Tara Brach - Part 2: Vulnerability, Intimacy, & Spiritual Awakening

Episode Date: August 31, 2018

Part 2: Vulnerability, Intimacy, & Spiritual Awakening - We each live with uncertainty and the fear of rejection and loss, and we each are conditioned to avoid feeling or expressing that vulnerability. Yet intimacy with this unlived life is the gateway to connecting authentically with others, full aliveness and spiritual realization. These talks explore the ways that we defend ourselves, and the pathway to gently, wisely and intelligently disarming and freeing our hearts (a special talk from the archives).

class was part of a two-part series on vulnerability and intimacy and freedom. And I began the last class with a kind of mythological tale of a dragon who removed its scales and in so doing, moved open to the vulnerability of removing his scales and discovered in the presence that was there a deep loving connection. connection, he transformed. And so I'd like to begin tonight by again in a way of definition saying, well, what is vulnerability? Every one of us has a sense about it.

And in that sense, there's a kind of, we're unprotected at those moments and at the mercy of forces beyond our control. And it might be the vulnerability of aging or the vulnerability of sickness or the vulnerability of feeling that others might leave us or reject us. It might be the vulnerability of our finances. We're at the mercy of an economy beyond our control. It might be that we're in some situation outdoors, and it's the vulnerability of being in weather

that we, as we're finding on the planet, that is unpredictable and can cause havoc in our lives. So vulnerability expresses itself through emotions. Every emotion we have underneath its vulnerability. vulnerability, whether it's the craving or the fear or the anger or the shame, there's a vulnerable sense of our being underneath it. And when we start reflecting, we get it that all beings, it's universal. All beings are vulnerable.

If you come into existence, there's a sense of separateness, I'm here, the world's out there, things are uncertain, and this being is going to die. We get it. this being is going to die. So there's like around the corner something that we're really concerned about. Right? And I love the description that Chogh Mtrenpa has of that we're this bundle of tense muscles kind of protecting our existence because on the most primitive level, the primal mood of the separate self-sphere, we're kind of just basically trying to make sure to enhance and get what we need and protect ourselves from harm. That's the most

core level. And as humans, we are pack animals, we're utterly dependent on each other, and so our vulnerability is very much in the relational field. We are vulnerable. We need to feel others accept us and love us, and to the extent that we don't, it means that our survival's threatened. Very, very core for humans. And the more we feel we deviate from the standards of our culture or the parents handed down. We all got standards to meet every one of us. And our parents are kind of the messenger for the culture, but we all got them on how we should behave, what success meant, how we should look, the kind of personalities that make it, those that don't. And the more we sense we're not in line, the more we go around with the

deep sense of vulnerability, it could do with our body shape, it could do with the way our minds work, our intelligence or lack of, emotions that shouldn't be there. So Dave Barry comments on this from a cultural perspective because he describes himself as a male that's been puny his whole life, and this caused a tremendous amount of vulnerability. And this is what he says. I totally missed the boat to Puberty Island. I was this little hairless dweeb with a voice in the Pinocchio range. He said, one day my mom, bless her heart, had a talk with me.

She told me that girls were not interested only in looks, that the qualities that really mattered were brains and a sense of humor. That little talk was long ago, but it taught me an invaluable life lesson. I've never forgotten. Moms lie when they have to. So then he describes the ongoing suffering of not meeting the much of not meeting the much cheese most standard, and this is one of his vignettes, he says, men, you know how when your wife can't open a pickle jar, she gives it to you, and you're supposed to smile in a manly, patronizing way,

as you effortlessly twist it open? That's not what happens in our house. What happens is, after a grim struggle lasting several minutes, I wind up lying on the kitchen floor, exhausted and whimpering, while the pickle jar, unopened, laughs and flirts boldly with my wife. So to different degrees, we each have our fears about not meeting the standards, about in some way being rejected, about loss. And we live with this undercurrent in us that we're not okay, that something's wrong with us, and the fear that it'll be really discovered. So one of the most important questions for each one of us is,

when we begin to sense vulnerable, how do we deal with it? What do we do? And what is your pattern for handling a sense of vulnerability? Now the challenge is that each of us has strong conditioning to armor. We have different styles of armoring. We wear different color scales and pretend and protect and so on in different ways. But we each have a strong conditioning to get away from that raw, uncomfortable experience. Every one of us has that conditioning. Yet, as we intuit deep down, because we each have this wisdom,

