Tara Brach - Remembering and Choosing Loving Presence (retreat talk) (2017-12-28)

Episode Date: December 29, 2017

Remembering and Choosing Loving Presence (retreat talk) (2017-12-28) - We are conditioned to go into a limbic trance—an emotional reactivity to life within and around us—that keeps us identified with a limited, separate sense of self. This talk helps us to identify the flags of trance, and to bring a healing attention that frees us to live our moments with creativity, wisdom and love. Includes the RAIN of Self-Compassion. (from the 2017 IMCW New Year's Retreat)

Greetings. We offer these podcasts freely and your support really makes a difference. To make a donation, please visit tarabrock.com. Namaste and good evening. I'd like to begin by really honoring your practice in the groups that I was with and then hearing about the other groups and sensing you in the hall. just to feel the spirit that you're bringing to this, the integrity and the courage. Courage, Will mention that this, that word and it really hit. It's the courage of just looking at what's here.

And part of what happens, especially the first day I'm so aware of, that without as many distractions, we can become poignantly aware of energies that. that were in the background when we were really busy. Sleepiness is one of them that we did a hand raised this morning. I mean, how many through the day felt like sleepiness was a really big one for you? Can I just see again? Look around, just look around. Yeah.

And there are other challenging energies we typically talk about that actually start becoming really obvious. How many of you notice restlessness? Yeah. Okay. How about what's called wanting mind, wanting to get sleep or a shower or food, but the wanting energy? Noticing some of you raising with each one. Those are called multiple hindrance attacks sometimes.

How about aversion, disliking things, judging things, not wanting things. Yeah, okay. How about the doubt? Like, should I really be here? Am I cut out for this? or yeah. If you weren't looking around, a lot of us experiencing a lot of these

really universal energies and it helps to know that because they're not personal. They just happen. And they become suffering the more that were caught inside them, the more we're reacting to them,

the more we're thinking they shouldn't be there. So what I'd like to focus on this first, night, there's many moments that I've heard different people mention of feeling that settling and touching a bit of peacefulness and gratitude. But I'd like to tonight really explore the getting unstuck part of the practice because every one of us, whether it's today or tomorrow or whenever, we had stuck places.

I thought I'd start with a story from Polynesia. This is one of the legends or myths in Polynesia where the mother of a tribe goes down regularly to the river to shed her skin. And one time she sees that her old skin got caught on some driftwood. She takes some time and enjoys the freshness of her new skin and goes back to the village in her teeth. teenage daughter is very disturbed because her mother doesn't look the same and it's scary to her. And she tries comforting her daughter, but nothing will really calm her down.

So the mother goes back down to the river and takes the old skin off the driftwood and puts it back on. And from that day on, the Polynesians believe that humans lost the ability to be immortal. from that day on they lost the capacity to be fully alive in the timeless present. In other words, they got hitched to old skin, to patterns, to conditioning that kept their identity small. So I think that's a really cool myth. And Nietzsche puts it this way. He says the snake that cannot shed its skin perishes.

And so for us who are in this to wake up, the message is that our freedom comes, it's not being without skin. The idea is not to be completely raw, but it's to not have that hardened layering and that armoring, have the kind of skin that lets the sun and the elements in each other in and have the kind of skin that lets the who we are shine out. Porous, fresh. So the metaphor for really the evolution of consciousness is shedding our skin's not a one-shot.

This is really our ongoing process, that in some way there's that awareness in us that's looking to see, well, what's between me and full-pressure? You know, how is the patterning or the skin or the covering getting in the way of full presence? And that every time we in some way remember or reconnect, oh yeah, let go of the thoughts, oh yeah, relax, oh yeah, fully open to what's here, we're shedding skin. Every one of those times we're in some way opening from being,

being in a more limited identity inside an old skin to inhabiting more of the fullness and the light and the love and the space that's our beingness. So what enables us to shed skin here? If the metaphor works, we're used it if not, but what allows us to keep awakening out of that cocoon, the limiting self, are these two-wing, of awareness that we talk about a lot. And one is the wing of mindfulness and that's shining the light, noticing, oh, what is happening right here in this moment? And you can ask that question right here in this moment, you know, what is happening? What's happening inside me?

