Tara Brach - Presence and Compassion in a Violent World

Episode Date: August 28, 2025

As our societies unravel in fear and reactivity, we are called to live from our most awake and wise heart. This talk and meditation was first offered to Satyam, a community of Palestinians, Israelis, and internationals devoted to creating a future of justice, safety, freedom, and dignity for all. It invites us to move beyond the conditioning of "bad-othering," and to cultivate clarity, compassion, and the capacity to respond in ways that seed healing.   In this talk, Tara explores:  how the trance of "bad othering" fuels division and how compassion can free us from blame. the practice of the U-turn—turning inward with kindness to transform anger, fear, and grief into care. the balance of a "strong back and soft front," cultivating courage and tenderness in times of violence. how seeing the suffering beneath harmful actions allows us to meet others with wise compassion. how presence, RAIN practice, and shared belonging can guide us toward healing and peace.

Greetings. We offer these podcasts freely and your support really makes a difference. To make a donation, please visit tarabrock.com. Namaste, welcome friends. I know many of you share my horror and my heartbreak over the masturbation in Gaza and the sheer scale of devastation, you know, the violent occupation of the West Bank, the ongoing captivity of hostages. And it's an intrinsic part of the path of compassion to be touch, to care, to respond. So, over the last few years I've been asked by both Israeli and Palestinian groups to explore with them how mindfulness and compassion practices can help them hold

and respond to the magnitude of being so close into this suffering. And last month I was invited to be a guest by David Gannati, who's the co-founder of a group named Satyam, to be a guest speaker. He and others have been on a hunger strike for Gaza for over 40 days. Today, you'll hear briefly from David, a clip taken from his 41st day of fasting about Satyam and the urgency of these times. And then I'll be sharing with you the talk that I shared with them and the questions that I received a few of them from the participants. By way of background, Satyam is a Palestinian initiative

that's held by Palestinians, Israelis, and internationals. And it's a new home still in its growth, and it's established to provide a safe, sane place for peace activists to rest and for the people of the land to come together and create change. So it's described as a refuge for sanity, a prayer for love, a space to co-create the world that we envision. So here is a very brief clip. That's 90 seconds of David's speaking,

and he's accompanied by his co-founder, My Shaheen. They take turns in doing these clips. This is the one that he did, and he's inviting listeners, including you, to join them for Zoom events, such as the one that I participated in. We are on day 41, and so many have joined

and it's a global movement. And we ask you to join us, to support us, because we need the world to watch and to say no, and to not support by silence or giving weapons, and uphold justice, and uphold us here to the highest of standards of moral that all in each religion is represented.

And we need you all to join us. We ask you to support. We ask you to speak up, and we ask you to join the movement, to join our daily Zooms that we're holding, bringing voices from Gaza, bringing voices from the West Bank, bringing voices from activists, from organizations that actually do the work and find ways to support each other and network and become so loud and so strong globally. We ask you to join our Zooms, if you wish, to join our social media, to share about us, to share about you,

to connect us to whoever you want to connect us with, that we become more and more. and this is a really heartfelt and heart-warm invitation to stop polarizing or to actually meet in the truth of the humanity and love and to stand with our actions and full power. Today is the day. There is no one to wait for.

There are no politicians to wait for. It's us. Let's do it together. Come join us. So friends, if you're moved to attend an event or support Satyam, are to donate toward feeding those in Gaza through other well-vetted organizations, please check my homepage.

There's an area entitled, Support for Palestinians in Gaza, and you'll find many useful links. Okay, so I want to now move to the talk that I offer to the Satyam community, and I want to thank you for listening, friends. We are joined in prayer for all who are suffering. I love that this is international and what most gives me hope is that that sense of the ones who can is so grounded in the spiritual truth that we're connected. You know, one life.

