Tara Brach - Real But Not True

Episode Date: August 8, 2012

2012-08-08 - Real but not True - One of the most liberating realizations is that we don't have to believe our thoughts. In this talk we look at the suffering caused by limiting beliefs--"I am unworthy, unloveable, unsafe"--and the process by which we open into the full aliveness and potential of our being. 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!

So some of my favorite stories are ones that happen right after people get out of retreats. And one of them that I've shared with some of you, a woman was having to travel and switch planes, and she was exhausted. And so she was tired, she was hungry, she got some cookies, put him in her purse, sat down at a table, there's another man nearby. She also got a newspaper. Well, he was reading his newspaper. and she took a cookie, ate it, then he did the same thing.

He reached into the bag and took a cookie, ate it, and she was very confused and weirded out by that because she didn't know him, but she didn't want to make a scene, so she just took another cookie and ate it, and he did the same, and it kept going, and she was getting angrier and angry or until they she took you know a cooking and then there was just one more and he broke in half he gave her half he ate the other half and then he left well sometime later they you know the public announcement system called her to her gate and much to her surprise when she reached and to get her ticket she found her bag of cookies she had been eating his now part of why i really like that story is because we so live in our narrative inside and a story in our mind of what is actually

happening. Now, we're not always reading reality quite as she did, but, you know, sometimes what's going on, our storyline has a useful representation of the world. Somebody is taking advantage of us, or somebody might be treating us in a disrespectful way, or something might be going to on where it's completely appropriate for us to respond and draw boundaries and so on. And so often, and this is, you might remember Mark Twain's, one of his famous comments that the worst things in my life never actually happened. So often we are moving through our day with a story about what is either wrong right now or what could go wrong.

And if we're not totally conscious of that story, our body is kind of living in that mentality. So our inner story is based on fear beliefs that were developed very early. And for most of us, we have some difficult experiences with caregivers, with our environment, and we start believing how we can't trust certain things or how something's wrong with us.

And then because our survival brain has a scan for what's wrong, we collect evidence. And so we each collect evidence to kind of have some certainty. It gives us a sense of being on top of things, even if it's bad news, about what can go wrong and what is wrong. So we each to different degrees have some core beliefs that have a reality that's limiting. and those beliefs are informing us today.

They filter things. They filter how we are with other people. They filter what we perceive about other people. So you might think of how that can happen. Maybe, you know, you were in a family where you had an older sibling that was a bully or a parent that was drinking and became a bully or something like that.

And then what happens? Well, we, around other people, people that might have some aggressiveness in their temperament and anticipate that they're going to push us around and send out those signals of fear or insecurity or mistrust and that almost provokes and brings on more, you know, then we just keep on living cycles based on those beliefs. Or maybe for some of us, parents that were overly busy, preoccupied, you know, so when we wanted attention, they kind of pushed us aside, or maybe we were really neglected. What happens? There's a belief. People don't really want to be with me. Either they're not interested

in me or I'm really a turnoff, but there's a belief that gets in there. And then what happens when we have that belief? Well, that belief creates certain behaviors and send out certain messages that we keep on recreating the past. So I often use, turn to that, quote by Gandhi and he talked about how our beliefs really create our way of acting and speaking and they and that ends up creating our whole character and that ends up creating our destiny. And so it's a, you know, it's based on the law of karma that when this, then this. And so the sad thing is that as long as we believe our beliefs and don't investigate them, they create a reality that can perpetuate itself.

Does that make sense? Yeah. The good news is that we can investigate. We can begin to challenge the storyline. And when people deepen their meditation practice, which is a practice that says be here and see what's really going on, And I especially see this when I do week-long retreats because it's more concentrated than people can end up getting to a quieter place and really see more clearly

the nature of things. One of the reports at the end of retreats are that, and it's usually a frame like this, I realized I didn't have to believe my thoughts. you know now that might sound simple I don't have to believe my thoughts but that is opening the gate to freedom I don't have to believe my thoughts

or sometimes the the realization is I'm not my thoughts which is a very similar experience that this world I've created it's not that's not who I am you know the eye the what it the truth is something much bigger

that self that I'm you know having these ongoing storylines and narratives about is just a bunch of images and words that are formed from historic kind of beliefs but there's something much more mysterious and true that's going on I don't have to believe my thoughts there's a Tibetan teacher that some of you met here who has been a tremendous inspiration for me

and that's Sokney-Rimbushe. He has a phrase that describes this, this realization. It's real but not true. That's the way he says it. That when we have these beliefs and feelings that go with them, that's all real, meaning, yes, the belief's actually happening, and yes, the feelings are actually being felt.