The second wing, the wing of heartfulness, is the quality of acceptance and tenderness and space that allows what's happening just to be here. Mindfulness and heartfulness. These are the two wings. And in any moment that we sense, okay, so what's between me and presence and we shine the mindfulness, the light of mindfulness, and the tenderness of heartfulness,

our skin starts becoming more transparent again. The light that's here can shine through. So one of the ways that I think of this, and really I think the title of the talk will be remembering and choosing loving presence. Not sure yet, but I think that'll be it. Really continuing with that inquiry, okay, what's between me and loving presence? And then these two wings that help to free us. One of the descriptions of this process that I really love comes from the poet Mark Nipo. And he calls this way of waking up, taking the exquisite risk.

Like for the mother who put her skin back on, she was afraid to be in her naturalness. There's a fear in that. Several people today when we started exploring, well, what would happen if you really, really were open-hearted, undefended in that way, or really open to what was here, or accepted or allowed, there's a fear in there. There's a fear that our familiar way of navigating, whether it's striving or pushing ourselves or judging or believing limiting things. Without that we won't know who we are, we won't know how to function.

So it's an exquisite risk to let go of that skin, that old patterning and be willing to be in that uncertainty. The word's exquisite. How come it's exquisite? Because there's a beauty, a dazzling light-filled beauty with it, an excellence, a sensitivity, a responsiveness as we step out and risk. It's scary. We're leaving familiar ground.

So that's what I feel like we're all doing here in a way. And that's why I started with honoring you and honoring all of us on this past. path for, and something's drawing us to take a risk. Something's drawing us because there's a beauty there. And I often turn to an evolutionary perspective on this. That it's very natural that we have this survival brain that's geared to detect vulnerability and contract and go into fight, fight, fight, freeze. In other words, having an old skin that's defensive and aggressive is absolutely part of our evolutionary process. And it's very natural grab on and hold on to that. And the challenge, as we know, is that it becomes a habit. Like, if you're

suffering, it's because in some way you're believing something that's not true. You're holding on beyond what's needed. You're pushing away beyond what's needed. So that's a rest of development. when that limbic system takes over. And I like the language of, then we're in a limbic trance. And you've been tracking today when you go into trance. We know the real obvious kinds of limbic trances. Like when you're really lost in reactivity where you've punched a hole through the wall

or where you've down the third snicker bar and you're not slowing it or lost an X-rated fantasy or whatever it is, when we know them, we know when we're carried away. Joseph Campbell has a metaphor that's useful, big circle of awareness and there's a line going through. Anything below the line is what we're not aware of and what's above the lines is what we're aware of. And when a lot of us is living below the line, and when we're in fight, flight, freeze and we're reactive, we're not inhabiting our wholeness. So the obvious ones, and you might think back to today what the obvious ones for you

when you were in some sort of a limbic trance. Some of the obvious ones go circle around sensory gratification. We just know when we get riveted in some way our mind gets riveted to wanting what we don't have. Possibly the best chicken joke ever. a chicken and an egg are lying in bed. The chicken is leaning against the headboard, smoking a cigarette with a satisfied smile on its face.

The egg, looking a bit pissed off, grabs the sheets and rolls over and says, well, I guess we finally answered that question. Come on, do you get it? Do you? I've told that twice others and there's just like, at first there's just like, oh no, you couldn't be. I'd like to continue as I was speaking last night a bit on the flags of limbic trance because the capacity to take the exquisite risk to shine the light comes from getting

some sort of an indicator of, okay, I'm stuck. And they come in a very physical way that you can feel your body's either very tense or numb perhaps, the emotional signs when you're caught in the fear or the shame or the anger. The mental ones are the ones most people name first. Okay, I'm obsessing. I'm worrying. I'm planning. You know, I'm comparing mine. And then there's the behavioral ones where we're actually grasping. We're going back for thirds when we know we don't need it. Or we're angry and we lash out or some way we freak out and we can, and we're really, we know those ones. And one little, one little boy's story is he got lost in the YMCA and he

found himself in the women's locker room. And as soon as he spotted, the room burst into shrieks. And ladies are grabbing towels and running for cover. And he's watching it in amazement. And finally he says, what's the matter? Haven't you seen a little boy before? So it's freaking out. The same limbic flags apply to our broader society.