I love how Bill Hooks puts it that the moment we choose to love, we begin to move towards freedom, you know, to act in ways that liberate ourselves and others. So I feel like there's this choosing to love. And the reality is we're not alone and it's so easy to feel alone. It's so easy, it's so much our conditioning to forget our belonging. That is the trance, right? That we forget our belonging to our inner life, to this earth, to each other. So I'll speak a bit about what is helping me, you know, kind of feel like waking up through all of this. I mean, here in the United States, and I know some of you, I look through, some of you are from the United States, we're in this very sharp, rapid descent

into militarized authoritarianism. The progressive movement is fragmented and shocked and paralyzed and you know it, right? There's such conditioning right now, and it's just bearing witness. This is the survival brain to lock into fear and into bad othering, you know, into that aversion and that dehumanizing of other. And I know you're aware because I'm hearing this from May, from David, that if we don't know how to shift from that, sense of a bad evil other into that sense of we, you know, from I to we. If we don't

know how to shift into a heart space that can hold others, we can't bring healing to our world. And there's a myth that as I was listening just now that came to mind that I want to share with you. I first heard this from Michael Mead. It's this old native story story and it doesn't begin with once upon a time. It begins with this time, right here now. And it says that every human is searching for truth and it lies in a cave nearby and we don't always find it because we're so distracted by the trance, by anxiety, by reactivity, by the speed of these times. And inside the cave there's an old woman weaving the most beautiful garment ever imagined. But now and then she has to pause and go to the back of the cave and stir

this huge pot of seeds that hold all the seeds of the earth. And if they're not stirred, the seeds will burn and life itself vanishes. Okay? So while she's away, while she's in the back of the cave, a black dog slips in and unravels her weaving, thread by thread, until only chaos remains. And when she returns, she pauses, it's not in anger. She comes into stillness, into presence, into deep inner listening, and then she picks up a thread and in that thread she envisions an even more beautiful garment, one that didn't exist before the unraveling. This is possibility. and the elders say, don't curse the dog. And I know you're tracking this. Don't curse the dog.

I mean, if nothing fell apart, nothing new could be imagined. The old woman is the world, the dreaming force of the world, imagining itself into something new and better. So, my friends, when things fall apart as they are now, that dark night of the soul, it's an invitation to do just what Satyam is established to do, which is to pause and arrive here in stillness and presence and to do it together. Because that's where the remembrance is, to find what thread it is for ours to lift so we can re-weave the world.

And like the woman in the cave, the first step is to come into presence. Otherwise, it's our conditioning to blame the dog. It's so quick, it's so fast, it's so deep to create a bad other. So our minds might say yes, the enemy is the systems of harm. But we end up blaming humans. We blame ourselves, we blame people in our close in circles, we blame. This is what I want to spend a little time with how we can wake up for, you know, from the bad othering that keeps our hearts entrance and that fuels more unraveling,

wherever we find it. For some of you might know that you make yourself wrong in a way that's harsh and cruel. And for others, it's just so hard to hold the grief of what's happening that there is anger and hatred towards perpetrators. whatever the bad othering. So we'll do a practice that I love of awakening compassion when we're in that trance, okay? I'm imagining that most everyone here has some form of meditation or prayer or way of tending or healing. So what I'm going to do is just share two key elements that feel crucial in waking up from that trance, you know, blame me.

the dog, feeling this us them to come into an inclusive heart. And I'll tell you the two steps and then I'll just kind of walk through them a little. The first step is learning how when we're triggered to go right into our inner life and hold it with kindness. And the second is to how to see past the mask when we've got a kind of bad other going on. I'm going to share personally that like many, I get caught in the trance. My pattern of reactivity is I bad other when those that are the most vulnerable or violated.

That's the reflex, is just an anger, an aversion. Like when children are violated right here in the United States, billionaires just cut USAID, it's already estimated to have cost the deaths of 200,000 children, living precious beings, gone. And then daily, and so many of you are so close in that I need to name the buffer of privilege so that it's not as traumatizing, but still. breaks my heart. What's going on in Gaza? I mean, just today, reading the paper, it's just unbelievable, unfathomable, horrible. David said the grief that we can only hold

a fraction of it to sense human beings being killed by the military when they're trying to seek water and food. It's hard. to be with. So for me, it first goes to outrage and aversion and blame. And by the way, I'll say that we need anger. It's a part of it. One of my dear friends and teachers says anger is initiatory. It's not transformational, but we need it. So what I do, what I did this morning after I heard the news is what I call the U-turn. It's just taking the energy that's angry and blaming outward and coming with interest and gentleness, okay, what's happening inside, what's really happening? And if I feel under the anger and the blame, there's fear.

