Tara Brach - Part 2: Three Blessings - Inner Fire

Episode Date: March 27, 2013

2013-03-27 - Part 2: Three Blessings - Inner Fire - Each of us has the longing to manifest our full potential--to realize and live from loving, awake awareness. This longing is our inner fire, and when conscious and vibrant, it energizes the spiritual path. In this talk we reflect on how fear obscures and redirects our inner fire, and how practices of presence and wise reflection awaken the power and purity of our longing. Please support this podcast by donating at www.tarabrach.com or www.imcw.org. Your donations allow us to continue to freely offer the teachings!

So two weeks ago, I began what I thought was going to be a two-week series, that now I think is going to be a three-week series. And it's based on a story from the Upanishads about a young man, a young Indian man named Natchie Keta. And Natsi Keta, for those of you that are tuning in fresh, got into a conflict with his father, and his father publicly rejected him saying, you know, I give you to the Lord of Death.

and he kind of, you know, basically said go to hell, you know. So Natsukato went searching out Lord Yama, the Lord of Death, and he found his place, his kingdom, and endured a lot of pain and hunger and fatigue. Lord Yama wasn't there. He, for three days and three nights, waited for the King of Death to arrive. And when Lord Yama got there, he was so impressed with this young man's sincerity and commitment. that he offered to grant him three boons, three gifts, that could support him on the path.

And now, just to keep the bigger frame in mind, when Natchie Keta chose his three gifts, he could have anything. He chose them when he was in the face of the Lord of Death. He was facing impermanence. He was recognizing the truth that this life is. fleeting and that it's precious and that wisdom guided him and his first boon the first gift that he asked for was the gift of forgiveness he wanted to have a forgiving heart so that he wouldn't carry that that armoring of hatred and

blame towards his father towards anyone so much in the way that if we were attuned and and we were in some way getting it that, wow, this might be the last time I ever see this person. You know, I could die tomorrow. This person could die tomorrow. How quickly we would drop at least many layers of our resentments and blame. So it was that Natchikata asked for that first gift and he was granted it, the gift of forgiveness. Tonight in this class we're going to be exploring the second of the gifts, which is

called the gift of inner fire. And if we cover that and we have time, then we're going to explore the third gift, which is called the mirror, where we actually, where Natchikata Acid, he could actually realize the truth of who he was, come to realize reality. But we might have to wait for next week for reality. We'll see. We'll see. So the inner fire. First, what is this inner fire? And I think of it as the energy that moves us on the path and it comes from some very pure experience of love of loving life of loving waking up of loving freedom that we would not you wouldn't be here you wouldn't be listening if there weren't something in

you that's energetically alive that has this calling to experience experience something deeper. It's not like we practice mindfulness. We wouldn't practice coming back to the breath if it was for the sake of some skill in staying with the breath. It's because something in us really longs for more presence. We want to really live our life more fully and love more fully. And we sense that this capacity to come back into the moment is intrinsic to having more more more. moments of real life through our day. So the inner fire is that deep yearning our urge for freedom for homecoming that moves us

on the path. And it's the same, I think of it as really the same energy that makes a plant want to flower or an acorn turn into a tree, that we yearn to experience our full potential. potential. We want to be all that we can be. And as we've discussed in here before, I think a lot of our suffering is this sense of how we're holding back from really living from the heart that we know is here, how we move through the day and we hold back our loving, how we don't let ourselves be as spontaneous or creative or alive as we are. We hold back.

So the inner fire is that place in us that intuit the possibility and wants to go for it, wants more intimacy with others, wants more freedom in a spiritual way. And the sign of inner fire is sincerity. I mean you can sense a person's... genuineness. When you sense that sincerity, that's inner fire. That's kind of one of the expressions of it. There's a kind of innocence because it's sourced in a place that's deeper than the ego, right? Does that make sense? That it's coming from something deeper than the ego. Now, out of fear, our inner fire gets dampened. Or it gets torched in some way.

