Tara Brach - Realizing Your True Nature--Four Reflections

Episode Date: March 17, 2010

2010-03-17 This talk explores a Tibetan teaching through reflection and guided meditations: Our true nature--our inherent wakefuness, openness and love--is closer than we can imagine; it is more profound than we can imagine; it is easier than we can imagine; and it is more wondrous than we can imagine.

So tonight I'd like to start with a classic teaching tale, and it begins that the monastery had fallen on hard times, and the abbot and four other monks are all over 70 in age, are the only ones kind of holding up the fort, and it's a dying order. In a deep woods nearby, a rabbi known for his wisdom lived, small hut, and the abbot visited him and asked for his advice because he wanted to see what could possibly saved the monastery. And the rabbi commiserated with him, but said he had no advice. So they prayed and they meditated together. They embraced. And before parting, the rabbi said, I'm really sorry I had no advice. You know, the only thing I can tell you is that the Messiah is one of you. Do do, do, do, do.

Okay. So the abbot returned and told his comrades that the rabbi couldn't offer any help, but that he had told him that the Messiah was one of them. In the days and weeks and months that followed, the old monks pondered this, and as they contemplated, they began to treat each other with extraordinary respect on the off chance that one among them might be the Messiah. And then on the off chance that each monk himself might be the Messiah,

they began to treat themselves with extraordinary respect. People that came by noticed the changing atmosphere, the radiance that seemed to emanate out of the monastery, and more and more monks came by, and over time increasing numbers, inspired by the old monks asked to join. And within a few years, the monastery once again became a thriving order

and a vibrant center of light and spirituality in the realm. So what do we make of this? Well, the first thing I'd like to say is that the Messiah is one of us here, at least. and here's the invitation what if we truly believed that the Buddha

or Christ are the sacred or divine expression of being really lived within us like right this moment that the divine was dwelling within us and yes there's the neurosis too we know that

but the divine was shining through. What if we really believed that? We've really trusted it. I remember some years ago, I read, I was reading a bit about the life of Srinar Sargadata, who's a Indian teacher. And he said, quite simply, he said, my guru told me that I was the divine,

that I was the source. And I had the good fortune of trusting him. So I practiced her three or four years and realized it was the truth. And that was it. He touched this freedom that wasn't arrogant, wasn't diluted, and was able to help others to see the same. So what I'd like to explore tonight,

and it's pretty much, I hope, what you sense us exploring whenever we gather, is the pathway to recognizing truly what we are and trusting that. I don't know of really any other Dharma inquiry than what will allow us to see and trust the sacred that dwells within us. Because, of course, by extension, when we do,

we look at each other and what do we see? To the extent that we look within and see a very limited, confined flawed self, that same filter is looking at the world. Isn't that so? We kind of sense that instinctively. So the beginning, can we begin to trust? The Buddha basically said this is a very deep truth is that when we're not stressed out, in other words, when we're not caught in fight-flight, stressed reactivity and that smallness, there is a way in which we settle into awakeness and openness and open-heartedness and love. In other words, we become who we are.

But because we're stressed a lot, we tend to get reactive and then we hitch our sense of self to the reactive conditioned self. So this is what we're going to explore tonight. And I'd like to do it based on a kind of organize this talk around a teaching that is one of my favorite teachings in the world from the Tibetan tradition. I usually only introduce and explore this when I'm teaching a longer retreat because there's a certain quality of settledness that makes us more available to it. But it's just been calling to me recently, so I decided that we just jump in and reflect on it together tonight. So the teaching is that who we are,

this awakened awareness that's really our nature, is closer than we can imagine. This awakened nature is more profound than we can imagine. This awakened nature is easier than we can imagine. and it's more wondrous. Okay? We're gonna take them one at a time. And as we explore them,

what we'll explore also is a very fundamental illusion that we're buying into when we don't realize this teaching. So the first piece is that who we are, awareness, love is closer than we can imagine. And the illusion that we live in is that there's something something we want or something that we want to realize about ourselves that's down the road. We have this idea that maybe it's true, but it's down the road. It's not right here. It's very rare and it's radical when something in us goes, oh, it's truly here. There's nothing to wait for. And yet this teaching says it's closer than we can imagine. It's really right here. So there's a shift in our attention

and much of our meditation training is this shift of tracking our thoughts and living in a kind of a map of reality that has a that was back then and this is where I'm going to and then seeing an image of a self on its way. It's stepping out of that and coming into nowness

much of our training and one of the ways I like to think of it is that the challenge is that as soon as we start to become more present, what happens is we hit layers of what's uncomfortable, so we jump away. We immediately start bicycling towards something else. And so the first step of learning that it's closer than we can imagine

is beginning to trust that if we stay with what's right here, we truly welcome home. Our conditioning is false refuge. It's to think it's better to leave. We think it's better to soothe ourselves with thinking things out or soothe ourselves with eating something or getting something done. Anything but being right here. That's our habit.