And if I can hold that with presence and kindness, what I find is I'm afraid it's just going to keep happening. there's going to be more and more harm and then it goes into powerlessness. And if I can stay and let that be there and hold that with compassion, I'm putting my hand on my heart because I often do that. I'll sit here and just offer kindness to that. Then underneath that powerlessness is that grief. And if I can let my heart break open in grieving,

then I come into care. There's care. It's because we wouldn't be angry and we wouldn't be grieving if we didn't care about something. And the care is where there's the clarity and courage to do what we can. It comes from care if we want to be transformational. This is the first step, the U-turn, this taking the blame and coming right in here with compassion. Now, what I want to say is that. that if others are trying to harm us, if others are trying to harm others and that we care

about, if we're being abused, compassion can seem, and this is the question I get, it can seem weak like it's a setup for more harm, like it's a spiritual bypass. I'm sure that's a familiar word, right? Spiritual bypass? Yeah, no. So what it means is that it seems like we're being spiritual, oh, I'm holding this with great compassion, but we're actually not facing the reality of the raw hurt and harm and wound and pain and that there's a step before compassion, which is to open to the harshness and the pain of it. So, one of the things I think we all know is that it's not possible when we're in full trauma to open it. into full presence, truth, and compassion.

I mean, first, we have to feel the safety enough, safe enough, that we can calm our nervous system some. And I think one of the powerful messages of Satcham is the ones who can. Because, and I really want to thank you for that language, because it's those that are not in the full grip of trauma who can hold hands, hold each other, and dedicate to the compassion that lets our activism be transformational, the ones who can. Compassion has two facets, and this has forgotten a lot.

One facet is it's got a fierce clarity, it's engaged, it's protective, and the other facet is it's tender and receptive. And one of my friends, Roshi Joan Halifax, some of you may have heard of her, she calls this having a strong back and a soft front. And this is what we're going to be practicing today. How do we have a strong back and a soft front? I mean, how do we have that strong back where we have the clarity and the courage to be the ones that can, to protect, to stand up for justice? and if we want our actions to see transformation, how do we stay tender?

That's not easy. So I want to go on to the next step of what helps us because it's such a quick reflex. We can get that strong back but it becomes rigid and the heart is armored. So how do we keep the heart soft? And this is the next step. We've taken the U-turn, offered kindness within. and I'll give you a brief metaphor that helps me. So imagine that you're walking in the woods and you see a dog and the dog, you walk over to

say hello and pet the dog and the dog lurches at you with its fangs bared, you know, real seemingly vicious. And you go from being friendly to being angry and bad dog. but then you see that the dog has its paw in a trap. Now, you'll still try to protect yourself. But your heart has shifted. It's like, oh, I get it. I get why you're acting that way.

It's a training. It's a training to see how another person who might be creating harm has their foot in a trap. How in some way the conditioning, the karma, the layers, that are driving them have woundedness and delusion. It's a conditioning to see past the mask because the mask triggers us and we don't look carefully. So first we have to take a U-turn when we're triggered to come back into presence with ourselves.

But then if we look, if instead of moral judgment, because moral judgment just gets in the way, calling things evil gets in the way, if we look towards the health of the other, what's the pain under the action? What's it like being you? As one of my civil rights icon, Ruby's cell, says, where does it hurt? Can we really ask that? Because we need to see.

We need to see how the leg's in a trap. We need to see it for ourselves. When we act in imperfect and harmful ways, how are we hurting? One of my spiritual heroes is John Lewis, he's another civil rights icon, he was a U.S. congressman until he died just last year. And I'm bringing him up because he models strong-backed soft front in such an inspirational way. He talks about getting into good trouble, in other words, acting on behalf of justice. And a number of us went to rallies all around the United States a few days ago, really kind of

immobilizing against the unraveling of democracy and justice and anything that's compassion in our society, it's just falling apart. But he also knew the necessity of a soft front. You know, 60 years ago, and he tells his story, he was attacked in a bus station, he was beaten with baseball bats and badly injured and bloodied, and by the way, he was arrested over 40 times, beaten many, many times, concussions, the whole thing. and in keeping with nonviolence each time he didn't fight back. So, 50 years later, one of the men who had attacked him came into his office with his son

and he apologized. He said, I was the one I did that. And they embraced and they wept. And John tells this story and then he says, people can change. People can change. David was just talking about it's possible. We humans can evolve towards caring. We can learn to see past the masks, to see what's driving people, we can learn to really

see the goodness, the sacredness in each. And I feel like it's courageous to trust this that we can evolve. And it gives us wise hope. I share one more little story, which is that We've been having a lot of floods here in the United States. Last year, a whole area of North Carolina was flooded and friends in my meditation, one, friends in the meditation community were there. This was right before the election of Trump.

