Tara Brach - Part 1: The Sure Heart's Release

Episode Date: December 26, 2013

2011-02-29 - Part 1 - The Sure Heart's release - Our longing is to realize and embody loving presence, yet we each have deeply conditioned habits that bind our hearts. This talk reflects on these habits, and explores how we can free ourselves by bringing a mindful, compassionate attention to places where we are most trapped in feeling separate, fearful and unworthy. No class on December 25 - enjoy a favorite from 2011.

So, as a way of beginning, I would like to share with you a reading from the Buddhist scriptures and it was something that was read to me at, I think it was my first retreat, one of the first few days and it stayed with me. It's to me one of the most important of the teachings. This is from the Majima Nakaya. The purpose of the Holy Life does not consist in acquiring merit, honor, or fame, nor in gaining morality, concentration, or the eye of knowledge. The purpose is that unshakable deliverance, the sure hearts release. That indeed is the object of the Holy Life. That is its essence, that is its goal. that unshakable deliverance, the sure hearts release.

So when I heard it, the inquiry really was, okay, so released from what? And what does it mean to have the heart released? And as I really reflected, it's become increasingly clear that we are drawn to this practice. every one of us that's here is drawn because in some way we intuit that there are stories or habits in our life that are keeping us from the fullness and potential of who we can be. And we intuit that. We know we have beliefs that keep us little and we know we have ways of moving through the day that make us forget.

And so there's some longing in each of us. to experience the full potential, that full freedom of the heart, to love without holding back, to really live from a sense of generosity of spirit, to be creative, to be fully alive. We long for that. And so what I'd like to do tonight is reflect together on how do we keep our heart defended. I mean, in any given moment, what's going on that keeps us from feeling connected? What might be going on to keep us from feeling a sense of belonging or tenderness? Whether it's what keeps us closed down?

So that's the kind of inquiry for the evening. And then, of course, what frees us? What allows for the sure heart's release? and finally how do we keep you know we feel a release but how do we in some way keep coming back to that freedom

because it's so easy to touch something but then forget and re-contract back into trance so that's a tall order for the evening but here we go I'd like to say that it very much helps when we think of you know our defendedness it very much

helps to take the big view in terms of the whole evolution of consciousness. And since the origins of the defended heart, we go back to billions and billions and billions of years ago. So this is the Tara Sagan account of Dharma, you know, rendition. Billions and billions and billions of years ago. But so that we don't take it personally, we go back to sensing these very primitive

multi-celled creatures that had a man. membrane around them. And there were organized so they knew that inside this membrane is moi and outside is the rest of the world. And they were organized to do whatever they could to nourish what's inside right here and when necessary to protect against whatever threatened the integrity of that organism out there. So there's this sense of self, however primitive that then uses these strategies which include camouflage and pretending and tricking and attacking and seducing and things that start sounding very familiar to you know who, right? So we start there so that it's not so personal that we each inherit this sense of selfness

and all these reflexes to grab onto things and to push away stuff and to just to move through the day in some way trying to control. And the phrase that I always find helpful is that the primal mood of the separate self is fear. I mean if you are moving through the day and you're in that kind of membrane enclosure and feeling the selfness here and the world,

out there, there is going to be some mood of fear and it might not have the expression of like terror kind of fear, it might be just uneasiness. But if you check, you know, if you stop and you check and say, okay, so what's happening in this moment and you get the knack of really feeling your heart and your chest and your body, you'll sense an uneasiness or a restlessness, or that something's not quite right now or something's incomplete. And that's that primal moon I'm talking about. And in Buddhism it's called dukkha. It's sometimes described as a dissatisfaction.

Something's not quite right. And we have it because to survive we have to be vigilant and we have to be on edge and we have to be ready to react and so on. Okay, so this is the evolutionary predicament. And, you know, in biblical terms it's called the fall from Eden, where we incarnate and there's a sense of separateness. And in that identification with a self, in the moment we're identifying a self, we're not remembering a larger belonging. We're forgetting a wholeness. we're forgetting awareness, you know, we're forgetting that kind of unbound heart,

there's a forgetting. So this is the, if you think of it developmentally, we are designed to incarnate and forget, to get identified and to have, because of the thinking mind, having the ego itself be very self-conscious and have a whole complex of thoughts and feelings and emotions. a kind of patterning that feels very familiar like moi. We are designed to forget a larger sense of being and have a limited identity. So not to think it's wrong. It's just part of the design.

