Tara Brach - Pathways to a Grateful Heart

Episode Date: November 23, 2011

2011-11-23 - Pathways to a Grateful Heart - When we are filled with gratitude, we are living from the most sincere, awake part of our being. This talk explores three pathways of practice that open us to serving and savoring this life. Please support this podcast by donating at www.tarabrach.com or www.imcw.org. Your donation makes a difference! Thank you!

I have a friend who went to Burma, one fall to meditate at retreat centers for, I think he was there for a couple of months. And by the end of it, very calm and open-hearted. And he thought, you know, perhaps this is really what spiritual awakening is. It felt really, really good. Then he went home for Thanksgiving. I don't know if I need to tell you the rest of the spring. story. It happens a lot. People go to retreats or have very deep experiences and then go home and spend time with their families of origin and it triggers things. And so it seems appropriate to mention

here on the holidays that old patterns are easily come to life. And if we can not only forgive ourselves and each other, but actually sense, well, what is this holiday about? This one is probably my favorite because it's most clear in its intention to remind us to really cherish this life, to be grateful. And I know I find for myself, and I've heard other people say this, that in the days leading up to Thanksgiving, I can't get away of my normal kind of complaints to go through my mind this quickly, I kind of catch myself more quickly, that mood of being oppressed by too much to do or feeling beleaguered, and it just gets lifted more quickly because there's a little more remembrance,

which is really the gift of this season if we take it. My sense is that there's probably not one of us that doesn't really value the experience of feeling grateful and the experience of generosity. It's kind of universal that we that we really value it. And when it's for real in us, when it, and when I mean for real, it's visceral when it's alive in us, that sense of gratitude. There's a sense of homecoming. It feels like we're more who we really are in those moments when we're appreciative. It's very sweet. It has a kind of innocence to it. And I bring that up because, you know, if you think of the happiest people you know, there are people that are, they're very grateful and they're also very generous, really happy people.

So it correlates with science. If you've been reading, the papers are great on the day before Thanksgiving. They have articles on gratitude and they're now more and more talking about the science that shows, you know, the MRI scans that when somebody's grateful certain parts of the brain light up and it's the same parts of the brain that correlate with happiness and with ease and with calm and positive feelings. In a similar way, when we're giving and generous, endorphins are flowing. We feel good. The opposite side of that is when

gratitude is blocked when we're unable to feel access to it when we're unable to give when it when giving isn't available to us they're suffering a story I've always liked a man dies and finds himself in this beautiful place and he's surrounded by every conceivable pleasure and comfort and a white-jacketed man comes to him and says you know you can have anything you choose, any food, any pleasure, any kind of entertainment, and the guy's delighted. And for days, he samples all the delicacies and everything he's dreamed of on earth. He's sampling. But finally one day the attendant comes to him and he says, you know, I'm tired of all this. I need something to do. What kind of work can you give me? I'd like to do

something that's helpful. And the attendant shook his head. And he said, you know, I'm sorry, sir, that's the one thing we can't do for you. There's no work for you here. There's no way you can serve. And to which the man answered, that's a fine thing. Mine is, we'll be in hell. And the attendant said softly, where do you think you are? So often we are chasing after things we think will give us happiness,

and they just don't work. And there is a quality of what we've, call hell the real suffering of just eternally seeking and so what I'd like to do tonight is look at really what blocks us in our lives from that open-heartedness where we really are grateful and from that freedom to give without holding back to give without fear to give with joy what blocks us as I often do I as I like to start with an evolutionary perspective, mostly because it's helped me so much not to take things personally. Science is great for that. If you really study it, you really get that we're

conditioned to be the way we are and you get very forgiving, which of course sets a mood that allows us to become more who we want to be. So it works. So from an evolutionary perspective, of the primal stressor of danger activates our limbic system. And so the more primitive parts of the brain are in action. And when those parts are in action, which help us survive, they overwhelm the more recently developed parts of the brain, the prefrontal cortex, which is where the centers are that have to do with cooperation, with generosity, with empathy, with giving.

