Tara Brach - Path of True Refuge

Episode Date: January 11, 2014

2014-01-08 - Path of True Refuge - This talk explores the three archetypal gateways to liberation - awareness (Buddha), truth (Dharma) and love (Sangha). It includes guided reflections and a refuge ceremony that can help us discover the path “inside out” through daily life.

So I always think of the first Wednesday of the New Year's as particularly special because we've developed a kind of ritual of exploring what are known as the three refuges in spiritual life. So there'll be a talk on that and some reflections, and then we'll have a ceremony that I think helps you to deepen bringing the refuges alive during your day. And the understanding behind the... inquiry tonight is that throughout all history and on every continent, humans have experienced a kind of vulnerability that no matter how well things are going, there's a kind of background

hum of anxiety because there's a sense that we're out of control. Anything can happen. These bodies will die, we'll lose that which we love. And so even when things, we're things are like life's cooperating, there's still a sense of unease. And William James spoke to this, and I bring this up often because I think it's a great way to describe it. He said that the beginning of every religion is the cry, help. And that in some way, each of us is trying to get through the day and senses that there's something inherently challenging about being embodied on this planet. Now, I find it interesting that our new religion

of the last whatever decades technology, every new app begins with the cry help, right? You know that. And, you know, because technology is our way now of as well as possible trying to control and manage life. And some of you might have heard of the website Lives On, I found this really interesting. It's dedicated to your social afterlife.

And it ensures that your Twitter feed remains active after you're dead. So their slogan is this. It says, when your heart stops beating, you keep tweeting. Isn't that amazing? The lens will go to try to ensure that we stay here. So as we explore refuge and the word can be confusing, we'll really be distinguishing between our egoic ways of seeking refuge, ways we've tried to get ourselves more comfortable and more secure and more safe,

and what it really means to seek spiritual refuge, which has nothing to do with controlling our lives, it's really a letting go of control. So spiritual refuge really is that in the middle, midst of difficulty, we learn as we've been practicing tonight in the meditation to take refuge in presence. And as we'll explore, the three arctuptial refuges are different dimensions of presence. It's taking refuge in living presence, the aliveness that's right here, taking refuge in loving presence, that tenderness or heart quality that really holds our lives.

and taking refuge in the formless dimension of presence itself, that innate wakefulness. All different expressions of refuge. This is part of a prayer that was offered by Clarissa Estes. She says, You may be pushed down. You may be kept from rising. But no one can keep you from lifting from lifting your heart toward heaven.

No one can keep you from lifting your heart toward heaven, only you. So the very essence of a path of refuge is a kind of prayerfulness that no matter what's happening, whether we're threatened by mortality in a more immediate way or losing someone we love or in some other great struggle, no matter how down we feel the message is we can always, always turn towards refuge. And whether we think of heaven is out there or the heaven of really this awakening heart, it's here. So that's the message. No one can keep you from lifting your heart towards heaven. Only you. And I think of this turning towards the refuge of

presence as not an efforting. When we say lifting our heart, it's kind of got this quality, and I almost think of it of taking my heart and my being and my ego self with two hands, and just it's an offering into something larger, into that which is sacred, lifting our heart towards heaven. One of the ways of describing this path is of remembering, that when we get in trouble we remember to turn towards presence. And what ends up causing and perpetuating suffering is that we have a lot of conditioning to forget. And instead of when we're in trouble turning towards something that has to do with loving more fully, connecting with others, being really here, we tend to leave. And there's three primary ways we leave. I often talk about

our kind of defense strategies in terms of a space suit self where we have entered this earth environment and it's not so easy and we have to figure out a way to get through. And this is a space suit self is another way of saying the egoic self. And so we develop these strategies to navigate and there are three basic strategies that really apply to all creatures, all organisms. that are trying to make it through. Their spacesuits have different levels of complexity. But you can see it in terms of the three parts of our brain, our strategies to make it through.