But this is the thing, is that it's not the end of the evolutionary unfolding. There is a more complete expression of what is possible for a human and we get somewhat arrested at the egoic level. So when we start exploring how we defend this heart, what we're exploring is these ego defenses that keep us from the full experience, the sure heart's release. The identification, the tightness with the ego is exacerbated. It becomes more solid, more defended depending on our culture and our family experience. Okay, so it's conditioning.

Each of us has a certain kind of conditioning. And maybe an easy way to say it is that the more unmet needs we have, for feeling safe, for feeling a sense of belonging to family or tribe or whatever, for feeling loved, for feeling an inherent sense of our dignity, the more that we have unmet needs that we don't have that, the tighter our clinging is to the egoic self and to the grasping and the aggression that comes from that. So the biggest wound, you know, the biggest unmet need is to feel lovable.

That's the wound of unlove, where we in some way get the message through our family, our culture, that something's wrong with you, that as you are is not enough or not okay. And most of us, most everyone I know has that wound, to some degree. That we have deep in us the belief and feelings and they're interwoven. It's not just that we believe something's wrong. It's like a real, visceral felt sense, that this egoic self is not okay. That something needs to be different. And our message

has come something like you need to be special. Most of us feel like we need to be special or important. Need to achieve, be successful. You need to look good according to certain standards, strong, beautiful, whatever. You know, have a certain kind of body. So we have these different standards and for most people it's a sense of falling short from that. One woman a number of years back now said that this sense of unwelcome worthiness or not lovable was like this invisible gas that she was always breathing but not that aware of. But that in any interaction or any situation on some level it made it so that she could never

really be spontaneous or at ease. It's always having to watch out or try to prove in some way. So what happens when we feel this fundamental insecurity is that we have to have a set of strategies to try to feel better. And we each have our repertoire of strategies, but those strategies are what end up being the bind to the heart. We have ways of trying to compensate for something's wrong, but our very ways that we try to feel better close off our heart.

So I'd like to talk about them. What are the ways that we defend ourselves or try to prove ourselves that keep our heart from being free? Now, there's an assumption here I want to make clear which is developmentally we have a natural state of being when we're awake, when we're present, where the heart is open. Our natural state is an open heart. The defenses, the reactivity, tighten and close us. But a relaxed heart is naturally and spontaneously connective and empathetic and

inclusive and responsive. And that's not just spiritual talk. All mammals have the built-in capacity to be empathic and to take care of others and to be cared for. To let in care, to give care. It's built into our bodies

and our structures in our brain. So we have the capacity for open-heartedness. But the more unmet needs and the more defended we get, the less we have access to them. So how do we go about continuously re-binding ourselves, behaving in ways to keep our hearts closed? And one domain is aggression, that out of that insecure heart, we push away and the biggest form is judgment. I take some time usually with judgment because it comes from insecure. We have a need when we're insecure to feel up and to put others down.

And here's something to consider. If you are feeling really at home in yourself, like if you feel truly in a kind of integrated way a sense of okayness, that nothing's wrong, that you really belong, not that you're perfect but there's a sense of okayness. If you're feeling that in yourself and then somebody else behaves in a hurtful way, does something that is really unhealthy, what's the response going to be? And if we're feeling at home with ourselves, our discriminating wisdom will go, oh, that's unhealthy behavior and we'll sense if there's something that we can do or whatever.

But there's not going to be aversive judgment like a need to put down. Does that make sense? similar with blame. When we're hurt, when we're insecure, then there's a lashing back. It's just very much, again, part of our biology. You know, if you're making me wrong, I'm going to make you wrong and we can feel it so much how, and it's humbling with those closest to us, how quickly if somebody criticizes us or doesn't do things according to our plans, how quickly the blame goes that you should be different. Should is such a flag. It's a flag of an egoic reaction.

The ego's not getting its way. I'm going to read you. This is a short little essay from Natalie Goldberg. She says, my parents are visiting me in my new home in Santa Fe. It is a cool late July afternoon we're sitting on the porch. Amazingly, we're not eating. We're just staring straight ahead at the high adobe wall 100 feet in front of us. We're sitting in a line.