So this first training that we're all involved with is learning to stay here with what's right in the moment. I heard of one person who's now wearing this necklace, it's this dog bone necklace, and it says sit, stay, heel, H-E-A-L, heel. I thought that was really good. So the practice that we explore most weeks is how to let now be an entry, to really be here, and stick around even when it's not so easy. one woman described her experience several years ago

and I shared this I think last year when she was she had been estranged from her mother for decades but in her mother's later years they made this kind of truce and they weren't close but much much of the anger was gone mother was still very controlling and judgmental though she got diagnosed with cancer

and her mother wanted to make amends and so because she had you know alienated a lot of people in her life. So what she asked for, she said, you know, when you notice that I'm off in some way, you know, let me know how I'm doing. And so some relatives came over to visit, and mother was on very good behavior. They left, and she said to her daughter, so how did that go? And her daughter said, you know, Mom, you did really good.

And her mother shook her head and said, no, I did really well. Now this had been an issue through her life being corrected all the time. So it actually tripped off, tripped her off into feeling really, really angry. And her mother drifted off. She was kind of just, you know, exhausted. And she drifted off. And this woman, something and this woman just said, stay, stay. She was really angry.

She wanted to leave. She wanted to do anything but stay. But she stayed. So she felt the anger that was there. She kind of opened to the anger and felt it there. And then underneath the anger, she felt this welling up of despair. And it was a very young part of her. And when she gave it a voice, the despair said, I'll never be good enough.

I can just never meet the great. It was a deep despair. And when she sensed that despair and how long she had lived with that, there was a natural compassion that opened up. And as I've taught many times here, she put her hand on her heart and was with herself with compassion. So she stayed, she stayed.

She went through the layers of now until she got to compassion. Then she was able to look at her mother, and what she saw was a woman who, yes, was controlling and judgmental. And underneath that, cared like crazy, and she was just anxious. And that was her way of dealing with her anxiety.

But she was able to, because she was compassionate with herself, was able to hold her mother in that space. Now, I share that story because it's easier to cut through the trance when we know somebody's dying and when there's extreme circumstances, but the pathway is the same. If instead of thinking, okay, I'm on my way somewhere else,

I'll deal with this later, in the moments we say right now, right here, there's a possibility of deconditioning all of our habits of a lifetime and touching into where compassion lives. So this was for this woman being right here. Now, what I've found happens with people that practice is that the reactivity still gets set off

and we still forget and we try everything else other than being present. It just happens. I'm saying that because I hope that's reassuring. If you've noticed you've been practicing for a while, but still when you get angry, you still spin in your anger, when you get insecure, you back off, you play the same routines. We all do. The difference over time is that there's less lag time. It's quicker that we go, oh, I'm peddling away from the present moment. Come back. One of the best images that I think helps us and understand. understanding this right here, right now, is a wheel of awareness and it's got these spokes and they go out. And we're constantly leaving the hub. We're constantly going off, fantasizing about this and chasing after that and figuring out that and numbing ourselves this way. And meditation is a practice of noticing we've left and going, oh, come back. That's the first step.

Just come back. so we gather here and we breathe and we come back some the second part of meditation once we've come back stay be here be with this sit

stay heal so we come into the hub of the wheel we stay and what happens is the hub is no longer like this defined territory the longer that we just really agree to presence, the edges start getting very amorphous and the hub is actually this

fabulously vast, infinite space that includes the spokes and the rim and everything that's happening. Right here, right now. So this is the first practice that we start getting that the only place we can be free, the only place we can come to trust ourselves is right here, right now. And even when we're not in a challenging reactivity, you can ask yourself, am I on some subtle level on my way somewhere? Have many of you noticed how often, on some level, whatever you're up to is on its way to something else?