It's real. But it's not the truth. In other words, what its belief is, what its message is, is not truth. It's happening, but it's not the reality, the truth of what's really existing. Real but not true. So if we're suffering, we are caught in a limiting reality, one that's real, we're experiencing it, but it's not true. Our idea is not true. It's a fragment of a larger truth. So Rumi writes about this in a few different places. I'll read,

a few of his verses. But in one place he says, he writes about this tangle of fear thinking, and he says, why do you stay in prison when the door is so wide open? You know, if you can just see, I don't have to believe this. The door's already open. We don't even have to open a door. It's like we're already, there's already the truth, it's already here. It's just a realization of, oh, that story is just a story. So tonight, what this is leading to, what I'd like to explore with you is how this realization

that our beliefs and emotions are real, but not true, can really allow us to walk through the prison door. And I want to say in advance that I feel like this is a practice that's for over the long haul, You know, we might leave here tonight with a little better of a conceptual understanding

of how powerful this might be, but the more times that you catch a belief and say, wait a minute, I don't have to believe it, and your body kind of gets that that's true, the more you'll feel some space to open up. And actually, I'm going to ask you to choose some belief, someplace you get caught to experiment with tonight. So you might be thinking about that as you listen, okay?

So in general, what are the kind of thoughts and beliefs that we subscribe to that creates suffering? Just sense for yourself what comes to mind. And I'll just throw out some. For most of us, a kind of thought that creates suffering is, I'm bad or I'm flawed, or even the other side. I'm superior to everybody else. I'm actually smarter or I'm actually more ethical they create separation

any belief that creates separation is a belief that creates suffering so what else? I'm unlovable right? I'm unworthy I'm unsafe these are the kind of beliefs that keep us stuck and they're propagated a lot through the culture

Some cultures propagate limiting beliefs more than others, I suspect. I haven't done a cross-cultural comparison on this, but you can really feel it in cultures that have, you know, kind of rigid religious beliefs that are, you know, telling us that we're fundamentally impure, flawed, that we must redeem ourselves, that we're starting in the red. You know, we have to do things to be saved because we're fundamentally something's wrong.

Well, that sets the ground. work pretty well for a lot of us, right? Remind you of one of my favorite monastery stories where a monk arrives at the monastery and he's assigned to helping the other monks copy the old canons and laws of the church by hand. But he realizes they're copying from copies and he realizes that could be a problem. Because if there's a mistake in any of the copies and they're just going to perpetuate the mistake, it's the same idea with beliefs. If we believe something, We act according to it. We're just going to perpetuate a false belief.

So they're doing that with these scriptures and so on. So, you know, he challenges it. And the abbot says, you know, we've been copying from copies for centuries, but I'll go check it out. So he goes into the dark caves that are underneath the monastery, and these are where the original manuscripts kind of locked in a vault. Hasn't been open for hundreds of years. Hours go by.

Nobody sees the abbot. So finally, this young muck gets worried. So he goes downstairs, and what he sees is this abbot is banging his head against the wall and crying uncontrollably. So he's, you know, father, father, what's wrong? And in a choking voice, the old abbot says, the word was celebrate. So it's fun, but how many of us got messages and believed those messages that there's actually something dangerous. about enjoying too much, you know, that if something good happens, something bad might be around the corner, so we get a little bit worried. I mean, is there these just make sense? That we're, it's not so easy just to open up to good things. We often feel I'm not deserving. Often, in some level, we feel we can't trust ourselves, we can't trust our bodies, we can't trust our sexuality, hence a lot of the religious rules and regs. And in some level, we feel we can't trust ourselves, we can't trust our bodies, we can't trust our sexuality, hence, hence, and in some of the religious rules and regs. And in some of some of basically we can't trust our aliveness that these emotions these passions these feelings are not

reliable we can't listen to them it's not okay how we are we're flawed so prevents us from savoring life these beliefs now we also have beliefs that are perpetrated by racial ethnic groups those in power primarily that cause us to hurt others i'm thinking right now a lot of the recent tragedy in the Sikh temple in Wisconsin. I spent many years with the Sikhs and have a real sense of appreciation for Sikhism. And so it's a little more personal for me. And it's yet another example, you know, of beliefs that end up creating violence. And we can see it in so many places.

