Tara Brach - RAIN - Cultivating a Mindful Awareness

Episode Date: April 19, 2014

2014-04-16 - RAIN - Cultivating a Mindful Presence - The acronym RAIN is a powerful tool for interrupting habitual patterns of emotional reactivity and discovering the freedom of an awake, compassionate presence. This talk explores the components of RAIN, how it works, what makes it transformational and typical challenges people encounter. The teachings include a guided RAIN meditation.

The following talk is given by Tara Brock, meditation teacher, psychologist, and author. There's a paradox to mindfulness. And some of you might know the word sati, the polyword satei means remembering presence, being aware of what's going on in the moment. And as most of us know, when we most need it, you know, when we're in traffic or when we're in some engaged with our child and there's a lot of tension or when there's an argument with a partner or we're anxious about performance, we're overeating, you know, a bag of trail mix.

Those are the times we most need mindfulness, and those are the times that's absolutely like a million miles away, right? So the big question is, in this practice of remembrance, is how to remember to remember, right? I mean, we know that. I was reflecting on this and I remember one of my father's favorite little stories of a elderly couple and they're having an amiable conversation and one says the other, Hey Fred, so how was your experience with the memory clinic?

And Fred said, oh, it was great. They taught us all sorts of cool tricks, you know, association and visualization. And his friend says, that's great. What's the name of the clinic? goes blank and he's thinking and thinking and finally this broad smile across his face and goes what's that that flower with a long stem and the thorns and his friend says rose he goes hey rose what was the name of that clinic that I heard that one a lot growing up so we need a way to remember to remember I mean we need a certain amount of mindfulness to be

mindful and many of you are familiar with the acronym R-A-I-N-R-A-I-N and it's a strategy for cultivating and applying mindfulness that's really easy to remember to kind of, okay, let's just rain. Teachers have been sharing this now for probably over 20 years, and I find that this acronym is so helpful. I've ended up sharing it so regularly that I really wanted to dedicate a talk to diving in some more and looking at the elements of it and some of the challenges that come up

and having have a little time so that we can do a full guided rain meditation together apply it I'll be asking you to pick something someplace you get stuck that you'd like to have a little more mindfulness holding so a little bit of background on rain the acronym was first coined by a senior of a POSNA teacher, Michelle McDonald. Again, I think it was about 20 years ago. The version that I've been teaching for the last, now it's probably about 12 years, expands on the original,

and very specifically I added an explicit emphasis on kindness, because that wasn't in the original acronym, an emphasis on a kind of intimate attention, quality of attention. And I also kind of expanded what, the investigation means. So we'll get into that in a bit. But I found that both for students, for anybody working with difficulty, for clinicians helping their patients and clients, that the acronym is really impactful. So to begin with the elements of the acronym, RANN, RANN, R is to recognize,

which means to, and I'll go through them very carefully in a little bit, but recognize means to notice what's going on in the moment. You can name it, like, oh, fear, confusion, anger, whatever it is, just recognize it. The A of rain is to allow it, which means don't try to get rid of it. It's almost like this pause or you make space and let B for the time being. Just allow it. You just let it be as it is. The eye of rain, once you've allowed it, you can sink in a little more, is you say, okay, so investigate. What is going on here? So you begin to explore the dimensions of the experience.

You say, okay, how's this feel? And is there something I'm believing right now about myself? And, you know, what's the actual sensations of the experience? So you kind of go in more. But if you do that and you don't have an attitude of friendliness or kindness, the investigation can actually have a tinge of judgment or aversion. So the I, when you're investigating, also includes a kind of intimate attention where you're really offering a quality of gentleness or friendliness. That's R-A-I. The N, there's nothing that you're doing with the N.

The N is the fruit of the RAI. With the recognizing and allowing and investigating and offering this kindness, there's a quality of presence that ends up unfolding. That is the N. There's a shift in identity where you're no longer the beleaguered self, the victimized self, the angry self, the fearful self. There's a sense of resting in that presence. that is caring, open, awake, tender.

There's a shift in your sense of who you are. That's the end and the end is not identified. You're not identified with the kind of narrow, egoic, reactive self. But you can also think of the end. Some of you might prefer that you've come back to your natural loving awareness. You're back and the wholeness of your being. So those are the elements. and we'll go, I'll give you some examples of how it works and we'll practice.

