Tara Brach - Present Heart: The Universal Expressions of Love, Part 4 - Equanimity

Episode Date: May 29, 2026

Equanimity unfolds as we find a wise balance and spaciousness in the midst of this living, dying world. This series reflects on four primary expressions of an awake, wise heart: lovingkindness, compassion, joy and equanimity. In each talk we explore the habitual patterning that blocks our full realization of these innate capacities, and the understandings and practices that nurture their unfolding. In this talk, Tara explores how equanimity—the spacious, awake presence that can hold life just as it is—is an essential foundation for love, compassion, and joy to fully flourish.  Drawing from Buddhist teachings on the Brahmaviharas, we reflect on how equanimity is not indifference or passivity, but a courageous openness that allows us to stay present with pain without hardening into blame or fear. Through stories, poetry, guided reflection, and practical meditation instruction, she invites us to discover the freedom of becoming "the ocean" that can hold all the changing waves of experience with compassion and care. In this talk, you'll discover: How equanimity creates the inner balance that allows love, compassion, and joy to mature and deepen The difference between true equanimity and emotional withdrawal or indifference How mindfulness and kindness help us move from reactivity into wise, compassionate presence The practice of "being the ocean, not the waves" when facing fear, conflict, or uncertainty How equanimity supports healing, courageous action, and a heart that is "ready for anything" A guided meditation for working with difficult emotions and relationships with awareness and compassion This talk is especially supportive for anyone seeking emotional balance, mindfulness, self-compassion, spiritual awakening, healing relationships, and finding peace in uncertain times. Our introduction music is from "Opening" by Adrienne Torf, © 2025 ABT Music

Welcome friends to the Tara Brock podcast. I'm so glad you're here. Each week I share teachings and guided meditations to help us awaken our hearts and bring healing to our world. You can learn more or support this offering by visiting tarabrock.com where you can also join our email list. Now let's explore together the many ways we can live from the love and presence that's our deepest essence. Namaste. Namaste. Welcome, friends. Today we're on the fourth week of a series of heart reflections.

We've explored loving-kindness and compassion and joy. And this one's on equanimity. And people often wonder how did equanimity get grouped together with the other domains of heart. And it helps to consider what it is the blocks or closes our heart, in any moment that we're wanting life to be different, that we feel like life's not going our way. Let's say our body hurts or we feel in some way offended or criticized by someone. We're anxious about what's around the corner or we feel like maybe

we failed at something. In those moments, it's difficult to connect with and feel our natural caring and love and tenderness of heart. So equanimity is the space of awareness that can allow life to be just as it is. So when we're feeling equanimity, life can be unpleasant, life can be difficult, and there's still enough space, still enough awareness, enough balance and openness to hold what is arising with care. And that is freedom. that's freedom. I'll share with you a poem from the poet Kaviri gives us a sense of this and it's called equanimity. There is a canyon of painted rocks where the sun always rises, where the sun always sets. Sometimes the cliffs are covered in snow, sometimes they're wet with

rain, sometimes wildflowers grow in the dry crevices, sometimes I keep company with family and friends. Sometimes I feel lonely among familiar strangers. Sometimes I'm alone. Sometimes the sun rises and sets inside my own heart as I disappear into painted rocks and silence, becoming the space for life to occur. So right now, around the globe, there are a lot of shadows, a lot of the fears in these canyons of our life, separation, reactivity, it's around the globe. And only by having access to equanimity to that spaciousness and that freedom, can we remember the loving awareness that really brings healing to our world. So friends, I hope this reflection serves you well.

Thank you. For some of you, you might not have heard the last few weeks of talks and we're doing a series, each talk stands on its own, but the series are what's described in Buddhist tradition as the Brahma Viharas, or that's the divine abodes, and these are the different expressions of our awakening heart. And each one of them naturally is part of us and can be cultivated. So, the first of the Brahmavahars that we explored was love, the second compassion, the third joy. And this class we're going to explore equanimity.