We can see it, you know, we see it in Wisconsin. We also see when we go to war and our military attacks in Afghanistan and innocent civilians go and what's the reason we're there and how come we're doing this? In some way there's a creation of an evil other, a belief in a bad other that keeps us at war with each other through the centuries. It has to be there. We see Syria, the dictatorship, going against its own people. a bad other that warrants violent attacks.

You have to have a belief like that for violence to come up in the level it does. So we have these deeply built-in notions of this is right and this is wrong and this is how people should look and this is how people should act and this is how I should be. And it's constantly moving through our brain monitoring and filtering everything that goes on, these standards and ideas. So we read people through this veil of our beliefs. Some of you might remember this inquiry.

You can imagine, and I'm bringing it in because we're about to have some elections here, that it's time to elect a new world leader, okay? And your vote counts, only your vote counts. So I want you to listen carefully. So here are the facts about three leading candidates. Okay, you ready? one candidate a associates with crooked politicians and consults with astrologists he's had two

mistresses he also chain smokes and drinks eight to ten martinis a day that's your first choice candidate b he was kicked out of office twice sleeps until noon used opium in college and drinks a quart of whiskey every evening that's your second choice candidate c he's a decorated war hero vegetarian doesn't smoke, drinks an occasional beer, and never cheated on his life. So, you might feel this is a setup, but I'm going to say, so which of these candidates would you choose? How many for candidate A? We have a few sprinkling here. How about candidate B? He's the one that was kicked out of office twice, sleeps until noon, used opium in college, and drinks a quart of whiskey. How many, I see a sprinkling of hands. How many for candidates C,

the vegetarian who doesn't smoke. I see more hands. Okay. I'm going to tell you who they are. Candidate A, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Candidate B, Winston Churchill. I didn't know he slept until noon, but I knew about the opium. Candidate C is Hitler.

Yeah. Yeah, vegetarian, right. Yeah. He doesn't want to hurt animals, you know. So here's the reason I share this. It's just that we live in a lot of assumptions that we don't challenge. You know, we live in what I call a trance of the unreal other. And I'm going to be talking about this more.

I have a night that I'm going to be really exploring this with you in September. But we live with our ideas about others, about ourselves, and about the world. And illusion can only exist until we challenge. it. It can only exist until we challenge it. And if we don't, it propagates these stereotypes, not just a sense of bad self, but the stereotypes that we know so well that shame and oppress and marginalized minority people, racial, sexual, gender orientation, religion, it has us create separation and hurt others. So I'm going to give you some examples through the rest of this talk of real but not true. And the first one just to share with you is a very

dear friend who's brilliant woman, African American, an academic, also consulting, community activism, hung in with white institutions in terms of her schooling, her teaching, her work. And so she always had to work extra hard, you know, to get recognition and working against a lot of the barriers that come with being just assumed to be an outsider. Very painful. The message that she felt like she got was basically you're less valuable and you don't belong. Just now she's, you know, because I just talked to her this week, she's going through another cycle of revisiting how much that message got internalized. So she became her own enemy by being in situations, assuming in some way that that's what people were feeling,

anticipating rejection, anticipating not being valued, having her defenses up prematurely, being angry, and then actually creating the situation of being alienated. So she's owning it. She's getting that she internalized it, and she's now helping to create the situations. She also gets that is absolutely pervasive through the culture and that she was one of the victims of her.