But I'd like to first kind of describe almost in terms of the dynamics of it how that works. And one of my favorite ways of understanding rain is comes from Dan Siegel, who's a neuropsychologist, and he says, you know, he says, he takes the hand like this and he says, okay, you're going to think of your wrist as your spine, cord that's going into the skull, it's your brain stem, okay? And then he takes the thumb and he says, this is the limbic system, you know, fight, flight, freeze, and so on. And then the fingers over it, we've got the whole brain now, the frontal cortex, okay? So brain stem, limbic system, frontal cortex. So this is our brain. And generally when the way things work is information flows up and then it flows down through the, you know, there's information going up

and then the frontal cortex regulates and sends more information down. But what happens when there's too much stress is you can flip your lid. Right? So that what happens is you no longer have the value of the frontal cortex feeding down information like, hey, let's get some perspective on things. And yes, this has happened before, but you've worked it out, some humor, some wisdom, mindfulness. Okay, let's just notice.

what's happening. All of that is the frontal cortex. We no longer have access when we flipped our lid. So what intentional mindfulness does is it notices that because there's still some mindfulness that's naturally part of who we are and it begins to name what's going on and allow what's going on and activate the frontal cortex so it's re-engaged and we're back in an integrated system. Isn't that cool? So that's how it works. I mean, Rain, this arousing of presence with the recognizing, allowing, investigating, actually reengages the frontal cortex.

And with that, when I say frontal cortex, the whole network that's described as the compassion network and then that larger viewing of mindfulness. So I also like to think of rain in the more poetic way. If you think of the rain coming down from the skies, it's the you know, the sky of awareness and this rain of attention and that when we're caught in a tight space there's this nourishment that comes from the heavens that helps us to soften and open and it helps us to again grow into our fullness.

So many of you, maybe when you hear the acronym for the first time As I did, one of the first thoughts was of Shakespeare and the quality of mercy is not strained. It dropeth as the gentle rain from heaven, right? So when we're suffering, the freedom doesn't come from a strained effort. The freedom doesn't, we don't fight our way out of the box. is actually this gentle rain of attention that we offer to what's happening. And in that gentle attentiveness, we begin to reopen and re-inhabit the fullness of our being. We have access again to our resources.

Or back to the scientific way, we have access to the frontal cortex. So let's explore a little bit about when rain is needed. And the broad response to that is any time we're stuck in a small place where we're caught in an egoic sense of something's wrong, I'm endangered, I'm threatened, I'm going to lose something, I've lost something, some sense of tightness or smallness. And there's many different ways that could happen. We might be caught in a conflict and be in the kind of reactivity where we're lashing out

and it might feel very familiar. And I'm going to name a few different versions of where rain can come in because I want you to be thinking about how you'd like to apply it in your own life tonight when we practice. So perhaps you have a situation in your life where you just very easily get tripped off into in some way being aggressive or hostile or judgmental. It's perfect to practice on your own, just rerun it, stop it where you're feeling reactive,

and then start practicing rain. An alleged radio conversation between a U.S. naval ship and Canadian authorities. This is what was recorded. Americans say, please divert your course 15 degrees to the north to avoid a collision. Canadians say, recommend you divert your course 15 degrees to the south to avoid a collision, the Americans. This is the captain of the U.S. Navy ship. I say again, divert your course.

The Canadians, no. I say, again, you need to divert your course, the American sternly. This is the aircraft carrier, USS Lincoln, the second largest ship in the United States Atlantic Fleet. We are accompanied by three destroyers, three cruisers, and numerous support vessels. I demand that you change your course 15 degrees north. That's one five degrees north. Our countermeasures will be undertaken to ensure the safety of this ship. Canadians, this is a lighthouse. Your call. So it's a silly example, but we get it that our aggression does not work. We know that.

So it may be that kind of situation, or you might be choosing another one of our stuck egoic states where we're caught in what sometimes I describe in radical acceptance as the trance of unworthiness. We'll really get that we've been comparing ourselves to others or to a standard that we have for ourselves and we're feeling that sense of failure, that sense of falling short. and we might just pause and say, okay, let's practice deepening attention. Rain is deepening attention. It's bringing more awareness. So I remember for myself, after I finished writing radical acceptance,

and I was really the trance of unworthy, I talked about it a lot. I went on book tour. I went to Noropa, which is a Buddhist university in Colorado, to teach about this. And they had a poster of me, and a big picture of me to announce the course and the line under the picture said