Equanimity sounds different from the other three sometimes to our ears. It's not as juicy or sexy or it's like, well, why do I want that? You know, it doesn't sound as good as love. But interestingly, it's the freedom and balance. of our mind that actually allows the other three to be mature and full. Equanimity is that space of mindful presence where we're not reacting and pushing away or grasping, but really in an open-handed way available to the life right here in the moment.

And we know what it's like when we're not a quantumist. I mean, we all know, we can feel it when we're all. balance. One story that I love sharing now and then it took place somewhere in the West in a high school where some students played a prank and I think it was a brilliant prank. They released three goats into a school and each goat had on it like a number painted and one goat was number one, one was number two and one was number four. And the school administrative, the staff spent the entire day looking for Goat 3. In fact, they canceled school to find Goat 3. So we get it when we lose, we go into a little trance and we actually

the busier and more anxious and more reactive we get, the more we complicate our life. So you might just take a moment to reflect on today and notice, you know, to what we What degree were you reacting to what came your way? In other words, in that place of either anxiety or wanting things to be a certain way with tension and impatient or restless and reactive? And to what degree was there a presence of mind that allowed you to respond versus react? And as you sense into your day, you might be able to also sense into how in our relationship relationships, if we want to be experiencing the awakened hard, if we want real love and real compassion

to arise, we need to have that mindful presence as the ground. And I find it really interesting when you think of when it's not there, love actually contracts into attachment. And when equanimity is not there, compassion contracts into pity. And when equanimity is not there, joy contracts into kind of a selfish exuberance. In other words, the energies are still there but they have a contracted form when we're not resting in that space of balance and presence. And these are sometimes in the Buddhist tradition called the near enemies. You know, these, they're not the pure expression of

the heart. There is a wisdom in equanimity. Equanimity has that space that really can see what's true that allows for a very mature kind of loving. There's a story that I heard years ago about Kafka when he was an older man and as it goes he spent time in a park, sitting in a park and one day a little girl went by him and And she had tears in her face and he asked her to stop and tell him what was wrong and she told him that she had lost her doll.

And so he said he'd look around. They looked around together but it seemed actually that the doll was lost. He said, why don't you come back? I'll see if I can find her. So a few days later the girl returns and Kafka is there and he says that he didn't have a doll but he said, I have a note and it reads. this from your doll. I've gone off to travel some around the world. Please don't worry about me. I'm fine. So the girl's a little relieved and she returns to the park every week or so and

each time she returns, Kafka has another note for the girl describing the doll's wonderful journeys around the earth and all the adventures and so on. Well, Kafka got much sicker and he went to the park one last time. And this time he'd brought a doll. and he handed her to the girl and he said, well, travels really changed her. Some years later, when the girl was a young woman, she found and read a note that had been rolled up and placed in the doll's hand. And this is what it said. You will lose everyone you love, but the love will always return in new forms.

So this is what I think of when I say the wisdom of everything. equanimity, that there is this spaciousness that sees life coming and going, but in that openness is available to what's timeless, available to the love that just keeps emerging through different forms and really is available in any moment that we're really present. So, one of the phrases that I have been really drawn to in my own reflections on equanimity, is a heart that is ready for anything. It's that kind of spaciousness that whatever comes our way, there's not a sense of, oh, this is terrible, I have to, you know, I have to defend.

There's this availability to life, this openness. And when our heart is ready for anything, we're not preoccupied with worrying about the next moment being too much. Because I think a lot of the time we go through the day, tensing against what's around the corner. So, we're going to explore this and we'll begin with what I think of as the shadow of equanimity, the near enemy of equanimity. And that's indifference. It happens often that people have this, we'll get into a state, where they'll say, well, I'm just being a quantumist, but what they're really doing is not willing to open to their feelings. In other words, it masquerades as equanimity, this indifference.