So to the degree that we're stressed, to the degree with whether it's the culture or our families of origin, or whatever's happening in the moment that's stressful, to the degree that the limbic system is activated, it overrides the parts of our brain and the parts of our psyche and heart that really incline us towards the presence and generosity and gratitude that really has us feel whole. and alive. So stress. Now, this is a real oversimplification, but when we're stressed, the basic mood is something's wrong. Something's missing right now. We get hooked in. And if there's been a lot of wounding in our childhood, trauma, abuse, are in some way emotional upset, what happens is that that primal sense of something's missing, something's wrong, we lock into what are called substitute gratifications. We just lock into going for things to make

us feel better. And they're called substitutes, or I call them often false refuges. Not because they're bad. They're the best we could find for the moment, but because they really don't deliver. That's why they're described as false refuges. So, for instance, we might experience in our early childhood the message that you're not good enough. And then we lock into this substitute gratification, trying to achieve or perform in a way that will finally prove I'm enough. How many of us know that? want you don't have to raise your hands but that in some way our school systems and our culture and what our culture values makes us be striving for it to meet these standards to prove ourselves

and feel enough and then we get hooked on that because as so many of us know it doesn't matter how much you achieve you'll very quickly be feeling driven to try to prove yourself you yet again. It doesn't last very long. So there's that saying that even if you win the rat ways, you're still a rat, you know, that we're still stuck. We're still feeling like we have to chase after something. Now, I'm talking about this because if you're hooked on substitutes, there's no sense of gratitude. There's a sense of something's missing. I need something more. Okay, so we chase that. It's like drinking salt water.

You know, we keep drinking it, but it never satisfies. There's never a sense of, ah, enough, gratitude. There's never a sense we can give back because we're still so desperately trying, our limbic systems driving us for more. I remember one of, I met Jonathan, my husband, I guess it's been about eight years ago, and I remember one of the first jokes he told me after we met. It tells me a lot of jokes. But this one, a woman was sitting on a park bench and a scruffy-looking guy comes and sits down next to her.

So she looks at him and says, so, you know, who are you? Where are you from? And he goes, oh, I just got out of prison. And she looks at him and says, well, what did you get out of prison for? And he said, well, I murdered my wife. She says, so, you're single. Well, first off, you wonder what message you was trying to give me. So maybe she was in the present moment and truly appreciating him, but that's not the point of the joke. So we look at relationships because that's one of the primary areas of substitute gratification, that we're trying to get the other person to help us feel okay about ourselves or loved or in control or whatever it is. And you might even just sense for yourself.

you know, in a relationship, the ratio between criticism maybe to gratitude. You know, that how often the tendency or the conditioning in our close relationships are to in some way try to control things. And remember, in a moment of controlling, in a moment of trying to have the other person be a certain way, that's a moment that we are blocked from the parts of our heart and mind that allow for gratitude, for generosity. Controlling and gratitude don't go together. So we think of our relationships in that way and we wonder, you know, and sense, you know, how much is going on in them that is really in some way a habit that's keeping us from the purity of just seeing. to someone and appreciating, oh, look at the aliveness and goodness and creativity of this being.

If you've been with me before on this particular evening, you'll remember the story about an old man in Phoenix who calls a son in New York and says, you know, I hate to ruin your day, but I have to tell you, your mother and I are divorcing. 45 years of misery is enough. Pop, what are you talking about? The sun screams. We can't stand the sight of each other any longer. The old man says, we're sick and tired of each other, and I'm sick and tired of talking about this. So you call your sister in Chicago and tell her, click, hands up. She calls Phoenix immediately and screams at the old man.

You're not getting divorced. Don't do a single thing until I get there. I'm calling my brother back and we'll both be there tomorrow. Until then, don't do a thing. Do you hear me? She hangs up. Okay? The old man hangs up his phone and turns to his wife.

okay he says they're coming for thanksgiving and they're paying their own way so again we're talking about how we move through our life whether it's performing and proving ourselves and how we're hooked on that so we can't really enjoy what we're doing we can't appreciate the moments are we're hooked on the way we're trying to control or we're reactive in a relationship can't appreciate who's there One of the areas I think about a lot now is because of the economy is how much this economy and the drive to consume and grow fuels probably one of the deepest false refuges we take. This addiction to consuming. We have it on many levels. I mean, many, many, many of us have food addictions.