I'm in the middle. Hey Nat, my father begins. What is meditation? Well, it's hard to explain. And then, because I'm young and still incredibly foolish, I have a brilliant, daring idea. Do you want to try? And before they can answer, I run into the house and get a bell. Accutriments, I think. It'll make it official. Okay, when I ring the bell, you just sit and feel your breath go in and out at your nose. If your mind wanders, just bring it back gently to your breath. We'll sit for 10 minutes. Okay, they both say suddenly eager, this will be fun, and they wriggle in their chairs to compose themselves. The bell sounds three times when we settle into this most ordinary thing, people breathing next to each other.

My father's on my right, my mother's on my left. I can't believe this is happening. We're all paying attention. The ten minutes feel spacious, luscious, forever. The shade is cool, we're all quiet. This must be what heaven is. The time is up. I ring the bell once to mark the end of meditation. Well, how was it? I asked. Did you have a lot of distractions? My father shrugs his shoulders.

What's the big deal? Well, did you discover how much you think? Was it hard to concentrate? Nope. I didn't have a single thought. None, I asked, surprised. Not a one. Well, did you feel peaceful?

Not particularly. It was like how it always is when you don't talk. That's why human beings talk. Nothing's happening otherwise. I turned to my mother. Well, I was aggravated the whole time about your friend. She must think I'm awful. At night, at dinner the night before, my mother had blurted out that she thought the chapters of my novel were awful. My friend Francis, who was there, told me later that my mother was jealous. I had confronted my mother that morning, and she apologized profusely. I don't know what came over me. Your chapters are lovely. Let's try again, my mother says. This time, I'll do it right. I tried to explain there's

no right or wrong, but instead, I just said, okay. This time I want to ring the bell, my father grabs a stick. He ceremoniously hits the bell three times. We're sitting for two and a half minutes when my father suddenly belts out, hello, Dolly. Well, hello, Dolly. It's so nice to have you back where you belong while ringing the bell continuously to accompany himself. Buddy, please. My mother tries to interrupt him, struggling to reach across to grab the bill, but my father won't stop. He's having a ball. I'm the only one still staring straight ahead at the blank adobe wall, still attempting to notice my breath. I decide right then that I don't have to save my parents. They don't count as sentient beings. They're in another category.

altogether. Okay. So you get the idea. You know, it's like every one of us knows what it's like when others aren't cooperating. And then we have the sense you should be different. So we begin to reflect and sense, well, what's going on inside me when there's judgment? This is the beginning of freedom. This is the crack open. And so I invite you to take a moment. Well, We'll stop and do a few little reflections this evening. Just pausing and taking a moment as you pause to let your attention and awareness come into your body so that you can feel the breath

and feel the aliveness, the chest, the throat, the belly. Just feel from the inside out, this living being here. and to bring to mind in the last day or two days or whatever an incident where you were aware of judging someone or where you're aware now that you were that have been an interaction at work or at home with family or friends where there was some strong judgment of how you're doing something's wrong, you're wrong, you should be different.

and it may be that you're not finding an example and maybe you have an example of judging yourself or maybe this isn't what's up for you and that's fine too. But if you've landed on something, take some moments to sense and maybe even exaggerate what you're noticing that's wrong in the person, really sense it

and censor, whether it's indignation or disappointment in them or whatever the tenor just to sense the judgment or the blame. Maybe it's resentment, they're not holding up their share, doing their part. Some way you should be different. And just as you settle into that awareness of judgment, notice what your heart feels like, what your sense of your own self is. Do you like your sense of self? Do you like who you are?

So we take a few breaths and come on back. We'll be exploring in a few minutes again how we... We're right now just noticing the ways that we bind our heart and judgment is the biggest way I know. It happens all the time. We are wired for it. I mean it's just one of the...