Have you noticed that? It's a very deep part of our conditioning. So this closer than you can imagine is a sense, of it's not somewhere else. And it's sad because we have this idea that real life is what we're aiming towards, or certain peaks that we want to get to

and we're with a certain person or having a certain experience or we're in a certain beautiful place or we're on vacation. And everything else is kind of filler time. And how sad, you know? It's a cartoon I like where you see fleas walking through a forest of fur

wondering if there really is, a dog. So there's the deep Dharma teaching which really says that what you are looking for is the one who's looking. It's not outside of us. The God you are looking for is the one who's looking. It's a radical shift in understanding from this illusion of I'm on my way to something else, the peace I want is down the road, even the self that I want to realize has got a ways to go. No. Just now.

And if your habit is thinking that you're on your way somewhere else, it doesn't change. You keep on thinking it's down the road. So let's take a moment and we'll reflect together on this first of the Tibetan teachings. So you might close your eyes.

For a moment, just scan and sense what the virtual reality is that you've been living in over the last 24 hours. hours. Like what have been the main wants or fears or preoccupations?

So just with an honesty and a gentleness, just to acknowledge your own way of being on your way somewhere, of chasing after something or trying to get away from an experience, trying to manage things.

It might be that you just sense today and notice were there many moments of presence, where this moment matters, as much as any moment in my whole life, that this is really it. And then try on this, that it really is,

what we seek is closer than we can imagine. It's right here. It can never be anywhere else, and just come to the hub of the wheel right now, listening to the sounds that are right here, relaxing with the sensations that are right here. So you're aware of all the foreground, this life, sound, sensations,

and also aware of the background of presence, this inner space, the most subjective sense of what you are, this awakeness. So you're not only aware of what's happening in the moment, but also of the now itself as the living, timeless inner space in which everything is happening.

The God we seek, the Buddha nature we seek, the awareness is closer than we can imagine. It's this nowness, this inner space of awakeness, of openness, right here. Just take a few full breaths and we'll keep on exploring together. So the first part is it's closer than we can imagine. Don't have to be on our way. The second part is it's more profound than we can imagine. And what that is really pointing to is that we are in this illusion that we need to figure something out and that our thoughts can tell us what reality is, that our thoughts can help us be happy or free. And thoughts are incredibly powerful and useful, and we couldn't survive without them.

But we misunderstand what they're useful for. It's as if you're going to go gardening, you need a shovel or a rake. If you're going to write something, you need pen or paper or a computer. Thoughts have their uses. But if we're really wanting to be happy, if we want to realize the truth of what we are, we can't find our way with thoughts. This universe are trying to figure out gave rise to thoughts. thoughts cannot perceive the universe.

So more profound means that what we are yearning for and wanting to experience, we need to drop our ideas, our thoughts. There's a wonderful saying that to take this whole world of concepts in two hands and drop them. You know, just let it go. Just let it go. So a lot of our training is in waking up out of thoughts. And again, it's not to in any way diminish the role of thoughts. We have to think.

But we also need to have the capacity to step out of thoughts and directly perceive what's happening without avail of virtual reality because thoughts are a virtual reality. Their image, their soundbites, their representations. We can't see reality if we're paying attention to thoughts. we can help navigate our lives well, but we can't see reality directly. So I used to wear a T-shirt on and off,

and it said, meditation, it's not what you think. It was a great t-shirt. And yet our culture worships thought, and we mostly are living in a virtual reality in our culture. I mean, we're brought up to believe in it, and our children more than ever, A story of a math teacher sees that little Johnny is not paying attention in class.

She calls on them and says, Johnny, what are 4-228 and 44, little Johnny quickly replied, NBC, CBS, HBO, and the cartoon network. So that's one level of it that happens. The most difficult level of what happens when we get caught in our thoughts and our ideas is that we believe our story about ourselves, and we can't. see and perceive directly who we are, that sacredness, that awareness, that love, if we're believing a small story about ourselves. One of the stories that I thought was really useful on this, some of you've heard of Lester Levinson probably, he developed the Sedona method. Well,

his own process of healing was really interesting. He was in his 40s. Lester got really sick. He had heart failure and colon cancer and about 10 other things. And basically the doctor said, I can't help you. And they sent him home to die. And he basically figured, okay, I've got a death sentence and he started reflecting. And he was a very educated man. And he had studied all the world philosophies and a lot of science and so on. And he asked himself, well, where did that all get me, you know? I know a whole lot, but here I am, you know, in this situation. And so he decided to really challenge everything he knew. And he started investigating what he was believing in, because none of his beliefs were serving him. And he asked his colon what his colon believed,