if we can find a way to stay, to be with what we're running away from, it's in that process, in that presence, that we actually discover a deeper, richer sense of who we really are. and that the only way that we really can have freedom from the insecurity that keeps us tense is by going right into the sense of vulnerability opening to it. We have that intuition,

that it's really through opening to vulnerability that we have the capacity to be open enough to love and be loved. And the metaphor that helps me on this one, there's a kind of the image of a tidal pool. And when water can flow in and out of it, it's fresh and it's circulated and it's alive. But you know those pools where the edges start coming around and they kind of close off and you've got kind of like a little pond, a mini pond of water that's kind of stagnant when there's not a flow. Well, that's what happens when we close off the vulnerability.

or there's a feeling of shame or embarrassment, it gets kind of stagnant. It actually gets stronger rather than having that wash that reminds us that we're really the moving sea. We're not just a little pocket of water. So the challenge is how do we stay open and let ourselves touch what's here?

This is from the poet Mark Nipo. He says, having loved enough and lost enough, I am no longer. searching, just opening, no longer trying to make sense of pain, but trying to be a soft and sturdy home in which real things can land. These are the irritations that rub into a pearl. So we can talk for a while, then we must listen, the way rocks listen to the sea. And yes, on nights like tonight, I too feel alone, but seldom do I face it squarely enough to see that it's a door

into the endless breath that has no breather, into the surf that human shells call God. I'm going to read the last part again. Yes, on nights like tonight, I too feel alone, but seldom do I face it squarely enough to see that it's a door into the endless breath that has no breather, into the surf that human shells call God.

So the basic understanding is that presence with vulnerability is a gateway into spiritual realization and that the practice is pretty much what we do here, that when something's predominant in our experience, rather than going into thoughts or blaming or judging or whatever, we meet our edge and soften. It's one of the ways of languaging it. We just recognize what's here and we open to it. We say yes. So that's the inner practice and we explored this some last week, how we, when things, when we feel vulnerability rather than our habit of,

it's like being on a bicycle and pedaling away and the more difficult of feeling the faster we peddle into the future or the past, we actually decide to stay. We pause. We sense what's happening. And the intention is to say yes, to be with it, to feel it. Now, so the last class we explored how we do that within ourselves. And what I'd like to do in this class is expand it. Because if the key to letting vulnerability be a portal is bringing the vulnerability to the light of awareness, because so much of our wounding has been in the relational field, there is profound healing possible

when we can bring feelings of vulnerability into the shared light of awareness, when we can speak the truth of what's difficult with each other. So that's the frame for the rest of tonight's talk, how we do that. And many people have experienced what it's like when somebody, dear one in your family, for instance, passes away, and the family's there and that shared

vulnerability, and all the patterns of history seem to kind of fade into the background for that time, and there's just that vulnerability of loss and a certain kind of closeness that comes when we're in that together. I'm looking around to sense how many of you kind of know that one. It's dramatic. We revert to our old patterning again, but it reminds us that when we're willing to just sit in the vulnerability and when somebody dies, it's kind of like there's, the grief is such that there's nothing left to lose. You're just wide open. In that wide openness, there's a kind of tenderness and love that's very poignant, that's possible. One woman described being with her father's, he was dying over a period of eight months or so.

And during his active years, he had been kind of a larger-than-life figure and a very well-known, a highly respected architect and designed buildings and urban centers, many praised pieces of work. And they had had a somewhat distant relationship during most of that time. He was very focused. And because she hadn't felt special or the center of attention, she kind of had a lot of pain, and that was her inner work, that she didn't really matter that much.

But now at the end of his life, he was no longer on his role of achievements, and he was facing his own vulnerability, his own mortality. And so things started changing. They spent a lot of time together. And he kind of went, went more from his headiness to who's just more there in his body and his in his humility.