It's the mental way we aggress. but it binds us when we're unaware of it. Again, there's a wisdom in discrimination of noticing where there's something unhealthy that causes suffering, but the heart becomes bound and small when there's averse of judgment. Now, it's not so hard to sense that. When we're judging and we're pausing

and we have the kind of courage and honest, to check and we get that it makes us small. I mean anger is a way to puff up but it ends up, but it comes from insecurity and fear and it actually reinforces a sense of our own helplessness or ineptness or smallness. Similarly, judgment does that. Not that hard to find that out. It's a little harder to sense how when we're grasping, we're actually binding our heart. I'd like to speak to that for a moment. There's a novel, Annie Lamott's new novel, one of the women in the book says to her friend's teenage daughter as she's struggling with icky angst, you are pre-approved, which is a great line, you're pre-approved, I've shared

it here before, but we don't trust that. We have a sense of, as I mentioned earlier, that we really have to work hard to be okay. And even after we've achieved that, it doesn't last for very long at all, as you know. We have to then go prove ourselves again. And so we grasp. When we're grasping on to others, and one basic way we're grasping on is we want others to like us.

We're afraid of losing relationships that we've got. We want to matter and be special and preserve being liked. You know, the friending on Facebook, like how many friends. It's like an amazing phenomenon to see how attached we are to friends. And of course, romantically, this is the best single ad I've ever heard from the Atlanta Journal. Single black female seeks male companionship, ethnicity, unimportant. I'm a very good-looking girl who loves to play. I love long walks in the woods, riding in your pickup truck, hunting, camping, fishing trips,

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So I share that because when we are, when we're going for something, our attention gets very fixated. Have you noticed? You know, when we have an agenda, our attention goes very narrow. There's a wonderful saying when a pickpocket sees a saint, he sees the saint's pocket, right? Well, it's like that when we're wanting something from somebody and let's look at what we want from others, you know? When we're wanting their attention, are their affection, are there money, or their time, or whatever it is, they stop being a whole being. They become the object that might give us something we want. I remember reading an interview with Richard Gehr some years ago and he was talking about why he loves the Dalai Lama so much and he said,

it's because he really doesn't want anything from me. He wants my happiness, but he doesn't want something from me. Have you been with someone who is there and there's really no agenda they want for your happiness or they want for connection? But they don't want anything for themselves. They're not trying, there's no controlling going on. That's like sacred space. That's love when we're with someone that just is offering presence and not wanting something from us. So again we can just consider, you know, an interaction where we've been with someone and we just check our hearts when we know that there's some agenda that we have. You might think of somebody you were with in the last couple of days and just for a moment just close your eyes

and just send somebody that you wanted their help at work or somebody that you wanted them to like you or pay attention to you or if you wanted money. or if you wanted a favor, there may not be something that comes to mind but if there is, just sensing when you had an agenda of some sort and what your heart is like when there's any agenda. And what if you could get familiar,

intimate enough with your own heart, so that you could start sensing that this is a bound heart, a offended heart, a heart that's grasping and therefore not free. You could start noticing. So that's one way that we grasp, but I'd like to just mention another,

which is a subset, which is that we are perpetually seeking approval. And as long as we are in some way seeking approval, our heart is bound. And we do it with our friends and our work colleagues and our employees or employers and our children even.

We do it. And any effort to seek approval, any time we're trying to get another to approve of us, because it comes from insecurity, it reinforces insecurity and it keeps our hearts bound. We do it. We try to get approval,

positive responses, and avoid negative responses. We're always trying to, we're always organizing our behaviors to get some sort of response. I say always, not always. There's times we're more free, but a lot of the time, okay? I can say for myself, I had some friends coming for dinner before the Super Bowl, and they happened to be friends

from Madison, Wisconsin. And so I, before they came, I was on a walk with Jonathan, and I said, okay, you got to give me the quick briefing. Because, like, I am a complete cultural literate. So I was saying, you got to tell me, you know, I want to be in the next. know, you know, in the conversation. So I'm fumbling. I'm saying, okay, so tell me, okay, so there's the packers, the backpackers, the something packers, what are, so I'm going like that. And then I'm saying, and they're playing, let's say, is it Philly, the Philly Steelers? You know, I was a lost cause, and he was just like, I mean, it was a sorry conversation, but I was trying to look good to get him to brief me. And I still didn't come across really well in it. But, um, but, but,