something is wrong with me so if you're going around with the something's wrong with me feeling that's a good time to practice rain another domain where this is again I'm kind of giving descriptions of where we get small

where we get into our egoic self and each of these really are trans states and by trance I mean in these moments when we're being aggressive or we're comparing and feeling small, we've lost sight of our natural wholeness, the N of Rain. We're identified with something small and separate and deficient. Sometimes the expression of that is a kind of restlessness or an anxiousness

where we start kind of just doing things because we're just not wanting to be with what's here. And that's another, if you see yourself, whether it's the more obvious addictive behaviors, but in some way you're running away from just being. And often it happens with, you know, going on the internet or watching extra TV or daydreaming or shopping. Here's one example. Written by an elderly person, he says, working people frequently ask, retired people what they do to make their days interesting. Well, for example, the other day Mary, my wife and I went into town and visited a shop. When we came out, there was a cop writing out a parking ticket.

We went up to him and I said, come on, man, how about giving a senior citizen a break? He ignored us and continued writing the ticket. I called him a creep. He glared at me and started writing another ticket for having worn out tires. So Mary called him a jerk. He finished the second ticket and put it on the windshield of the first, and he started writing more tickets. This went on about 20 minutes.

about 20 minutes. The more we abused him, the more tickets he wrote. Just then our bus arrived, and we got on it and went home. We try to have a little fun each day now that we're retired. It's important at our age. So you might notice that your ways of entertaining yourself or diverting or distracting yourself or you're running away. Okay, enough of my illustrations. So one of the other domains that when we're in a trance, we're feeling separate, and we find that we have habitual ways of distancing from other people, ways we stay busy or that we avoid being authentic or having real contact. One woman was describing, there was some years ago,

being at a class with Ram Dass in Oakland. He'd given a series of classes on serving others. And the class had really affected her because she noticed that every day when she went home from work, there was a homeless man by the metro, and she noticed that he wanted... And she put money in his cup, but she realized that she could never look him in the eye.

And she said that she was afraid, and then she started to examine this. And this is rain, where you really be with your experience. and she said, because if I really looked at him, he'd be sleeping on my living room couch, that we avert our eyes, we don't pay attention, we sometimes don't let ourselves take in other people's suffering because, oh, we're afraid to open to the realness and to really get engaged in that flow of compassion and caring. We're afraid of it.

So you might sense where you might be creating distance, and that's just another area to consider. Now, when we begin to practice rain, I mean, you can practice rain in the midst of things, in vivo. You might be in a conversation with someone and you can take a brief pause and do what I call a mini-rain where you really sweep through and in your mind you say, okay, getting angry, okay, let the energy be there, okay, what's going on? Oh, feeling threatened. You can do a kind of a quick rain. Most of the time, though, with the real tangley stuff, need to do it, step aside. side. You know, it needs to be a part of a reflection. And so, whereas a regular meditation, you're not purposely doing a project, you know, you're not, okay, I'm going to bring this

meditation to this, we're really letting life be just as it is. It's also appropriate to sometimes do intentional reflections. And that's what I mean by practicing rain on the side. Okay, so let's take the elements now and just slow it down and really look at it. what they mean, the recognizing and allowing is really the heart of mindfulness. Mindfulness is really noticing what's happening moment to moment without any judgment. We're just letting it be there. So that's the core piece of rain. And you might think of it in terms of two questions.

And one is, what is happening right now? The recognizing has the question, what's really happening? ask yourself right now, you close your eyes and say, well what's going on inside me right now? And you might try it and you'll notice that the question directs your attention in a way that there's a little more contact with what's going on inside you right now. So recognizing the question is what's happening or what's going on inside me and then there's a naming that really helps us to connect and contact the experience. And as I mentioned, As I mentioned before, you might say what's happening inside me right now and you might

say restlessness or anxious, are my mind's obsessing, it's hard to even feel what's happening in my body. You just name it. That's the recognizing. The second question, you've asked what's happening, is can I be with this? That's for allowing. What's happening? Can I be with this?

if you come out of tonight and all you remember is the R and the A, what's happening? Can I be with this? But more and more you pause and ask those questions, you'll be more awake. Okay? All right. So we ask those two questions and to note that the recognizing and allowing creates a pause, that instead of tumbling into our reactive behavior, whether it's eating a bowl of ice cream, are lashing out through an email that's, you know, judgmental or whatever it is, we've paused.