And she recounts asking him what of his accomplishments he felt most proud of in one conversation when they were just a lot of time together. And there was a long pause and then he had tears in his eyes and he said, you, of course, and it was something she thought she'd never hear in this lifetime, that there was something that probably had been true, but that he was caught in his drivenness and achieving and trying to find his way of feeling good about himself in another way, and he'd just gotten caught up. There is something about when we're actually living in the vulnerability of our bodies, our hearts, our minds, that makes it possible to realize

a connectedness that we were in some way too preoccupied to notice otherwise. I remember Ram Dass describing how before his stroke, he was quite a giver and his experience of love and connection came from, you know, people would come and he would just, give, give, give, and served a lot of causes and so on. And after a stroke, he became utterly dependent on other people. It was very, very difficult because his whole style for feeling, loving connection came out of his sense of generosity and giving. It was very hard to take in.

Some part of him felt that he really wasn't, you know, maybe that love couldn't happen if it was going in this direction. and I find now when I talk to more and more people that many people recognize it's harder to let in love than to give it out. That part of that armoring that we have is that it's way too dangerous to let that the thing that we most long for, to feel lovable and love,

it's too dangerous to take a chance because if it turns out not to be, if it doesn't come through if we don't feel another's love then we have to relive the old wounding so for him learning to let in brought him to a whole different level

of being love he said earlier when he was just the giver it was more of an egoic level of loving there was still a self-giving to another but when he could receive then in the giving and receiving in that porousness it became again like that title pool

where everything was washing through, and he was part of the moving ocean. Not so much separation. So most of us have a real ambivalence about intimacy. Most of us, we long for it, we want that connection, we want to feel that belonging to the ocean, and we're very, very afraid if we open up

that in some way we'll be rejected, that we will be found wanting. So it's scary. And the pathway, as I've been mentioning, is to go ahead and be scared and take the chance anyway. I'll read to you one of my favorite descriptions of this. This is Adrienne Rich, and she says, An honorable human relationship, that is one in which two people have the right to use the word love,

is a process of the deepening truths they can tell us. each other. It's a process of the deepening truths they can tell each other. It's important to do this because it breaks down human self-delusion and isolation. Okay, so there's this piece that we kind of scuttle away from, but it's pretty core, which is, can we tell the truth about what embarrasses us? We're ashamed of what we're afraid, of where we feel in some way shaky, not so easy. So I might invite you just to check in for yourself for a moment. Let's just do a little brief reflection. Take a moment to feel yourself arriving. Just call yourself right here. You might feel your breath. To let your intention be honesty, to not judge,

to simply look at your life right now and perhaps sense an important relationship, person that is dear to you, that you have the intention towards closeness or intimacy, and just ask yourself, how honest and real am I in this relationship? Am I in a process of deepening truths that I share? maybe noticing what you hold back on. What is it you're hiding or uncomfortable about? And when you notice that, notice it with kindness. What allows this whole process of bringing the shadow into the sunlight of awareness

is making it as much of a loving and warm environment as possible. So, no judgment here. Just to notice, where might you risk more? How might you deepen the truths you share? If you sense something you're embarrassed about sharing with another, you might just notice both be mindful of the pull towards wanting to go further, towards intimacy, towards opening, and also the pull away from that, to protect yourself, just to notice it right now.

The mindful recognition is the first step of opening the door. the door when you'd like to open your eyes. So the reality is for most of us that we have a pull towards intimacy and loving and we have a pull towards safety and protection. Okay. And the truth is we have been hurt and we can get hurt again. So it's a dance. You know, I remember from a long time ago this little kind of cartoon with a snail was a, you know, at a bar, you know, kind of telling his grievances to the bartender, and he's sitting there

talking about a failed romance. And he says, so I decided to be real and reveal myself and come out of my shell. And she said, ooh, you're a snail. And it's kind of like that. It's like, okay, so we reveal ourselves and what's going to happen? We don't know. So it's natural that we hold back. And again, the idea is to be very, very forgiving towards your way of armoring or being in a shell. It's natural to build resistances to kind of close off that little title pool and defend ourselves. And we each have our own style, as I mentioned, and I find it helpful to see how it happens in the animal kingdom. And remember, we are animals trying to protect ourselves. And so you see animals, one of our big ways of protecting

ourselves is to stay very, very busy. You know, we don't hold still because it's dangerous. In that stillness, if we create space and stillness, that's vulnerability. When we step out of scheduled time, when we stop doing so much, then we can get in touch with what we've been running from. And you just see little animals that's very dangerous to hold still. It's like you see these little squirrels and rodents and they're all twitchy and running around really fast.

