Tara Brach - Morning Questions and Response from Retreat (2016-05-09)

Episode Date: May 30, 2016

Morning Question and Response from Retreat (2016-05-09) - Tara responds to questions on deepening our meditation practice, working with unpleasant and pleasant thoughts, and forgiveness. 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 makes a difference. To make a donation, please visit tarabrock.com. We have some really wonderful questions from you, and I just wanted to start that one of the descriptions of meditation is in a way to let go of or do away with the meditator, that gradually the more we're present, the more becomes clear there's no one meditating and there's not such a sense of doing. In fact, all the supports that we're exploring together, whether it's having an anchor or using a phrase for meta or in any way directing the attention with rain are all moving in the direction of really this spontaneous recognizing and allowing

that is what awareness does. Awareness is here doing it. So in that spirit I invite you in each meditation and whenever you find there's some quieting going on where there's not so much calling your attention that you're feeling you have to in some way respond to on purpose to let go of the anchor and let go of any deliberate doing and explore what it's like to simply notice and allow moment-to-moment experience. Okay. In contrast to that, if issues come up during the meditation, how do you direct your investigation into them, e.g. grief, past hurt, confusion.

And so you can practice in a way that you purposely bring up something and you work with it. But more we're encouraging you just to be here and rest and let whatever arises arise and then bring an awake and kind attention to whatever is there. So let's say what comes up is grief. Then how do we investigate? Well, we begin as we've been exploring together, if naming it helps, but just to recognize, oh, this is here. And it helps to purposely allow because we so quickly have a notion that we need

to make something go away or that it's wrong. And so the allowing is the first step of really deconditioning that old kind of egoic reaction that's trying to control life. So do on purpose say, okay, yes, let it be here. And then investigating, there are a handful of questions that are really useful that you can pose to yourself, that are questions that the purpose of the question is to deepen your attention to what's going on right in the moment. And the first is really, you know, where is this in my body and what's it feel like? So that we're really discovering, this is the heart

of investigations to bring our attention fully into the expression of what's happening in our body. You can also ask, and this sounds more cognitive, but actually it leads you into a very free place, what am I believing right now? Because when, you... When there's a tangle, there tends to be a background belief that keeps on fueling the tangle. And if you can recognize it, and it might simply be, I'm going to fail, or I'm not lovable, something's wrong with me. This person's doing this because they don't care.

Some belief in the background, if you recognize it, it doesn't have as much control. The way it's sometimes described as the shaman say that if you can name it. something, if you see it for what it is, then like naming a fear, it doesn't control you anymore. So that's the value of what am I believing. And then to deepen the inquiry and you might ask really what is this place in me most need? Every strong emotion is coming from an unmet need. What is it need? You might ask, how do you want me to be with you? Because in the moments that you communicate with a part of you, you're starting to reconnect. You're starting to take this limbic experience that's actually hijacked you and reconnect it

with the frontal cortex. What's happened when we're in reactivity is we've lost some of our connection with our frontal cortex. We're no longer kind of integrated and awake in that place of mindfulness and perspective and humor. So communicating with the part starts to reestablish that connection with that part of our brain and our consciousness. So just saying, how do you want me to be with you right now, starts reestablishing a beingness that's larger than that vulnerable place. And then responding to that need with some gesture of kindness deconditions the very core experience of being separate. So each part of these two wings of recognizing and allowing

is deconditioning the trance of a separate self. So I hope those questions and there are others are useful and once again the reminder that each of us has put out that the questions while they're a use of your mind it is not to stimulate cognition. you're using your mind actually to help relax and open you in your body and open out of the trance. It's a skillful use of inquiry. So thank you for the question.

Pleasant and unpleasant feelings often come up during my meditation. Should I treat both types of feelings the same? I acknowledge them and let them go. I wonder whether I should nourish the pleasant feelings such as gratitude while I sit. So, I'm going to have two levels of response and I'm glad I'm really grateful for this question. And one is, on one level all things are equal. In other words, our real freedom comes from allowing this living, dying world to arise and pass and really being able to rest in a place of awakeness and kindness, to really rest

in our wholeness. So we're a lot more free when there is this capacity. this heart that's ready for anything, that's not tensing against the bad stuff and hoping for the good stuff, we're a lot more free to cherish and live and celebrate our moments. That's the basic training. It's really to open, open, open and become that openness. So yes, pleasant, unpleasant, to notice them. Not as much to let them go, but to let them be.

and we have such a strong conditioning, such as this negativity bias to fixate on the what's wrong, that one of the most powerful domains of practice in the Dharma is to begin to glad in the mind, to very on purpose remember the beautiful and the good and the love. And for many of us, the practice each day of remembering what we, love in some way, some form of metta or loving kindness, gratitude and appreciation for what we love, is a way of systematically deconditioning the negativity bias and said more poetically it awakens Bodhita, it awakens our heart. So Ticknathan said it's not enough to suffer.

You have to touch peace too. So please take some time each day, not just during our... our meta practice to just be with what you love. And when something happens spontaneously, if you're outside and that emerald green becomes so delicious that you feel it filling yourselves, pause and just absolutely drink in that moment of celebration and appreciation, get to know it. familiar with it. The whole practice, Rich Hansen calls it a positive neuroplasticity, which is our brains are plastic, we can rewire. The practice of taking in the good of

pausing and entraining ourselves to moments when we're feeling wonder, our moments when we're feeling a sense of the mystery, our sense of amazing, just such gratitude, getting familiar with them experiences in the body actually will create more of an inclination to live with those, to be sensitive to those moments. So yes, please practice gratitude. And again, thank you for the question. It's a wonderful one. When you've been hurt by somebody that you love very much, how do you overcome the anger that keeps arising even six years later? What's to be done to ease the anger towards them? So I wanted to touch on this. It's such an important question because for so many of us,

the separation that we feel in the world has to do with the habit of making others wrong or feeling they're bad, feeling from the hurt that we need to push away. And so the very first step towards releasing anger, and by the way, anger is intelligent. I mean anger tells us we need to protect ourselves, but what happens is we get addicted to it. And we don't know, it's like the on button for anger gets jammed, the heart gets armored, and we never let go of that armoring. The first step is to know that we wouldn't be angry unless there was some vulnerable hurt place in us. And the beginning of forgiveness is self-compassion. To prematurely try to forgive someone else means that we haven't really touched into the vulnerability, so the

forgiveness isn't full. So I think of it as a U-turn rather than anger and blaming outward. Bring the attention back to your own heart and being in sense, well, if I wasn't angry, what would I have to be feeling? And what you'll find is that there's the hurt there, the fear there, and that's what's asking for attention. And if you bring a lot of kindness and care to that hurt or angry place, you'll find this heart-surface. You'll find this heart-s space that can then begin to view the other through wise and compassionate eyes. So of course there's more to say, but I think for now just to know that you turn and coming back to self-compassion can be a very powerful part of your work.

This practice, it seems like it's about the formal sitting practice or the walking practice. Let the moments come alive and it doesn't have to be straining. In fact, your mantra might be, how can I relax more fully in this moment? Okay. Enjoy.