The energy is still there that gets torqued in some way that actually undermines us, at least temporarily. The energy gets funneled into survival strategies that are no longer needed usually. Survival strategies of defense or aggression that are our habit but aren't needed. And so that rather than the inner fire enlivening the parts of the recently evolved parts of our brain, you know, the frontal cortex and so on, limbic systems are. activated. We're in fight-flight freeze rather than living from the wholeness of what's possible. There's a line from Robert Frost that goes, something we were withholding made us weak until we found it was ourselves. So our suffering, when we're suffering, it's because in some

way we're living from an experience that's smaller, than the wholeness of who we are. We're holding back from inhabiting that fullness. There's a story I ran into last month from the Jewish Hasidic tradition that I wanted to share with you. And in it, Rabbi Zusa, I think I'm pronouncing wrong, Zushya, I'm not sure. A pious and revered sage was lying on his deathbed, and he was weeping. And his students stood by and perplexed. I am relaxed. Rabbi, why do you weep one of them, ventured to ask? Surely if anyone is assured a place in the kingdom of heaven at Jew. The sage turned his head towards beloved students and began to speak softly. If my children, when I stand before the heavenly court, I'm asked, Zusha, why are you not a Moses? I shall have no hesitation in affirming, I was not born a Moses. If they asked me, why then were you not an Elijah? I shall speak. with confidence neither am I Elijah I weep friends because there is only one question that I fear to be asked why were you not Zushya do you understand

that we're each this unique expression of the sacred of awareness and that if there's an invitation on the spiritual path it's to be willing to unfold all that that can be, that particular expression of the sacred. And we end up feeling a sense of disappointment when we sense that we're not. And it's the inner fire that's soul longing, soul's longing that that moves us towards it. Okay, so this is Rumi. He says, gamble everything for love. If you're a true human being, half-heartedness doesn't reach into majesty. You set out to find God, but then you keep stopping for long periods at mean-spirited roadhouses.

Such a great phrase. You keep stopping for long periods at mean-spirited roadhouses. So I just want to take a little bit of time to look together at, just so we can reflect in our own lives of how, how do we hold back? How do we get waylaid? How does that inner fire that's within all of us in some way get distorted or torqued

so that we're not living from the full purity and energy that it can provide? And the basic understanding is that where our attention goes day by day, that's where energy flows. So the question is, what are we paying attention to? It's like saying, what do you think about a lot of the time?

Now that's a question that can make us feel pretty weird and crummy because when we start getting it, what am I thinking about a lot of the time? It can seem rather petty or small-minded or self-centered or whatever. So I'm just going to give a few examples of the general categories of where we get waylaid, where our attention goes, our energy flows, and it's not so aligned with what we sense. possibly is our potential. And one area is that our thoughts regularly go to how can I get more comfortable, whether it's this moment physically or in a situation, in a

relationship and work. And often it's a very on a material plan, you know, what's going to give me relief and it can be very much the addictions that our minds circle around when we are stuck where we're really thinking about more food or alcohol, whatever ways that we relieve ourselves, soothe ourselves, numb ourselves. Some of you might remember, one man goes into a bar and orders a drink. The bartender gives it to him and he pushes it off to the side. Orders another drink. The bartender serves it. This time he drinks it. So the bartender says what gives and the man explains well you I go to a meeting and I hear regularly it's the first drink that leads to trouble so not

only do our thoughts move around your addictions and what will make us more comfortable we then try to make it rationalize to get more comfortable too you know how it is we also are fixated our minds get fixated in addictive thinking and we're constantly trying to figure things out and control things with our mind, kind of observing from a distance what's going on. And so that rather than entering into our feelings and our emotions, a lot of it is trying to plan and worry and strategize. Even in spiritual life, rather than just sitting and opening and meditating and being with what's in the moment, we'll be thinking about spiritual practice or reading a book about the path. One person

put it this way, it's like Zen and the art of reading all the books about Zen. You know. Third area. We are mentally paying a lot of attention to what kind of ways people are reacting to us. A lot of our moments are oriented around trying to get from others a certain kind of response, which is usually approval or respect, getting a response that will help us to feel safe. help us to feel safe and cared about. So there's a description of a dinner party being

that goes like this. It says, dying begins at birth. It accelerates at dinner parties. So what happens when we are in a social situation and in some way we are orienting ourselves to get a response from other people? In other words, we're presenting something is that it interferes with

deep yearning that we all have to be real. It's such a deep yearning that we can just be our natural cells and relax and know that that naturalness is accepted and loved. We have this yearning to be free and spontaneous and it's that those fear thoughts, will I be okay, am I going to be enough, you know, they get in the way. I read a article recently. about some experiments in a laboratory. They had rat pups, and they would watch the little rats playing, and they play a lot.