Or, you know, there might be a conflict with somebody else, but oh, no, no, no, everything's fine, or oh yes, I've forgiven this. It's kind of smoothing over, you know, to, for the appearances of equanimity, but it's really a pulling away from life. So that's the near-ename. Equanimity is actually fully engaged, but it seems that it can look that way. And the metaphor that I think is really useful when we're practicing together as we will be with equanimity is the most classic I think is of ocean and waves. That when we're identified with a set of waves we're going to be pushing against whatever we think is threatening to us, the criticism, that we're late, that we're late, that we're

something's going to go wrong and we're going to be grasping onto what might give us something. That's when we're in our waiveness. But when we remember our oceanists that we include all of this, we can be with the waves and be engaged with them. They're part of us but not lost in them. And so there's a couple little phrases that go with this that if you know that you know you're the ocean, you're not afraid of the waves. And if you forget that you're the ocean, you'll be seasick all the time, which is I think really useful. So the shadow of equanimity,

it's like that pulling away from the waves. Okay, I am not that fear or that I'm not angry, you know, I'm not jealous. And that's not true equanimity. Equanimity includes what's here. Equanimity is not an excuse for pastoralism. I share with you about my mom who is very progressive and a social activist in her own world. And she would say to me again and again, and even more often as she got older, you know, I really, I'm with this Buddhist thing except equanimity piece. There's something off about that. It's like the Buddha got it wrong on that one.

And she said, it makes everything so vanilla. It strips us of our personalities and that's the near enemy. That's what it can look like when we're in the near enemy. She would go on a ramp because she would say, you know, we have this responsibility to care and to act, you know, what about climate change and racism? And she'd say, well, if we're equanimous, it's like just let everything be as it is. That's again the shadow side. You can be the ocean and include all the waves and it's a lot of the waves and it's a lot of the waves.

in that presence that you actually can more intelligently respond. So equanimity, this balance space is not about withdrawing and it's not about disengaging. It really is about having our actions with each other. You know, our actions when we're doing our errands, our actions when we're in some way trying to make a difference in our world come from an awake heart. I often reflect on Gandhi who took a day off each week and he said he was doing it so he could make sure that his actions came from the wisest part of his being. Another example to share, I listened recently to a TED talk by Valerie Carr who's a Sikh woman and she likens transformation to who's a

labor and birth. And she describes how in order to have a really healthy laboring process, you need to breathe with the pain. In other words, if you fight contractions, you're in trouble, so you breathe with it and you be with it and then you push. So it's not like we don't act, but it's grounded in presence. Breathe and push, I think that's really, really good. So, non-reactivity actually allows us to respond. It lets the Dalai Lama have that phrase when he talks about the Chinese, my friend, the enemy. Yeah, there's conflict but they're not out of his heart. And it lets Ticknhat Han describe when he describes the boat people.

He says, When the crowd of Vietnamese refugee boats met with storms or pirates, if everyone panicked, was lost. But if only one person on the boat remained calm and centered, it was enough. They showed the way for everyone to survive. So in the moments of equanimity, whether you're in the office or on a subway or with your family or in any setting, you're actually creating a space that's kind of contagious that helps everything in the environment find its way to more awakeness and more heart. Okay, so how does it arise? I think one of the most useful ways to describe the process is we're awakening the two wings

of presence and liken to the two wings of the bird and we need both to fly and one of the wings is noticing what's happening in the moment. As soon as you can in this moment say, okay, so what's really going on inside me? you're beginning to come back to that space of connection and presence and ease. Just by noticing what's happening and that's the wing of mindfulness. And then there's the wing of heart-malness that notices what's happening and lets it be there, gives it space, doesn't judge it, ultimately holds it with compassion. So there's the two questions, what's happening right now?

These are the questions of equanimity. What's happening inside me? And can I be with this? And when you ask those questions, you actually contact what's going on and let it be, you become the ocean that has room for the waves. And that's the shift. Choghem Trunfa says, as long as we are trying to figure out how we can escape from our present situation, we can't notice much about it.

it. Only when we feel that this is it, this is how it is right now, without any clutching towards something different, will our intelligence really come alive. So, it happens when we say this is it and we stop struggling and we become that oceanous, we actually see things how they are. Oh, these are changing waves. We can start seeing the patterns of our life with intelligence. We can see the Tao. We can see how things are interconnected. This is the beauty of equanimity. It's a real gift.

So I ran into a story about Mullahazardine. And Mullahazardine, if you haven't heard of him, as a Sufi saint that's also goofy. There are other ways to say it, but he's goofy. So he's resting under the shade of a tall and luscious walnut tree and he's relaxing and reflecting. He notices these huge pomp. growing on these delicate little vines snaking along the ground. And then he looks up and he sees in the tall, tall trees, these tiny little walnuts.

