Tara Brach - Question and Response with Tara

Episode Date: October 17, 2012

2012-10-17 - Question and Response with Tara - Please support this podcast by donating at www.tarabrach.com or www.imcw.org. Your donations allow us to continue to freely offer the teachings!

Tonight's very unusual for us. It's probably maybe twice a year we do this, which is instead of a prepared reflection slash talk, the evening's going to be open to any of your questions. And if you didn't come with one, you might start considering right now if there's anything about the meditation practices we do or some of the teachings that are the context for them,

that you're curious about or confused about or just want to have better understanding of. So what we'll be doing is inviting you to come up to the mics. And I really hope those of you that are the types that never talk in large groups and are very shy, just play your edge because I'd love to feel it, just to invite you to come up and ask a question. So that'll be the format for tonight.

If it turns that we have time, then I'll be closing with a loving kindness meditation and actually invite any questions or sharing you have about that. But it may be that we have a lot of questions. So I wanted to just leave it open-ended to you. With that, the invitation is for anybody that feels so inclined to begin. You can just come right up to the mics. And if somebody else is at one mic and you know you're going to want to question just start just come to the other one so we can just kind of move back and forth

so now we're going to go into silence until somebody hi my question is you talked a little bit about embodiment a couple weeks ago and I'm wondering the relative importance or component of embodiment versus self-transcendence when it comes to meditation So don't sit down yet because I very often just to get more clarity. So you're wondering about the relative importance of embodiment, being awake inside our bodies and self-transcendence. And could you say a little bit more of what you mean by that? One of the definitions that I've heard of spirituality is self-transcendence.

We're becoming a part of something larger. And that's something that I've experienced in meditation. but there's also like a coming back to the senses. So I guess I'm wondering sort of like what's more important. Okay. It's a really good question. Stay put in case you have a follow-up because sometimes I may not kind of get at what you're saying.

Self-transcendence in my understanding means that we're waking up out of any story or narrative about a limited separate self. And I found that the most powerful gateway to waking up out of that story is through embodiment and in through waking the senses up. In fact, when we were meditating tonight

and at the moments I'd say, just receive the moment through the senses, this whole world was just a vibrating sound and sensations, and there was no solidified notion of a self. So in those moments, that's what I would call self-transcendence. So I don't think of it as relative importance, more as the embodied presence is a gateway to that freedom. Does that make sense? I love that. Thank you. Thank you. It's a beautiful question. And also one that a lot of people have a misunderstanding of is if we're supposed to be waking up out of our body,

Like we're supposed to have some transcendental experience that no longer has a sense of the aliveness that's here. And that's, you know, we are made of aliveness and awareness. We're not trying to get away from it. So it's really through this aliveness that we experience wholeness. Yeah, so thank you again. And hi? Hi, I'm Ellen.

And first I just want to tell you how grateful I am that you provide this opportunity for me. And I guess everyone feels the same way. It's so inspiring and helps me grow tremendously. And I wanted to know if you were comfortable talking about what helped you to get to be Tara that's sitting right there and that wrote the book and that is who you are. What happened? What about your life or your history or your journey?

Are you comfortable sharing for the rest of the night? That's pretty big and open-ended. I will say something that links to the last question is that everything has kept coming back to ways of paying attention that have loosened the sense of Atara self. You know, it's like so that there is a sense of belonging to aliveness and to others and earth and so on without so much of a narrative going on. So that is one, a beginning way to get at that, but to be much more, much less lofty, suffering. You know, like everybody else. It's, you know, I've continually encountered.

all the conditioning to try to control things and grab onto things and not like things and not like the self that seems to not be liking things and all that stuff and somewhere probably

in my early 20s it became really clear that the only way to have more freedom was by just really feeling all that in a very direct way not

using what I called false refuges. And I'll just, just to give that word a little more meaning, for me, my false refuges were to try to constantly prove myself in some way. Like, it's always going for trying to get approval or accomplish something or be somebody and also all the addictive stuff, overeating. I mean, I had a ton of them. And bit by bit, it wasn't like I swore off a false refuge, but more kept on choosing to deepen attention. So I give huge bow to a path of practice, where there is, whether it's formal, you know, dedicated, I'm going to sit every day for 45 minutes, are the informal mindfulness where we're training our minds to notice what's going on.