Rats really like to play. And then they would introduce one hair from a cat's fur into the cage or whatever it is. One hair, and never again with those rat pups play in that free space. spontaneous way. And there's something about that that really struck me. The article's called, What's the Cat Hair? Like, can we be in a situation and really get, what's the fear in there that's preventing me this moment from really just being at home is what it comes to? Free to play,

free to serve, free to love, free to be. Okay, so that's another way that we get waylaid by all of our, you know, thoughts on how to present. One of the biggest fears and the thought, and one of the biggest areas of thoughts where energy, you know, thoughts go when energy flows is around failure. That's the big one that leaves us to striving and trying to fix situations and make things look good. I remember for myself, I'm no longer an active,

therapy. I don't have a clinical practice now. I remember in my early years being much more of a fixer kind of therapist. I mean, I really had an idea of, I meet someone, I have an idea of what would be possible and my goal was to get the person from point A to point B. And I remember once having one client, a woman who was very much struggling with insecurity and her issues or about driving away potential partners because as soon as they would in some way give any indicator of pulling back or of not being sure she would then

clutch on in a way that would then make for sure that they'd go away. And in general, she had a sense of being a victim, being unwanted and very lonely and stuck. And so I really wanted to help her to build a sense of, you know, trust in herself and be confident with others and so on. But my ego really wanted to make a difference. I wanted her to be better, you know, because in some way that made me feel better about myself. I tried all sorts of strategies.

Everything I knew at that time, whether it was NLP or, you know, hypnosis or psychodrama, all the different things I would draw on. And I remember the way that you know, was at one point she kind of looked at me very sadly and she said I'm sorry I'm such a difficult client and I realized that she and I were both buying into this thing of something was wrong with her and we were trying to change her and she was failing in therapy and that came from my fear and my ego need to have something work I needed to not feel failing myself it was really very very very very valuable because that was the hair, that was the cat's hair. And when I could see that, it was my

own fear of I was going to fail, I wasn't going to help her, my need to make a difference. When I could be with that myself, then there was a quality of presence and much more creativity that I think allowed her to find in herself a sense of confidence and okayness. that wasn't possible as long as we had a shared agenda that she was supposed to change. I don't know, I hope that resonates for you because there's something really powerful about how if the inner fire is coming from this pure sense of, and for me underneath my ego is wanting to be a good fixer therapist, underneath it was this yearning just to be in this transformational field together

and just be awake and loving and really trust in that and trust in the person's capacity to wake up. It got me back down to that purity by seeing the effect of when the inner fire was torched. So one of the cat's hairs is this sense of this fear

that we're going to fall short and it really binds up that inner fire. When we're afraid of our deficiency it's very hard to feel that purity, that longing for freedom. I remember, this was about 10 years ago the Washington Post had a T-shirt award

and the winner was, I have occasional delusions of adequacy. So there's the fears and how they get in the way from the inner fire and they can do it for you know days and weeks and they can do it for lifetime.

When we're really wrapped around ego fears, it blocks that inner fire. And it blocks us from communicating really what matters to us to each other. One woman described her time with her dying father. And I'm on purpose going to be sharing the stories or going to have to do a few stories with loss because, again, Nachi Keta

contacted and asked for inner fire because he had that wisdom of impermanence. In other words, we'll go along with our ego's purposes, you know, being the fixer therapist or trying to achieve or prove until we really get it that, oh, life is short. There's something deeper that matters. Well, for this woman when she was with her father, he had been a larger-than-life figure for her

and well-known as an architect, designed buildings and urban centers, many praised pieces of work. And he was a workaholic. He was always, always busy and out there. And they had a very kind of distant relationship because his work was the focus and center of his life. And it caused her a lot of pain and inner work