And as many of you know, one of my favorite quotes from Victor Frankel is, between the stimulus and the response, there is a space. And in that space is your power and your freedom. If you can pause in the midst of a chain of, you know, very familiar habitual activity, you have more choice. Okay? So the R and the A create a pause. And they enable you to begin to investigate. Now just to say that there are all different degrees of recognizing and allowing. You might recognize and notice, oh I'm angry and okay let it be, take a few breaths and try to go in and it may be very, very glancing. Or you might recognize and really get it and

really allow, really let it be there, and then there'll be much more potential for investigating. We just, whatever level we go to, we go to. So then we begin to investigate with interest and friendliness. One of my favorite stories that really kind of brings to life what it means to investigate our experience comes from a film, Gorillas in the Mitz. And some of you might has seen it because in this film Diana Fosse is shown to be this amazing field biologist and she followed in the footsteps her mentor was George Shaler he's a primate biologist who would go into the wilds and come back with amazing information about the lifestyle and habits of gorillas so he'd find they between them they were able to really outline their tribal

structure and their family life and the intimate habits and when asked how he was able to investigate and gather all this information, he attributed to just one thing. He said, I didn't carry a gun that previous generations of biologists had gone into the wilds with, you know, toting these guns and these very peaceful creatures had kind of felt that energy. And, you know, not revealed their habits. So I feel like this really gives us a window into the spirit of mindfulness and in particular the attitude that we can bring when we investigate. That it's not judgmental. It's really that we're just the way you'd want to get to know a new friend.

It's like, what is really happening? It's an extension of that question where they are. What's this really like? How am I experiencing this? It's a genuine quality of interest with the investigating. And what we're investigating really are different domains of our reaction. I mean, when I'm investigating, I'm both investigating, you know, what's the feeling and the sensations going on? And I'll sometimes ask, well, what am I believing right now? And often right away, I'll go, oh, I'm a lot.

I'll go, oh, I'm believing that I'm falling short. Or I'm believing that that other person doesn't like me. You know, it'll be right there. But I want to give you a warning about the asking about beliefs that I've seen many times when people are in the eye of rain and they ask about their beliefs, it spirals them into thinking and into stories, and it takes them away from their bodies.

and the most powerful healing of rain comes through the body. So if you toss in the question, what am I believing? Put it in and just open and see if something pops up, but if it doesn't, don't go searching. And the reason I put out this warning is because we spend huge numbers of hours trying to figure out things in our life. Have you noticed how much you're going around through the day trying to figure out things, you know, trying to compute, trying to put things together.

It's one of our defenses, that underlying sense of something bad is going to happen. I need to be prepared. So rain can get hijacked by the figuring out mind. So I want to spare you that and say, it's very skillful to ask what am I believing because whenever we're suffering, there's a limiting belief. And if you can happen to just identify it, that'll bring more mind. mindfulness to the whole constellation of what's going on and less identification. But if you get caught up in thinking, then it just dribbles away.

You're just caught in looping thoughts. So one domain, what am I believing, but then come back to the body, the big domain of investigation. We're out in the fields and looking at these wild creatures of our being is the felt sense. The felt sense is where it's at. The more you can investigate and sense the quality of sensations and the atmosphere in your body and what's moving and where it is, the more you'll understand the whole dynamic of what's going on.

Now, as I said, if you're just investigating but there's in the background some judgment, there's a gun, it won't work. The parts of you that are most vulnerable and most need attention will hide in the shadows. So I'll say that again, if there's judgment when you're investigating, it won't work. The only thing that dissolves the judgment that we have in such great supply is a very purposeful quality of gentleness and kindness. And hence, with the eye of investigating, it's a double eye. It's investigate with an intimate attention.

Okay? Does that make sense? I mean, imagine if your child came home from school after being bullied and you wanted to find out what happened. The only way you'd be able to find out is if you created a space that was safe and kind so that the child felt like telling you. Well, there's parts of us that feel wounded and the only way that we'll get in touch with that rawness or tenderness

is if there's an intention to be kind. You can't manufacture kindness, but you can intend it because your wisdom understands that that's really what's needed. You can intend it. There's an understanding that whatever we can't in some way embrace with love or kindness imprisons us. It'll stay hidden and stay in control. And another way this was put was a wonderful yoga teacher.

One said, you know, put your right arm over your left and hug yourself. And then put your left arm over your right and hug your evil twin. So, what we've named so far, recognize, okay, what's happening, and then the allowing, let it be there, just pause, and then we're deepening the attention, let's investigate. How does this feel? Is there a belief about life that's playing into this and looping around? You know, what's really the felt sense in the moment? There's other questions you can ask.