And they're growing on this magnificent tree. And he said, how strange Mother Nature is to make plump pumpkins grow on these spindly little vines while little walnuts have their own impressive tall trees. So just then, you probably imagine what happened, a little walnut falls down and goes tunk, you know, right on his head. And he's rubbing his sore head and picks up the fallen woolen. And he's looking high at the branches on the tree. And then he looks over at these swollen monster pumpkins on the ground and he goes, oh, Mother Nature, you are wise. The challenge with equanimity every day for every one of us is that we get stressed

and reactive and our nervous system is very conditioned to do what's called paponcha in, that's the poly word. I love the word, paponcha, it's proliferation. It's kind of what it sounds like. Where instead of equanimity, going, I am the ocean, these are waves just happening, we become a wave when we hit it into another wave, another part of ourselves, and we trigger off a chain reaction inside ourselves that puts us in a state that's very contracted, the opposite of equanimity. an example for myself, one of the gifts of giving these talks is, you know, I have a theme and then I immediately get exposed to how I get caught.

And so I watched last week, I had an appointment, doctor's appointment, and I was on the Beltway and I had planned it so I'd be on the Beltway when there wasn't so much traffic, but those of you that know the Washington, D.C. Beltway, no, it doesn't matter what you plan, right? So there I was and I timed myself a certain way and then there was traffic and then so all the thoughts about being late and then oh then they're going to put somebody ahead of me. Then I'm going to get home late for that conference call and then I won't be able to plan ahead, you know, be ready for the conference call and I'll let people down so I went through everything from anxiety to guilt through this whole thing and then all of a sudden I'm realizing

oh my God, I have just created this whole world, just in a very short time where I went from just driving along to like, you know, like that, this narrow, uptight reality. That's Papantra. It's this pinging of thoughts and feelings and before we know it, we're in a very small-minded trance. It's driven by fear and Papancho or proliferation. the basic assumption, and watch for this in your life, we don't know we're assuming it, it's below the line of awareness, remember the circle and the line, it's, is that something's

wrong or something's going to go wrong. There's an assumption that there's a problem, it shouldn't be like this. And when we get in that problem mentality, we get small. Okay, another example, a new business is opening and one of the owner's friends wants to send him flowers for the occasion. So they arrive at this new business site and the owner reads the card and it says, rest in peace. So the owner's angry and he calls a flourish to complain. And he told the floor is the obvious mistake and how angry he was and the florist responds, well, I'm really sorry for the mistake, but rather than getting

angry, you should imagine this. Somewhere there's a funeral taking place today and they have flowers with a note saying, congratulations on your new location. It's all about positive reframe here. So I think one of the inquiries for all of us, and it's something we really want, which is when we're off balance, when we're in that reactivity zone, I sometimes think of it as a limbic hijack. You know, how do we regain our balance? How do we activate those two wings and come more to be the ocean, aware of the waves, not colliding with other waves. And there's a poem that I think illustrates this really quite beautifully how we learn to make the shift,

a kind of a model for our training. And this poem is anonymous. I have no idea who wrote it. And it's called Duck Meditation. Now we are ready to look at something pretty special. It is a duck riding the ocean 100 feet beyond the surf. As he cuddles in the swells, there's a big heaving in the Atlantic and he is part of it. He can rest while the Atlantic heaves because he rests in the Atlantic.

Probably he doesn't know how large the ocean is and neither do you. But he realizes it somewhere and what does he do, I ask you? He sits down in it. Duck meditation. He reposes in the immediate as if it were infinity, which it is. That is religion and the duck has it. How about you? Duck meditation.