You know, there's a... in the Tibetan tradition, a teaching that busyness is the ultimate form of laziness. And I think that's so, there's something so strikingly true about it. That, you know, and I've seen it in myself, the times that I say, oh, I'm just going to get this done, and now I'm just going to get this done. In a way, it's lazier to do that than to stop doing and be with myself. Do you know what I mean by that? our busyness, and I'm not talking about productivity and I'm not talking about engagement,

I'm talking about that doing, doing on our way somewhere else kind of mentality, you know, just kind of speeding around. It's really an avoidance tactic. And it keeps us from the places that most need attention. It also keeps us from the places that are tender and it keeps us from the places that are tender and it keeps us from the places that are creative. It's called anthropological psychology, studying other cultures as well as their own,

shows that when children do not have completely unstructured time, when there's no time when there's no parental expectations looming over them, they actually can't develop in a healthy way. And reading more and more about, you know, what is the groundwork for creativity? And you have to be able to dream, You have to have time when there's just space to let the adventure and journey happen. When it's structured, we leave ourselves.

We become this small doing self. So that's one of the ways that we armor ourselves is in this busyness. Another one I thought I'd mentioned that ways that we armor ourselves is in seeking to have power over, you know, controlling or seeking a position where in some way we are better than, or above others. And you can see in the animal kingdom, the alpha dog or the alpha gorilla that that's the safest position is when you're on top, when you're top dog, right? And so it is in with humans. A couple of examples, Samuel Goldwyn says, you know, the Hollywood film producer, he says, I don't want any yes men around me. I want everyone to tell

me the truth, even if it costs them their jobs. Then there's Jimmy Haifa, he says, I do unto others what they do unto me, only worse. So there's the way of using power to control, and there's been some very, very important research. To me, this is one of the most powerful pieces of research that's come out in recent months that shows that those that experience themselves as having power over others don't have as much empathy as others. In other words, power over reduces empathy. And they actually did a experiment where they could watch the compassion network and the frontal part of the brain and they had people reflect on a time when they felt powerful and power over and then reflect on a time when they felt

powerless and watch a certain film that would evoke empathy. And the empathy and the The network that shows the activity of empathy was more activated when people felt powerless or vulnerable than when they felt powerful, as in power over. Now, this has huge implications for our culture. That those that are dominant have less empathy, that has, it's scary what the repercussions of that are. So that's another way that we armor ourselves. is to lock into trying to be dominant or have power over. Another way that we have, you know, that we armor ourselves

is to mislead others, to misrepresent ourselves. And of course this happens in all parts of the animal kingdom, deception. I was reading about in France the hawks, the male hawks, there's a certain species that can pretend it's a female. It has a female plumage. and it uses that kind of deception tactic to avoid attacks and to get more opportunities to mate. You know, and you can see it through the animal kingdom, how many ways there's this way of using pretense. But we do it too.

We more than we're aware of exaggerate our achievements, we mislead in order to avoid criticism on why we're late for something or why we weren't able to come through on something we had agreed to. And sometimes there's the outright lies. We know it comes out of fear. We're trying to protect ourselves. A story young man named John invites his mother over to dinner, and during the meal John's mother couldn't help noticing how beautiful John's roommate was. She had long been suspicious of a relationship between John and his roommate, and this only made her more curious. And watching the two interact over the evening, she really wondered if there was more to their relationship than met the eye.

Reading his mother's thoughts, John volunteered, I know what you might be thinking, but I assure you that Carrie and I are just roommates. About a week later, Carrie came to John and said, you know, ever since your mother came here for dinner, I've been unable to find the beautiful silver soup ladle. You don't think she did something with it, do you? He says, I doubt it, but I'll email her. So he wrote down, Dear Mother, I'm not saying you did or did not do anything with the

soup ladle, but it's odd that it disappeared after the dinner. Do you know anything about this? Later, he received an email from his mother that read, Dear Son, I'm not saying that you do sleep with Carrie, and I'm not saying that you don't, but the fact remains that if she was sleeping in her own bed, she would have found the soup ladle by now. The title of this is don't lie to your mother. So we cover over in our different ways, and what that creates, you know, whether it's by being busy or trying to have power over or misrepresenting ourselves is it creates a false self. It creates a temporary kind of safety, but the deep vulnerability is still there. And what we're not bringing into awareness has a tremendous power. It's like my friend Dan Gottlieb

says that when we bury feelings, they're buried alive. They're alive. They're alive. They're just buried. So there is a longing in each of us to discover a quality of presence and openness where we're not at the mercy of not identified as the vulnerable self, where the currents can move through us, but it doesn't tighten us and it doesn't block our connections with each other. So the pathway, as I've been describing, is opening to, and also the courage to open to with others.