One question I'll often ask is, you know, what is this part of me need? What is it wanting? So you're ending up investigating by communicating in a way. But again, beware of going into thinking because the information is embodied. That's where the mileage will come from. So then we have developed this presence with. That's what it is. It's presence with what's going on. And that is what unfolds itself as the end of rain. And we start to realize, oh, the what I am is not that self that was angry or victimized or whatever.

It's this experience of presence and kindness, loving awareness. And that's the gift or blessing of rain. Sometimes I use this metaphor that we come into life, we incarnate, and because life is challenging and stressful, we all very naturally develop a space suit to get through. And the ego itself, or the space suit that's kind of controlling and navigating, is quite natural. The challenge is that we start identifying with the space suit. suit and we forget who's looking through the mask. We forget that tender wakefulness

of heart. And we get identified with the defenses and the strategies. So what rain does, when we get identified in that, and there's kind of that rigidity, that edginess of ego, rain does that gentle rain from the heavens as it starts softening and creates more of a kind of porous transparency to the space suit so we can remember the goodness and awareness and love that's here. Doesn't get rid of the space suit. We're not trying to get rid of the ego. We're just trying to remember that who we are is not limited to the egoic self. And that's really important to remember. It's a homecoming to a larger sense of being. Okay, let me give you a couple of examples of how we can use rain and then have you experiment.

The two examples, one's more of a simple version of rain where it can be done, it can kind of sweep through a little more quickly. And this is a man I was working with a few years ago who was caught in being very judgmental towards his mid-20s son. His son had gone to the University of Colorado liberal arts major, and then after he graduated, he went out there because he was in love with the winter sports and also with snowboarding, but also with mountain biking. So after he graduated, he got a job as an instructor in snowboarding and skiing,

and he worked in waitresses in the summer and he managed to support himself and his girlfriend and was having a really good time and he felt really healthy and good about his life and his father, civil rights attorney, whatever, whatever. It just did not match his idea of who his son was supposed to be

and he just found he just kept running into that judgment and then every time his son would visit there would be kind of a tension and a standoff because he couldn't really feel authentic without naming what he was disturbed about. So he started practicing rain with it. And he did it when he wasn't around a son, and he'd feel his annoyance and judgment.

And he asked himself what he was believing, and his belief was, you know, he won't meet his potential, and then he'll have a bad life. He'll be unhappy. And then he got in touch with his own feelings of failure, that what did he do wrong for his son not being more, you know, aligned with what might bring out his best potential, But underneath all that was fear.

So that was what he really investigated, and he could feel the weight and the pressure of it, and he just practiced breathing with it. And every time he'd have the judgment become strong, he'd breathe with it, and he'd bring a real gentleness to it. He'd just say, okay, this is allowed to be here, feel it, breathe with it.

And he started finding in one particular round of rain that he stayed with it and he could start sensing the space around it around the judgment and in that space he could sense how much he cared about his son that there was the caring that was behind and under and inside the judgment that was the end of rain

that he was resting in that caring presence the judgment was still a habit that would float through but it didn't have the charge in other words he wasn't believing so much of who he was and who his son was and that something was wrong. That was more of a kind of narrative that he could see, but he was resting in something larger.

That enabled the visits and tenor of the visits to change. Because then he could name his concerns and have conversations without the energy of aversion. He could be a person that offered kind of wise discrimination. He'd say, well, you and your girlfriend, because they wanted to get married and have a child, If you look, are you going to be able to really support that? And he could become an advocate and a supporter without that aversion.

Part of the reason I share this is he had to keep doing it. Rain's not a one-shot. You don't do rain and then, oh, not identified any longer, free, enlightened. It's never going to come back. It's not like that. You know, we do it, but then it becomes a lighter and lighter rain is needed. because there's less and less of stickiness to dissolve. And so many rounds is kind of the message there.

A couple of other comments on using rain in this way. One is that you might do a round of rain and it might not get to N. I have a lot of people that say, oh, I did it, but I just didn't get to N. And, you know, I was like I was recognizing and allowing it some, beginning to investigate, but still was there. And so sometimes we don't get somewhere, and almost part of what's important is not to have a goal of getting to the end, but more the intention and the valuing of pausing and deepening our attention. And you can trust any time you're caught in an old pattern,

and you pause and even just for a few moments say, well, what's going on? And can I be with this? That you're beginning a rewiring, that the neurocircuitary is beginning to change. You are changing habits, even with the most lightest version of an incomplete rain. Okay?