Okay, last fall. And everything was so bitterly divided, people couldn't talk to each other. it's even morbidly divided now, mistrust hatred. So a man from the meditation community parked on a bridge to look at the damage of the flood. And another car had parked and he noticed the bumper sticker. It was a MAGA bumper sticker, you know, Trump bumper sticker. And a woman from that car was standing and also looking at the bridge. So he stood by her.

They turned to each other and they just had tears in their eyes and they hugged. people can change. We can realize that we're facing the floods together. You know, we can care and join together. And as we know, when there's violence and trauma and delusion that's gone on for so long, it takes time. I mean, some of you might know of Aria Ratne. He's a spiritual leader from Sri Lanka. He just died, I met with him about a few months before he died. he died, he's considered the Gandhi of Sri Lanka. After 24 years of civil war, a horrific civil war there, he created a 500-year peace plan, former enemies helping each other to recover,

but it started right away. So that's the prayer. Maybe our grandchildren, the grandchildren of those who seem to be the enemy, they can hug and work together. May's Prayer, your child's mind, mine is yours, that sense of living in the garden of our shared belonging and beginning. So beautiful. So we plant the seeds today, as David said, and each day with presence, with compassion, and I like to practice a meditation with you that is in the spirit. Rumi puts it this way, says your task is not to seek for love but to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you've built against it. So this is a meditation to see the places we create divides where we are bad othering

and to come into presence and compassion there. So if you'd like just as a way to begin the meditation, take a moment to be a moment, to move. In other words, stretch your body, move your body, take 20 seconds, listening to your body so that when you come into stillness, you're actually awake in your body some. And then come into stillness. You might close your eyes or lower your gaze, let your tension go inward. This meditation is called the reign of self-compassion, the reign of compassion, and reign's an acronym, it stands for recognize, allow, investigate, and nurture. And many people find that when they're stuck, when they're divided from themselves or others, that this acronym actually

is very liberating. So you begin by turning the attention inward. You might feel your breath and take an extended in-breath so that you fill the lungs, the chest, completely, breathing in. And then a slow-out breath. Slow enough so you can actually feel the exhale. Letting go. Letting go. And then another nice, deep, long in-breath.

Hold for a moment. And then a slow out-breath. Now feel the letting go of the out-breath. Can you feel the sensations of the air? at the nostrils, sense that. And again another nice deep, long full in-breath, slow out-breath, letting go, letting go. And as your breath now resumes in its natural rhythm, the sense that you can scan the body and notice what wants to let go right now.

Maybe the shoulders a little. Maybe the hands soften, let the chest be open, relaxing the belly, letting this next breath be received in a softening belly, this breath. And now this one. And gently scanning your life and sensing some place where you get triggered and stuck in reactivity or you might be blaming another person or blaming yourself. not something that's traumatizing. If it's trauma, it'll be too much for this short kind of practice.

But it could be something where you're reacting, bad othering, reaction to the violence and suffering around you, or it might be anger and blame in a personal relationship, where there's conflict. Start where we are. Where is there a divide? maybe you've turned on yourself for a struggle with addiction or something to do with work. Just choose someplace where you feel divided from yourself or from another and allow yourself to find a situation that really epitomizes this, that shows this.

It could be something that's going on outside of you. It could be an interaction that you're having, some of your own behavior. But find a situation that triggers that sense of bad other, bad self. And like you're watching a movie go right to the frame where you feel most reactive. Maybe you're seeing the look in another person's face or the sound of their voice you're hearing. But sense the worst part of this, whatever's the worst part of this situation, what you're most afraid of or upset about. because this is where we go into trance, freezing the frame.