It's the earliest way that we can try to soothe ourselves when we're upset. So that's, you know, we can see that one big time. But then in general, this economy we're in, would crash if there was more people having a sense of enough. Gratitude and our economy don't go together. If more of us felt a comfort with what we have, if we didn't feel such a need to keep replacing things or having yet the next model of the iPhone or whatever it is, if we didn't have that grasping in us to try to feel better and enjoy life through acquisition, through possessions, the economy would falter.

Somebody wrote, the economy would crash even a small percent more of the time we lived with a sense of enough. And then there's a story of an executive who quits the fast track to have more time to spend with his possessions. So I'm mentioning the culture

because the culture is part of what keeps us on that wheel where we're trying to in some way feed an addiction, trying to feel better about something, rather than the one place we can be that allows us to experience gratitude, which is presence. As long as there's a sense of, I need more of this, something's missing, something's wrong. We cannot arrive in the presence that gives rise to gratitude. Research has shown that when people's basic needs are met, they're just as happy as people that have a whole lot of money. There's no correlation to having a lot of money and happiness.

I love this story. This is another bit of research writer James. Aggie illustrates in one of his books some of his experiences during the Great Depression. He found an impoverished elderly woman in the hollows of Appalachia. And she's living in this tiny shack with no floors and no heat. and no plumbing. So we asked the woman, what would you do if someone came along and gave you some money to help you out? The old woman rocks in her chair and then she finally shook her head and she said, well, I guess I just give it to the poor. True story. True story. So we're discussing or exploring really the suffering that comes when we're caught in this conditioning

that always is sensing something's wrong and something's missing. And in the Buddhist tradition, it's called dukkha. And sometimes that's translated as suffering, but it really means discontent. And if we're honest, if we watch our minds and watch our habits, most moments, there's a sense of trying to have the next moment contain what this moment does not.

So what cultivates this quality of open-heartedness that we really love when we're feeling it is finding our pathway back to presence. It means noticing when we're in that mind state of something's wrong, something's missing, and finding our way back to this moment right here. So let's explore, I'd like to take the rest of the evening to explore, what I think of as the three pathways home to this open-heartedness. And I'll name them and then we'll just take them one by one. And with each one we'll do a short reflection so that we grounded experientially.

And the three ways are to love what is. In other words, come into presence with exactly what's right here. The second pathway is remembering what we love. And the third pathway is expressing our love. you'll notice the word love got in there every time okay so that we begin with loving what is and when I talk about loving what is I'm really talking about mindfulness of the present moment

it doesn't start by feeling that you're loving what is so it's misleading when we talk about loving what is we begin with presence with what is and I find it very useful to think of that presence in terms of the breath that just as you breathe in and you might close your eyes and just feel this the presence with what is as your breathing is in is this willingness to let whatever's happening touch you it's contacting the experience so we breathe in and we contact the experience of aliveness whether it's sadness or fear our physical discipline

discomfort, embarrassment. We breathe in and breathing in is that willingness to receive life just as it is. And just as with the physical breath, if we let ourselves breathe in without resistance, then we get nourished. We enhance our aliveness. And then the other part of presence is breathing out. And just as with the breath, if you don't breathe out all the way, if you can't really let go of the breath, there's not a release of what needs to return to the space that we belong to. So it's like giving. It's like generosity. We let go of our aliveness into the space of awareness, of love. So breathing in without resistance, being touched, breathing out, letting go. and you can take the entire practice of presence

and if you master this kind of breathing where you actually let yourself receive the moment and then let it go you'll be touching very deeply into the quality of full presence so we begin with this mindfulness and we step out of any construct of how life should be So let's say you're entering a situation with your family

and it's very quick to jump into how certain people should behave. Should you have a moment to pause? And should you have a moment to like in some way freeze the frame and leave the room and just breathe, you would put aside the should and you'd breathe and feel your anxiety or your anger or your wanting? Just breathe into what's really here. You'd put aside the ideas, the thoughts, the beliefs, and you breathe into what you're actually experiencing.