that, not in a way that, oh, I feel victimized, but an honest recognition that our culture puts down certain people. So she, her work now is to really bring alive this kind of practice of saying it's real. Yeah, the hurt, the feelings of being marginalized, the pain of this is real. So holding that with compassion. But it's not true that I'm unworthy. it's not true that I'm not valuable, challenging that. And she feels like every time she goes through the cycle and she goes deeper into real but not true, she's actually able to live from a kind of confidence

that attracts and that's able to communicate and in a more clear way. Again, our beliefs create feelings. Our feelings create actions. You know, our action starts molding our temperament, our character. It creates a kind of karmic destiny. And we can change that. And the only place we can change our destiny is in this moment

to sense the storyline going on, however we make ourselves wrong, however we make someone else wrong, and investigate. Pause and look more. deeply. Okay. So the deep belief that every one of us has, and this one doesn't matter what kind of parents you had or what kind of culture you're in, the deep belief that we all have is this perception of separateness until we're really, really free. It's possible to wake up and

recognize this oceaness and sense, oh yes, there's right now a temporary body mind, but the what I am there's a timelessness to it's possible but for most of us we spend a lot of life moments very identified with a separate self that's the core belief out of which every other painful belief arises and let me just check around does that make sense that every other painful belief arises out of that core sense of I'm separate that if I'm separate then oh I have something to fear. Others could be a threat to me. If I'm separate, oh, I'm incomplete, I'm missing something, I need this. If I'm separate, oh, other people have it better, jealous. If I'm separate,

I don't have what it takes, depressed. Every emotion arises out of that pain of separation. This is Sri Narasar Gadata, who's one of my favorite of the non-dual teachers. He says, as long as you imagine yourself to be something tangible and solid, a thing among things, you seem short-lived and vulnerable. And of course, you will feel anxious to survive. But when you know yourself to be beyond space and time, you will be afraid no longer. So what he's pointing to is that all the real experiences we have are not true because they don't, allow us to recognize that which is timeless. They keep us locked in a small separate self.

They're not the truth. So we then begin to explore this idea and storyline of a separate self, this self-character we see going into the future that's trying to get happier and trying to feel better and trying to avoid danger.

Is that who we are? And is that all that we are? I mean, are you something more than this sense of a separate body mind? Is there something more to what you are? It's probably the most important question we can ever ask ourselves. Because as long as all that we are, there's an exclusive identity with this ego personality body self, we're going to fear the end, fear death, we're going to feel threatened. we're not going to be able to sense our connection with others.

And we're not going to be able to sense that one timeless, radiant awareness that's really animating everything. We're cut off. So how do we begin to move from a stuck place? We're buying in. We're believing our beliefs. We're believing not only am I separate, I'm bad, and I'll never be loved, and I'll never get what I want, or whatever it is.

How do we wake up from that? How do we start truly experiencing something larger? So I'll give you another example because the first step really is to ask yourself whenever you're suffering, just ask the question, what am I believing right now? Just ask yourself, what am I believing? And what you're really doing is you're asking the part of you

that's stuck and in pain, what am I believing? The part that's afraid or ashamed. What's the view of the world through that part's eyes? Okay, so the next story, a woman recently went to a retreat at the Insight Meditation Society and was meeting with Joseph Goldstein,

one of the teachers there. And at this retreat, she was feeling a very familiar set of emotions, of feeling very lonely and feeling a yearning for more connection and a lot of feeling of hurt and pain. And with that, the sense, I need love. Love is missing for my life. I need love.

So she could see how many of the emotions and feelings and thoughts all came down to, I need love. She'd gotten to that. So she goes into an interview with Joseph and I'll just step back from home and say, Joseph is one of my very first teachers in this tradition. And he's wonderful, very, very clear. And if you have the occasion to listen to his talks

or read any of his books, she'll find him an inspiration as he was for this woman. So she goes into the interview and she says, you know, I've really gotten down to the core and it's a sense that I need love. And she said, and here's my question, if I can't offer it to myself, how do I find it? Okay, that was her question.

So to her surprise, his response was, well, bring your awareness to that need for love and just look at it as another story. Initially, she was real aversive to that idea. She said, you know, how could the need for love be just a story? you know, I'm a human being and I need love, you know. And so isn't, you know, isn't that what we all need? And, you know, so she was resistant. So he calmly responded.