which is a technique to sense, you know, what's my body believing that's maybe causing a difficulty. And what he found was the belief was a demand. It was a demand that the world be different. He was living in a story that in order for things to be okay, the world had to be different, and he had to be different. And I listened to that story and I realized, wow, how many of us most moments are wanting it different, trying to make it different, just not okay? with how it is. Now this doesn't say that we see suffering and we shouldn't want to relieve it. This is not that. This is just saying we chronically have some notion of how things should be and it's a mismatch with what is. So these beliefs are really

critical to see through. The reality that liberates us is more profound than any of our stories but if we're believing our stories we can't arrive in it. A couple of days ago we had our monthly class we called satsung, which is truth and community Sangha. And two people shared, and I thought in an interesting way that I wanted to bring into this group. Many of you were part of the, we're here last week for talk on happiness. And one person shared how he left that talk and he felt really, really happy. And he kept getting happier and happier. And then a couple of days ago, he was so happy he couldn't sleep.

And then he started going, wait a minute, something's wrong here. And he began to mistrust his happiness. And he said the main, you know, he was mistrusting it. And when we started investigating, he was mistrusting it because he was feeling, wow, I'm a really good spiritual practitioner. I really am getting this stuff. I'm really happy. As if being happy was a reflection.

on his progress. Okay? That's one person. Another person who was there was saying, I'm really, really sad, and it feels like something's wrong that I'm feeling so sad. And that sadness in some ways

a reflection of my lack of spiritual progress. Do you see what's going on here? That if we take whatever state of mind, I'm happy, I'm sad, and then a self owns it. It's elaborated on and built into part of our story of self. We cannot be in touch with who we really are.

Choosing to be happy is wonderful. Choosing to be open to the possibility of loving more fully is wonderful. To hitch our sense of identity to whether or not we're happy or whether or not we're sad is really limiting ourselves. So the inquiry is really, really, what are you believing about yourself? What's the story you subscribe to that either has to do with a good person

or a bad person, a person that needs to do X, Y, and Z in order to be better? Are you believing in some sense of being flawed, of being not okay? And the deep question is, who would you be

if you weren't believing those stories? Who would you be? Now, even when there is no major gripping belief that's kind of keeping us trapped, there is still on some level a veil of thinking. And it's a powerful question to ask yourself, am I dreaming right now? You know, if you just check in and say, is there a dream going on? Is there some screen of thoughts about the world? And sometimes the veil is very, very, very,

subtle, that's separating me from directly apprehending the moment. That inquiry is profound. So this next meditation will do, this next reflection is that thinking is useful, and unless we can step outside the veil of thoughts, we cannot discover the nature of who we are, and we can't trust ourselves. We can't trust who we are. So again, let's sit for a moment. So the first reflection, our true nature is closer than we can imagine. It's right here. And the second reflection, it's beyond any thoughts about ourselves or the world. In other words, let go of all thoughts. So as you sit, you might listen to the sounds and you might feel the sensations of the moment

and you might feel the movement of the breath and just relax with the experience moment to moment and with some interest, sense, the gap between thoughts. The light and truth of what we are shines through those gaps. Naturally, the mind will go back into thought and you can just notice and let go, let go. And again, sense the gap. Let go and rest in the gap between thoughts.

No need to struggle against thoughts. Just notice them when you do. And again, sense the space between them. And one thought has ended and before another arises. That's where the mystery is. When the mind is momentarily free from its preoccupations, it becomes quiet. If you do not disturb this quiet and stay in it, you find that it is permeated with a light and a love.

You have never known, and yet you recognize it at once as your own nature. Okay, take a few full breaths and come on back. So we reflect and we begin with closer than we can imagine right here. More profound, letting go of thoughts. The third is, I'd say my favorite and it's easier than we can imagine. And the reason it's my favorite is that one of the deep illusions that we live with is that we have to try hard. And I remember when I was,

oh, in my mid-20s and it was like a really major realization that I was pretty much all the time trying hard in some way. I mean trying hard when I was talking to people or trying hard when I was, what didn't matter what I was doing. There was some sense of straining. And in spiritual domains, we have the notion that we have to work real hard to overcome something.

