Tara Brach - Part 1 - Trusting Your Basic Goodness

Episode Date: January 11, 2012

2012-01-11 - Part 1 - Trusting Your Basic Goodness - Einstein says the most important question we will ever ask ourselves is, "Is this universe a friendly place?" Do we trust that there is something essentially benevolent or good about this universe? That we are essentially good? These two talks explore what it means to trust basic goodness, and how this trust naturally emerges through cultivating a meditative presence. Please support this podcast by donating at www.tarabrach.com or www.imcw.org. Your donation makes a difference! Thank you!

There is an interesting report on Albert Einstein that he was said to have proclaimed that the most important question that any of us can ever ask ourselves is, is this universe a friendly place? That was the question he posed. He said, just to reflect on that, it's the most powerful inquiry. So I'd like to invite you to contemplate that for a few moments now and then through the evening. Is there a fundamental goodness our benevolence in this universe? And another way you might consider it is, is there a fundamental goodness within humans? And then bringing it even a little more personal, do you feel a sense of your own basic goodness? So that's the inquiry, whether you trust that in some way you're intrinsically good.

And you might even just take a moment right now just to close your eyes and just pose that to yourself. And sense, do I trust that there is a fundamental goodness, an intrinsic goodness in my own being? And just for starters, to notice what the you is that you're attending to if you ask the question. and what's a sense of I or self or beingness that you're attending to? You'll have more chance to explore this, but I bring this and share this with the community because my experience is how we respond to this question about basic goodness has direct implications

on our sense of inner freedom and happiness. So we begin by saying, well, what do we mean by goodness? because that's a kind of a vague word and, you know, what would it mean to have a goodness that makes this universe fundamentally benevolent? And the origins of the word good

derives from an Indo-European root that has to do with togetherness or gathering together. It signifies in a very simple way a sense of belonging and it's out of that belonging that we have an experience of harmony and aliveness and love that is really part of what's central on the spiritual path.

So belonging brings up that feeling good that has to do with basic goodness. So we ask ourselves, do I sense an intrinsic goodness within me? And if what we do is look towards inside me and sense an egoic self, a personality, one who achieves and does good things and bad things, our response will be shaky, we'll have self-doubt. So what that means is trusting our basic goodness

is directly linked to perceiving our belonging, perceiving our belonging to this web of aliveness, perceiving our belonging to love, perceiving our belonging to awareness itself. In other words, if our sense of identity is larger than an egoic self, it doesn't mean we deny the personality or the different tendencies we have, but we intuit that we're part of something larger, then we can awaken that trust in goodness.

So this will be the reflection for tonight and also for next week, this inquiry into trusting our basic goodness. And I'd like to begin with, in a way, the flip side, which is what happens when we assume or experience ourselves as having some fundamental flaw? What happens if we sense there's some basic wrongness or not okayness in humans and in life, that there's some basic twist that leads us to be harmful beings? One of the ways that I think of it is that mistrust directly comes out of a feeling of separateness.

That if we feel separate, we're going to feel mistrust. And there are strong historical currents that show up in philosophy and religion that have to do with us being separate and in some way sinful, evil, not okay. And you know the big classic one. I mean, most of you know the Garden of East. Eden, the Old Testament. Straightforward, basically, we're kicked out because there's some basic not okayness, some basic wrongness, some basic evil.

But then it's interesting, you keep going through history, you see how that unfold itself. And I'll just mention Hobbs, and there's just a statement that I thought so good. He says, without laws to govern us, we live lives that are solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short. He says that basically we need laws or we just wreak havoc. And then of course there's some interpretations of evolutionary psychology that very strictly say even what seems most altruistic isn't. It's being done to get the advantage for ourselves or those closest to us. So then the inquiry becomes if we have this miscarriage.

trust and we see that what we're really focusing on is well humans are aggressive and humans are greedy then what political views and social views and what kind of personal life do we have out of that okay like assuming that we say there's a primacy to aggression and greed then what so think of it politically how do we view helping out those that are most in need welfare and economic aid. How do we perceive that? Well, if humans are basically aggressive and greedy,

then there's a kind of assumption that there's a laziness and that there's no incentive if we help out, right? That's one of the locked in kind of views if humans are primarily no good. If we feel humans are aggressive, we're gonna prioritize spending on war and military aggression.