And the core, the brain stem, the reptilian brain, the strategies to avoid harm at all costs. Now that's our most powerful and pervasive strategy that we're going around trying to avoid harm. And so you can imagine a lizard that is diving for shelter under Iraq. That's one strategy that we have.

The other strategy is the mammalian brain, the limbic brain which is actually seeking nourishment, seeking something that enlarges and seeking something that enhances existence. And you might imagine a squirrel collecting acorns.

And then the primate part of our brain, the cortex, is there for attachment and connection. That's what creates safety and security. You might consider this egoic self as having those three strategies and that they're often adaptive and they're our best choice, but then they can get outmoded and turn into something that really causes trouble.

So the lizard brain gets very habituated to protecting itself by lying or by exaggerating or procrastinating or attacking or judging. and for most of us our lizard brain is just plain fixating on what's going to go wrong. The lizard brain is the part of us is just keeps habitually worrying and anticipating something bad around the corner. Some of you might remember this prank

played by a bunch of students in a Montana school. They release three goats into the school and they put numbers on the goat, number one, number three, and number four. They released them in, and the teachers spent the whole day looking for goat number two. Something's wrong. So that's our lizard brain, so we're looking for what's going to go wrong. And sadly, it occupies a lot of our time.

And then we have the mammalian part of our brain. Remember, that's the squirrel going for the acorns. And we're going for reward. So we overeat or we get addicted to surfing the Internet or gaming or alcohol. or for many people to kind of obsessive fantasy on what I need, what I need, what will make me feel better. It's a narrowed attention. There's a saying in India that when a pickpocket sees a saint, he or she sees the saint's pocket, right?

So when we're in that, this mammalian brain and it's the shadow side of it, we're kind of fixated on I want, I need, and we're missing out on what's really real. There was an ad posted some years ago and read like this. Single black female seeks male companionship. I love long walks in the woods, riding in your pickup truck, hunting, camping, and fishing trips. Cozy winter nights spent lying by the fire, candlelight dinners will have me eating out of your hand. Rub me the right way and I'll respond with tender caresses.

I'll be at the front door when you get home from work. Kiss me and I'm yours. I'm a spelt-looking girl who loves to play. Call 7-1-2-55-1-2 and ask for Daisy. Turned out that about 15,000 calls went into the Atlanta Humane Society. Black Lab Retriever. I like that. So we've got the Malian Brain that's always seeking out and trying to, it's the sense that something's missing, that we can't really open to right now because there's something missing, we have to have more. Again, just what we're tracking here is this is the space suit self with its different strategies

for leaving the present moment, trying to find refuge, avoiding harm, trying to enhance. And then the third way, the primate part of our brain, that's the monkey, it's kind of grooming, monkeys grooming each other as the image I get often. When it's overloaded, when we're caught up in attachment-seeking behaviors, and we're We're either controlling other people with guilt or we're judging other people or we're obsessively rehearsing what we're going to say to people. I think of a lot of it has to do with approval seeking. That's the shadow side of that part of the brain. Some of you might remember this story of a commuter, it's on a commuter train, a very tired guy sits down, closes his eyes.

But as the train rolls out of the station, a young woman sitting next to him pulls out her cell phone. starts to talk in a loud voice. Hi, sweetheart, it's Sue. I'm on the train. Yes, I know at 6.30 and not 4.30, but I had a long meeting. No, honey, not with that Kevin from the accounting office. It was with the boss. No, sweetheart, you're the only one in my life. Yes, I'm sure. Cross my heart.

15 minutes later, she's still talking loudly. When the man sitting next to her had had enough, he leaned over and said into the phone, Sue, hang up the phone and come back to bed. Sue doesn't use her cell phone in public any longer. So again, this is really to speak to the fact of silly examples, but the idea is this, that when we are honest and look through our day, we'll find that these three parts of our brain, the parts of our brain that's always worried, something around the corner is going to go wrong, the part of our brain that says something's missing, I need more,

the part of our brain that's trying to manage how other people experience us in getting approval, they actually can take a lot of our life energy. And you might listen to the words of Rumi for a moment. 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.