In other words, the willingness to be more real. And in that spirit, I'd like to read it as a short verse. This is Thomas Carlyle. He says, It's good to use the best china, the most genuine goblets, the oldest lace tablecloth. There's a risk, of course,

anytime we use anything or anyone shares an intimate moment or a fragile cup of revelation. But not to touch, not to handle the artifacts of being human, is the quiet crash, the deadly catastrophe, where nothing is enjoyed or broken,

are spilled, are spoken, are stained, are mended, where nothing is ever lived, loved, laughed over, wept over, where nothing is ever lost, are found. So the first, step in easing ourselves into deepening the truths we share is our motivation, our intention.

And one man described it really well, he got a mantra from his 12-step mentor, and the mantra was not my will, but my heart's well. He found that my will, when he lived in my will, my will got him to keep on being defended and armored and powering over people and so on, but his heart's will reminded him to soften. So you might not have that exact mantra, but it's that intention. It's the intention when you see yourself as defending or judging or being busy or in some way misleading to pause and say, wait a minute, is it pot? What's my heart's longing here?

Maybe I can take a chance. That's step number one. The step number two is that we have to, in order to share deepening truths, we have to be in touch with them ourselves. So after we've said, okay, let's put down the skill, some, we have to feel ourselves. What is the vulnerability that's here? What is happening inside me? Can I be with this?

Those two questions. That's step two is this inner listening where we're going to be. We meet our edge and soften inwardly where we stay with what's there. And then the third step is when we can and in whatever way is possible to begin in relationships that are conscious relationships where it feels like it's a wholesome thing to share our truths. So I'll give you an example. We know when we're in conflict.

You know what it's like when you're in. an argument and in the middle of the argument you all of a sudden realize that actually you're wrong. You know how hard it is to... It's an awful feeling, isn't it? Well, we know what that's like. It's very hard when there's tension with another person. That's when it's hardest in a way. And yet it's the very naming of the vulnerability that's there that actually can begin to soften hearts and begin to open up the things and have a deeper understanding. There's a couple years ago. This is years ago I worked with and they come to me when I was still in psychotherapy as an active therapist because their

marriage is going downhill. He was a fine carpenter and he had contracted limes when they were on a vacation and many of you know limes can be horrific and what it does to a body and for him, his fatigue and aches got increasingly bad and his fingers got swollen and stiffened. He couldn't do his work. And so, you know, he felt like he just dropped into this depression and shame because as a man in this culture, he was supposed to be providing and being able to do his work, do his work. And so he really got locked in and his wife, Margot, would do what she could.

And she ended up working overtime and making meals and cleaning the house. but her feeling was, I'm unappreciated, I'm never enough. So there she was doing, he was feeling incredibly vulnerable and ashamed, and he felt like her attitude in some way was deepening a shame. Like she was reinforcing that he wasn't being the man he could be, and she was feeling like, it doesn't matter how much I do, I'm still not enough. So they were locked into their experiences.

So I had them do what we do in couples' work was begin to name their truths to each other. And he let her know how much shame and frustration he felt about being sick. He said, I feel like I'm a wimp who can't be counted on for anything. So he was living in a very small vulnerable place. And that allowed her to begin to share she started out sharing about feeling unappreciated, but then his realness dropped her deeper, and she blurted out, I've just felt so helpless.