But we know what it's like when we want to appear a certain way. And it happens in meditation communities and spiritual communities, that there's a sense of we value people that are equanimous and kind and open and we want to have a certain way of being. And yet we know inside how our thoughts can be less than charitable, mean-spirited, judgmental, the whole deal. You know, one friend of mine talks about traffic and how we always always think of traffic as everybody else, but we're not traffic, you know? You know how it is? And then there's that incredible mirror of how do we behave in traffic and, you know, how many of us

are generous and always let people merge and, you know, know, know that things happen. How many of us, you know, are rather pushy or aggressive or reactive when the others don't behave so well in the road? And then for myself, I'm so aware. when I'm sick, you know, if like if others had a window into how grumpy and self-absorbed and kind of complaining I get, if like instead of being, you know, this presentation of the benevolent, loving, wise, Dharma teacher, they saw me when I was grumping around like I do, you know, and yet here's the deal when I'm with friends. If I, and I'm, you know, just kind of interacting if I am not feeling well and yet I pretend I'm well or I kind of act buoyant or try to be

the hero and good nature and don't acknowledge it, there's no intimacy. And so there's this tendency to want to present according to how we think we should be and most of us have it and yet it keeps us from really being connected. We want to look good. I share. this last year, a man Eduardo Okubaru wrote me a note. He said, thank you once more. Your book helped me a lot to cope with pain some days ago when I had terrible renal collocks due to a kidney stone. Once I expel it, I will name the stone after you. So there's this whole thing about wanting to be important, wanting to prove ourselves and get approval. So another reflection then. I invite you to pause for a moment, close your eyes.

and this time to bring to mind someone who you like and who you want to approve of you. Someone you've been with in recent days or maybe someone you know you're going to be with or

whatever but just so that you can imagine a situation with this person where you're wanting approval. You're wanting that person to think well of you. It might be a social situation in our work, family. and just imagine yourself with this person and wanting their approval and just sense what your heart

feels like when you're seeking approval, when this is something that's mattering to you, and when you're in some way contriving to get that. What does your heart feel like? So again, this is the unsure heart, the heart that's bound, that's not free. that continuing to reflect, what is it that you don't want this person to see? What don't you want them to see about you? Just the way I don't want people to see what I'm like inside when I'm sick and self-absorbed and complaining, what is it you don't want that person to see?

What is it about you that's true that you really do want them to see? What's the goodness you want them to get? to recognize. Is it possible to let the condition self be included? But trust this essential goodness, that you're pre-approved? Is it possible? Just to relax and trust that? You can consider that. I know that for most of us, we want to trust that. We want to relax and trust we're pre-approved, that it's okay. And it's hard. We have basic insecurities that keep us doing the behaviors that we don't like and then we close our heart to ourselves and mistrust ourselves. You can open your eyes if you like.

I often share Gandhi his words. He says your beliefs become your thoughts. Your thoughts become your words. Your words become your actions. Your actions become your habits. Your habits become your character. and your character becomes your destiny. Now I find that powerful because what it's really saying

is that we really want to trust the goodness but there's a kind of patterning that keeps on playing out where certain thoughts and beliefs come up. The beliefs have in some way I'm not enough. And then those beliefs set off a whole pattern of thoughts and feelings that have us behave a certain way, proving ourselves, for instance, or grasping, our judging. And then those behaviors then confirm our belief

and it becomes our destiny. We become locked in the egoic self. This is what developmental arrest is, okay? Keep replaying the pattern. So it's hard to trust ourselves when we keep replaying that pattern and keep confirming that same belief. That's why we meditate.

Meditation is a way to do, decondition that pattern, that chain of reactivity. Meditation, one of the best descriptions of the beginning of meditation is Frankl, who says between the stimulus and the response, there is a space, and in that space lies our power and our freedom. Meditation interrupts that chain of stimulus and response. So the thought will come up but something in us will go, oh, pause, I don't have to believe it. Or the grasping behavior will come. It can happen anywhere in the chain, okay?

You'll go ahead and act out, but something go, okay, I don't have to now judge myself even more. Pause. In other words, you can stop wherever you are in your life, at whatever phase you are in this chain of reactivity, by entering the path of meditation, you can pause and in that space discover a deeper understanding that can decondition the patterning. Does that make sense? This practice of meditation is what awareness has come up with to help us wake up to ourselves. In other words, we're stuck developmentally, sometimes in the egoic state, but consciousness has provided a way of paying