We get waylaid. We forget. And you can really think of the whole path as remembering and forgetting. And so we've got all this conditioning in our brain to leave the moment. And really our practices are to help recognize that. So more and more moments of our life are real life. You might just take a moment to reflect. Let's just check in ourselves right now. Just to invite you to review the day, not with a judgmental lens, but with curiosity. You might notice which part of your brain was

in action if you feel like you got waylaid. If you feel like you feel like you you got preoccupied. Were you lost in a lot of thinking, planning, worrying? Did you get caught in some pursuit of something that you really wanted? Whether it was

food or approval? You might just sense, what was my sense of myself today? Was it of a tense, anxious self trying to manage things? If you can observe with interest and not

judgment, you can begin to see the places of the day where you might pause a little. A path of true refuge starts by noticing what we call false refuge, where we get preoccupied, where the lizard brain or mammalian brain or primate part of our brain has taken over in a way that we've lost a larger sense of wholeness, opening your eyes when you'd like. So the challenge is when we get lost how to notice it, how to notice it and how to start choosing to take refuge in presence. And we're going to explore the three gateways to presence. I'd like to begin that exploration by sharing a story. A number of us have been followed. following a blog by a man named Stuart Rockoff for the last year or so.

And Stuart has ALS. Lugarik's disease and he's been chronicling his own decline and what's been going on in his body and his mind and how it's been for him. And it's amazing. He's done it with such an incredible amount of honesty and vulnerability and real realness, it's an amazing window into his life, describing this out-of-control body and what it's like to have his movements going so he can't control his legs or he can't control his speaking or his chewing or swallowing. And his revelation of how he would use, you know, use what's going on to, you know, sometimes try to take control and micromanage his life and organizes closets or

desk just to get away from it or manage other people, play the sick card. Very revealing. He says that he could see through his life how he had actually been focusing on really inconsequential details. He said he thought were manageable at the price of missing the bigger issues. So in the process of writing this blog, in my languaging, he was taking deeper and deeper refuge in presence, naming what's true, naming what was going on, and cherishing loving connection. So much so that you'll hear, this is from this week, you'll feel the quality of lifting his heart towards heaven in this. He says, it feels like the end is getting closer, connected full-time to morphine pump, but pain is still unrelenting, especially in shoulder,

breathing harder. All water and nutrition now through gravity bags, drip, drip, drip, need assistance for every movement. Surrounded here by so much love and care I feel I'm ready for the next step. I have no regrets at all. I've had a full life touched and been touched by such wonderful family and friends. So if there is to be a final lesson for me, it is that love is that love is, the ultimate gift, love and honesty. I am so grateful for the messages of support I've received from readers of this blog, and for all the wonderful friends, especially fellow pals I've met here. I hope my writing has provided you with some insight and strength with your own challenges, ALS or whatever. I will soon be at peace, my struggles past, but I will be here in spirit

to help strengthen each of you in your lives. So if you, you hear a little voice whispering, love. No, it's me. I find it so powerful just to bear witness. To Stuart, really the three classic refuges are there, naming what's true, really contacting the reality of the moment, taking refuge in love and his friends, his family, the larger field of us that were following his blog, and then sensing at him that spirit that's timeless. To take those three refuges means that we have the space that can hold living and dying. It's true refuge. So let's look at them one at a time.

The classic refuges in the Buddhist tradition are described as Buddha, Dharma, and Sanga. And we're going to be doing it in a little different order. We're going to do Dharma, Sanga, Buddha. And Dharma means truth. It's when he says honesty, when he names what's true, when he opens to the moment. So Dharma means truth, it means the path, it means the way, the Tao, it means the nature of nature. So when we take refuge in the Dharma, we're taking refuge in reality. And you can take each of these refuges and think of it in terms of an outer reference,

and an inner refuge. And I'm going to invite you to reflect on each one in your life. Because although they're very explicit in Buddhism, these three are archetypal. You can find them in Christianity and in Hinduism and most spiritual paths I've ever run into. So Dharma's truth. It's reality.