And then you breathe out and let it be held in the openness of space. And if you can keep on being present with that experience, you'll have stepped out of reactivity and feel a natural tenderness towards a situation. Presence with what is leads to loving what is. The heart becomes tender when you're fully present. I'd like to invite you just to close your eyes for a moment. And we'll just practice a little because really our entire experience of gratitude opens out of this capacity for presence.

And the greatest teaching is you always begin with the life that's right here, with whatever you're experiencing. So take a moment to sense what it means. means to be fully here. And you might let the breath guide you so that whatever you're experiencing in your body and your heart right now, whatever you've brought to this evening, perhaps what you've been carrying with you, whatever's just in this moment. As you breathe in, you let yourself contact it without any resistance. And it helps us to emphasize the in-breath for a few moments to really arrive, feeling,

the sensations in your body, the mood of the moment, feeling your heart, and begin to be aware that as you breathe out, there can be a natural letting go so that what you contact you're not holding on to. It's as if with the out breath you're letting it be released and letting it float in a very vast space of awareness of life. You're not holding on to it. Now as you're breathing, you might bring up a relationship in your mind with someone who you love but also judge. We mostly, we know those. So a relationship that you have with someone that you love but you also know you judge and let yourself bring to mind something that triggers the judgment and continue to breathe in and out as you let go of your ideas about that.

and just feel the feelings of judging or of annoyance, of fear, whatever it is under there. You're paying attention to something you judge the person for and just feeling the feelings with the breaths. You breathe in and let yourself feel the feelings. And you breathe out and sense the space of awareness that they're in. Mindfulness includes both contact and space. Contact

and a sense of the space in the room, the space in your mind, the space in your heart, space in this world. So you're sensing what you judge and like a wind you're letting it move into you and through you and out. Same person sense what you appreciate. Send something you really really. something you really appreciate about this person. You might bring to mine away, this person expresses

love to you, what this person's alike when they're very happy and alive, whatever you appreciate. And breathe in and out those feelings, whatever comes up with that, feelings of love, tenderness. Just breathe in and let yourself contact the feeling. Breathe out and let it float in space. And now include both. Include in your awareness both what you're judging the person for and what you appreciate. Notice what happens when you breathe in

and let it all be there, this inclusivity, when you're including all of this person, breathing in, contacting, breathing out, sensing the space of awareness. You might get the taste of unconditional love if you imagine what it would be like to just truly accept

all of this person, sensing the presence that loves what is when you're ready, open your eyes. So this is the first pathway where we begin with a life that's right here and we begin by bringing a presence to what's right here to all of what's right here.

We breathe in and let ourselves feel it, we breathe out, we let it be held in the space of mindful awareness and we find if we're really inclusive and present, that presence has a tenderness and an appreciation, that we begin to just love life as it is. Okay, pathway number one. Now, the second pathway that we'll explore is remembering what we love. And it's a real challenge in daily life, and the reason it's a challenge, again, comes back to evolution, which is our brains and our emotions are designed.

to fixate on what's wrong so that we can survive so we can protect ourselves so we can anticipate trouble and so as they say we're velcro for bad experiences we really remember them the good experiences kind of slide by a little teflon like right so that's our evolutionary conditioning that the limbic system the imprint of memory is much stronger for negative so it takes a commitment It takes a practice to train the mind to remember the blessings, the beauty, the mystery, the love that's here. Just to remember that. What happens when we don't is even if we're not fixating on major drama that's wrong, we tend to get hooked by the niggling little parts of life that can sour us. It's, you've ever noticed what it's like to wait in line at a post office when it's a really long line.

And somebody with all the packages in front of us are what it's like when, you know, if you break a nail or you realize you've run out of your favorite cereal in the morning or whatever it is, little things, our minds get hooked. So this practice of remembering what we love is a really deeply freeing one. It starts training us to access that perspective and free us up in the little moments. So a favorite poem for you. And this is, he's written by David Budbill, and it's called Bugs in a Bowl. I say that's right. Up the sides and back down, round and round over and over again. Sit in the bottom of the bowl, head in your hands, cry and moan.