We are in a limbic society and we're an Olympic society that is kind of exposing its limbicness more and more. I mention it because, you know, we can see it. For those that can overconsume, the overconsuming is off the charts, addictions off the charts, the violation of others, aggressing against other humans and non-human animals. the earth. So everything we describe in terms of waking up to our own limbic trance also applies to the broader society, but we have to see it. You might be tracking and notice,

and this is one of the main flags, what's called if only mind. And if only mind is a limbic trance that's, I think is really sad because when we're in if only mind, we're postponing being here until we get what we think we need in order for our life to be okay. Typically that's, you know, the partner, either having a partner or a partner changing, or it could be having the home or the possession that we feel will really make a difference or the right job or making more money, our losing weight, our health being a certain way, or having a child. And there are things that we can really say, yeah, those are important.

and it's a limbic trance because our wanting is postponing our living on some level, if only mind. A lot of times the if only mind has to do with how much we have to accomplish to feel good. How many of you have noticed how much your feeling good has to do with accomplishment? Can I see? Yeah. So it's a big one. this habit of striving for achievement and self-improvement to be good enough.

That's if only mine. If only I do such and such and I achieve this or get that kind of recognition. I remember for myself at one point I actually stopped and asked myself the question, okay, what would be good enough? like what do I have to do to be good enough? And I sat there and I said, well, what if I did all of this or I did all of that or, you know, and I realized that every time I think something's, oh, okay, that was good, yeah, it lasts for about 2.4 minutes until I'm in some way fixating on what next I need to do.

It's never enough. It just is never enough. And, interestingly, the times, and there are many moments now of enoughness of just resting and being at peace with how it is, has absolutely zero to do with accomplishing. Nothing. So that's another flag. Another big one is being hooked on approval. And it's not until we start really looking at our interactions with each other, that we start getting how much, how many moments the way we're expressing ourselves is to get a certain response of being liked or respected.

That there's not a spontaneous expression. It is shaped and maneuvered to elicit a response. and it might be that we want to be the knowledgeable one so we're just in some way needing to show that we know about stuff or it might be that we need to ingratiate ourselves to others so they in some way depend on us for being helpful or we might be in some way hiding or covering up our insecurity we need to be approved of. There's a story of a little girl who's at the park

with her mother and her aunt and her mother teaches her out of jumping. rope and every time she gets it right they clap and she is getting better and better at it and they're clapping, clapping. So finally they say, okay, now you go practice and we're going to talk for a while. She comes back 15 minutes later and she's all droopy and depressed and she said it's not as much fun without the clapping, you know, and you can get that sense. We want to be seen and appreciate it.

And often it's in ways that we look good in societal ways, but often it's according to our own standard. So you might reflect for a moment, just if you will, closing your eyes. It's just a scanning for trance. Sometimes the way you can scan for trance is just say, right now am I in a trance? Just the question. We'll start shining a light on the kind of thoughts and feelings. feelings that you are identified with. It's harder when we're in an interaction with someone

else to catch it. So I'd like to invite you to bring to mind someone you respect, someone who you want them to like you and appreciate you, someone that matters to you, do you hold in high esteem, and imagine some setting that you might be with that person, and sense, what is it that you want them to see about you? And what might you do or what efforts might you make to have them see you in that way? And what don't you want them to see about you? What might you do to avoid them seeing you in that way? And just notice in the presenting, whether it's the feelings in your body, the kind of words, the kind of thoughts, the way your mind is, how much you're noticing, the trance,

that you're not inhabiting your fullness. If it's there, perhaps you find that as you investigate this, that you're able to be in a very present, spontaneous place. So we're looking at one part of the limbic trance, which is wanting, wanting people to see us a certain way, wanting to achieve so we can feel good about ourselves, wanting different kinds of gratification. The other side of it totally related is the limbic trance that has a sense that something's wrong. And it's an interesting question to ask in any moment, is there an assumption that there's a problem right now?

So again, we're exploring what are the questions that shine a light on? what's between me and really open-hearted presence? Am I assuming there's a problem right now that something's wrong? Now often when we're in something's wrongs mode it has to do with others and sometimes it has to do with the world. Most often deep down it has to do with moi that we're thinking I'm wrong in some way. to be able to wake up from a limbic trance, we have to be able to see the layer

of the something's wrong with me assumption. How many of you noticed it today that you could sense the self-judgment that was underneath things? Can I see by hands? Yeah. It's pervasive and it's not personal.

It's just pervasive. That there's a primal sense that something's wrong. It's our limbic brain going around the corner anything could happen. And then that something's wrong sense attaches to the sense of self. So we think that I'm what's wrong. So we go into self-blame in different ways. Jonathan and I were teaching a retreat at Garrison and we were exploring different people's fears. And the most common fear we heard was of other people's judgment.