So if we break it down in terms of meditation instruction, what it's really saying is connect with the waves of the mind. moment, know what's going on. And remember the space it's happening in. Remember this is part of the whole ocean of experience. You're not just this wave of this thought or this feeling. You're a whole beingness that includes waves but you're not defined by them. Knowing that is freedom. So we look more closely now on how when we're stuck, how when I'm stuck in the in the traffic, do I do duck meditation and still be in a responsible driver? So there I am and there's a pausing and going, oh, anxious, feeling anxious, feeling guilty,

thoughts of falling short, you have to pause. There has to be some pause to be able to catch it. So what's happening inside me right now and then checking, feeling in the body rather than continuing to loop in the mind, oh, okay, the squeeze and the heart, that kind of pounding, that sore achy, anxious, anxious feeling. So, that's the what is happening side of the equation. Really coming into the body and realizing it and then there's the, and can I be with this, breathing with it, giving it some space, noticing what's there with a kind attention. Even if we just go through the motion of these two questions, the two wings, there's more space.

You're not fully inside the trance. There's a little more inhabiting the awareness that's aware of the trance and you're not so reactive. It's a shift in identity. Just even saying what's happening inside me and can I be with it, even if you don't follow those instructions further, you've in it. you've interrupted the full contraction of the trance. Does that resonate for you? So then we do it more and more, which is really what we're doing is we're learning to notice

what's happening and really be with it, learning to stay, not to follow the papantra, other proliferation. So let me give you an example, an equanimity story that I've loved. And because we teach a lot at retreats about staying with our experience. And one woman was realizing how much she really didn't like the walking meditation because for some reason she just got really reactive when she was doing it. So she was assigned by one teacher to do a whole day of walking meditation. so she could really say, okay, what's really happening and can I be with this? And so she moaned

and they negotiated, she agreed on half. So here's how, here's the note she wrote after she completed the assignment. Long walking meditational morning assignment completed. Thank you. Now I can meditate while moving. I thought I might discover why I've been so resistant to it, but no, circumstances taught me something else instead. I chose to walk in the Annex walking room because it's small, beautiful, and usually quiet. Today, however, it was noisy as hell. There was some guy in there walking as the little engine that could wearing noisy boots. Well, I thought surely he'll be gone when the walking period ends.

No such luck. This madman pounded his way through an hour and a half except when he paused to drink or remove a noisy layer of clothing. I tried Meta, his loving kindness. Surely he must have a lot of pain to be so driven. And then I realized I wanted to kill the SOB. I stood there noting, hate, hate. Later I stood in the middle of the room and wept, tears, tears.

Then I got to the point that I realized that whatever problem he had was his, not mine. And after that, I got quiet and he was just sound. And so I walked and breathed and he paced and pounded and pretty soon it was all the same to me, his noise, my breath, the movement of my body. after an hour and a half he left and it was incredibly quiet, which was different but not as much better as I'd expected, mostly just different. Thank you. So you get it, right?

We get so much we have to have life a certain way and it's a problem. But what happens? We say, okay, what's happening? Okay, hate, tears, fear, give it a little space, stay. and we find we have room for this life. We have a heart that really can be ready for anything. Now often it's difficult to stay and the more intense the emotions are, the more difficult it is to really be with, to say yes I'll be with this. So just to name that the single most powerful help when it's really hard to be with something is kindness.

If you can in some way even remember the word kindness or in some way offer a gesture of kindness. And it might be as far as what I often encourage of just putting a hand on the heart or on the cheek, but it could be just some words that you say, it's okay. Or sometimes I'll say to myself, this belongs. You know, this fear or hurt or whatever it is, this belongs. And what I mean by that is it belongs as much as any other wave in the ocean. It's not wrong, it's okay. And just by agreeing that it belongs, there's an expanded sense

of my own being. Any kindness, what it does when there's the part of us that's hurting and reactive feels that kindness, there's a softening of the armoring and we actually open to a larger sense of our being. It really... helps to undo the walls of the selfing. So there's an identity shift and then the longer you stay with what's there, the more you start resting as that ocean that includes the waves with tenderness. When we learn this practice of finding our way to equanimity with learning to notice what's happening and stay with it, as Vali Kor put it, that we learn to really breathe

with the pain, then our actions actually are transformational. They make a difference. Again, I mentioned Valerie Korr earlier, this was again in her TED talk and she described how right after 9-11 the first act, you know, the first, you know, the first, you know, killing, the hate killing that happened in the United States was a Sikh man who was killed. And Valerie is a Sikh. And this was a man she called uncle. And the man was killed by someone who called himself a patriot who talked about going out and getting the towel heads and he said we should get their children too. So you can imagine for her who had a child feeling like her son, her young son was growing up in a country where he was unsafe.