that she wasn't, didn't feel so much like she mattered. But at the end of his life, they started spending quite a lot of time together. So she described how he moved a bit from his head and all his ideas and visions to kind of being there in his body and his heart more presence and she'd give him some foot massages and he just was more there. She recounts asking him what of his accomplishments he felt most proud of. There was a very long pause and he had tears in his eyes when he looked at her

and said, why you, of course, who we are gets covered over. When that inner fire is in some way twisted or dampened are channeled into pursuing our life out of a sense of wants and fears, the purity gets covered over. And so sometimes it takes something really jolting or jarring or a very big loss to reconnect. And we're going to explore reconnecting in a moment. But first, I'd like to reflect a bit so that you can have a chance to sense for yourself

how much you feel aligned with deep aspiration, with that inner fire, and where you feel that you've been waylaid. So this is the mean-spirited roadhouses meditation. Okay? So, if you will, to take some moments to set yourself for, the first of we'll be doing two reflections. One is how we get waylaid and one is how we connect. So as you come into stillness you might take a few full breaths and again just collect your attention with the breath and breathing let yourself feel your heart and take some

moments to consider the parts of life that you know matter at least your mind really values it even if day by day you don't live close to it. In other words you might sense, well, it really matters to love well, to be a good parent. Or maybe it really matters to be creative. Or it might really matter for you to feel that you're serving, that you're in some way your life is a benefit. Or it might feel like it really matters spiritual awakening to really recognize who you are behind the mask, behind the ego. It might be all those that I named, it might be more. But sense the domains and you might hone in on one of them as you begin to inquire, how do I hold back? Let's say you know it matters to love well, you might think

of a relationship and just ask yourself, how do I hold back? How do I get way late? from really loving. Where is my attention going, my energy flowing, instead of loving? Or it might be it you value creativity, but you never seem to get around to it. What's going on? What's holding you back? Where is the attention going and the energy flowing instead of creativity? Maybe it's spiritual practice. Maybe you value meditation coming into presence, but you don't practice so much, what's holding you back? What's the fears, the wants, the doubts? See if you can be reviewing this and investigating without any second arrow of judgment. And if there's a second arrow going on right now, see if it's possible for you just to notice it

and with a kind attention, let it be relaxed some. You can explore this sense of how am I holding back by coming right here into this moment now, putting aside things about your life in the future that you're reflecting on, and just sense what's going on right in the moment, the feelings in your body, in your heart, the breath, the sounds,

and just to ask, is there anything that's holding me back from resting in full presence right now? And we'll be quiet for a little bit and just ask that question periodically. Okay, opening your eyes. One way of understanding this inquiry, how we hold back, is that there is a habitual kind of contraction

that is in our nervous system, in our minds, and that rather than opening and resting in presence, we contract away from it. And it's just habitual. And we all have our own ways of doing it, our own particular patterning. But that there's some fear in our nervous system that contracts us away from presence,

that contracts us away from really that flow, that pure flow of that inner fire, of that aspiration. And that fear, I've been using the word torques, it, contracts it, the inner fire is still there. It's just tightened, twisted, torqued, and so it doesn't flow as freely, like a fountain. It does not really, you know, just absolutely flow out and then bathe our soul, our spirit. It's torqued. So the question is, what untwarks?

What helps to relax the fear? What helps us to access the purity and the depths of our aspiration? What helps us live aligned with our hearts? That's the question. And the most core response to that question is it's always going to come down to presence. That in any moment that we begin to get more present, we're going to get in touch with the purity of the inner fire.

That I'm going to name some different ways that we can draw our attention back into presence. And one is, in any sense, moment that you remember what you love and that you purposefully bring your attention to what you love, you will begin to rediscover the pathways to that inner fire. And that reflection needs to be done as a kind of deliberate practice. Because our minds are so biased towards the survival bias towards the negative, you know, what's wrong, what's missing, it's an incredible practice.

whether you call it a gratitude practice, and there's now a lot of really good science, that if you each day just take the time to, in a journal, write down three things you're grateful for, five things, that it can turn around depression, it can really bring a sense of true well-being. So, deliberate practice. And you can take a moment just to close your eyes right now,

just to get a taste. And in the space of this silence, just to name to yourself in a mental whisper, I am grateful for, and then just fill in the blank something that is in your life right now. And just keep doing it until you hear the bell ringing. Now just pick one thing that you notice that you're grateful for,

that you know resonates deeply. Just one thing. One person or experience that you know you're grateful for. And go closer into it and sense what really brings up that gratitude. It might be a person that you have in mind just to really let yourself sense that person's goodness, the love between you.