So it was really that. It's just exactly what we're doing together here. The last piece I'll say is what's made probably the biggest difference over time for me is I have gotten much kinder to myself. That the reason I wrote radical acceptance is because I suffered from, you know, this chronic sense of not enough. like if I did a hand raised, I'm sure I wouldn't be in, I'd be in good company. We have that.

And I committed myself, and this again was in my 20s, to softening to myself. And that's made a big difference. So thank you for your questions. I feel when you invite me, and I guess I get to feel more a part of it. So thank you. Thank you. Yeah. I'm puzzled or bothered by a contradiction between radical acceptance, which I find very calming.

And on the other hand, the desire to change some things, which it seems to me remains appropriate. And I don't want to give up entirely. So you're juxtaposing radical acceptance with that there's still a desire to change things and you don't want to give that up. Right. Yeah. Well, me too.

I mean, I have a desire to change things too. And radical acceptance means accepting that desire to change things. And the desire to, you know, I'm not trying to be clever, really. The desire to change things itself is not, necessarily an obstacle or ignorant. It can come out of a very sincere place in us that recognizes what's causing suffering.

You know, where we see what the kind of devastation that industries are doing to this earth and that we're doing with our habit patterns to this earth. Well, I would suspect there's a lot of us here that have a passionate desire to see through, you know, legislation and through behavior of industries and individuals that we take care of our earth. So that's passionate and deep.

And radical acceptance does not mean that we don't have that. What radical acceptance means, and this is, to me, really powerful and central, is that we can unconditionally accept the experience. that's going on in this moment. That if I am paying attention right now to the debates and I'm feeling a sinking sense of wow, there's not really a commitment to Earth

or there's not really the kind of commitment to peace that's really going to make a difference. If I feel that, then it's opening to that sense of discouragement or despair or sadness in my heart in this moment. that's radical acceptance. And if I open to it,

then the urge to act and change is coming from a much more intelligent and awake place. So the idea is accept the experience of the moment and then have your life lived out of that acceptance, including our efforts to transform the world around us. Thank you. Yeah, thank you. Hi, Tara.

You know, I have met a metta practice or something. Sometimes I practice META. And I find that the most difficult thing sometimes is to feel meta towards myself. And to, you know, extend to myself the kind of loving kindness that, you know, is sometimes easier to extend towards other people. And there's always this sense of self-criticism and that I, you know, I come to think is the largest impediment sometimes. to living less separate or more fuller existence in some way. And I know a lot of what we talk about is that kind of thing, but I was wondering if you might be able to talk a little bit about,

you know, more specifically about how to overcome that difficulty in extending to yourself the loving kindness that we also try to extend to others. So, and please stay by the mic so I can ask you back, because I think it's a wonderful question. It's one of the most important is how do we really, if we're saying that we're trying to cultivate these two wings of presence, and one wing is to see what's true in the other is to hold it with love. We have to be able to do that with this body, this body, mind, being we call self. And so what you're saying is when you try to do that, when you try to offer a caring, presence yourself. That's the hardest

place. Let me ask you a question which is has there been anything or any times that you find that something has helped you in regarding yourself with more care? There are any circumstances that do help?

Yeah, unfortunately like you were saying, it's frequently external. It's somebody gives you approval or you win something or you get a pat on the back but you know and that kind of thing is frequently where the you know impetus for that comes from but it's so much more difficult you know without that kind of external thing so you're accurately

noting that usually the surge is somewhat more like of an ego inflation where we temporarily feel relieved that we're not bad or we feel you know all right I'm okay for now But the way that that comes to you actually is important because there is a power in doing... The meta is another description of the loving-kindness practice. And one of the words for meta is friendliness. So it has both friendliness and loving-kindness. And the way that meta, our loving-kindness,

is aroused, is by seeing goodness. So the reflection really is can you begin to look at your own being and see your own goodness? And that for many of us is hard. So there are skillful means, which means pathways to that that are less direct. And one of them is often by looking through the eyes of somebody else that you trust and care about at yourself as if you're that person and I've asked that person the question. or looking through your eyes, what do you see? So that's one way is to let somebody else's appreciation of you

inform you. And to actually, and just for a moment, you all might just close your eyes and check this out. Just try it out, see what happens. Because it's so important, we'll just do a brief exercise. So feel that right now your intention is to offer your own, being loving kindness, and we're going to explore some of the pathways on how that's possible. And so as I mentioned, one is to just begin to reflect on the qualities about yourself that you

appreciate. So begin by trying that out, just sense, well, I have an appreciation of beauty, our nature. I'm just going to name a few that come to mind that some of us can say, well yeah that's true and I have a sense of humor and I do care about people there's a sense of aliveness of enjoying feeling alive I can be generous

so you kind of move like that you just start noticing okay here are some qualities of goodness I want to know truth truth matters I'm honest I try to be helpful to people so you just keep going like that