because she's wearing a turban and so on. And so what that was like and so she lived with that and her inner teaching and guide was stay with the pain so it doesn't harden into anger, don't make others the enemy. And that was her practice to be with the fear and the hurt so it didn't harden. And she described 10 years later the man who had killed. the Sikh was put in prison and she ascribed 10 years later going to where the man was killed and getting together with his brother and they decided to call the man who had killed him in prison. And she said that what was motivating her was that her understanding

of transformation is if we want to transform we have to love even more, including even more, who am I not including in my heart? So they called the man who had killed her uncle, the Sikh, in prison and because they were wondering and she said, this is what's so important, we need to wonder what's it like for people that we have in our mind as the enemy, what's really like for them. So here she's modeling, she'd been with the pain, hadn't hardened her heart, that's the equanimity, staying present, and then making this call. And as it turned out, the man, they reached him and he, at first he said something like, well I'm sorry I did it but also they shouldn't have done,

you know, 9-11 shouldn't have happened and he'd get conflated things and so she could feel herself getting tensed up but the brother continued the inquiries. She says we want to know what's really, what's it like for you? What was going through your mind? Where are you at? And he said, I'm sorry. And it was the first time he had apologized and asked for forgiveness. He said, when I go to heaven, I'm going to, and I'm, you know, talking to God, I'm going to ask to meet with your uncle, your brother, and apologized to him. And the brother said, you don't have to, you're already forgiven. The way the Valerie Kaur ended this was describing how her prayer that someday when she's gone we will see her son and consider him to be our son. So I share this

because this is the power of the Brahma Vahar, these heart practices, that we want to wake up this all-inclusive heart so that we can then move through a heart, our world and create more peace and more healing and more understanding. And equanimity is key. To really be able to reach out to another, to sense who another is, we need to first be really present with what's here for ourselves, have brought kindness to our inner life, and then to honestly wonder, what is it really like for you? To see past the mask. It's the only way real transformation will happen. It's the only way we'll start making the bridges that allow humans to humans and humans to other species to really see the sacredness in all beings.

So I use the language of a heart that is ready for anything and it means that when we get anything from criticized to cut off in traffic to a child that's a child that's rude to the deepest losses and threats in our life, that there's a way that we have of holding it that were bigger than the waves, that we're not caught in them. And one of the beautiful descriptions from one teacher was of how it was for her in facing her own dying of cancer through this practice of equanimity. And she writes this, she says, My days are short and as I grow weaker I experience so much gratitude for my meditation,

not only the joy and ease abroad but the hard parts for every bored and restless sitting and every fearful fantasy and every pain and ache I sat through and every itch I didn't scratch was a training for kindness, a training for the muscle for bearing witness, for the trusting spirit that carries me now as I face my death. So these are practices that can bring healing to our world and that can allow us to embrace every part of our own life. I started with Kabir the story of... Oh, with the story of the child and the doll.

And what I wanted to say about that is that the more spacious we are and the more present we are, the more we see how life comes and goes and we also sense this timeless kind of loving that then makes us available for each other. And one of the experiences that has always stood out about that for me is I went to only one retreat with Ticknod Han and that was about 35 years ago or something, I don't know, a really long time ago. But I went with another teacher that was a very good friend and we were busy lives, not much time together so we're really glad to go to a retreat together. And at the end of the retreat he had everybody get into pairs and he had us do a meditation

where first we would say namaste which means I see the divine in you, you know, see the soul. And then we would hug each other and we do three breaths. And the first breath you meditate, I'm going to die. And the second breath, you're going to die. And then the third breath, and we have these few moments together. And in that presence of the truth of change, there's like a piercing through all the tranceyness of our life, the dream we're in to, wow, it's this right now.