One of the great stories in the Buddhist tradition is of Ananda, whose Buddha's cousin and devoted attendant, his most devoted disciple. And after the Buddha's death, there was a

great counsel of enlightened ones planned and Ananda wasn't supposed to attend because as devoters he was he wasn't enlightened he was an Arahat which is an enlightened or realized being and so he wasn't entitled to go even though he had worked at it strenuously for years he just wasn't there so on the eve of the council meeting ananda determined to practice vigorously all night and not stop until he attained his goal he was going to strive his way to freedom but all he succeeded in doing was making himself exhausted and discouraged. So there was no progress in spite of his efforts. Towards dawn he decided to let go of striving. He just decided to drop it and just to rest. And in that state, he lost all greed for attaining anything, all fear of not attaining,

and he rested his head on the pillow and immediately became enlightened. So what freedom really what freedom and just to say a few things about that story some people might say well you know if he hadn't been trying for the other decades he wouldn't have been in a state so he could finally let go and be free that's the classic argument

and it's a really good argument because there is a role for wise effort everyone I know that I feel a sense of authentic unfolding there has been some wise effort What we mean by wise effort is those skillful trainings of the heart and mind that create an atmosphere for relaxing and letting go. Wise effort, we begin the wise effort by saying,

oh, I'm lost in thought a lot. Let me get the knack of noticing thoughts so I'm not gone so much. That's a wise effort, right? Or we might notice that the wise effort is that our heart is really judgmental, and blames a lot. So we might practice the loving kindness practice and really offer kind messages to ourselves and others. That's a wise effort.

Or we might notice that we're really grim and we have no sense that the possibility of happiness is there and our wise effort is to decide on happiness. It's a very wise thing to do. But what makes it most wise is it sets it up so that we can relax because it's only in relaxing, it's only in not controlling

that we can relax back into who we are. One of the best descriptions is that we really wake up in the same way we fall asleep. We kind of fall awake. Just the way you wake up from a dream very naturally, we fall awake. I mean, you know what it's like

when you've forgotten a word and you try like crazy to remember it. We've got enough older people here, right? We know that, right? It doesn't work. You can't try hard, right? And as soon as you stop trying or pretty soon after you stop trying,

it just kind of bubbles up there, right? Same thing. Gotta stop striving so much. I had a very strong lesson in this when I was writing radical acceptance. I was on the last. last chapter and everything I did, my outside editor kept sending it back and just it wasn't quite right. And I was really wearing down and losing confidence that, you know, here's this really

important chapter and I just kept trying harder and harder and getting more and more feedback that it just wasn't there. And so finally, at one point, I remember in front of my computer, I turned off my computer and I just said, I can't do this. there was like this real wisdom in that because I this striving self really couldn't do it and I took my dog I had a poodle named Tara at that time and I took so tar and Tara went for a walk and went for really long walk and I didn't work on it I went to sleep that night and really slept deeply and the next morning it just it just flowed I had to give up and relax and interestingly it was a chapter on the nature of awareness.

No wonder. I mean, there's no way I could have ridden it from that state of mind. It's like longing for silence, our stillness, and being in this motorboat and chasing around a lake trying to find a spot that's still

and creating this wake wherever we go and this boom, boom. And so like we keep on revving it up to try to get somewhere. And we're just stirring up things when what we're longing for is silence and space and presence.

So how do we get there? It's kind of like we throttle back and we turn it off, right? To pause. And this doesn't mean that our whole life should be pausing. I mean, there are times to set a goal and do things in that kind of goal-oriented way. It's great. But again, if what we're seeking in a moment

is to realize the heart that's here, to love. We don't get to it by thinking hard, striving hard, trying to get somewhere else. Ajan Shah says if you let go a little, you'll find a little peace. If you let go a lot, you'll find a lot of peace. If you let go absolutely, you'll find absolute peace and tranquility. So this third reflection, it's easier than we imagine, has got such a profound truth and it's so different than our culture and our habits. The Zen tradition call it the backward step. It's like we step back into what we are. We don't have to turn ourselves into something different. More we just relax and inhabit the awareness that's here.

I'd say the closest modality to experiencing that is listening. When you listen, you can't try hard to listen. Have you noticed that? You can't strain to listen. It's more a kind of open receptivity. It's an allowing. And when we listen, it reveals a natural openness. We can begin to sense the silence that's listening.

Recently, it was comparing notes with a very wise friend who said his two main mantras are relax and let go. That's not bad. This is Javis, what Javis had to say. He says, what's the difference between your experience of existence and that of a saint? The saint knows that the spiritual path is a sublime chess game with God and that the beloved has just made such a fantastic move that the saint is now continually tripping over joy and bursting out in laughter

and saying, I surrender. Whereas, my dear, I am afraid you still think you have a, thousand serious moves. So in this reflection, it's easier than we can imagine. We start seeing our illusion that we have to work real hard and we have to get somewhere. And we begin to practice relaxing. So that's our next reflection. It's a fun one. Sit back, relax, enjoy it. So in this pause, just begin with the first reflection. It's closer than we can imagine. And just send right here, the nowness. Just the aliveness that's here sounds.