Or look around. See your fellow bugs. Say hi. How you doing? Say, nice bowl. Bugs in a bowl. So what about that? You know, these lives, you know, we are just kind of going around doing these things that we take so seriously. We think it's so important. So hi, how you doing? You know, nice bowl. Anyway, the Buddha said whatever you frequently dwell on, to that, the mind will be inclined. And it can be very humbling when we start sensing what the great swath of time of our day is like what we're really paying attention to. And for many of us, it's worry thoughts and planning thoughts and how can I get myself more comfortable and how can I get something done and oh my God, there's not enough time. That's the kind of thing. And so, you know from a scientific point of view that those neuropathways get strengthened over and over again whatever highways our thoughts travel they become the most wide and the most well set up for more

thoughts so we can choose what we pay attention to you know we can remember what we love and the training that i like it's got two basic parts one of them is in the traditional buddhist practice is called Meta, are the loving kindness practice, where we intentionally see the goodness of others, and we offer care. We in some way offer our blessings. We see, as Thomas Merton said, the secret beauty that's always there behind the mask of personality.

So that's one of the ways that we remember what we love. We just meditate on that. We see the goodness. The second way is more broad, where we actually sense our gratitude for the beauty and the mystery and the wonders of this world. Most times when I have the opportunity to do a workshop on meditation, one of the day longs or the workshops I do at Cropallo or Omega, I'll always do a gratitude reflection that starts with this inquiry. please tell me what do you love? And the question's asked over and over again, and one person has to spend three minutes

just answering that question over and over again. And it's probably my favorite meditation in the world. It's my favorite thing to watch people do because as I watch people say what they love, they move from a face that's got kind of tight muscles sometimes and a little bit of a slump to this kind of open, radiance. We come home when we're remembering what we love.

We turn into love itself. So that's the second one that we begin to practice. And it's quite beautiful. Kurt Vonnegut said, When things are going sweetly and peacefully, please pause for a moment and then say out loud, if this isn't nice, what is? So we start remembering.

We start telling ourselves, this is it. This is beautiful. One of the wonderful stories I love to share on this line is a man named Kabir was a shoemaker. And as he worked, he always repeated this mantra, Ram, Ram, Ram, Ram is one of the names for God, Sanskrit name for God, or the sacred or the divine. So day and day out, Ram, Ram, Ram, Ram, as he worked. really just loving his work. And so he did it for 20 years

and then all of a sudden Rahm appeared. And Kabir says, who are you? And Ram says, I'm Ram, you know. Well, why are you here? Why am I here? You've been calling me for years. He said, now I've come. What do you want?

And Kabir says, I don't want anything. And so Ram asked him, well, why have you been repeating my name? And the response was, I just love repeating your name. I just love it. So then for the years to come, wherever Kabir would go, he'd be followed by Rom and the sound, Kabir, Kabir, Kabir. So we begin as we fall in love with life and remember what we love, to just feel that loving, feel that gratitude, and it becomes more and more inclusive.

where we find it's the simple things. We're not racing after some substitute gratification and finally we got the money or we got the raise or we got what seemed like the perfect mate. It's not that. It's the real simple things. It's just our everyday work and our everyday contact with each other and just the look of the silhouette of the trees against the sky

and the smell of autumn. It's the very simple things. And something in us is going rom, rom, rom, in our own way. We just feel grateful. So we practice that. And there are formal practices that are that people do. One of my favorite practices that I love is, you know,

and I did for quite a while, was I had a buddy, kind of an email buddy. and once a day we would just email them. All we do is say something we were grateful for for the day. And it's really, really nice to have a gratitude buddy. And some of the other, this was in the newspaper today, they did some research and people kept a journal, and all they had to do was once a week,

write down five different things that they were grateful for, just a sentence. And they did a before or after, and there was a quite significant effect of feeling more optimistic and happier after, let's see how long it was, two months, two months, just once a week, writing in a journal five things. It has an effect, it retrains our brain in a way that's really, really delicious and wonderful. Okay, so let's do our practice for this pathway now. And as a way of beginning, just sense this pause, just coming home with mindfulness to what's right here.