We begin rain with recognize. And that means name whatever emotion's most predominant. Mentally whisper it or whisper it out loud. What's the emotion? Is it anger? Is it fear? Is it hurt? What's going on?

embarrassment, shame, hatred, anxiety, and the A of Raines Allow, which means just let it be there. This isn't a time to try to fix, change, get rid of anything. Think of it like a wave in the ocean and just sense this belongs. this anger or this hatred, this fear, it belongs. Investigate means you ask, well, what most wants attention inside? Maybe you might sense, what am I believing when I'm feeling like this? Is it that more harm and suffering is going to happen? That something's wrong with me, something's wrong with another person, with life?

feel in your body what it's like when you're believing this. Something bad's going to happen. Something more. Something horrible. Something's wrong with you. Something's wrong with another. How does that in your body feel your throat, your chest, your belly? And it's helpful if you put your hand on your chest and if you've never done it, it's actually a very powerful way of staying connected somatically, because we leave our bodies. So use your hand to anchor yourself.

It's also a gesture of compassion. And sense where you feel most vulnerable. What's the worst part of this? And you might experiment if you've never done this by making the facial expression and the body posture actually an expression of how you are when you're in that reaction, when you're feeling bad othering, bad self, anger, fear. If you can get your body in that position, maybe your shoulders are hunched over,

maybe your jaws tight, maybe your hands are in fists, it'll help you connect with what really goes on when you're in that trance of reactivity. We have to see it and feel it to wake up from it. Now ask the place in you that feels most reactive, most vulnerable, what does it need? How does it want you to be with it? Does it need to feel trust that it's loved, accepted, forgiven, safe? Does this part need to trust your own goodness? Trust it belongs to others?

Does it need to feel held? what does the most distressed part of you need inside to feel? Now take a moment, take a few full breaths and call on the wisest, most awake, loving part of your being. You might call it your high self or your Buddha nature or spirit that dwells within, but call on that wisdom and love, the universe is wisdom and love that lives through you

or if it helps call on a spiritual figure or trusted other, but call on wisdom and love, and as you attune to the inner part of you, sense what it needs and offer it. Just offer some words of comfort that are healing. It might be simply, I'm here and I love you. You're held in love. I'm not leaving. trust your goodness trust your belonging

trust that we can heal trust in love and let yourself connect with the vulnerability inside you and receive what's offered explore what it means to really let it in it takes courage what happens if you let in love

what happens if you imagine and sense light and warmth washing through you As Rumi says, don't turn away. Keep your gaze on the bandage place. That's where the light enters you. These last few moments, sense the heart space that's here, the presence that's here, who you are when you're not caught in the sense of an angry self or a hating self or a shame self,

but rather resting in heart space, who we are when we rest in heart space, how this is more true than any story we tell ourselves. El Arnose says, do not be dismayed by the brokenness of the world, all things break and all things can be mended, not with time, as they say, but with intention. So go, love intentionally, unconditionally. the broken world waits in the darkness for the light that is you. Let's hear a few voices before we close together. How was that for you, this journey that Tara took us on, took you on, where did it take you?

And also maybe what are some gems that touched you or that you want to bring to our community? It was a really deep journey today with Tara. I really, really love this. It touched me in many ways. And in the meditation, it was like, there is something and I can't, I just sense the surface of it.

It's really hard. It's like a hard, yeah, something hard like a ball, but a heart ball. and I can't come inside. And when I say something like, I'm there because I really hear, I hear this voice, I am here. And in the same time, I don't feel that it comes inside. And this was a little bit, this, I was sad that this is like this. And I just stand with this feeling of this hard surface and just feel, I just want to feel more this hard surface.

and this was important for me. And I do it also in my group. They supported me into feeling this surface with me together and just stand with it and don't find an entry in this. So, yeah, I just want to share this. And also, I've got a little question to Tara because what would you do? Is the question, what would I do if I encountered this? that hard surface.

Yeah, and you don't find something, even when you say something from this voice, and you hear it doesn't touch something inside this. What is the next step for you? Yeah, well, first of all, I want to really thank you for bringing that up because I feel like that happens to a lot of us, that there's something in there that may be tender, vulnerable, but what we really are contacting is that kind of hardness, that wall, that surface. Is that what you're saying?