because we're not going to have confidence that dialogue will help. We're not going to have confidence that others will want understanding and peace too. If we assume that humans are basically aggressive and greedy, then the other really becomes other. We perceive those different from us as really being bad. I mean, we already know about ourselves. Well, they're really bad. And it makes it so that those that don't agree, those that are different,

those that might have a different sexual orientation, those that have a different race or ethnicity or just live in some foreign place and seem really different. They're not really alive, subjective beings. We can oppress them. We can violate them. So there's a real ramification to having the perception and belief

that humans are fundamentally no good. So now here's what Einstein says. He says, for if we believe that the universe is an unfriendly place, there's some basic wrongness, then we will use our technology, our scientific discoveries, and our natural resources to create bigger walls to keep out the unfriendliness, and bigger weapons to destroy all that, which is unfriendly. Walls and weapons. So then we look at our individual life and we can see the more that we mistrust

the more walls and weapons we end up investing our energy into. Let's just take a look at it for a few moments. We know that when we're living in a very egoic stance, when we're really caught in feeling separate and afraid and we're not trusting, we don't trust that others will really care

or really understand or really want to cooperate, there's this defendedness like they're going to take advantage of me. I can't really be nice or generous because it won't be reciprocal. We expect it that way. When there's mistrust, we really can't be intimate. First of all, we mistrust that if we expose who we are, if we're authentic, we'll get rejected. And we can't trust another to be kind or compassionate.

with our natural human vulnerability. We can't be intimate. When there's a lot of mistrust, it plays out with the people we're most attached to. The mistrust leads us to fear that will be left or rejected, and it leads us to fear that will hurt others. We swing one way or the other, but it's hard to relax and enjoy

because something can go wrong, because we're wrong. You can see it in parenting a lot that when there's a mistrust, there's this kind of chronic worrying. And by the way, when I say mistrusting basic goodness or trusting, it's not that you fall in one camp or the other. There are degrees. And some seasons of our life and some stressful situations will evoke the parts of our behavior and the parts of our brain that are tending towards mistrust. and other settings are more conducive towards trusting. But when we're stressed, we contract back to the more primitive parts of our brain and biology.

We are operating off of our brainstem and limbic system, and we're scanning for what's going to go wrong. And the brain's designed to remember what's gone wrong and defend against it happening again. So parents, we worry. When we're stressed, we really worry. I've seen so much for myself and I've seen this in many parents that at each stage of our child's development there's something new that we're worried about isn't working out.

You know, in some way it has to do with making friends or it has to do with physical or academic abilities or it has to do with being influenced by peers. It's just every stage our mind locks into the next worry. I remember seeing this picture of two women sitting on a park bench and one says, Oe vee. Then the other says, Oe vee. Then the first says, all right, enough about the children.

But you get it. I mean, we fixate. When we have this basic mistrust, we don't look towards our child's basic intelligence and goodness and good heart and trust that that will guide them and they're going to make mistakes but it's okay we fixate on what's wrong so how do we behave at work or socially when there's that kind of mistrust and we can we can sense it when we assume something's wrong and again those words Einstein use these walls and weapons we try to find our security by

approving ourselves. That's what we're fixated on. We compete. We try to in some way win. And we defend. We try to accumulate things and achievements. And the more mistrust, the more we live with these shoulds about how we and others should be. Should's a really good flag of mistrust. Because it says the way it is now is not okay. It should be different. We have We become very rigid about others' ethics and morals in the way they act. Somebody just sent me this in an email from the post, and I'm not sure where it was in the post, but it has a story of a little old lady who complains about her neighbor's sunbathing nude.

When the police arrived, they pointed out there was an eight-foot fence between the two houses. And she replied, yeah, but if I go to the attic and stand on a chair, I can see them from the window. So there's this investment in having people be a certain way. And the bottom line is when we mistrust goodness, we turn it on ourselves. We live in self-aversion. And it comes out in addictions. We have to kind of in some way soothe ourselves because it's so painful.