And let's say there's a part of you that's going, yeah, but there's always something that comes my way for it. There's always a selfish motive because we often undermine ourselves that way. Then explore bringing to mind someone that you really do trust, sees you and cares about you. In other words, they get you and they care about you. And it might be somebody that you know very well, or it might be somebody that you don't know so, well but you think there's a lot of wisdom in that person and kindness and and you kind of trust that they can see behind the mask and see the goodness. Experiment looking through that person's eyes. This takes a little bit of mental agility but it's doable if you practice some. What does

that person see? Does that person see your sincerity and that you care about waking up and growing your good heart. It can help to imagine that person looking at you with appreciation and care. Just imagine those eyes are looking at you and valuing you,

caring about you. And you might, if you'd like to experiment, put your hand on your own heart and sense their energy, their care, their appreciation, just as an energetic very real energetic kind of force that just kind of enters into your hand into your heart.

So you start being bathed by that sense of another person's appreciation of you and see if you can agree to let it in a little. And then just to try to sense, well, what is the wish you'd like to offer to yourself? Maybe the wish you'd like to offer yourself is, may I trust myself more? May I be kinder to myself? this life with compassion. May I be forgiving? So sense what you'd like to wish for yourself. And just let the touch, you might even feel the touch is very tender, that that wish is coming through your hand into your heart. I move through life with the intention to be kind to myself and others. This is the heart of the loving kindness practice that we begin to find a way to offer

care to the life that's right here and the way the door opens as a way to close this exercise is simply with your intention if even in this little exercise you feel your intention to be kinder cracks the door open in a profound way so i thank you for your question it gave us a excuse to have a little bit of that flavor of loving kindness in the room so that was fun yeah So anyone else right now for questions? Hi, is somebody relatively new to meditation? This is a very basic technical question, but I'm wondering if you could comment on different techniques

for staying awake during the guided meditation. Are you falling asleep during my meditation? I did. That hypnotic kind of. It's actually, it's basic and really an important, question. You know in Buddhist meditation teachings

there are five energies that are considered to be universal and that we all encounter at different times you know, all of us. And one of them is that when we're sitting there's something in us that is wanting something different or I want food

or I want to leave or you know I want to you know go fantasize so there's that kind of grasping mind and then there's a part of us, the aversive mind that's saying, I don't like this, my body's uncomfortable, when is this going to end, you know, that kind of thing. That's the averse of, the adverse mind. Then there's a part of us, and this is coming to your question, that has to do with sleepiness, kind of a heaviness. It's called sloth and torpor. You know, like a sloth. And it's a heavy

energy, because here you have your meditation coach up front saying, experience a wakefulness of your, you know, and you're sitting there, you know. So that's the third. And then the other two are restlessness. I'm sure some of you know what it's like just to feel like you're going to explode. You just need to move to do something. And then the fifth is doubt, which is considered the most paralyzing. Because if you have doubt, which is like, I'm not really cut out for this or this isn't cut out for me or whatever it is, it stops you from taking the effort. How to work with these things.

And there's always two levels of how you work with any of these challenges. And one of the levels is that there are kind of skillful ways you can, kind of antidotes. So with sleepiness, you sit up a little taller, open your eyes, there's no law that says you have to meditate with your eyes closed, okay? Really, I mean think of it.

most of our day our eyes are open. If we only had a training to be meditated with our eyes closed, that would be a real shame. We'd miss out on huge swaths of moments, right? So open your eyes, sit up taller. You can stand up. If you come to any of our retreats, you'll notice that at any given sitting, some people are standing, because you can get more energy that way. Okay?