It's contacting the moment. And the outer refuges, if you think of it for Dharma, would be the teachings, the practices. You're taking refuge in the Dharma if you're reading books that help remind you of a larger reality. You're taking refuge in the Dharma if you come to class, if you listen to podcasts.

You're taking refuge in the Dharma whenever you read poetry that helps to wake up your heart or when you go to retreats, when you walk in the natural world and you really pay attention to nature and feel yourself as part of it. That's all the outer ways of taking refuge in the Tao, in the Dharma, in the truth. The inner refuge in Dharma is what we do when we practice together. It's taking refuge in the actual experience moment to moment.

It's that radical presence that reveals the truths themselves. It reveals if you're really here, if you sense that heerness you get quiet and you really open in your body and you listen you'll sense that

everything is constantly changing if you're really here if you take refuge in the truth of the moment you'll sense that you can't hold on to anything one person describes it if you hold onto you get rope burn because it's moving

you can't really control it and if you really go deep very, very quiet and take refuge in this moment-to-moment experience, you won't be able to find a solid egoic self there. You'll find a river of experience and sense yourself as belonging to that web of life. So that's the inner refuge. It's really discovering that we can be here fully and not hold on. I want to share with you a description I liked, and this is written by a teenager who attended one of the teen retreats, one of the ones that I led and has been to a number of them. And here's what she writes.

She says, perhaps it was the weather. Maybe it was some argument I just had. It could have been that I was in a mood for no other reason. It just was what it was. I walked into my bedroom, dragging my heels across the carpet, feeling the empty absence of a smile on my face. Out of habit and reflex, I thought to myself, I need to watch a movie or something to make me happy. I stopped dead in my tracks at the realization of what I had just said to myself. I needed something outside of myself to make me happy that watching some funny video or listening to an upbeat song

would create happiness for me. Is this what addiction is? Is this what drugies and alcoholics tell themselves in the dark of the night when doubts and fears come rushing in without respite? I need to do this to make me happy right here, right now, in this second. Why would I need something to make me feel better? Am I devoid of the power to be happy for no reason other than just because the stars still shine in the darkness? A thought struck me then.

Why do I feel the need to be happy at all? Can I not just take what I'm feeling in this moment and live with it, make space for it to simply be for a while, and then send it off with my love and thanks. Why do I need to be happy at all? Can I not just take what I'm feeling in this moment and live with it? So I think that's a very beautiful expression of taking refuge in the Dharma,

in the truth of what's right here. And in the moments that we do that we really surrender, The poet Ria Khan says, drift east, drift west, come and go, entrusting yourself to the waves, when we really surrender, when we really lift our heart towards heaven, towards the aliveness of the present moment, we discover a wholeness and a peace and a freedom that we can't imagine. So we'll just take a moment to do a reflection on this first refuge together, and then we'll explore the other two. so you get an opportunity to just kind of taste,

taking refuge in the Dharma in the truth. So come sitting in a way that allow you to tune in and feel alert and relaxed, take a few full breaths, and then begin to inquire for yourself what taking refuge in the Dharma means to you. And begin with the outer Dharma, sense what the outer or engage ways of living serve you on your path. Is it a formal practice of meditation? Is that your

external way of taking refuge? Coming to classes, listening to talks, going for walks in nature? What's the outer expression of refuge in the path for you? What are the the activities that truly deepen your understanding of reality, of truth. You might sense as you bring to mind what really serves your spiritual awakening, a sincere commitment towards that. This is beginning to set the groundwork for the end of the evening ritual. Your commitment to taking refuge in the path and truth, the outer ways, And then we together take a moment to take refuge and truth in the inner way, just sensing the life that's right here with all the sincerity and innocence and care