The fear and the shame of not okayness is painful. So we have to keep soothing. it in some way. We don't take care of ourselves. It's a painful place to live, this mistrust of okayness. Remember when I was in my early 20s, I was living in a spiritual community in an ashram, and we formed a women's sensitivity group, and I remember at one of our first meetings, kind of confessing, kind of putting it all out there. And my confession was that I really didn't trust myself. I didn't trust myself to be a good person. And that, and I, and I named all the reasons. I said, you know, I'm, in a way, I'm a show off. Like, I was, I was very good at yoga,

but I wanted everybody to know how good I was, you know. And I can talk about that now, because I can barely do any because of what's gone on in my body. But, you know, it was like, in some way, I really wanted people to know that I was, you know, fit and together in that way. And, and then I was very ego-centric and I told them I'm self-absorbed. It's like I care much more about what's going on for me than other people. And I went on and on. I put out my laundry list. It was a very, I remember it really well and I remember the shock in other people's faces because, you know, I was a nice person and they just, for me to be saying, you know, I'm not a good person. I don't trust myself was kind of, it was kind of a bit of a stunner. But it was a wake-up for me

because I was naming something that felt true that I couldn't trust myself, that I couldn't trust that I was good. And it's through years of working with myself and years of working with other people that I've come to see that this basic mistrust of goodness is underneath a very pervasive suffering that's throughout our culture,

that we might do a lot to feel good, about our ego cells and have seasons when we do because we've met certain of our ideals or standards but that's different than this profound trust that we belong and that we're intrinsically good this trust that we belong to love and aliveness and awareness so there's a certain truth-telling or there was for me when I said, I can't trust myself. And the truth telling was this, that we do live from fear and from greed in many moments. We get caught.

We do live with that conditioning. And they're very much a part of our survival equipment. The more endangered we feel, the more our bodies and minds are absolutely wired to get self-focused, to get defensive, to get aggressive. I mean, we're completely rigged when we're stressed to go into fight and fight.

So when we see that, we can say, well, how can I trust myself if I know when I get stressed, that's what happens. And it's a really important question because you can't trust that that's not going to happen. You can't trust that you're not going to get afraid

or angry or hurt or reactive. So what can we trust? What can we trust in? Here's the, to me, the all-important understanding that if our identity is hitched to that conditioning, if our identity is hitched to the egoic self that does get caught in fear and anger and hurt and jealousy, then we will never be able to trust ourselves. But if we begin to intuit a larger belonging, then we can relate to that conditioning with a healing attention and realize that that's not what we are. We're not denying it. We're not seeing these jealous thoughts and feelings and saying, oh, well, that's not me. You know, we're not putting it off somewhere. We're saying, yes, that is a set of

waves in this ocean-ness of my being. And let me attend to them with intelligence, with compassion. it all comes down to our sense of identity. We will never trust ourselves if our identity is exclusively hitched to the egoic self. We'll come to a liberating trust of ourselves as we begin to intuit a larger belonging. So let's look a little more closely at this, that the root cause of mistrust

is a sense of not belonging. belonging. That's what keeps us from trusting ourselves. When we don't feel like we belong, then we act in ways that cause pain and we don't like ourselves. Now, one way of understanding this is that we get born into this world and there's a basic insecurity that these particular forms that we're born into are going to age and get sick and die and we don't know how it's all going to unfold. So there's an insecurity in our nervous system. And if we are held in a healthy kind of parenting and family life and culture, the sense of our true belonging is such that we can live with that conditioning and not get dragged around by it. We can still trust. And there are many

developmental psychologists that have talked about the development of trust as this key thinking of Eric Erickson right now, but this key stage in our development. What happens to so many, though, is because we're in an unhealthy culture, and our parents were born into it and their parents and their parents, the capacity of our parents are caregivers to offer the kind of unconditional love and acceptance, the understanding that gives us a sense of belonging. it wasn't there. So we only had a partial sense of belonging, a fragile sense of belonging.

We were insecure and are. Every one of us has needed our goodness to be mirrored. Not the ego flattery that sometimes is now being described as problematic in education or in parenting, but in a very deep way, we need others to behold us and sense of, goodness that's in us and mirror it back what every child most needs to be seen and to be loved and to the degree that that wasn't there there's severed belonging and we're left where our

identity then really gets hitched to the egoic self and its performance and its insecurities does that make sense now the culture exacerbates the severed belonging You know, there are some societies that really are different, that have a really deep sense of community, a very easy way into belonging, that have a sense of belonging to the earth and a care for the earth. But in our Western, modern, industrial societies where we're so fixed on speed and on constantly growing economically and, producing and generating more and more, there isn't that sense of belonging. We don't belong to our natural rhythms. Families are fragmented. There's not a real sense of community. So what happens? We see that there are standards that we have to meet in order to belong to any part of our society. I mean, in our families, there's standards to meet. Be a certain

way be intelligent or be attractive or be more quiet or be more spontaneous or whatever it is. And then we get into school and it pains me to think of what happens in our schools. Schools continuously evaluate performance. You go into school and your performance is being evaluated. So what is your identity circle around? Who am I as a performer? And do I do it according to the particular standards, the kind of mentality that is approved of in this society. And it's so sad because there's so many different kinds of intelligence. And if we don't form and if we don't conform to a certain band of it, we come out feeling like we're really failing in some way.