Take a few full breaths. Sometimes listening to sound alerts, refreshes the mind more than the breath which can be much more tranquilizing. So those are examples of tricks that are skillful. More important is not to make it wrong. If you are finding yourself lulled and kind of soporific during a guided meditation, radical acceptance. Just, oh, it's like this right now. It's just another weather system. Right now, it's kind of balmy and sleepy. Another time it's kind of windy and agitated. Another time it's whatever. So let it be a weather system, you know, kind of just name it. Okay, sleepy and bow to it. Okay,

this is how it is. And get curious. If you're curious about it, like what is sleepiness like? And even though the mind's not that alert to investigate with precision, you might sense, okay kind of fuzzy and heavy here. For me there's kind of a pressure or a weight on my chest usually when I'm sleepy. Just start noticing that. If you really pay attention, you might notice that you've added something to sleepiness, which is, I shouldn't be sleepy. Be mindful of that. Because the only suffering that comes in meditation is when we say it shouldn't be like this. so I'm looking at you but I'm really speaking to all of us

that it's just one of the universal energies not to make it wrong mindfulness, non-judgment a few little skillful means to do what you can and let it go yeah thank you it was a good question yeah

hi thank you I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about dealing with small children with the four noble truths and like when you have a child that you know could benefit from a little bit of detachment and what kind of vocabulary you would use and things like that, just a little bit of help. Yeah, so this question about how to bring some of the basic principles to our children is probably too big for me to even do justice with a few words,

but more I can point to some resources. What age are we talking? Kindergarten first grade. Yeah. Check the IMCW website for the family programs and there's a few different ones, one in Arlington, one here in Bethesda. And the teachers that are working with the children are wonderful at giving metaphors and stories that actually convey just what you're talking about,

that there's so much more happiness when we're not lost in our weather system and that kind of thing. So check that out. Tickna on has a beautiful book on meditating with children and I think has the word seeds in it. If anybody here knows it,

it just came out recently. It's really lovely. And more what I would say is it's how we are. That it's way more important that we are able to find a place of not being overly reactive, of having some space, some perspective, then whatever we convey to them,

because that's what we're really conveying as our own energy. Yeah. Thank you very much. Thank you. Yeah. Hi, Tara. I was interested to hear you call Torpor an energy, and because honestly,

I completely get the grasping and aversion causing suffering. But at least to me, those have an energy to them and there's something I can work with. I honestly feel personally my suffering is mostly, I'm bored. I'm heavy. I have to abur. And that doesn't seem to have any energy. So, and it's not that I'm falling asleep when I'm meditating,

fact they don't really sleep all that well but yeah just a lack of engagement yeah so anything sure I think it's I'm glad you're drilling down a little more because there's a lot we we could explore about these universal forces so if you consider soft and torpor or sleepiness and you say well what makes me sleepy you know and one reason might be we've just been working hard and we're tired. And that's just, you just say, okay, well, that's it. You know, I'm tired and you find time to sleep. Another reason is that sometimes we come to meditate and it's quiet and we're still and we're so in the habit of being go, go, go and here's a quiet, peaceful room. And there's some part of us that goes, oh, it's quiet in here. It must be

bedtime. So there's just this kind of reflex to kind of, that's a little bit of, that's a second reason. A third reason, this is where I'm going with this, is that often sleepiness is a way of covering over something we don't want to have more contact with, something that's raw. And that's why a lot of times people, depression. It's actually a psychic energy that is pushing us down some as kind of kind of shoving under the parts of our psyche that we really don't want to experience. that's when it gets little interesting and boredom has a little bit

of a different energy it's kind of a restlessness that's got a version under it where there's something it's like we don't want to be present we don't want to be with what's right here so there's this kind of restlessness it's trying to find something more

something's missing you know it's kind of trying to find something else because now is not enough there's a sense of not enough So the invitation is to take whatever version is presenting for you, because I'm sensing that you can feel in it, there's something in it that wants attention. Deepen your attention and sense how it feels in your body. Sense if you gave that energy of voice, you know, what is it believing? Sense what that place in you needs or wants.

Like just keep inquiring. This is not an intellectual investigation. It's a felt sense investigation. Do you know what I mean by that? Yeah, sure. And that's definitely an issue from me. I'm very conceptual and analytical. And so this is definitely emotional.

It's definitely a what? An emotional kind of thing, or maybe even a lack of emotion. Or a covering over of. It's your way of moving away from emotion? I guess. It alludes analysis. Which is good. We wanted to elude analysis.

So what I'd like to invite you to do is explore it in an embodied way. In other words, feel how it feels in your body. And you can ask it questions like, what are you wanting, what are you needing? But keep coming back for the response in your body, which means neck down. Okay. And let me know what you find. Okay. Yeah, thank you.