This is what he said. You don't have to sign a contract. Just try to look at it as a story. And if you feel it doesn't work and come back to believe in you're someone in need of love. That's vintage Joseph, by the way. You don't have to sign a contract. So she went out.

began doing walking meditation and so on and when she'd have you know any thoughts or feelings that had to do with that same constellation she would just challenge she'd say who need who who says I need love I mean this is a story and she said that as she began to do that not just be have that story be the truth but just say okay here's a it's just a story she made room for her heart to open up and she started feeling the most open-hearted she had felt in a very very long time she said i i could feel my heart in its fullest expression holding on to that belief i need love was closing my heart to myself once i let go of believing it i was empowered my heart was just already there full with love this is real but not true the belief that i don't have enough love in my life

that something's missing, that something's wrong, is a very real and often very deep, and as we'll talk about, very tenacious feeling. We need to respect it by saying, yes, it's real, and offering it real attention. And we don't have to believe it. There can be that kind of crack that starts opening up space and says,

and it's a story. And by opening up just that space, it's as Joseph said, just that willingness, not to sign a contract, but just to say, well, this is a story. There's something that's more true that has room to shine through. It's not being obscured by this real dense belief. Does that make sense? So this is the first step.

What am I believing? And to look through the eyes of that suffering place. The second step is really on some level to say, is this true? Now here, this is a question. that Byron Katie, if you haven't read Byron Katie's book, she is one of the real pioneers and a really wonderful teacher in being able to wake up out of limiting beliefs. So I recommend her very highly.

So this question, is this true? Okay. Now, maybe you'll ask that question, you know, is it true that I'm a worthless failure? Yeah, it's true. But even if you affirm it, just by asking the question, you're still opening up the space of a question of an inquiry, which is larger than the pure assumption.

It opens up some space just to ask. It makes room. For many of us, we'll ask that question, and we'll say, well, seem so. But there's some sense of, probably, but maybe not, you know, something like that. Asking the question is really important. The next step, though, to me, is at the heart of it, which is, what is it like to live with this belief? What does it do to our body and our heart if we're always saying to ourselves, I need love?

Are I'm not lovable? Are I'm flawed? What does it do to us? What if we really examined what happens in our body, in our heart and in our mind, when in the background we're buying into a belief like that? I'll tell you my own story of, because I've done many rounds of, you know, saying, okay, what am I believing now? And saying, is it true?

And one of these rounds, and this was way, way back, early days of meditation, I was attending teachings with a very popular teacher. and I went to a number of events, day-longs and weekends and so on. And after about a half a year, three-quarters of a year, because I was kind of doing it intensively, I came to this conclusion that he didn't like me. And it was a really painful conclusion because I would go with different friends, different people from the, you know, from the spiritual community, and he would joke around with my friends.

And I would say something, and he almost. it would be like I wasn't there. He was ignoring me. And he seemed to, either he would have a disapproving look or he was ignoring me. Now, so is it true? Seems so. You know, it really felt like it was.

But, you know, who knows? But Ben, I asked the question, well, how does it feel to believe that he doesn't like me? And it put me right into a very familiar young place of really needing somebody in particular to approve of me and feeling very caught in feeling insecure and unappealing and feeling uptight and just the neediness itself feeling ashamed of

so there's a mix of wanting something and being ashamed of wanting really unpleasant very young feeling so so asking that question what's it like to live with this I realize oh, this is putting my body, mind into a suffering place. Then the inquiry, well, what stops us from letting go? Why do we hold on? What has us hold on to beliefs about ourselves

that are clearly keeping us at war with ourselves and separate from others that are limiting our capacity to find joy? How can we hold so tight? And what I find for myself is almost like, well, I'm not going to be made a fool of, I'm going to know that this is going on. You know, I'm nobody's full. You know, I'd rather know it, even if it's unpleasant and have some certainty, then I get caught off guard.