that you can bring towards that. What's it like right now? Let yourself listen to the sounds that are here. Let yourself feel the aliveness of the body. This is from the Radiant Sutras. as a tend to the skin, as a subtle boundary containing vastness, and then enter that shimmering and pulsing vastness. Experience the substance of the body and the world as made up of vibrating particles,

and these particles made up of even finer energy particles. Soften and let go, sensing the space inside and around you, drifting more deeply, feel Feel into each particle as it condenses from infinity and dissolves back into continuously. Feel into each particle as it condenses from infinity and dissolves back into it continuously. Noticing this breathe easily with infinity dancing everywhere. Taking a few full breaths and coming back. So we've explored the first refuge, refuge in the truth of what is, the aliveness that's right here. And it can be a very brief entry into refuge where you just say, okay, breathe and see what's

around you and listen to the sounds or it can be very deep to the level of subtle vibrating particles and either way you're coming home. Now the second refuge is called Sangha, which means company of friends, spiritual friends. Taking refuge in a Sangha is taking refuge in your friendship, in your loved ones and family, spiritual community. So the outer refuge is really our engagement with each other. And it's one of the great follies in spiritual life to think that it's more important to be going inward and paying attention to the life inside us than paying attention to the life between us. I mean, why would it be really a true spiritual thing, the one that goes to the cave and, you know, gets completely

quiet inside? Why isn't it just as spiritual to be really awake with each other and feel the field of loving that really connects us? So the second refuge is loving presence and it's engaged ways that we begin to, you know, really challenge the judgments that separate us. We begin to really look at each other and see the vulnerability that's there and no, it's not my fear or your fear, but it's the fear. that we share as organisms that feel vulnerable on planet Earth? It's looking at each other and seeing the goodness. Pema Chodran describes it in a very simple way.

She says, we don't set out to save the world. We set out to wonder how other people are doing and to reflect on how our actions affect other people's hearts. Isn't that beautiful? We're not trying to save the world. actually in a very real way sensing, well, how does it affect people when I do this? Does it make them feel judged? Does it make a person get tighter? Do they feel guilty? Can we understand each other a little better? So we take refuge in a formal outward way.

of us through spiritual friends groups. The IMCW community has really 35 groups that meet every other week or whatever, groups of about eight people where there's a sharing and an intimacy around practice. Our 12-step groups for some people are in our individual relationships. We very much pay attention to the quality of, you know, how much are we really here with each other? Can we speak the truth and be vulnerable? Can we really listen? Very, very powerful to take refuge in community. There's a story from one African tribe. When someone violates the rules and customs, they call together a gathering of all the members

and form one great circle. That person's in the middle. Everyone in the tribe tells that person what is good about them, stories about good, kind, generous things they've done in their life. This ritual recitation can last for several days and when over the circles broke. and everyone celebrates as that person feels their welcome to the tribe again. That's just an example of a ritual, but it can be much simpler as one woman came to me and her son was struggling with some disabilities, early 20s, and she was so afraid he wouldn't find his niche in life.

And she said, you know, should I pray for him and imagine him sound, you know, surrounded by white light? or she was just really scared that his life wasn't going to work out. And my suggestion was really simple, which is just meditate on his goodness. Just see what it is you love about him, and just keep remembering that. It's so contagious when we see each other's light and in some way mirror that back.

It's the greatest gift we can do. So whether we do it with our children, our parents, our friends, friends, we're in some way we let them know. I love you and here's why, here's what's beautiful about you. We all need that reminder. Refuge and Sanga in love. We need to know how to hold ourselves our inner life also. One story Gilles Franzdale tells us from his book A Monastery Within, an engineer who visited the monastery regularly, tried all sorts of different practices, but nothing seemed to overcome this chronic unhappiness. So he couldn't seem to find a way out, and finally the abbess decided to approach it differently and gave him a special

practice when he had to do outside of the monastery for two years. When he repeated, he could then come back for deeper teachings. And this was the practice. He was volunteering 10 hours a week at a maternity ward, at a hospital, holding babies who were born prematurely. Without enough physical contact, they couldn't grow healthfully. So he plunged in and he'd hold these fragile little beings ever so carefully watching their every breath, you know, seeming, dissenting the danger if they stop breathing. And what he found most effective was to hold them very gently against his own chest. He was asking what they needed. Six months past, he felt something new, a little spot of warmth and softness in the very center of his being.