You've been plagued by sickness, you, the person I love, and I can't make you feel better, and I don't know when it's going to end. And so she expressed the depth of her feelings of deficiency. I can't help you. I'm helpless. When the sharing was complete, they were holding each other and weeping because they had moved from,

you make me feel, to how can I help? By going right into their vulnerability and letting each other see, their hearts broke open. Now, when I share this, that doesn't mean that in every situation that we are in conflict

and we share our vulnerability, that it's going to unfold in that way. There are many times that one person's vulnerability is so strong that they can't go there and they get blocked off and even more defensive. And so it takes a lot of practice to be able to share and listen and respond. But one of the most beautiful experiences

that we can have in our life is to be with another person and be willing to sit in that shared place of where we're afraid, where we're ashamed, and discover that quality of beingness that's larger, that holds it. The loving goes very deep then. We realize who we are beyond the scared or shameful self. And it happens because of an awareness that's larger than that sense of separate self. I've seen this is the power of 12-step programs. If we're alone with the shame of being addicted,

then it just ends up proliferating. It's like that tidal pool. It gets really stagnant and thick. If we can bring it into the larger community, we sense it's not my addictiveness. It's just our shared... tendency to cling and grasp. It's powerful in 12-step groups.

I'll share another story that I loved about speaking truth. And this was in San Quentin Prison when there was a meeting of a group of a Kyoto Tantric choir, the Tibetan monks that are famous for their singing, and they were meeting with some of the gospel choir at San Quentin. So here's this meeting. meeting that goes on and the members of the San Quentin gospel choir were all African Americans, very many of them large men who had worked out with weights and in their years in prison

had been born again touched by the spirit of Jesus and their songs were testimonial to the depths of their suffering to that vulnerability and the light of the gospel that awakened in them. But the organizers of this meeting had a fear and I'll read you. They said they feared that the Tibetan monks would appear to be merely foreigners and heathens to these newly awakened Christians. And when the heathen monks, in quotes, arrived, the contrast was even more apparent. Dwarfed by the African Americans was a group of small Asian men wearing maroon skirts.

The question was, how to bridge this gap? And the solution was an inspired introduction. Here's what the sponsor said. Almost all of these Tibetan men who have joined us today, spent years in harsh prisons. The Communist Chinese army not only imprisoned them for expressing their beliefs but tortured them as well. Somehow they were released or able to escape from prison. Then to find freedom they walked across the Himalayas, the highest mountains on earth. Some tied rackers on their feet because they had no good shoes, but even now they're in exile.

They're forced to live far from their home apart from their families and community, and they don't know if they will ever be able to return. What has kept them going to go to going through all of their struggles have been their songs and prayers, this is what they will sing for you today. In an instant the gospel choir and the Tibetan monks looked at one another with eyes that shared the vulnerable depths of human sorrow and they found understanding. Each group sang to the other from the heart and when their music was finished they came together to hug and embrace like long lost brothers.

It's the pathway of love to share the vulnerability, the shame, the sorrows. So in a way to say that tonight what we're saying is that any sense of a separate self comes with vulnerability. And the spiritual path is to bring presence to that vulnerability, presence to it as it's within ourselves and presence with each other. And in that presence we discover that love and belonging that we're longing for. But I want to say it does take practice. And there's a few things to mention, and that is to, if you want to explore this, if something

in you wants to, after listening, play your edge a little, speak a little more of the truth of what's here, because it's contagious. When you do, it does help others to feel more permission. But start small and start where you feel it's reasonably safe. And that's really an intuitive call. And the third thing to say is, in addition to sharing vulnerable truths, find yourself as much support and nourishment as possible. We all need it.

The reminders, the mirroring that you're really okay. I love these children's quotes about love because you get the sense that they really understand vulnerability. One little girl writes, when my grandmother got arthritis, she couldn't bend over and paint her toenails anymore. So my grandfather does it for her all the time, even when his hands got arthritis too. That's love. Another quote.

Love is when you go out and give somebody most of your friend tries without making them give you any of theirs. Love is when mommy sees daddy's smelly and sweaty and still says he's handsomer than Robert Redford. Love is when your puppy licks your face even after you left him home alone all day. I know my older sister loves me because she gives me all her old clothes and has to go out and buy new ones. When someone loves somebody, your eyelashes go up and down and little star

come out of you. I'll read you one more. You really shouldn't say I love you unless you mean it, but if you mean it, you should say it a lot. People forget and it's good for them to get reminded. So this is the pathway and it's really important to know that if you feel drawn to taking the risk and getting more real, if there's something in you that senses that when you, what you can't communicate controls you, okay? If you sense that what you can't communicate controls you and you want that freedom, then just to know that you're not alone, that there really is a community of beings that are waking up

and recognizing that meditation is not on the cushion all by ourselves. We meditate by being with each other and bringing our truths alive with each other. I'd like to close with one of my favorite readings from Pemachode, I've gone back to this over and over again. She writes this. She says, spiritual awakening is frequently described as a journey to the top of a mountain. We leave our attachments and our worldliness behind and slowly make our way to the top. At the peak, we transcend all pain.