Does that resonate for some of you? We want certainty, and we will believe things that are really, really unpleasant if it gives us some orientation because then we feel at least we can get a modicum of control. we can do something if we know rather than just say well I don't know maybe he does or maybe he doesn't so we hold on tight because it gives us the illusion of control there's a classic Zen story and many of them start this way of you know a man being chased by a tiger falls off the edge of it

ends up falling from a precipice finds himself hanging perilously from a limb and the tiger's pacing above and there's jagged rocks, you know, way, way below, calls out, help, is anyone there? And there's an answer, yes, booming from the heavens. God? Yes, God, can you help me? Yes, you need to do only one thing, says the great booming voice.

I'll do anything. Then just let go. Is anyone else there? Selly, I know. but you get the gist that it's like we'll do almost anything than just say well what would have not signing a contract so what would happen of just for a while I said okay this is just a story what makes us willing to say this is just a story even for a while and what I found is what makes us willing to challenge to say this is real but not

necessarily true, is that when we get the suffering of living with the belief, and when we really get, this is keeping my life small. This is stopping me from having intimacy with others. This is like stamping down any creativity. This is, I'll be at the end of my life looking back and I'll have lived my life inside this prison. When we get that, suffering. There's some willingness. We can't will it, but there's some willingness to say, okay, the belief is real, but it's not true or it might not be true. That's all we need, a little space. So for me, in that situation, just to kind of finish it off, there's another question that we can ask that I want to share with you. Once we've said, you know, what's it

like to live with this belief and I really got, oh my God, really, really small. Then we asked the question, what would life be like if I wasn't believing this? This is where we begin to say, okay, sent to the possibility. This is where our destiny can change. What would it be like if I wasn't believing it? Now, if you ask that question before you've really felt what it's like to live with it, it's going to be mental. and abstract. You will not get a real response. But if you've opened up your compassion by sensing what it's like to live with that belief, then you can say, well, what would it be like without it? Okay? I'm saying that because it's really important that you don't skip over the step of feeling

of suffering of the belief. Okay, so what would it be like without it? And for me, when I tried that on, and I remember very distinctly, I was just back from a weekend where I was, you know, really feeling in the grip of, you know, why do I keep sitting with this guy? He doesn't like me, you know, and it makes me feel bad. And I went through this whole process I've described, and when I said, well, what would my life be like if I didn't believe this? And I felt almost like this bubble of laughter in my heart. You know, it's like something, there was something so dramatic and freeing and entertaining. It was almost like a laughter inside because I realized I'd be free to appreciate him. I'd be free to just learn the teachings because he had a lot to share.

I'd be relaxed. I'd be more spontaneous. I wouldn't be in that needy little girl wanting approval space. I'd just be natural. I'd be freed up, you know. So I'd be able to let the dance unfold itself without that filter that was historic of somebody doesn't approve of me. It was a a real experience but not true. Then I even went deeper, you know, because when I say, when we say what's true? Well, is there really, you know, when I was thinking he is rejecting me, okay? Inside that teacher, was there a he, this little personality self-judging and rejecting me? Is that who he is, a judge that rejects?

He's more than that. I knew that. doesn't mean he doesn't have judgments but the who he is the truth the wholeness of who he is more than that am I this little person who's a rejectable self

I might have feelings of rejection they're real but the truth is some bigger than that so can you see where this inquiry went to this real but not true took me back to who I really am this beingness disawareness, this tenderness, that sure has all sorts of conditions, streams of feeling insecure,

but that doesn't speak to the wholeness. So this is what the Buddha described as a shift in identity that's possible when we're caught inside a belief if we're willing to examine it. Allusion exists unless it's examined. And this is really very much the invalysis. of this path of mindful awareness. Because each one of us has places where we get stuck and get caught in a sense of the who I am that's very small. Every one of us, unless we're free, we live many moments of our day inside a wanting self, a fearing self, a worried self, a striving self. It's somewhere that Aristotle described our true nature as our highest purpose.