Feel your body, feel the aliveness in your body, and feel your heart. So that letting this breath come into your heart, touching your heart, breathing out, releasing, letting go. Our practice of remembrance will be one that we do out loud. So I'm going to invite you to whisper unself-consciously. Just whisper. And you whisper either I'm grateful that or I'm grateful for or I love. And as soon as you've whispered one thing, just pause and sense the next thing you want to whisper that you're grateful for. So we'll all be doing this together and just feel free to feel your heart, pause, and then whisper again.

I'm grateful for. Please begin. whispering a little louder. I can't hear you. Okay, so now coming into silence, picking one thing that you name that you love

and letting that be right here. Something that you love, something that you're deeply grateful for, so that you're sensing how much it means to the person or the experience. And then just let letting go of the object, what you're loving or grateful for and just feel the gratitude and

love itself. Just feel your heart, the warmth, the space, the glow and sense who you are when gratitude wakes up in you, when you feel awash in love or gratitude. When you're ready, take a few full breaths and open your eyes. that's the second pathway. And you might sense in that the possibility that you could choose over these next months to explore this as a regular practice. And you will have given yourself a gift that can really bring happiness. So the third pathway is expressing our love, that we not only feel the gratitude, but there's this kind of generosity where we offer blessings or

kindness or prayer, where we express and give out. And I love the line from Rumi, which is, let the beauty we love be what we do. There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground. So we express this love of living. Each morning I wake up torn between the urge to serve and savor, writes E.B. White. So we do both. We savor breathing in and breathing out we serve that I'd share with you there's a few quotes from children about love that have this spirit of generosity 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 one love is when you go out to eat and give somebody most of your french fries without making them give you any of theirs love is when mommy sees daddy 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 alone all day when you love somebody your eyelashes go up and down and little stars come out of you 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 and one more I know my older sister loves me because she gives me all of her old clothes and has to go out

and buy new one for herself so when we talk of generosity there are levels you know there are levels and we can be generous and just kind of give away what we don't need so much. Are we can give away in a very deep way. You know, we can give so that it feels truly like giving. And there's sometimes a training period where we practice a little and we find an incredible deliciousness in giving. The Buddha said that there's a sweetness in considering the way we want to give and then in the giving and then in the remembrance of it. And I know one of my own ways of training has been that this had I was probably about 15 years ago I decided that whenever I had a thought of something I was going to give to be generous I was I would I was committed from that

thought on and it was kind of scary because I'd have these you know I'd think oh god I'm going to get these outrageous thoughts and I'm going to bankrupt me and my family you know but it's not like that and what happens is I'll get a thought and I'll see a little bit of me pull back again but it's so nice I've already pre-decided. And then I find out that I didn't, it's not a loss, it's a gain. We get these riches in the moments of letting go. So maybe one last story for the evening that I'll share with you. Tetsugin, a devoted Zen practitioner and teacher in Japan, lived in the 1600s, and he decided to publish the sutras, which is the discourses of the Buddha. And at that time, were available only in Chinese.

So the books were to be printed in Japanese, and to accomplish this, it would take instruction of 60,000 wood blocks. So he began traveling to collect his donations, and bit by bit, he collected significant sum of money needed. A few sympathizers would give him a hundred pieces of gold, but most of the time he received only small coins. He thanked each donor with equal gratitude.

after 10 years, Tetsukin had enough money to begin his task. However, it happened that at that time, the UG River overflowed and crops were ruined. Famine followed. Tetsugan took the funds he had collected for the books and spent them to save others from starvation. Then he began again his work of collecting. Several years afterward, an epidemic spread over the country. Tetsugan again gave away what he had collected. For a third time he started his work, and after 20,

20 years his wish was fulfilled. The printing blocks which produced the first edition of sutras can be seen today in Obaku Monastery in Kyoto. The Japanese tell their children that Tetsugan made three sets of sutras and that the first two invisible sets surpass even the last. Tetsugan is celebrated January 1st of each year. So I think that's so beautiful. three sets of sutras, the first two invisible ones surpassed the last.