So what I encourage you to do is say this belongs to the surface, to the hardness. This belongs. Thank you for trying to protect me. And how do you want me to be with you? And just try that right now for a moment, Felix. just if you just bring sincerity and just say, okay, this belongs, thank you for trying to protect me, and just notice what happens. Yeah, I feel softness, but I don't feel this thing at all,

this heart surface. So in this moment, I'm not at this point, I think, where I was, in for 15 minutes so and that's yeah so that's really natural like things shift but if you want to stay present with yourself really respect when it comes

yeah this was so nice to hear that to honor it yeah yeah it's there's some I just think of it as kind of a yes meditation where you're just saying yes to what to reality. And the yes can get very gentle, very tender. This was nice.

This was nice to receive. Thank you. Yeah, thank you, dear. I saw Malha, you raising your hand before. Is it still alive? Yeah, well, one of the, the word gem is coming. I don't know if it's a gem,

but just one thing that came through our group is how we can get sick when we don't speak the truth that we know. I, um, uh, the thing that I was working with was, uh, hatred of my own people. And, um, it's just very, uh, it's just really interesting. It's like, it's, I mean, it's, one is very painful, like, to notice, you know, like, how even, um, when, like, I feel like, I, like, I feel like, this, that David and Mai, you're holding this energy of, no one is left behind.

Every life is important. Israelis, Palestinians. Every life is important. And like still, like within this, I think the pain is so big that, like, the heart just is drawn to, like, choose one people over the other. And it's so. hard so like not prefer and and and and and and and I notice that underneath this anger and this hate that comes up is a huge huge fear um survival fear survival as a true I hope I'm understood.

I'm really appreciating what you're saying because you're speaking a truth that we do prefer and we do get drawn to where the anguish is and we do harden to where the delusion is. and I think the first step is to forgive that and allow that, that this is just the way this heart is right now, just to say permission to that. It doesn't mean you're going to believe it or be possessed by it, but you're just honoring that this is a current in reality,

that your nervous system is feeling this, give permission. because you're already you're already seeing past it just seeing the fear that's underneath it you're already moving through it yeah I really I wish for myself

to love my people at their worst is it okay if we bring on another person how you want to thank you for bringing this truth for us to recognize it in ourselves and to be with it with you.

Samar and Basil. Hi. I have a question to Tara. I was thinking about the story of the dog and while I understand it like rationally of like something needs to go for something needs to go for something new to come and something even better, a new possibility. And probably at the time, we don't like see that,

or it takes us time to see that this was important that it needs to happen for something better to come, to create a space. But I have a hard time applying this to, what's happening in Razzla. Because, or making sense of it as people are dying. Of how, like, I have a hard time as like, am I accepting this? Is then like the death become accepted. And I've made peace with just every day people dying.

as if it's, well, it's needed. So it's hard. So I don't know how, I don't know how to make sense of it or how to think of it. So if you can talk about that, be great. Yeah. Thank you, dear, because I'm really relating to what you're saying. And I don't think acceptance means that our body lets it be okay. I think accept it means that we have the courage to face the reality that this horror

is happening and that there's not an overlay of this is necessary that numbs our nervous system. There's just an understanding that it happens. It's that bare bones. that it happens, that we humans devolve and regress into being cruel and that there's a waking up that's possible and it doesn't happen because we get numb, it doesn't happen because we avoid grieving. I think we have to be shattered by it, to be honest. I mean, I think we have to feel crushed by it. I think I have to cry pretty much every day. But I think we have to cry pretty much every day.

But that's part of accepting that it's happening, it's real. And then we get our hearts broken open and some deep wisdom and love helps us find our way to something else. So I don't even like the feel, even calling it necessary. I think that adds something like it removes us, it distances us from a horror. I think my takeaway from the myth is that not to blame the dog. not to get waylaid in more hatred and more blame, but to sense what we care about, what we cherish,

and take that thread and start trying to build towards that. So I hope that's helpful. And thank you. Thank you. As someone who lives in Israel, I'm also struggling with hating, and I don't even connect anymore to any identity, really, other than human being. I really struggle with this feeling of despair.