potential. That doesn't mean that this ocean that we are doesn't have all sorts of waves moving through it of different emotions and behaviors. But the who we are is our highest potential, which is loving presence, which is to realize and live from loving presence. So any belief that keeps us from remembering that is a belief to examine. Any moment that we're forgetting our potential, forgetting the who's here, the awareness that's looking through your eyes right now and listening and that tenderness in you that wants to love freely. Any time that you're living in something smaller in a belief that makes you smaller is a moment of suffering because you're not living in reality and suffering is any moment that we are not living in reality in our true nature

doesn't mean we have to be manifesting it clearly our highest potential to live from loving presence we've got caught in different conditioning but it's possible to remember your oceanists on some level to remember this presence and still find yourself caught in all the neurotic daily stuff there can be a remembering and when you really get stuck unpack the belief open the prison door this is the way there's a there's a sense that when we're in pain sometimes that it's you know a personal suffering and that it shouldn't be happening this is a Sufi teaching that I love. It says, overcome any bitterness that may have come

because you are not up to the magnitude of the pain that was entrusted to you. Like the mother of the world who carries the pain of the world in her heart, each one of us is part of her heart and therefore endowed with a certain measure of cosmic pain. So when the pain comes, when the emotional stuckness comes, it's part of our universal conditioning. And yet we have this incredible tool. We have this incredible capacity to pause and say,

well, what am I believing? We have this capacity to sense, is it true? We have a capacity of sense what our body-mind feels like when we're caught in it. And we have the capacity of sense what our life might be like without it. This is Rumi again. He says, be empty of worrying.

Think of who created thought. Why do you stay in prison when the door is so wide open? Move outside the tangle of fear thinking. Live in silence. Flow down and down and always widening rings of being. So tonight, real but not true, this possibility of honoring the pain, the emotion, the beliefs as existing, but challenging them.

So we'll end in this way where we'll actually practice those steps. And I'd like to invite you each to take a moment to be right here, finding a way of sitting that lets you come into stillness, closing your eyes, connecting with your body's aliveness. come home come home right now connecting with your breath and just scanning and sensing where there might be

a place in your life repeating patterns that cause suffering where you end up getting stuck in some sort of a reactivity and that leaves you caught in fear or anger that leaves you caught in perhaps jealousy

insecurity, deficiencies, feelings of deficiency, that leaves you in some way at war with yourself or someone else. I'm wrong, I'm falling short, this person is. And as you sense a situation, you might ask yourself, what am I believing? And in this case, really believing about yourself. What are you believing about yourself? Is it that you're failing, falling short? is that you're unlovable, unworthy, endangered? What are you believing? If you find your digging and you're not finding something, you're just spinning around, that's quite fine.

Just know that that's an inquiry that you can pursue. When you're feeling in the midst of being stuck, you can look through the eyes of the fearful place or the angry place and just sense what's its view of the world? Is it that others don't like me? Is it that I'll never get what I want? Is it that I'm falling short? What's the view from this place?

And then to really ask yourself, is it true? Just check in, is it true? And just see what happens when you ask that. Do you get a doggot? Oh, sure it is. Or do you get someplace and you go, well, I'm not sure. Seems so. Importantly, sense what it's like to believe is, belief. Tell yourself the belief, remind yourself of it, and sense what happens in your body

when you really believe in this, when you've brought together all the evidence, when your nervous system is really in the mode of believing this belief. What does your body feel like? You might have sense even the expression on your face when you're believing the belief and actually let yourself make it. It'll help you get in touch. What's your heart feel like when you're believing this belief. It happens in your life when you're believing this belief. How does it affect your life? How does it affect your relationships with other people? See if you can sense a natural compassion for the realness of the experience and it sends the belief as a story and ask yourself, what would my life be like if I wasn't believing this? Just curious, what would it be like? And you

You might sense just a shift in your body without anything else. So you might sense something happening with sound or vision. You might sense an image of something. Just for a few moments, really imagine, okay, it's just a story. What happens? Who would you be without that story? What would your sense of your own being be? you sense your own heart and in your heart's willingness to wake up out of the trance,

the beliefs that keep you from inhabiting the truth of who you are, just that willingness to move in that direction as you listen to these closing words from Rumi. He says, I must have been incredibly simple or drunk or insane to sneak into my own house and steal money, to climb over the fence and take my own vegetables. But no more. I've gotten free of that ignorant fist that was pinching and twisting my secret self. The universe and the light of the stars come through me. I am the crescent moon. put up over the gate to the festival. 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 Tara Brock.com, our IMCW site, which is IMCW.org. Thank you very much.