It might be a place in nature, experience in nature. whatever it is, just go close to it and feel what it is that really brings up the gratitude. And then just let go of the idea of the thing that you're grateful for and just feel the gratitude or love or appreciation in a visceral way in your heart and body and just let it be as big as it wants to be. See how much it wants to fill your body, the cells, the spaces between the cells. Just that warmth of gratitude. And know that as you are, doing this reflection, you're tapping into the purity of inner fire. This love, this warmth,

this caring about some part of life is the innocence and essence of the inner fire. So one way that we arouse or reconnect with inner fire is to reflect on what we love, what we're grateful for, and feel it in an embodied way. You can open your eyes when you'd like. The second way is that when that appreciation, that enjoyment, that love emerges spontaneously, you see the daffodils and the yellow, and there's something about spring that just, you know,

are you're with a child, and you see the light in their eyes when they're really excited about something. I know for me, when I'm walking, by the river and there's certain times that I will just stop and there's just sounds of nature and the sounds of the currents and the looks of the currents and inside just gets very quiet and that quietness feels so delicious. It's to pause in the moments when we're awake to what we love and really get to know those moments, savor them. What happens typically,

is we just cruise right forward and our brains are very, very familiar with unpleasant kind of experiences. But the places where the inner fire is where we're love or there's longing, it's like we haven't really gotten to know those. So pause, savor. And that creates more of an access to the inner fire. Okay, so one category is relating to a... is relating to what we love. The other category is presence when they're suffering.

If we're present when they're suffering, we're going to feel the longing to help relieve suffering. We're going to feel our cherishing of life. And it could be the suffering that's societal. The inner fire can really arise in places where we sense the pain of, It could be the pain of the earth. I know for myself that sometimes when I see areas where trees have been taken down, or I read about some of what's happened with the coal mines in West Virginia

are this keystone oil pipeline or whatever. It's like my body hurts with the earth. It feels that. It's very physical. It might be like what happened from Newtown after the gun violence. is like very few people's nervous systems didn't feel the incredible pain of that loss. That touches into the inner fire that can lead to social change. You know, it could be for many people who are following what's going on in the Supreme Court right now,

knowing inside out for themselves or their friends the pain of, you know, not having our rights as humans be respected if we're gay. It's inner fire can have to do with suffering that's societal, and of course it has to be visceral. It's not an idea that, oh, yes, this should change or that should change. It's when we really feel the pain of the earth, the pain of what happens to people when they're discriminated against, or the pain of the violence and the loss. And when we experience our own pain, our own wounds, our own suffering, and we open to it,

then that inner fire that wants to find that refuge of peace, of safety of healing, is awakened. And I'd like to share with you, this is a poem by the poet Hafeis that I've always loved that I think speaks to this.

He says, don't surrender your loneliness so quickly. Let it cut more deep. Let it ferment and season you as few human or even divine ingredients can. Something missing in my heart tonight has made my eyes so soft, my voice so tender, my need of God, absolutely clear.

Something missing in my heart tonight has made my eyes so soft, my voice so tender, my need of God, absolutely clear. So again, this inner fire is the sensitivity or intuition of what's possible, our belonging, the possible sense of communion with God

or with goodness or with awareness or with love. And it's that longing that actually brings us to what we long for. The longing comes from love and it's calling us home. Natchiketa had Lord Yama, this wisdom of impermanence in a way as his guide. And in the Carlos Costignata books, death is described as an advisor. And some of you, if you haven't read it,

this is the shaman, Don Juan, says that when death is on your left shoulder, all pettiness drops away. So we begin to sense that when we're aware of the preciousness of life, when we're aware of what we long for, that that inner fire wakes up. And often it really takes a big jolt in our personal life. There's one woman I know who teaches elementary school.

