sometimes describe it like we're on this bicycle, and the more that we don't like what's there, the faster we pedal away from the present moment. So, of course, we don't want to come and sit. And

when there's a sense or something we don't want to be with. So the first step is to be very gentle towards that response. It's like, of course, honey, it's okay. You know, naturally that's there. After you've forgiven and allowed, you have two options. And one is maybe it does feel like too much has stirred up and that sitting practice isn't the most skillful means, in which case to walk, you know, to have a cup of tea,

for some to journal or read a few verses while you're here. At home there's different options. It's okay. The second option, which is pretty revealing, is to give yourself all the forgiveness in the world and then sit down, and then bring a real interest to... This is the question that I love almost the most, that one, the stories that people would bring their spiritual challenges to this one sage

and they'd have to go through all sorts of hazardous countryside and really make a huge effort to get to his hermitage. They'd finally get there, they'd tell them what's going on, and they'd say, I'll tell you, but you have to swear yourself to secret. And then the response is, ask yourself this, what is it that I'm unwilling to feel? and to have the care and the interest to ask that and just with real gentleness, that listening attention and that kindness, just listen in.

In the moments that you stay instead of running away, those are moments of deconditioning. The old sense of self, the running away self, start softening. And you start, it makes you more porous and transparent and light that wants to shine through can shine through. So it's really being willing to stay, but being very forgiving when we decide not to. So before we stand up and depart, just take a moment to sense your intention as you move into the rest of the day, what your most sincere intention is, right this moment.

It's knowing what matters, knowing what we want, knowing what it is about this that really means something to us, that then moves us forward into living it, inhabiting it. Namaste and blessings.