Tara Brach - Reflection: Transforming Suffering and Awakening the Heart

Episode Date: September 20, 2017

Reflection: Transforming Suffering and Awakening the Heart - There is power and potential in a time of darkness to remind us of what we really cherish. In this reflection, we practice ways of paying attention that can help us transform suffering into freedom, in our own lives and in the world around us. The reflection closes with a reading of "School Prayer" by Diane Ackerman. Excerpt from Darkness of the Womb – Four Key Steps in Transforming Suffering a talk given on January 25, 2017.

The following reflection is led by Tara Brock. To access more of my meditations or reflections or to join my email list, please visit tarabrock.com. Ultimately, I have this faith that anything that happens to us can be part of what wakes us up. And it doesn't mean we want things to happen that are painful for ourselves or anybody else, not at all. It just means that we can have this trust that if we know how,

to be in relationship with our life. Suffering can be a darkness of the womb. And in Buddhism, this is pretty encapsulated in the prayer of the bodhisattva, which is an awakening being, which is, may whatever arises, may this serve the awakening of heart and awareness. So what I'd like to do right now is just give you a chance to explore, someplace in your life where you'd like to see whatever's going on be that kind of darkness of the womb, let it bear fruit in some way. So I invite you to just take a moment to find a way to sit that's comfortable, to come into stillness and we'll just practice together. We've been moving back and forth between the personal and the societal.

These are practices that we need to train in, each of us in our lives to really have it ripple out into our larger world and they're practices that can be explored in groups. For now I invite you to take a scan of your personal life and sense where you feel like you're caught in some way in aversion, hatred or conflict where there's some distance with another person, something painful going on, some suffering. If you're scanning your personal life and you're not finding someone you know well, it can be someone that's in the more societal field, wherever you feel a sense of conflict,

of adversary of enemy, then that's the place to attend to. You'll notice that if you've picked a place of conflict, that with that there's going to be perhaps the emotions of anger or fear, aversiveness. In the beginning of any of these practices, is just to have the intention that this may be the darkness of a womb. And you might even try on the bodhisattva prayer, please, may these circumstances, may these feelings that I'm having, may this experience

serve to awaken my heart, serve to awaken compassion and wisdom. That prayer makes you available. You might sense, well, what am I believing? What's the belief going on about this other person or myself or the world that's creating or generating the hatred, the anger? And just sense how it feels to believe it. It may be a belief in badness or evil of another, the wrongness of another. Maybe a belief that you're being rejected, that you're being disrespected, that you're misunderstood.

It doesn't mean there aren't some accurate perceptions that are useful. It just means that if there's aversiveness that you're creating the other into an enemy, How does it feel to believe? Is it possible to sense this as real but not true and just sense whether it's useful? Check under whatever you're believing or thinking and sense the real vulnerability or feelings that are there. Whenever there's conflict or aversion, what is it under there? What's the unmet need?

Is the unmet need a need for safety or a concern for other's safety? Is there fear? Is the unmet need one of wanting connection and feeling hurt? Breathe with whatever you're feeling, whatever's under there, whatever the expression in your body is of aversion or anger or fear, grief, just to breathe with it. This is the step of feeling feelings, this kind of willingness if it helps you to put your hand on your heart or your cheek, to keep company with what's here,

this is the beginning of the next step of offering care and it can be very, very powerful. I often put two hands on my heart and just really feel that the most loving place in me is holding and bearing witness to the feelings that need attention. So actively turning towards love, contacting feelings and turning. towards love. If it's hard to offer yourself love, you might imagine whatever loving beings in your life are helpful to you and you trust. Imagine they're surrounding you, offering love and care to the place in you that feels most vulnerable. It might be the love is in the form of acceptance or forgiveness. I love you just as you are. I sometimes say

to myself, it's okay sweetheart. Sense the larger community of care that you belong to, known and unknown, that there are hearts throughout this world that are awakening, that are generous, that are concerned, that love and forgive and are willing to act. Sensing your own most awake heart, the place in you that is holding the woundedness, our vulnerability, what I sometimes call our future self, that which you are emerging into, becoming, your wisest self, so that you can now witness from your wisest, most loving self, the situation that you've brought up and sense what the possibilities are for creative action. How might you respond to this situation and have some new choices?

Again, just coming back to the starting place of feeling your sincerity, may this situation, may whatever situations arise, may they serve the awakening of this heart. And then widening your view, sensing this heart space is including our whole world. So you can sense our country and all countries on the globe. the earth our mother in your lap all beings sense the challenges the beauty the mystery and the messiness and the hurt and the pain

sensing it all in your heart and feel your prayer for all beings may whatever darkness there is the regressive tendencies the mean spiritedness the hurt the suffering may it serve awakening. May this be the darkness of the womb.

May there be a rebirthing into a world that's filled with compassion. We close with a very simple prayer from Diane Ackerman. It's a school prayer actually that she wrote. In the name of daybreak and the eyelids of morning and the way-faring moon and the night when it departs, I swear I will not dishonor my soul with hatred,

but offer myself humbly as a guardian of nature, as a healer of misery, as a messenger of wonder, as an architect of peace. In the name of the sun and its mirrors and the day that embraces it, and the uttermost night, in the male and the female and the plants bursting with seed, and the crowning seasons of the firefly and the apple, I will honor all life wherever and in whatever form it may dwell on earth, my home,

and in the mansions of the stars. Namaste and thank you for your attention.