So the culture exacerbates the not belonging. The speed of it, the competition, the standards. we see it at work we have to meet certain standards and then it comes into spiritual life that again we're handed a set of ideals on how we should be you know if you're like a buddha there's equanimity and there's peace and patience and we and you know do we meet that now sometimes the standards are different this is annie dillard who says somewhere i can't find where i read about an Eskimo hunter who asked the local missionary priest, if I did not know about God and sin, would I go to hell? No, said the priest. Not if you did not know. Then why asked the Eskimo earnestly, did you tell me?

For those of you that haven't been with me or listened to these for long, you'll enjoy, this is one of my favorite descriptions of spiritual fitness that we can reflect on. And this little reading goes, If you can start the day without caffeine or pet pills, if you can be cheerful ignoring aches and pains, if you can resist complaining and boring people with your troubles, if you can understand when loved ones are too busy to give you time, if you can overlook when people take things out on you when through no fault of your something goes wrong,

if you can take criticism and blame without resentment, if you can face the world without lies and deceit, If you can conquer tension without medical help, if you can relax without liquor, if you can sleep without the aid of drugs, then you are probably a dog. We have standards, we know we do, and we internalize them. We live with this idea of how we should be. And I've called this the trance of unworthiness, and basically the term I used in writing radical acceptance. And I call it a trance because we're not usually aware as we move through the day and interact and work and so on. How much of what is driving us and contracting us and impacting us is an undercurrent of not trusting ourselves. An undercurrent of not liking our ego self, thinking that something's wrong, thinking that something in some way we're going to fail,

something around the corner is going to fall short, we're going to fall short. It's a trance and it affects our whole way of being with others and it certainly affects how intimate we are with our own being. So just to kind of wrap this piece up and say we are deeply affected by our capacity or incapacity to trust ourselves. To the extent that we've felt severed belonging, we're going to end up identifying with an ego self that feels insufficient. We might be in a proud ego self that's performing a lot and feeling better and superior to other people, but still underneath, there's not going to be a sense of real goodness. So to trust ourselves, we need to know who we are beyond that ego self, not to deny the ego, but to recognize a larger belonging. We need to know that. Now an interesting contribution to this, I thought, is Robert Johnson, a Jungian psychologist.

And he said that curiously, people in some way resist the noble aspects of our being, this intrinsic expressions of our goodness more strenuously than we hide the dark parts of our shadow. In other words, we resist our intrinsic goodness more than we hide our sense of. of badness. Okay, let me, I'll just say a little more. He says, it's more disrupting to find that you have a profound nobility of character than to find out you're a bum. And so just to consider this for a moment, because it's interesting,

that it's easier to live in a familiar, flawed sense of self. That's a story we're pretty comfortable and familiar with, than to consider our profound capacity for love, for joy, for helping each other, for realization. It's easier to live in a limited sense of self. Let's just reflect for a moment together on that. See what you find, okay? So in this pause, just open yourself to this possibility that you are an awakening Buddha. that what you are is spirit

coming to realize itself through this human incarnation that you are awareness or spirit discovering yourself through this human incarnation and awakening Buddha and essentially you have an unlimited capacity for intuition

healing for understanding for loving what if you really let your self-trust that your true nature is this spirit awakening to realize itself capable of expressing a boundless and unconditional love for others healing deep wisdom that you can recognize this and acknowledge of course there's the conditioning in this human body towards and mind towards grasping and

fear of course and yet The truth of what you are, this awareness, this spirit can include that, can relate to that, not from that. What would happen in your life? Would there be radical changes in how you'd live your life if you trusted this basic goodness, this belonging to awareness? For most of us, we're drawn to the spiritual path because we do intuit this. We intuit basic goodness. long to trust it. You might consider in your life the times that you actually do feel a deep trust in who you are, not the times that your ego has behaved well, but when you've just