attention to liberate ourselves. So this path of arriving in this space and discovering a larger understanding and freedom has two basic dimensions. We call them the two wings of freedom. The wing of understanding that sees what's happening and the wing of compassion that holds it with kindness. Every step of meditation involves these two wings, recognizing what's going on, and then allowing it with a kind attention over and over again. So I give you an example of someone who used these two wings of meditation to help with this sure heart's release, undoing the binds of the heart. And this is a woman who, her mother was in her late 80s, and this is a woman who's full-time professional, married, no children. Her mother's living 45 minutes away and assisted

living home. And so she twice a week goes and visits her mother. And her mother usually wants her to stay longer than she can stay and would like to do more outings. But two times a week is what works for her life. Basically more than that would end up, and it's not like it's always two times a week. She would sometimes do other adventures with her mother. But generally that was the rhythm that worked. And so she was living with this sense of never doing it enough and feeling guilty, guilt, which is painful. So she began to bring these two wings of meditation. So the first thing is to feel guilty and pause. Rather than the chain that goes guilty, I'm failing, not good enough, pause and sense, okay, so what's in here? And then she began to bring this

wing of mindful attentiveness, of recognizing and noticing that inside that pause that what she was feeling was this belief, okay, I'm letting her down, I'm a bad daughter, shame, and also a sense of anger at her for making me feel it, and then the heart that was shut off, shut down. It's like she loved her mother but she wasn't feeling the visceral sense of love because the heart was bound by this belief and feeling of failure. Perhaps you know that when you feel that you're failing somebody, it's hard to feel the visceral sense of loving in those moments because we're caught in that self-judgment. So for her, when she could sense that and she realized it was a pattern in her life, it wasn't

just I'm letting down my mother, I'm a bad person, it's like I let down people, I'm a bad person. That was the moment when she could get it, okay, this is suffering. So there's the understanding, the wing of understanding, seeing the patterning, then there's the wing of compassion. How can she then bring kindness to that place that feels like a failure? That's the inquiry with the wing of compassion. What is this heart need?

And for her it was a sense of being embraced. It was almost like she needed the mother that was really in her mother and in all mothers to kind of hug her. So her practice when she would feel that was she would start hugging. herself. And she practiced in this way of just letting the touch be really a tender communication, a warm communication, and the message being, there's nothing wrong with you. You love your mother, you're a loving being, it's okay. When she had those two wings, recognizing this patterning and offering compassion, the sense of her of who she was in love.

And this is always the shift towards freedom, that when we bring mindful awareness and kindness, who we are feels bigger. We start being that mindful presence, that kind presence, not the small self that's failing. There's a shift in identity and that's what happened for her. She shifted and opened into the sense of a kind of tenderness towards her own being and towards her mother. And she found that over the weeks that whenever she would have the thoughts of failure and she'd kind of just be present with them and do this kind of gentle hug, that she was more and more resting in that place of them, okay.

And she found that when she visited her mom, they resumed something that they had been missing, which is they had a kind of repartee of playfulness. And they had a kind of a fun spirit and that came back. and they started being able to share confidences again and there was a flow. It didn't happen all at once this isn't like an immediate feel-good story but it started loosening, it started flowing again.

So I share the story because this is an example of how meditation can loosen the conditioning so that that bind around the heart softens so she could experience some of the freedom of the heart that's possible. Now, sometimes it's important to say with the wing of compassion, and I like to add this as much as I can remember, that there are times we feel stuck in our patterning and we can't offer compassion to ourselves. We feel too regressed, tight, small, at war, to feel kindness towards ourselves.

And at those times the wing of compassion comes alive if we call out for compassion. bring to mind someone else, someone else that is the divine mother or someone else that is a beloved. It could be your dog, your grandmother. It could be, as the Dalai Lama said to one man who was very frightened and he couldn't hold himself, he said, imagine that you're being held in the arms of the Buddha. So that if you're trying to hug yourself, imagine that these are the arms of the Buddha, our Kwan Yin, the Bodhisatt for compassion, our Mother Mary, or Jesus, or whatever our tipple figure or a person in your life you can call on, imagine that love and that understanding

holding you. And that will begin to dissolve the bind around the heart. That will begin to allow you to sense the freedom of your heart. Havis puts it this way. He says, how did the rose ever open its heart and give to this world all its beauty? It felt the encouragement of light against its being. Otherwise, we all remain too frightened. So we're talking about these two wings that really have the power to dissolve the prison, the armoring around the heart. And one has the question, what's happening right now?