She was diagnosed with breast cancer. And everywhere she went, people were letting her know how much they loved her. And that was the healing medicine, just feeling so loved. She's been in remission for quite some time. but she says in teaching now her basic this is the inner fire it's always she says to find some way

to let every child that she teaches know she cares that's it what if we all went through life remembering something that simple that every person we contact in some way to communicate care to see who they are

to slow down to be present the inner fire aligns our life with our heart. I've mentioned this before when I decide to do a talk. Often things happen in my life that end up plunging me into whatever I'm talking about. And so I knew that when I was doing the Natchikata story, which I've done, I try to do once every year or two, because it's Lord Yama, that loss and change would really be in my face. And in the last few weeks, one of my best friends lost her brother when he was pretty young still.

And so I've been keeping her company in that process. And dear friend from our community, Gabriel, who's on the board, is moving. So that's a sense of loss. Forgive me for it's just so spontaneous. You're sitting right there. and my dog of 13 years Chela died last week and so as one friend said

it's the teachings about how to be with change and loss that are really at the root of this path and when change and loss can have us go to that place that says what really matters then it's part of our freedom and that's the possibility.

Ticknat Han teaches this hug that I try to share whenever I remember because it's so cool. I don't know if he still does it because I haven't been to his retreats recently, but I went to a retreat 15 years ago and he taught it. So I went with a very good friend of mine. We hadn't spent much time together. We thought, oh, how cool. We'll drive down together and have a chance to sit together.

So we go to this retreat. At the end, he has to be a very good. you take a partner, so she and I were partners, and you stand in front of the partner, and you first begin with namaste, which is, you know, I see the divine in you. And then you hug each other, and the first inhale and exhale, you're reflecting, I'm going to die. The second inhale and exhale, you're going to die. And then the third is, and we have these precious moments together. Remember leaving with this woman, and I'm going to die. And sharing on the right back how those moments that again this inner fire that

sense of what we were cherishing had us so present so alive in that loving so it's about remembering what matters it's about remembering one one friend in her in a book that's coming out soon writes one of the practices she does is whenever she's saying goodbye to somebody she says goodbye if this is really goodbye. And it's not a morose thing, it's not morbid, it's actually real that we don't know. And everything's coming and going and what if we treated this moment in some ways if this is it, this counts, these connections, this contact. It's not like we're waiting for something down the road. If we lived as if this matters, then we'd be

guided by the purity of the inner fire. But this moment matters. This one right here, and I'm not talking metaphorically, like right this moment. Presence is our gateway to the inner fire that then deepens our inhabiting of presence. So let's do a reflection on this together, and I'm going to close with this reflection.

Just even as you begin, just to know that even in a short reflection it's possible to have some homecoming. So just let that be your intention to come home to what's true in you. Let the breath be gentle. Let your awareness come into your body. See if there's some natural places of letting go. In the spirit of Lord Yama, this wisdom of impermanence, this reflection which we did together

some months back begins by asking if you knew you had a year to live, what would most matter to you? What would you do? How would you live? If you knew you had a month to live? Again, since

what would most matter to you for this month? What would you do? what would be priority, how would you live your days? If you had a week to live, again, sensing what would most matter? Sensing into this inner fire, this longing, this yearning, that which would energize or direct your attention, what would most matter for that week? What would you do? How would you live? So if you had a day to live, again, to feel into the purity of that inner fire,

that which knows what matters, which directs you towards what matters. And that day, what would you do? How would you live your moments? And if you knew you just had a few minutes, so you're right here and this is it, you just have a few minutes to live. What is it you care about? What matters?

How do you want to be for these few minutes to take these final moments just to inwardly honor, acknowledge, or bow, to what you cherish, to what matters, to the present, the love, whatever it is that you know is your true refuge, is what you want to inhabit or be. And imagine how remembering this, how reconnecting with this over and over again, might change, might affect tonight for you as you leave, tonight as you get home, tomorrow as you wake up, how that inner fire, the purity of that inner fire, can help you to align your heart and your life.

Moment to moment. Namaste. 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.