relaxed into a deep trusting of your own goodness, what do you notice at those times? So we'll continue this inquiry, but if you can open your eyes if you'd like. But the real question then we have is given our habit of identifying as an ego self that we try to feel good about by behaving or achieving or accomplishing or whatever, but that doesn't get at the basic sense of trust, how do we shift our attention so that we begin to step out of the story of an unworthy self and into that sense of belonging that frees us to really trust. who we are. How do we make that shift? And we start sensing, well, what would happen, really, if we perceived and trusted that basic goodness? And I'd like to again quote Albert Einstein, because I think he's so right on. He says, if we decide that the universe is a friendly place that our deepest inclinations are loving within our own being, then we will use our technology,

our scientific discoveries and our natural resources to create tools and models for understanding the universe. Power and safety will come through understanding its workings and its motives. Now translate universe as us.

We're an expression of the universe. And if we have a basic trust in our goodness, then we will use our resources to come to understand our own workings. come to understand what motivates us. And what are the tools for this understanding? Meditative presence.

If we have some basic trust in goodness, we can use this meditative presence to unfold it, to deepen it, and to live from it. So I'd like to explore how, and first just quote the Tibetan teachings that say, oh nobly born, oh nobly born. O you of glorious origins, remember your radiant, true nature. Remember the essence of mind. Trust it.

Return to it. Know it is home. So this is the invitation of our path to begin to trust this nobility. And the word nobility, which is an interesting one, it comes from the Greek word GNO-G-N-O-Fernosis, which means wisdom or wisdom. inner radiance or luminosity. And so it connotes this luminosity of heart, this warmth of heart, this clarity of mind.

That's our nobility. Oh nobly born, oh you of glorious origins, remember your radiant, true nature. So we begin to look at how our practices can help us to trust that radiance, trust our belonging, wake us up out of the egoic self that keeps us in that sense of separation. And the habit, just to say again, when we're feeling self-doubt,

is to try to become something better. We try to make ourselves better. One of the best teaching stories I know is of Swami Satchananda, who he's a Hindu teacher, yoga master. and one of his students came up to him and said, do I have to become a Hindu to practice yoga? And his response, I am not a Hindu, I am an undo.

You know? I am an undo. You get it? I mean, it's like we're not becoming something. You don't have to become a Buddhist or a Hindu or an anything. What we're doing is undoing this identification with a separate and limited self. It's an undoing. And that's the blessing of mindfulness.

That in a moment of mindful presence, we begin to see what's happening and not be identified with it. We undo that tightness, that self-centeredness. And we undo our identification as a fearful self or as a wanting self. We come home to something larger. So I'm going to explore with you a couple of the pathways that we do this by the way that I'd like to do it, and we'll continue this, of course, next week, is to say that there are two main gateways, that there's this undoing and this recognition of a larger belonging. And one is when suffering arises. How do we pay attention when the fears and the grasping of the ego comes up?

How do we pay attention to that? And then the other gateway is how do we intentionally look towards the goodness? How do we see past the mask, the kind of egoic presentation, and see who's here? Okay? So those are the two basic pathways that we're going to be exploring. And on the first one, it's really, for me, the bottom line is if we can begin to see all, all of our egoic activity, all of the wants and the fears and the behaviors that come out of wants and fears as an expression of unmet need.

Whenever we or others are behaving in ways that make us feel, oh, bad self, there's an unmet need there. There is some wound, some sense of severed belonging, some need for love, some need for understanding. to give you an example one of the workshops and I've taught I've taught many that

at Cropallo and Omega that have this theme of finding out where we get stuck where we get caught where we get reactive and finding a way to befriend ourselves and loosen the knots and come home to something larger well one woman was there and she was

filled with shame and self-hatred for over-consuming. So over-consuming to her meant that she was a bad, unworthy self. And she was hurting her body, and she was angry at herself for that, and she was basically felt like she was being weak-weld, and everybody in the world could see it. Her body was evidence of her weak-well, and she was deeply ashamed.

So this is what she came with, and, you know, her habit was that she would eat very lightly through the day. She'd keep her commitment, keep her commitment, keep her commitment and it was always after dinner that are not always but usually that it would break down and she'd be back at sugar and nuts and and the things that were her binge foods so we started exploring it of when she felt that that urge and that urgency like she had to no matter what it didn't matter what what happened what the consequences she had to eat and we started really

bringing a mindful attention, having her go right into those situations and feeling her body and feeling her heart and her beliefs and so on. And in those moments that she didn't care about the consequences, she wanted what she wanted, she asked herself, well, what does that urgent part in me really need? I mean, what is it really needing in these moments? And there was such a discomfort and tension in her body. It said, oh, I just need relief. I just need relief. I need escape. And then we kept on attending. What is it that that would give you?