Hi. you do lately I've been setting intentions when I wake up in the morning sometimes it's really small little tiny intention and sometimes it's something

really huge that's been bothering me but sometimes I sit down and I just can't focus on what would be the intention for now and sometimes there's just so many I'm like well let's see would I have set an intention

and meditate for 15 minutes and then would I set the next one And, you know, like sometimes there's just so many things that I want to, I've realized meditation solves so many things. What I'm hearing is your question is, what is a good way of reflecting on intention when there just seems to be too many and it's kind of scattered? And one of the things I found about intentions is that they're very, very layered. And so there's a whole superficial level, like imagine an ocean with a lot of waves. and some of the waves are really wanting, you know, I want to get a lot done today, that's my intention, you know.

The depth of the intention, how deep it is, comes out of presence. So if you notice there's a mess of them kind of all on the surface, that's an invitation to, you might let go of the inquiry about intention for just a bit and just say, let me get more here. And let your breath calm you down, you know, slow, long breath. kind of bring your energies really into your body. Just feel yourself right here so your senses are awake. And then ask again and ask it with the kind of interest that's like,

so what really matters to me? You know, what is it? And sometimes I'll, you know, at the end of your life looking back or, you know, what would have mattered about this moment or this sitting or this day. So you get sincere. And the sign of having tapped into a deep intention is sincerity. You'll feel it's a felt shift in the body.

I sometimes consider it's kind of like innocence. You just feel very clean with it. And that's a different kind of intention than the multiple intentions that are hanging out on the surface. Then you've dropped into the ocean-ness of being and you sense the deep longing. and for me intention always has to do with some quality of presence it may be that there's a direction of that presence I want to bring presence to this relationship or this project but intention always has to do with coming home to presence in some way

so I hope those are tips that help yeah thanks yeah thank you you sort of have to set your intention to figure out where your attention is you're exactly right actually it is very circular you have have to be present enough to remember the presence matters. And when you remember the presence matters, then you become more present. So it is definitely a looping. Yeah. Thank you. Hi there, Tara. Well, first of all, I've been coming off and on here for a few years now. And I also read your book. The experience really has been transformative for me. I've been meaning to thank you for a long time, so I wanted to thank you for that.

Thank you. My question is, I'm kind of curious with someone like yourself that is so practiced. and meditation. You know, what is your experience when you're meditating, not maybe in this environment, but when you're at home in a quiet place and you're meditating, I'm curious to hear what your experience is like. What maybe I'm trying to evolve to eventually.

I know that we shouldn't be trying to strive for something, but I'm just curious to understand what someone like your experience is. I'm here. my computation is how much confessional I yeah because I felt my discomfort of you know that I'm on some other level because you know I've done it for a long time and I still work with the same five that I just named you know where I get restless sometimes or sleepy or wanting something more you know so the so there's a real range in my experience some days there's a lot more of becoming the quietness, just stillness, openness. So there really is very little identification with the narrative. And often it takes some time. It's not like there's, you know, I'll find as time goes on that, oh, I didn't realize I was living inside that

story. So 10, 15 minutes and it's really, and then, oh, that's right. So there's a settling process that is pretty much happens every day. And I use different pathways to arrive in stillness. Sometimes I will collect around, you know, just as we do here, just, you know, relaxing through the body and waking up through the body, sometimes listening to sound, sometimes chigong through moving, you know, so there's different practices. But the abiding components that are always there is that there's an intention simply to let go of all doing. And that's a key thing, because for many years I had all these different techniques, but, and I could engineer myself to fairly tranquil, concentrated, open states, but they were somewhat manufactured by the technique.

And the shift that's happened in recent years is that at some point the doing drops away. So there's a much more spontaneous natural kind of awareness that emerges from that and more trust in that. And what I found in working with people is that it takes some intention to wean ourselves from our practice, our formal practice. Does that make sense? Yeah. So we use it with a light touch. You use the concentration on the breath or use the, okay, now I'm going to listen to sound.

Now I'm going to sweep through the body. Now I'm going to do meta. But then let it go. And let if there's an intention, it's just purely to rest in beingness, to let go into beingness. So that would be where the shift in more recent years has been. And with that, there's a natural quality of love that comes with that awareness when there's no doing at all. Yeah. So I don't know if that is what you wanted.