And this is what I went to today because it's a very prevalent feeling that I touch every single day living here. And it's very unbearable. It's a very unbearable feeling that almost goes into a freeze because it's so unbearable. I know all the things you've said of what I can do and focus on my journey and the work I do and the connections and they work with vibration, and it's all great and lovely. And yet still there's this immense despair, which is what also brings me to things like this to join,

to feel less alone with it. You know, there's comfort in being here with everyone, wherever everyone is from. I don't know if I have a question so much as just putting it out there and like, like, what are you supposed to do with this despair that I'm confronted with every moment of living here? Like, stuck here, I can't leave.

I'm just curious maybe by hand-raise, how many have touched into a lot of despair? Everyone. Yeah, yeah. And how many of you have found, and I'll maybe speak personally, that if I can be with you and we can feel that that is part of our humanness, the currents of despair, and we can also feel that we're caring, that for me to be with you and sense you really care.

And there have been beings on this planet throughout that have really cared and there will be beings in the future. And does somehow or their sense we're part of that? and that there's something possible that humans can wake up. We've seen it in our own lives. I've seen myself wake up. It feels like we have to let both be there, that we have to let the despair be there, but also the sense of holding hands and that something's possible.

And that takes courage to let them both be there. But I think that's what allows us not to freeze and to keep walking. I want to quote, actually a friend, a dear, dear friend who lived with us in Ikomi in the first community we were holding where Palestinians and Israelis were living together.

And she's half Palestinian and half Israeli and Jewish. And she said this thing that really, like, for me, just touches this place that she said, I have no hope and a lot of hope in the same time.

it's going together. And it's just like how to hold that. Break completely breaking, allowing the breaking completely apart. Because that will bring us home to the deepest place of care and love we have. And yet not like in the same time we have, we have access. Do we have access to a deeper knowing that something else is possible? And at the very moment that we are together, we are tending to that as well. Like you being here and me being here, there's a tending towards that.

That gives me energy and hope. That you are here feeds me. That you are all here makes me hold that place more alive in the same time. Yeah, I just wanted to bring her in because for me she held this so beautifully. Yeah, they can relate to that. oh thank you yeah thank you

thank you Tara so we're a little bit over time and there's another hand that was raised from Gil and I wonder like

Tara do you want to take another voice or yeah so this will be our last person yeah thank you one more I as every

as every Every time I get the privilege to be here and be in this talk. And today, thank you, Tara, and thank you everybody. It's a big talk today. I would like to say something also about despair. Today, a friend told me a very close friend, Palestine, from Israel from 48, that being despair is a privilege, that someone who can be dispaired. and I only am with close contact with few people from Gaza

and in the last few days it got much worse and I have a privilege here to be despaired one of the precious things about Satyam community is it gives a feeling that we are part of action of a direct action it's not a virtue signaling It's not a protest. Some of us are hunger striking.

Others are doing what they can do. I feel like holding on to my desperation is like getting the hug from the bear. It's like getting a bear hug. But I cannot be the privileged one who gets to be dispered. And whether you are hunger striking, Whether you are writing a love letter to your congressman or woman or senator, those of us who are not here in Palestine, we must do something.

Direct peaceful action. Despiration, I struggle with it all the time. But it is our privilege to have the people who don't have a choice. cannot be this cannot have desperation. You don't have that choice. They struggle. The world is so desperation. despairing the times.

I really don't know what to say. Thank you for bringing your pain and your tears and and struggling for words because I can really meet you in the lack of words. Yeah.

Thank you. I honor you. Honor your heart, honor your willingness to not look away and feel. Thank you, friends, for being here, for bringing your attention and good hearts to today's offering. As mentioned earlier, please check my homepage. You'll find ways of contributing to feeding those in Gaza are engaging with Satyam. I'd like to close with a prayer, and this was sung at the end of a gathering that was held in Israel just three weeks after October 7th, a meditation gathering that I was part of.

There will be a day, and the children of all genders, colors, and face will follow the path of heart. They will speak the language of the earth and understand the language of heaven. They will live as part of a great circle of life, and then peace will come. There will be a day, and the children of all genders, colors, and face will follow the path of heart. Their hearts will walk and trust. They will sanctify all form of living beings and plants. Together they will pray to the infinite spirit connected to the source of life, and then peace will come.

May we feel our shared prayer, that we can bridge divides, that we can do that we can move towards a more just and loving and peaceful world. Namaste.