What is it you're really wanting? Peace. What would that really give you? Connection. Then I'd feel connected. If I could just relax and have peace, then I'd feel connected to my world. That's the unmet need. She was, and this is no, like, you might be listening and you might go,

well, there's no aha on that. We know that when we're eating, we're trying to fill a need and so on. But when from the inside out, you feel that that's the unmet need, you step out of the shame. Because you get that, okay, for most of us, eating is the earliest way that we can begin to control what our bodies are feeling and feel a little better. It's temporary. It's not a true refuge. but it works enough so we get hooked. So for this woman, what began to happen,

what she found was that she could pause when she was feeling that urgency and go through very quickly this process, what am I really needing, what am I really wanting? And that pause gave her enough space. So at minimum, when she'd go ahead and eat, which she did sometimes, this was very slow, this process.

she wasn't filled with shame and self-hatred but what really started giving her was compassion she started feeling a tenderness towards the part of her that was trying to get its needs met and in that compassion there was a shift in her identity and this has happened over time where she's gone from the urgent grasping ashamed person to the being that has these streams in her

but who is holding it with compassion. In other words, she starts to belong to the heart of this world. Larger belonging, more trust. I've seen this over and over again in so many people that when we can begin to deepen our attention, we start belonging to our aliveness and belonging to presence and belonging to a compassionate space of presence. And that belonging frees us from the egoic identity.

We trust ourselves more. We trust the basic goodness that's there. So you might take a moment, if you will, just to let your attention go inward. And you might sense where in your life there's something you judge about how your ego self is doing things. It might be that you're judging the way you treat other people, ways you might harm yourself, the ways you might procrastinate, the ways you might feel like

you're mentally not sharp, the way your body looks. You might sense that under the judging, that whatever it is that you're doing that you don't like in some way is trying to satisfy an unmet need. Do you have a sense of what that is, what the unmet need, that the unmet need that drives you to behave in ways you judge is, to walk on a path of trusting basic goodness, is to begin to hold with compassion, these parts of our egoic self that are doing the best they can. From the teachings of Babuji, break your heart no longer, he says. Each time you judge yourself, you break your heart. You pull away from the love that is the wellspring of your vitality. But now the time has come your time to live and to trust the goodness that you are.

There is no evil, no wrong in you. Your true essence is pure awareness, aliveness, love. Let no one, no idea or ideal obscure this truth. If one comes, forgive it for its unknowing. just let go and breathe into the goodness that you are so feeling your breath and opening your eyes when you'd like to so i mentioned two pathways this is one of them where we just start right where we are with the expressions of fear or grasping jealousy or anger and find a way to come into relationship to that so we're resting in something larger the other way that we cultivate this trust is by actively looking to see the goodness inside ourselves and each other. And we'll be exploring this, as I mentioned, more next week.

But I'd like to have a closing story that's one of my favorites that really speaks to looking towards the goodness and how when we do it. And when we communicate what we see to each other, we create a whole field of awakening and love and trust. This story written by Helen Rosa is a Catholic nun. She said that he was in the first third grade class I taught at St. Mary's Church. All 34 of my students were dear, but Mark Ecclund was one in a million. Very neat an appearance, but very mischievous.

He talked incessantly. I had to remind him again and again the talking without permission was not acceptable. What impressed me, though, was his sincere response each time I corrected him. He'd say, thank you for correcting me, sister. First, I didn't know what to make of it, but before long I became accustomed to hearing it many times a day. One morning, my patience was growing thin when Mark talked once too often, then I made a novice teacher's mistake. I looked at him and said, if you say one more word, I'm going to tape your mouth shut. It wasn't 10 seconds until Chuck blurted out, Mark's talking again.