It's more profound. Find this space between the thoughts and it's easier. See how fully there can be a letting go, a full relaxing with the life that's here. There's nothing to do. We're so busy managing our life we cover over the mystery

closer right here beyond any thought and easier. Just taking a few full breaths and we'll finish up with the last reflection. The quality of presence that arises with these first three reveals that it's more wonderful than we can imagine and the illusion that goes with that and this is one that again is very, very familiar is a quality of grimness where we assume a problem to solve. We just move through life thinking there's something we're trying to solve or work through, and it just absolutely obscures this mystery, this magic, this wonder. The Tibetans have a phrase called, Child of Wonder. They say, when you experience this fullness of awareness, just walk through your life.

like a child of wonder. Just walk through your life and notice what's actually here. I mean, who doesn't get wowed by the first flowers of this week? I mean, even when you're in a really bad mood, you know, it's really something. We have it in us, this wonder. And when we feel it, whether it's music that transports us or the beauty of a poem are the look in a child's eyes or the first flowers. It feels like we're home.

It feels so pure and good because it feels like we're really right there. One friend of mine has an expression roam freely like a happy dog, which I think is very much like the spirit of this child of wonder, to really lacking an agenda be right here for the beauty that's going on. And I think the key words,

really are lacking an agenda. We cannot feel wonder if we are trying to make something happen, if we think it's down the road, if we're caught in thoughts, you're hearing the other illusions, right? We can't feel that wonder. Kabir was a shoemaker, not the Kabir we know as a poet. Kabir was a shoemaker and he, as he worked, he'd always repeat the mantra, Ram, Ram, Ram's the name of God. day in and day out 20 years so one day rom appears and kabir says well who are you and ram says well i'm rham and kabir says well why are you here and rams says why am i here you've been calling me for years now i've come what do you want and kabr says i don't want anything ram's kind of confused he says what well why have you been repeating my name and the response is i just love repeating your name

and then for years to come wherever kabir would go he'd be followed by Rom and the sound, Kabir, Kabir. So we do it we do for the sheer joy of just doing what we do. It's not for the sake of something else. You know, can we just wash the dishes and feel the heat and the suds or take our shower or get the mail or answer emails and in some way hold that space of, okay, this, it's all just happening. on a practical level

it takes pausing it really takes a commitment to pause to be a child of wonder because we are so habitually tumbling into the next moment we're so habitually figuring things out and trying to make things happen

it takes pausing that's the only way to undo the other illusions so I invite you to consider this phrase child of wonder and in this week where it's much easier than usual with this beauty that's blooming to explore that kind of

consciousness of not being on your way somewhere so we started I'm going to end up with a final reflection now we started with the story of the Messiah and I started on purpose with that because probably the core illusion we have is that I'm a self, I'm a separate self, and I am limited, that the sacred or the divine is beyond me, is at another time, is not here. So we're talking about a very radical reflection tonight,

where we start deconditioning some of the deepest illusions we have by saying, this moment is the only moment that's possible to realize truth. And as much as we forget and get lost, there's something in us that keeps saying come back because we know deep down that until we really arrive right here, we can't touch love, we can't touch freedom, we can't touch peace.

So that's the first one. It's closer. It's right here. The second is that for all the good of our thoughts, if we want to touch a moment of true freedom, we need to sense the gap between the thoughts. The third is when we do, relax. No need to control anything. No need to manage anything.

And the last is then enjoy the wonder that's here. So I'd like to invite you for the last time just to close your eyes, come into the moment, sensing that wheel of awareness just call yourself right to the center feeling your breath feel your heart

the intention towards presence sensing the nowness that radical sense of right here and the inner space that opens up this mystery of wakefulness and openness sensing the mystery that shines through when we're not lost in thought

and seeing if it's possible to relax even more, just to be that presence. And sensing the wonder. I'd like to close with the words of Mary Oliver. Still, what I want in my life is to be willing to be dazzled, to cast aside the weight of facts and maybe even to float a little above this difficult world. I want to believe I am looking into the white fire of a great mystery. I want to believe that the imperfections are nothing,

that the light is everything, that it is more than the sum of each flawed blossom rising and fading, and I do. I want to believe I'm looking into the white fire of a great mystery. I want to believe that the imperfections are nothing, that the light is everything, that it is more than the sum of each one, flawed blossom rising and fading, and I do.

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