It was foreign, didn't fit his ideas of himself, who ignored it, not thinking it out. And that's good because it would have interfered with the warmth because he was thinking, thinking. Over months, the warmth expanded to fill his whole body and gradually dissolved the dark, hardened wall around his heart. He completed his time, returned, the Abbas saw he was transformed, no longer desperate, no longer trying to fit everything into a conceptual framework. her new instructions. When you meditate, don't think about what is happening. Rather, let your awareness be seated in the tender warmth you feel in your body. If you do this, any other meditation practice you do will be fruitful. And the man found this to be true.

This is refuge in love. We're talking about the second refuge. We take refuge in love in our external relationships, we take refuge by holding the parts of our own being that are fragile and scared with tenderness and by paying attention to that warmth, that tenderness in our heart, so that we're actually sitting at and allowing it to fill our whole being. Refuge and love. So I'll invite you to reflect for a moment as we did with refuge in truth. And as I mentioned, we're going to lead in from these reflections right into our ceremony. So in this one you're reflecting on refuge in Sanga or love. And just to begin by sensing in an outer way, what are the relationships that are teaching

you, that are growing you? Are there individual relationships where you feel like your hearts are waking up, where you're relating more and more consciously and intentionally? Are there groups you're in that are helping to awaken? this heart space? Where are you taking refuge in Sanga in your life right now? And as you reflect on this, you might sense your intention to deepen your commitment there, to continue in this journey of finding refuge that can be so radically healing and freeing. Oliver writes, so every day, so every day,

I was surrounded by the beautiful crying forth of the ideas of God, one of which was you. Can we see that light, that God, that sacredness in each other? You might sense the inner refuge of love by just bringing to mind first someone who's easy to love, child, your dog, friend, and just feel that being loving you. Sense what their eyes look like, sense what their face looks like. Just let it in some. and feel your love for that being for his or her goodness so that you can kind of feel the heart space that opens up

as that engineer did just to pay attention to that warmth. You don't have to think about what's happening. Just absorb yourself into that warmth and light in the heart area. To take refuge in love is just to be that loving. Just let it fill you and let it radiate through every cell, the spaces between the cells, just be that loving light, and you're taking refuge in love,

taking a few full breaths. The last of the refuge is I'll name, and I'm going to name it briefly because it doesn't take as much to speak of it because you really can't use too many words, is refuge in the Buddha, our Buddha nature, which is really refuge in the awakened consciousness itself. And when we take refuge, there's a saying that's great.

If you don't become the ocean, if you don't become that Buddha nature, that awareness itself, you'll be seasick every day, okay? So I think it's a great expression. The outer way of taking refuge in the Buddha or Buddha nature is by sensing some form, some being, whether it's the Buddha or Christ or Nelson Mandela or the Dalai Lama or Mother Mary or the goddess, some image of the goddess, some image or form that is an expression of that awakened heart and just sense coming through those eyes and that beingness, the spirit itself.

That's one way in. It's just to bring up a being. And then the other way is just to pay attention to the awareness you sense right in the moment when you're really, really quiet. So I invite you again for the last time as an inner reflection, just to close your eyes. And you might ask yourself, what does taking refuge in Buddha nature and the enlightened heart mind, the awakened heart mind mean to me? How do I touch into that?

And with some perhaps interest or curiosity, you might invite into your field of attention some some being, some manifest being that you sense in some way radiates or expresses that loving presence. And just see the form of that person or might be a deity or might be just a kind of a sense of a being of light, form. Just sense what shines through. Imagine. image in the radiance and light.