That we move around really afraid of other people's judgment because underlying the assumption is something's wrong with me and they'll see it. I'm not going to do any more hand raises on how many of you are saying. But I know, I get that you understand. So that, and of course we're also afraid of our own judgment that in some way we don't meet a standard. Something's wrong with me. I have this cartoon here of two sharks and the big one saying, the pressure to be great is too much.

rather be known as the just okay white shark. So when we're not aware that we're in the grip of something's wrong with me, we're under the line. We're not able to inhabit our fullness. As soon as we get it, as soon as I can say to myself, oh, okay, I'm caught in the trance of unworthiness again. As soon as I even have that realization, I'm already above the line and able to bring through kindness and presence wake up. But it's when we're not aware of it. So a story for you and I was given permission to share this. As many of you know, Janet is my assistant and she and I were having a conversation. I was driving and we were talking about the status of several of the projects that were involved with and we juggle many. And

She said that she just didn't feel like she was doing justice to several of the ones that felt really important to her. And, you know, it wasn't getting enough on top of the blog posts, getting blog posts out, and not doing as much on the translations and all these people are asking for this, but not supplying it, and then doing all of our categories for the website, and just falling short on many fronts. And it wasn't the first time that she had shown. shared self-doubts, but it was, you know, it was the sense of I'm failing, this mission that I love so much and serving and so on. And so I heard it and then without even knowing I was

going to do this, I started in going, I'm never enough, I'm never enough, I'm always failing, I'm never enough, I can't get things right, oh, I'm never enough, I'm unworthy and it makes me so up, tight, you know, and I went on. It was even worse than that. I mean, I just went on and on until finally she started singing with me, and we started weaving our voices and we came above the line, right? Did I get that right? So here's the invitation here, even though we're on silence. If you have a part of you that needs expression to bring it above the line, just start singing and no, not that, but bring it above the line, shine the light, ask that question, what is between me and really inhabiting loving presence?

And very often you'll find what we call the second arrow, which is that you'll maybe already know that you've been feeling anxious, or maybe you'll already know that you've been really wanting the bell to ring, right? But maybe what you weren't noticing is that you were judging your meditation and feeling like you were failing at the retreat. If you can bring that into the space of awareness, if you can recognize that there's something in you that's saying, I should be better than I am, I should be further along. As soon as it's in consciousness, you can then begin to choose to deepen presence around

it. Let's check in for a moment. I feel like I've been talking a lot. I'd like you to kind of sense for yourself where maybe today or recently you felt stuck. Just dip in for a moment. It might have been today where you felt anxious or some grasping around food or the schedule or sleep, your health. It might be something at home or relationship that is difficult,

something that some angry or conflictual relationship may be, something you're worried about that's coming up in your life. Where you know you get caught, you go into that limbic trance. And for right now, just bring that interest like examine it with interest, with kindness. This is where, in a way, the survival brain is taking over a bit. And when the survival brain takes over, the body gets tight, the emotions get strong, the thoughts get busy and circling.

When we're in limbic trance, because the survival brain has taken. over so much we have very little access to real mindfulness and compassion. Notice for yourself, what's it like in your body when you're caught in it? What's the kind of thoughts that circle through? What are you believing? It can be a very useful question, what am I believing? If you're in a trance and you ask that, it gives you then the opportunity to not believe

your thoughts so much. When you're an Olympic trance, how are you relating to yourself? Can you sense the second arrow that usually goes with Olympic trance? For now, see if you can just notice it. Notice when you're caught in that skin of a patterning that's too small for who you are, because just the noticing opens the door. If you'd like to open your eyes you can. This next piece will be, once we've noticed, okay, I'm stuck, how do we deepen attention? How do we remember and choose presence and kindness? And many of you, probably most are familiar with the acronym Rain, will use that as we explore this because one of the values of having an acronym, is that.