Okay, thank you. Yeah. Yeah. Hi there. Thank you. Somebody I overheard say this week, that's an observation, not a judgment. And that's a common phrase that you can hear sometimes in our language. I'm just curious to know

what really differentiates observation from judgment because people do say things of that nature is it the intention can you tell in yourself when you're let's say with somebody that you care about

and they're doing something that you know causes them suffering could you tell the difference between noticing that and having it be an observation in, oh, this behavior, this is leading to this, you know, and having it be a judgment where you're not only noticing this is causing suffering, but that there is an averse of quality in your body about it, that this is wrong, it shouldn't be happening?

I can definitely sense the body language among folks, especially if they're being critical of others. So you can tell in yourself the difference. Yes. And in myself too, when I've said things in the past, I mean, if they were judgmental, there's a difference in the way that it feels, it resonates inside. Right.

So your question is such a good one because it's a whole area of practice to start noticing the difference between simply observing something and what do we add on to the observation, whether it's about ourselves or another person. We might observe, you know, I might observe myself speeding around and not very open-hearted. So what if I just observe that and say,

okay, I'm speedy and my heart's kind of tight and numb, versus observe that and saying, and I'm supposed to be a spiritual teacher, and I'm supposed to be feeling sensitive and tender when I'm having a conversation with this person, and instead I'm just trying to get it done so I can do, you know. So if I add on, I shouldn't be like this. That's the difference between observation and judgment.

Thank you. Yeah, thank you. Hi. Hi, thank you for this opportunity. I come here about once a month and I keep thinking, gee, I really should establish a practice at home. And, you know, it's always a competition of things, one of the chief things being work and sleep. why might it be so hard for me to start doing this at home and what might help? It's a great one. Thank you for bringing that into the room. You know, in all the spiritual gatherings, that's the elephant in the room, is that there's some underlying assumption, well, if we're really serious about this stuff,

we'll be practicing. And how many of us either aren't practicing or have a sense of it's not enough. or I'm not really really investing in it. Let's raise our hands. How many of you have some evaluation that's judgment, not observation? Yeah, okay. So here we are.

And for those of you that are listening, that was most of the room that raised their hand. Yeah, so it's really challenging. And I'll say what I think kind of explains it, but then the strategies that can work, which is that, you know, we've inherited a survival brain, that has us geared to be vigilant

and that has a default network that as soon as we start moving towards presence starts getting stirred up and looks for the future and looks to the past and tries to reconstruct a self-reality that gives us orientation because we feel unsafe and vulnerable and so on when we're just resting in meditation.

So we've got a lot of conditioning to not choose to stop doing. We've got a lot of conditioning to not choose pausing. Because in those moments, we are no longer using our false refuge. We're no longer protecting ourselves. We're no longer accomplishing things. All our strategies to feel better, these substitute strategies we're hooked on,

we have to put aside. So there's a lot of conditioning against us. it. And I think it takes a lot of support to do it. I think that one of the reasons that through history people have gathered, spiritual people have gathered, whether it's in monasteries or in, you know, tribes to sing or dance or whatever it is, they've gathered together because we have a deep intention for it and our shared, our collective energy helps create a kind of gravitational field that makes it easier. So it's easier to come on Wednesday night. Hey, we're all here, we're doing it together,

or to listen to a podcast where you sense there's some energy that you're plugging into, then to stop our world and pause on our own. Does that make sense? Yeah. So one approach is to find others to sit with, but that's, of course, not realistic if we want to have a daily practice. So what I found work for me was this. I was kind of lucky because when I was 21 or 22, I moved into a spiritual community.

So for 10 years, every morning at 3.30, a group of 40, 50 people would gather, and I got very into a habit, a very good habit. Then I moved out of the ashram and immediately had a baby. So I went from very conducive to very not conducive like that, you know. So I found for a few months I was kind of wobble. on my practice and really missed it. And so I made a commitment that I've kept, and I really invite you to make this commitment, which is to practice every day no matter what.

And there's a back door. There's an out on this one. By practice, I mean formally create some space and time, that you're dedicating to paying attention to presence. Okay, that's what I mean by practice, some formal time. It could be practice while you're walking slowly or walking fast, but you're intending presence. It could be practice while you're lying down.