Mindfulness helps. And this is mindfulness. this. Now, a few other challenges people come up with in doing this. And one of the big ones is, I make a big emphasis with the investigation to come to the felt sense. But what if you check in and you can't find any felt sense? In fact, you can't really feel your body very well. So what I would encourage with the investigating is to just invite the feelings to be there and notice what happens and don't worry if you can't connect with your body. Scan through your body, try to notice, but just putting out the inquiry, what's happening?

How does this feel? Where do I feel this? And doing that over and over again, the invitation is what counts. The intention's what counts. You're beginning to bring attention to what's there and it will unfold itself as it's meant to. I like it. There's these little beeps that are coming to accentuate the point. All right, I'm going to give you one more example and then I'd like to practice together. And this example is when some of you might remember from my life. And it's an example of when the patterning is very, very deep and emotional and challenging. And one of the most important rain experiences I had was somewhere in the midst of being pretty,

sick because I was pretty ill for about eight years on and off during that time. And at one point, I had injured myself and I was kind of out, you know, out of things for a couple of weeks and pretty physically uncomfortable and just miserable, like kind of pessimistic and just in a bad mood. So I, you know, sometimes ask that question, what's between me and really being at peace with how it is and I started meditating and then realized that I was in a really irritable kind of state of mind. So I did rain more formally and I had recognized and allow that okay, I'm irritable and miserable and unhappy, let it be there and it was just a big swamp. But as I started to investigate, I asked that question, what am I believing? And I was

It wasn't about the sickness, it was something is basically wrong with me and it's for how I'm being a bad patient, a bad sick person. So it wasn't just that I was sick, but I didn't like the kind of sick person I was becoming. I didn't like my self-centeredness. And just to unpack that a little, there was a sense like, well, I teach about equanimity and having being the ocean and having these waves come, and go, and here I am completely swamped by the waves and in a bad mood. You know, I'm not being true to what I'm teaching. You know, I'm getting really caught, and I'm being kind of narrow-minded and no fun to be around.

So I was down on myself. When I saw that belief, oh, something's wrong with me, then I could feel into my body and there was shame. It was a sense of kind of a hollow, achy, you know, feeling that I just wanted to disappear. and I kept investigating, but as I investigated I put my hand on my heart. And I find for me the intimacy part of rain really helps to have a very light touch on the heart. It's as if I'm keeping company in a kind way. And I sense that that place that felt so ashamed just wanted some message of kindness.

So I often use these words, it's okay, sweetheart, you know, some message of kindness. recognize, allow, investigate, bring an intimate attention. And as I sat and breathed and sent that kind of message in, there was an opening. There was more space, more tenderness. And again, it's what I call a real shift in identity from the egoic self that felt sick and miserable and bad about herself or how she was being sick and miserable,

to a space of presence and kindness. That's the gift. So what that story, the reason I share that story is a very important ingredient when you're practicing rain and when there's a lot of stickiness is the quality of self-compassion. And the more active it is, and the more full it is, the more the knots untangle and there's a resting in something larger. So I'm going to wrap it up now and we're going to wrap it up now and we're going to to practice a bit. And just to say that this is, I started tonight saying we get lost in a trance

and we don't have an easy way to remember. And so this is a tool of remembering, of remembrance, to move from the space of a separate, unworthy, victimized, not good self, back to that natural tenderness and love and presence. So find yourself if you can a way of just last few minutes here. This will be about 10 minutes to be comfortable and we'll do a rain meditation. And as a way of entering it, I'd like to say that the gift of rain, as I've been describing,

is it frees us from trance. and like that beautiful line from Shakespeare that it dropeth as the gentle rain from heaven it really washes away the kind of self-centeredness and fear and grasping that keeps us from being close with each other frees us to be more who we really are and I want to just share with you an example of that

Roberto de Vincenzo, great Argentina golfer, once won a tournament and after receiving a check and smiling for the cameras, he prepared to leave. He was still relatively new at this, and as he walked alone into the parking lot, he was approached by a young woman who congratulated him and then told him that her son was seriously ill and near death. She didn't know how she could pay the doctor's bills and hospital expenses.