And sense that same awakeness of consciousness, bathing you and arising through you, filling every cell, illuminating you. These are the words of the poet He face. He says, one day the sun admitted, I'm just a shadow. I wish I could show you the infinite, incandescence that had cast my brilliant image. I wish I could show you when you're lonely or in darkness the astonishing light of your own being. To take refuge in the Buddha is to take refuge

in this luminous awareness itself that's our very source. Staying on silence, taking a few breaths, please open up your eyes. We're going to just move seamlessly and to this final bit of the ceremony, because you've done the reflections, to set the groundwork. You're going to need to identify somebody nearby that's going to help you to tie the final knot on your cord. So if you can stay on silence completely,

but kind of notice somebody near you and agree that you're going to be partners, and if there's no one near you can have three people, maybe we'll do a stand-up together. If you already have a thread, hold the two ends in your hand. And this is considered to be the thread from the hem of the robe of a monk or a nun. Okay? And it's called a protection cord.

And when Chogim Trunkba, a Tibetan teacher, was asked, well, what does it protect us from? His response was, well, yourself, of course. So this is protection from the, whether it's the lizard brain or the squirrel or the monkey that's out of control in some way and getting us waylaid, okay? And it's a sense is that once you infuse it with your deep intention for awakening and you wear it either on your wrist, you can have your partner tie it on your wrist or around your neck, it's a reminder.

It's a very beautiful reminder to deepen on the past. path. So, by way of reflection, closing your eyes, holding two ends of the cord, we will again just one by one sense each of these refuges to a full, loving, awake presence. And you might sense, okay, refuge in the Buddha. I take refuge in the Buddha or Buddha nature. I take refuge and awareness and just sense that luminosity, that awakeness, that space of luminous, awake presence that you sense through an awake being and that you can sense as a very source of your own being, feeling your intention for homecoming, for refuge in the Buddha as a prayerfulness. It's like lifting your heart towards heaven, really.

offering, surrendering into, opening to this luminosity. And as you feel ready, tying the first knot into the cord, taking refuge and awareness in Buddha nature. You're reflecting on the second refuge, refuge in Dharma and the truth, and the path. The outer ways of Dharma, deepening practice, classes, listening to talk. all that deepens our understanding and the innermost way of refuge, this dedication to taking refuge in living presence, this moment, right here. As you feel that prayerfulness and dedication, refuge in Dharma, please tie the second

knot. And the final reflection, I take refuge in the Sangha, the community of spiritual friends, and And really in the largest way in the field of all beings, taking refuge and sensing in your own heart and mind what it means to you to deepen your refuge in Sangha. Conscious relationships with loved ones, loving relatedness with your own inner experience, holding your own being with love. And just being that loving and as you feel that sense of prayerfulness, to take refuge in Sanga.

Please tie the last knot. And as a living activity of Sanga now, we get to help each other, which is really sweet. So turning to your partner if you have two people, and taking turns, so letting your partner know how you want to do it. If you want it around your neck, you have to put the string behind your neck. And see if you can stay on silence for this.

If you can stay quiet, that's best. They can be awkward, and they can take a little time. So be patient with yourselves. And if you're done and you see anyone else needing help, this is the chance to extend a hand. And when you're done, please thank your partner and come sitting down for the final few moments of silence.

And for the last time this evening, let's just close our eyes, far from being an individual action, this taking refuge, just bringing our sincerity towards present. ripples out and touches all beings everywhere. So we close tonight with a loving kindness prayer for all beings, just to feel that with this refuge string,

this blessing cord that you're wearing, that it can be a reminder each day, each moment, to come into presence, to come into that love that can really bring peace, happy, happiness and well-being to all that you meet. May all beings everywhere realize their deepest nature as loving presence. May all beings live from loving presence. May all beings touch a great and natural peace.

May there be peace on earth. May there be peace on earth. May there be peace on earth and peace everywhere. May all beings awaken and be free. Namaste and blessings. 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.