We find ourselves in the kind of the center of now and there is love there and there's a radiance there and a sense of really living our life to the fullness rather than skating over the surface on our way somewhere else. Equanimity brings us to the center of now, that balance and awakeness. So, just to, we're going to practice a little bit with equanimity. in a moment, but just to say these four classes, each of these qualities, when we're not triggered, when we're not in that paponcha of our limbic system going wild, they're naturally there.

When you're at rest and you're not afraid, there's a sense of space and a knowing what's happening and a balance in the midst. When you're not reactive, if somebody else is hurting, you're going to care. Compassion's there. When you're present and you're not in a reactive space and you see beauty around you. You have a day like today down here in D.C. or you sense the light in a child's eye or just the night sky, there's something in you that's going to feel wonder. So these are natural intrinsic capacities.

And because we have such a habit of being stressed and contracting and looking for what's wrong, that assumption that something's wrong, there's a real value to intentionally cultivating these qualities, these Brahmavahas, these divine abodes. So we'll close now. We'll do a meditation on equanimity. And if you've been sitting in one position, take a moment to... maybe shift around a little and find a way to sit that will serve you. As you come into stillness, be aware of your body sitting here breathing and feel that background

of presence, the sense of pausing, of noticing what's going on inside you and around you, sounds and sensations. I invite you to scan your life and sense somebody that's going on inside you and around you. that you care about and that you at least recently have been, had some sort of reactive pattern with. Nothing that is major, traumatic, deep wounding, but just a reactive pattern where you found yourself getting either irritated or restless or judgmental or annoyed in some way. This is a person who are in some way then you've behaved not from your center, not from your highest self.

And once you pick the person, just take an incident, some incident that exemplifies this where you got caught off balance, defensive or aggressive. Take enough time so you can zoom in on the situation, reminding yourself of where it happened and perhaps the look on the person's face, expression. and words that were exchanged, it gets to a point that you feel, okay, this is the hub of it, I'm really in the reactivity in some way, then freeze the frame as if the person could kind of fade off a little bit. This is when you're going to practice the two wings.

So what is happening inside me right now? Become the witness. You can see the kind of thoughts going on and maybe what you're believing in the moment, what's the worst part of this, but also the witness that kind of the kind of thoughts going on and maybe what's the to context directly, what's going on in my body when this is happening? You might even feel your throat, your chest, your belly. And that other question, can I be with this? Can you stay a little?

Can you just breathe with what's here so it doesn't harden into creating an enemy? It doesn't harden into distancing. Breathing and feeling the vulnerability, the waves that are here. Maybe you're feeling hurt, some way obstructed or disrespected, invisible, not heard. Breathe with it. And if it helps to deepen your presence you might just send a message of kindness to the part of you that's feeling reactive. Very, very forgiving and kind towards the reactive place.

It's okay sweetheart. Maybe the hand on the heart. breathing and sensing, these are waves, these are waves of thoughts and feelings. And the more kindness towards the waves, the more you'll sense that the who you are is the ocean, there's room for these waves. And from presence, begin to wonder about the other person. Wonder what it's like for them. From more of the space of equanimity, that heart space that's awake, wonder, what's it like for

this person? Can you sense what's hard for this person? Letting that heart space hold both of you. And sensing what it would be like to have this heart that's ready for anything, perhaps the next time this happens that you have that heart that's ready for anything, that knows how to be awake and sense, you can sense the space of it, the vastness, there can be a remembering, a remembering how to come home, and then letting go of any thoughts about a situation and coming right here into the moment with these last few moments of this meditation. What is it like right now to have a heart that's ready for anything? A courageous open space of a heart, that tender, open heart that really has room for this living,

dying world. This poem is from the radiant sutras. There is a place in the heart where everything meets. Go there if you want to find me. Mind, senses, soul, eternity, all are there. Are you there? Enter the bowl of vastness that is the heart. Give yourself to it with total abandon. Quiet ecstasy is there and a steady regal sense of resting in a perfect spot. Once you know the way, the nature of attention will call you to return again and again and be saturated with knowing, I belong here, I am at home here. Once you know the way, the nature of attention will call you to return again and again. and be saturated with knowing, I belong here, I am at home here.

Namaste and blessings.