and he who is known as a gentleman was so touched by her story he took the pen and endorsed the day's winnings to her he pressed it into her hand and said make some good days for the baby a couple of weeks later he's at another country club and one of the officials came over and said some of the boys in the parking lot at that last tournament told me what happened with that young woman you met he nodded well said the official I have news for you she's a phony she has no sick baby she has no children at all

she fleeced you, my friend. You mean there's no baby who's dying? said Roberto. That's right, said the official. Why, that's the best news I've heard all week. There's an inner freedom that's possible when we begin to shift from the place that's confined in the egoic self to that openness and presence. So as you sit here now, you might let your attention come to the breath and extend the breath a bit, just taking a more full in breath and a slow out breath. And again, extended in breath, slow out breath, letting the senses be awake. So you feel in quality of heerness, the sound, sensations, and then letting come to mind some situations situation in your life that you'd like to bring more attention to. And I'd like to encourage

you not to pick something that's a traumatic kind of reactivity, but rather something where you just get annoyed or you get caught and feeling down on yourself, or you get anxious about a performance, upset with somebody, kind of habitual pattern with a partner, child, So bringing a situation to mind you might run it like a movie in your mind just to bring yourself right to the frame where you're feeling stuck. And if it's something that hasn't happened yet in a real live way you might imagine it. So you see yourself in the situation, see where you are. If you're involved with another person, see that person's face, hear the sound of their voice,

if something that's going on that's triggering you. And if you're alone, just bring the circumstances up that really if you're comparing to somebody else or it's an addictive behavior on your own. Just really let it be vivid. What triggers you? So that you freeze the frame right where you're feeling most triggered. And just begin by recognizing kind of the gestalt of what's going on. Just saying what's happening right now and just name whatever you're aware of the most

obvious parts of it. And let your intention be to allow the experience that you're having just to be there, to not interfere. It's like in watching the guerrillas just letting nature unfold itself as it is. So you're pausing, recognized, aloud. And then beginning to investigate the experience and just notice first what it brings up what you're feeling in your body. If there's anger and it feels natural to clench your fists or in some way let your body

take the posture that most expresses what you're feeling, go ahead. So you really can get in touch with what's this like when I'm really caught in this? You might feel your face and let the expression of your face again. reflect what's going on. Try not to be shy. It really helps to let your body and your face contact the experience. And you might notice that there's a belief about yourself or the world that's real obvious. Again, the what am I believing questions just to see if there's something there or that maybe you're believing that you're failing or that you'll never be good enough or that you'll never be lovable, that you can't trust others. And then,

let yourself, if you notice a belief like that, feel, felt sense in your body, like your throat, your chest, your belly. So you're investigating and contacting what's here. And as you do it, let the intention be to offer a kindness or gentleness to what you're aware of. And for tonight or for this time I'd encourage you to experiment with bringing your hand to your heart as a kind of gesture and you might vary the pressure so that you really feel that sense of there is kindness and gentleness accompanying your experience. So you might feel anger or hurt inside, you might feel that shame and there's that hand and that touch saying, in some way, I'm here, I care. So you're investigating with an

intimate attention and you might sense what that part of you that's most vulnerable and upset most wants or needs and sense the possibility of bringing in great compassion and presence. You might even sense some words that are naturally offered as part of this intimate presence. One healer says, I'm sorry and I love you. Ticknauthan says the words, Darling, I care about this suffering. So there's an honest contact with the experience, investigating, contacting, and an intimate presence.

And you might feel your breath as you sit here and just sense that as you bring this presence to your experience, really who you are, sense if there's an inhabiting of a larger space of awareness that there is a sense of that oceaness that's holding the waves of yourself but not lost inside them so you're saying yes to the life that's here making room and resting in something larger

clothes with a poem white dove yoga teacher Dana Falls she says in the shared quiet an invitation arises like a white dove lifting from a limb and taking flight come and live in truth take your place in the flow of grace draw aside the veil you thought would always separate your heart from love all you ever longed for before you in this moment, if you dare draw in a breath and whisper yes. Sensing that yes right now so that if there's any judgment as to how you practice rain, if rain felt incomplete or confusing, that there's a tender yes to that. It's okay.

Forgiven, forgiven, forgiven. If there's a sense of peace, yes to that. This ultimate gift of honoring the life that's here. just as it is. Namaste and blessings. The teaching you have received has been freely offered. If you'd like to make a donation, learn more about my schedule or programs offered by the Insight Meditation Community of Washington, please visit tarabrock.com and our IMCW.org.