I hadn't asked any of the students to help, but since I had stated the punishment, I had to follow through. I walked to my desk and very deliberately opened my drawer, took out a roll of masking tape. I proceeded to Mark's desk, tore off two pieces, and made a big X with them over his mouth,

and then I returned to the front of the room. As I glanced at Mark to see how he's doing, he winked at me. That did it. I started laughing. The class cheered as I walked back to Mark's desk and remove the tape. His first words, thank you for correcting me, sister. At the end of the year, I was asked to teach junior high math. The years flew by, and before I knew it, Mark was in my classroom

again. Since he had to listen carefully to my instructions, he didn't talk as much in ninth grade as he had in third. One Friday, things did it feel quite right. We had worked hard on a new concept all week, and I sensed the students were frustrated with themselves and edgy with one another. I had to stop this crankiness, this tension before it got out of hand. So I asked them to list the names of other students in the room on two sheets of paper, leaving a space between each name. Then I told them to think of the nicest thing they could say about each of their classmates and write it down. It took the remainder of the class period to finish their assignment, and as the students left the room, each one handed me and handed me the papers. Charlie smiled.

Mark said, thank you for teaching me, sister. or have a good weekend. That Saturday, I wrote down the name of each student on a separate sheet of paper, and I listed what everyone had said about that individual. On Monday, I handed them out, before along the entire class was smiling. Really, I heard whispered,

I never knew that meant anything to anyone. I didn't know others cared. I didn't know others liked me so much. No one ever mentioned those papers again in class. I never knew if they discussed them after class or with their parents, but it didn't matter. The exercise had accomplished its purpose.

The students were happy with themselves and one another again. That group of students moved on, and several years later, after I returned from a vacation, my parents met me at the airport. As we were driving home, Mother asked me the usual questions, but my father was quiet. Then he cleared his throat, and he said, The Eklunds called us last night. Really, I said, I haven't heard from them in years.

I wonder how Mark is. Dad responded quietly. Mark was killed in Vietnam. The funerals tomorrow and his parents would like you to attend. I'd never seen a serviceman in a military coffin before. Mark looked so handsome, so mature. All I could think was at that moment was Mark, I would give all the masking tape in the world if only you'd talk to me.

The church was packed with Mark friends. They sang their hymns. But it rained that day. It was difficult enough at the graveside. The pastor said the usual prayers. The bugler played taps. As I stood there, one of the soldiers who acted as a pallbearer came up to me. Were you Mark's math teacher?

He asked, and I nodded. Mark talked about you a lot. After the funeral, most of Mark's former classmates headed to Chuck's farmhouse for lunch. Mark's mother and father were there, obviously waiting for me. We wanted to show you something, as father said, taking out a wallet. They found this on Mark when he was killed. We thought you might recognize it. Opening the bellfold, he carefully removed two worn pieces of notebook paper that had obviously been taped, folded, and refolded many times.

I knew without looking that the papers were the ones in which I'd listed all the good things each of Mark's classmates had said about him. Thank you so much for doing that, Mark's mother said. As you can see, Mark treasured it. Mark's classmates started to gather around us. Charlie smiled rather sheepishly. I still have my list. It's in the top drawer at my desk at home. Chuck's wife said,

Chuck asked me to put his in his wedding album. I have mine too, Marilyn said. It's in my diary. Then Vicky, another classmate, reached into her pocketbook and took out her wallet and showed us the worn and fuzzled list. I carry this all the time.

I think we all saved our list. That's when I could finally sit down and cry. I cried for Mark and for all his friends. and I cried for the wonder of caring and expressing it for the blessings of showing our love. Every one of us needs to be reminded. Every one of us. And when you see in another that spirit that shines through them

and in some way let the other know, you're helping that person come home to that trust, to that peace that really knows that the basic goodness is right here in this being. We all need reminders, and it's such a blessing when we come home to that trust. So perhaps we'll close with a short reflection, and in this pause, just let yourself notice what is true for you right now.

Feel your heart, your emotions. I'd like to invite you to bring one person to mine, somebody that you care about in your life. imagine him or her right here and seeing past personality as interesting or quirky or fun or beautiful or challenging as it is just seeing past that to that basic goodness

that basic aliveness and how it expresses through that person that person's consciousness that person's heart how does that basic goodness express through this being through the way he or she shows love, plays, is humored, the brightness, to sense that basic goodness. And as you do, imagine what it would be like to in some way let that person know your experience of his or her goodness, what it would be like for that person and for you. The word namaste means, I see the

divine anew. Turning the attention to your own being now with the same spirit. of Namaste seeing the sacred that lives through you this intrinsic aliveness and awareness and capacity for love what would it be like can you imagine what your life would be like if you truly allowed yourself to trust this basic goodness close with the words of Thomas Merton he says then it was as if I suddenly saw the secret beauty of their hearts the depth of their hearts hearts where neither sin or 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. 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.