This is called kingly giving in the Buddhist text, and it really comes from an inner freedom. The practice of generosity both comes from an open-heartedness, and it cultivates open-heartedness. It's an expression of that inner freedom. This is the last pathway that we've been talking about, that when, when we're feeling that gratitude, that we express our love, that we express it in some way, whether it's expressing it by saying thank you,

which is absolutely a feeling of ecstasy when we really mean it, it feels so good to express our gratitude. When we say thank you, or we might bless somebody by seeing them and sensing that they're having a hard time and saying the words that will be comforting are giving that touch that's comforting,

that's generosity. Or we might express our love by seeing the beauty and goodness in someone and letting them know because we each need mirrors, we each need reminders. These are all forms of it. But there's also that generosity

where we give ourselves to what we believe in, where we sense something on this earth that is having struggle where we sense economic injustice where we sense the kind of dis-ease of our environment or we sense the amount of money going to a war effort

billions of dollars a day and not going to those that most needed we can then sense how can I give myself to what I believe in that's generosity too so it's all the different levels it can be as simple as really hugging someone we love and feeling our heart in that hug giving them love. Any level.

So as I said when I began, most of us value these qualities of breathing in and letting ourselves savor and be touched by life and breathing out and feeling this sense of giving and sharing of our being. And I love the breath as a metaphor that's quite real. as a way to practice. We value it. And we know when we're honest that we get blocked, that we can say, oh, yes, I feel grateful for such and such, or isn't it wonderful that such and such happen, but our hearts aren't feeling that resonance. Or we can give, but it's dutiful, and it's not coming from a feeling of real care. So we'll practice our last reflection now. We've explored loving what is.

You know, we've explored really just remembering what we love. And now it's expressing, expressing our love. Again, we pause and we let ourselves come home into presence. Just presence with what is. Feel where you are right now. These moments, this breath. And the first part of this reflection is to bring to mind someone in your life to whom you feel grateful,

someone that has helped you. It could be a person you know personally or a person that has helped you from a distance, someone to whom you feel grateful to. That has touched your life, touched your heart, helped you either in a material way or otherwise, but in some way offered care in your direction. And let yourself feel their care and feel your appreciation.

And as you feel touched, that person's giving to you or care. Feel your heart, feel your body, and whisper the words thank you. And then just take your time. It can be a quiet whisper, but whisper it again until you feel your thank you coming from the depths of your sincerity, from your heart. And if there's other words of thanks, you'd like to add to that simple thank you, feel free, but thank you can be enough. Being aware of the sense. of who you are when you're feeling gratitude and expressing it, kind of homecoming. And then bring to mind somebody that you know who's in difficulty, who's having a hard time,

somebody you care about, that's struggling in some way, and just bring them into your mind's eye and just sense the look on their face and what's really the challenge for them, the disappointment, feeling of rejection or loneliness or hurt. fear. And as you do, just sense that you could put your hand on that person's cheek or on shoulder and some way touch them and offer words that are from your heart and that are healing. Some words of care, of support, sense your own being who you are when you're offering, when you're giving. Sometimes it's described as the empty heart, empty of selfness.

because it's selfless and radiant, the empty radiant heart. Just breathing in again, feeling yourself breathing in and just touching what's here. Very simple presence of the heart. Breathing out, sensing that belonging to all awareness, all love.

You might sense how in the next 24 hours a simple way that you might bless someone, let them know their goodness, offer your affection. Practice this pathway of expressing love. We close in a simple way, feeling our shared prayer, that all beings everywhere awaken

this capacity to savor life, to breathe in and be touched by the beauty and mystery that's here, joys and the sorrows, and to breathe out and sense our giving, our generosity, our expression of love, the truth of belonging, may all beings realize this loving presence as their deepest nature.

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.