It could be practice in any posture. It could be practice in movement, chigong or yoga. But the key thing is that it's every day, because nature likes rhythmic cycles and there's a remembrance that starts occurring when every day we meet ourselves in that way. It's a gift to the soul. It's the most precious gift you can give

is to create a pause each day where your intentions to come home to your own being. Now the back door is that it doesn't matter how long. Okay? So for me, back to my story, when I had an infant, sometimes my husband would be with Narayan and I would, you know, go back to having, you know, I usually sit for about 45 minutes or whatever. But there were many days that it just didn't happen. I was back to seeing clients and this and that. And at the end of the day, I'd sit kind of, I'd be at the edge of my bed and I'd close my eyes and I'd take a few breaths for a few moments. And then I'd say, you know, may all beings be blessed. May all beings be happy. May all beings be free? Clunk. that was it. That was my meditation. But it counted. So I want to say that to you as an invitation that you can do that. You can give yourself that gift. It's something there's not one of us that

can't do that because it's it can be short. But it's a little bit of a trick because once you do pause, there often is a part of you that says, wait a minute, just stay a bit. Just stay. Let's let's make friends, let's be in the moment, let's connect, or there's some curiosity that wants to say, well, what is it like right now, really, to be here? So for me, I'd often say, okay, I'm just going to sit for five minutes today because I just have too much to do.

And then I sit, and then I end up staying for longer. So that's one possibility you might experiment with. Thank you. Hi. Hey there. So I'm taking on a project that I've, tried to do many times in the past successfully but it's ended up not so successfully and each time I sit down to do it and to try to succeed it's like I'm

overwhelmed with feelings of doubts and I guess like flashbacks to how I've not done well and I was wondering how do I get past that how can I use mindfulness to deal with to try to make it a new start my white whale is the GRE I'm sorry it's the GRE oh my gosh the GRI yeah we know that one so first of all I want to thank you it's an important question because there's not one of us that doesn't know what it's like to feel a sense of fear of failure and and to have marked from the past the times that we didn't come through, whether it's to do with a relationship

or a test or work or something, a diet, whatever it is. So we carry the weight of the past into the moment as evidence of what's not going to work. So the question I'm hearing from you is when that storyline is circulating in your mind,

how can you use mindfulness with it? The first step is to pause enough to just fully acknowledge, okay, the failure story's back. You know, there's the voice in the brain saying how it's not, how I'm not going to do well. It's almost like you're taking a picture frame and putting it around it and saying, okay, so there's that, that story of failure. And feel in your body what it feels like, you know, when you listen to that, but get really awake to the fact that the story is going on. Because if you can name a story, if you can name a fear, it doesn't have as much control over you. And they found, the shaman put it that way. They say,

if you can name a fear, you basically have some freedom around it. And now in research studies, MRIs of the brain, as soon as you start naming what's happening, okay, fear thoughts, failure thoughts. There's a shift in where the brain's activated, the limbic systems, not as activated. So that's step one, is to name it, come into your body, and then just start breathing long and slow, just real conscious breaths with whatever you're feeling in your body. Just keep a company, and then offer yourself some prayer, like, may I trust in my capacities, after you've calmed it down some. Okay? Frame around the story, come to the body, breathe with it, and then offer yourself a blessing

and see how that goes for you. Okay? Yeah, thank you. Does that make sense to you to do? Do you have a... Yeah, yeah. Thanks. Yeah, thank you.

Okay. So I just want to really give you all my appreciation because part of my thanks is to those who stood up, but also there's some sense of safety and good-heartedness that makes it possible

for people to ask. questions and I could really feel it here and it's in that spirit I'd like to close the evening if you will just to have a chance to come into the moment and invite you to close your eyes so much of what we've been exploring tonight are the different things that keep us from presence whether it's judgment fear of failure sleepiness and how we come back home again so just for these moments feel your intention to be fully here and notice if it's possible to relax

something in your body and relax something in your heart so that you can rest more fully in that hereness to take these moments to honor the wakefulness that's right here in your own being the consciousness that in you which wants to wake up to know truth

to love well, just to honor that. Offering whatever blessing you'd like inwardly right now, whatever resonates, whatever blessing you'd like to offer to your own heart right now, with sincerity, with care. And then just widening the attention to sense all those that are sitting here, all those that may be listening and tuning in

to the same field of presence of care and just sense that you can hold all of us in your heart and that this shared heart space can spread out in all directions everywhere so that we sense all the insanity of the world, the political, the violence, the greed and we also sense the potential the heart potential, the goodness that can bring healing and peace to this world.

May all beings everywhere discover and live from loving presence. May there be peace on earth. May there be peace everywhere. May all beings awaken and be free. 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.