Oh, fear, anger. It's the courage to pause and say, what's really happening? And the other's the wing of this kindness and this compassion. And on the second wing, as many of you know, I often suggest putting a hand on the cheek or a hand on the heart and tonight I'm talking about the hugging. In a very physical way, when we tend and befriend, when we offer care, when we're touched by someone or physically touch ourself, oxytocin in the body is released. And this is the hormone of love and connectedness. It's a very biological process that we can, by calling on love, by offering love to ourselves, by this gentle touch, we can actually change our biochemistry

in a way that softens the heart, that opens the heart. It's an amazing process. and the basic teaching is we start exactly where we are that every one of us if we scan our life and if we scan our relationships and if we're honest we can ask that question

okay so what is between me and really feeling close with this person are spontaneous our tender are open and what we'll find if we ask that question We'll find a kind of fear place in us, a kind of insecurity. We'll find a habit of tightening, of closing down.

And that's our starting place. Start there. If you want to enter this path of the sure heart's release, start in the places where you feel, oh, okay, this is where I'm tightening up. And sometimes with some people it's very strong that you feel the tightening is that you feel the tightening is a real anger or the tightening is a real attachment. But we start where we feel that tightness. So we'll begin our next little practice here, if you will, by exploring just that. In this pause, take some moments to let yourself arrive. Any reflection

that has some power is going to come from a place of presence, of heerness. Just gently invite yourself back right here. Come home. Feel the sensations in your body. Feel the heart. There's a kind of courage in this path of waking up and freeing our heart that we're required to pay attention and deepen attention, to pause and deepen attention at those very places that we'd really like to move away from. So the invitation as we do this practice, right now is to sense somewhere in some relationship where you feel the heart bound, where you feel yourself stuck, just feel your intention or willingness to move towards freedom, to open, to wake up from the binds that are habitual, and to let some relationship come to mind. And for now,

just to pay attention to what your sense. sense of your own reaction is. Where, if you ask the question what's between me and feeling close or loving or open, just notice what comes up in your own heart. It may be a sense of feeling hurt, angry, afraid, let down. Your only job tonight is to pay attention to your own experience, to come into a wise relationship with your own experience. So as the woman who was investigating with her experience with her mother, just since your experience, what are you believing? Are you believing that someone is not treating you in a way that expresses respect or understanding or care? Are you believing that you're being rejected in some way?

Are you believing that you don't have what it takes to be lovable, be close? Just sense what belief might be in there. It's usually something's wrong with me, with the other person, something's going to go wrong, something's not possible. And sense the feelings in the heart might be sadness, irritation, anger. You might sense how long you've been living with this and perhaps how familiar it is and if it's with other people too. I invite you as you're investigating to put your hand on your heart or your cheek

or perhaps explore tonight just hugging yourself gently so that you're both looking to see what's true, what feelings are real inside you, and also offering a very kind space to the life that's here. You might inwardly note or name what you're aware of, hurt, fear, sadness, confusion, and let your touch experiment with your touch so it's very tender, that there's a real allowing of whatever's here. You're not affirming that your belief is true but you're bringing kindness to the feelings underneath.

And if it's hard to offer yourself kindness, as you get in touch with the feeling, just imagine someone who is loving, offering their love through your hands, through your touch to your heart. You have the potential to let in love and to contact a vast loving within you. Just to feel a willingness,

a willingness to bring loving people, presence to whatever feelings you're aware of. You might be as simple as just saying yes, it's okay that this feeling's here, knowing that these tangles sometimes take their time and you might tonight just bring a little more presence to loosen them. When you begin to touch your heart, when you let your heart be touched with awareness, you discover that it's vast, that it's limitless and that there's a tremendous warmth. in the space of heart. Sense who you are when you're holding your own being with kindness.

Sense this tender spaciousness, this tender consciousness, that really is essence. The poet Ram Prashad, prayer to the goddess composed of consciousness, says, my heart awakens to your truth like a flower naturally blossoming. please reveal your transparent presence within this lotus heart as open space forever shining please reveal your transparent presence within this lotus heart as open space forever shining it's part of the nature of our development to get caught to get defended for these hearts to be bound.

And it's part of our nature to begin to recognize and wake up to this bind to bring a mindful presence, a compassionate presence. And as we loosen, what shines through is the light of loving presence itself,

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