The only problem with this metaphor is that we leave all the others behind, our drunken brother, our schizophrenic sister, our tormented animals and friends. their suffering continues, unrelieved by our personal escape. The process of discovering Bodhita, and that's a Sanskrit word, and it means the awakened heart, is the journey goes down, not up. It's as if the mountain pointed towards the center of the earth instead of reaching into the sky. Instead of transcending the suffering of all creatures, we move toward the turbulence and the doubt. We move into the vulnerability.

We jump into it. We move toward it however we can. We explore the reality and unpredictability of insecurity and pain, and we try not to push it away. If it takes years, if it takes lifetimes, we let it be as it is. At our pace, without speed or aggression, we move down and down and down. With us move millions of others,

our companions in a weight, in awakening from fear. Right at the bottom, we discover water, the healing water of Bodicita, of the awakened heart. Right down there in the thick of things, we discover the love that will not die. We discover the love that will not die. So let's reflect together for a moment. It's closed tonight with a reflection that allow you to sense how this can be a real and alive part of your life. And again, just take a moment to sense the pause, to feel yourself here, feel the aliveness in your body, and feel the movement of your breath, and feel that deep place in your heart that longs to love without holding back, to love

and be loved, to live from love. And take a moment to to bring to mind a relationship where you wish there was more intimacy or closeness, a relationship that has you sense enough safety to explore going further and being yourself, including vulnerability. And if you feel like you don't have a relationship that would allow you, that feel safe enough, then as you explore this medicine, of expressing your truth, you can imagine that you're expressing it to whoever in your mind represents safety or healing. It could be somebody that's no longer alive, it could be your dog, it could be Buddha, Kuan Yin. But for those of you that have somebody in mind, this is a

relationship where you would like to be able to deepen your own. your truths and just bring them on a typical situation that might bring up vulnerability for you with this person. Just take some moments just to notice how you deal with the vulnerability, whether you get busy and preoccupied, when you feel insecure or upset, or whether you pretend something, put on some sort of a persona or a mask, or whether you try to take control, whether you get accommodating, whether you withhold. Just sense what's your way of dealing with when you're starting to feel insecure, unsure, embarrassed about something, hurt. And just notice under the armor,

what is it you're covering over? What is most asking for attention or affirmation? Just sense what's going on there. If you are going to share a deepening truth, what's the vulnerability that you'd name? Is it that I don't trust that you really care about me or I don't feel special? Or I feel like I'm never enough for you, I don't come through, that I want to be close and you don't want to be close?

What's the fear or the yearning or the truth that you're covering over or not saying? What are you ashamed of? embarrassed about. As you pay attention to this, just offer some kindness inwardly. Just take a moment to meet your edge and soften inwardly. And you might put your hand on your heart and just in some way send a message to that place of vulnerability. It's okay. It's okay that it's here. This is not my vulnerability. This is our shared fear. And as Pema Chodin described, this is part of going down and down and down and down.

And you're not alone. And you might imagine whispering or naming the vulnerability out loud to another person, the person you're involved with. And just sense what happens. Sense if you feel afraid, sense if you feel more freed up. Just notice what happens and keep on offering kindness to yourself. as you imagine sharing a deepening truth. At our pace we move down and down and down

and with us millions of others, our companions in awakening from fear. At the bottom we discover water, the healing water of bodichita. Right down there in the thick of things, we discover the love that will not die. Closing by just sensing whatever you have been imagined, that you can hold your own vulnerability with loving presence and that as you begin

to share and bring into the light of awareness with another, there's a possibility of this deepening love of discovering this love that will not die. Namaste and thank you. For more talks and meditations and to learn about my schedule or join my email list, please visit tarabrock.com.