is that even if you're way under the line, it gives you a kind of systematic way of coming back above the line. Okay, R. R of rain means recognize. Recognize what's going on. What's between me and presence? Recognize it. The A is to allow, which means really to pause and not try to make it different, not try to fix, not add judgment, just pause. Because if you can pause, you can begin to deepen your attention. The idea here is to break patterning. If the old pattern is to, let's say, notice that you're obsessing but then to add a judgment

that I shouldn't be, I should already have grown out of this, I've been already to four retreats. How could I possibly be at another retreat and still going to be? If you do that, you're just deepening the patterning. So whatever you practice gets stronger, okay? And if you practice obsessing and then judging the obsessing, you strengthen judgment. But if you recognize and allow the obsessing, you can then practice something different, which is deepening attention. Recognize and allow and then the I is investigate.

is misunderstood. People sometimes think of it as cognitive. It's really an embodied investigation primarily, which means you're feeling into what's happening. You're asking questions that help to bring yourself, where is this? Where do I feel it? What does it feel like really? What does it want? What does it need for me right now? How long has it been here? You know, questions that really give you a feeling in your body of what it's like. And then the N of rain is to nurture, to offer kindness. Now, once you've done that, there's a fullness of presence and then the instructions are to rest in what's here.

And you can think of it like in a real rain, it comes down and it nourishes and it nourishes, and brings everything to life. Well, it's after the rain that you actually experience that full aliveness. So don't shortchange yourself. If you've done rain and you've nurtured, then just sense, well, what's here? And just rest in what's here? Because as when you start getting familiar with the who you are beyond the cocoon, it's really important that in training, that getting familiar with after the rain. So I'll give you an example. We're going to practice as a part of the way we close this talk, working with where you feel stuck in old skin, taking another step. For one man, his old skin that he couldn't shed and that was causing

enormous suffering was that he was impatient and irritable and harsh and critical with both at work and with his family. He was his very critical, judgmental guy. And he lost his time. for a lot. So a friend sent him one of my talks, got kind of a podcasted talk, I think it was the one on anger and mindfulness, and so he decided he wanted to see how much meditation practice could help, and we talked about it. He basically described when he'd get out of control and so we just walked through rain because I know that especially with anger, it's such a strong limbic energy that you definitely need something. Okay, recognize, name it.

Okay, anger's going on. Okay, allow it. Just let it be here, don't judge it, don't make it go away, don't act on it, just allow. The eye, I asked him, well, what are you believing when you're so caught up in this? Like, you know, I had him think of a situation at work and the situation was that everything's going out of control and I'm going to fail. That was what the belief was with the anger. And then I'm going to lose everybody's love and respect.

So it was like he had hit an obstacle, he was going to fail, and the person who was involved with whatever the obstacle felt like was where he'd target his energy. So that was the belief, I'm going to fail. But then I, and this is important. After you, if you ask the question, what am I believing? Find it in the body. So then he had to find in his body how experienced it was like this anxious clutch

in his chest. And it was hot and explosive and he wanted to act on it. If he acted out in anger, he got away from that clutch. But if he stayed and paid attention to the clutch, he found under it a real deep sense of shame.

And then we continued to investigate how long has that been there, as long as I can remember. The effect of that shame. Well, it's made it so I've never really been able to be close with anyone, not even my wife, really.

And then with that, there was a natural sense of softening. I said, well, what do you want for that place? And that's when he could really in some deep way. And I often encourage people to put their hand on their heart because if we act out caring, it actually lets it unfold to its fullness. So even the gesture of kindness, and I do this with myself even when I'm not feeling it, I'm not feeling kind at all, in some way I'll say, you know, I wish I could feel better right now and put my hand on my heart and actually evokes the sense of kindness.

It's a really important trick. So hand on his heart and then in some way offering kindness, I said, so what's the message, you know, in some way? Well, it's that I'm not leaving, I'm here, I'm staying. I care." So that was the practice and he then stayed put and I said, what's it like right now? And he said, you know, I feel like in some way I'm the person I want to be right now, just more of a tender person.

So his practice during work hours so to speak he couldn't go that deep. When you're in the thick of it you can't. But what he could do when he was irritated was name it angry, breathe, and just say, it's okay, it's okay. And still he was interrupting it. Sometimes he'd lash out, but sometimes he wouldn't, which was a better percentage than before, okay? So, came to class about a month later,

and he told me this of something that happened that I want to share with you. He was meeting with a project manager, and the guy admitted that the team was behind schedule in a major project, and that he had personally led, that some things fall through the cracks. And so this guy felt some of that rising irritation.

And as you could imagine, it'll play right into, well, if the project goes down, I'm failing, etc. But he paused, he breathed, he named it internally, anger, anger. And so he didn't blow up. And then he started deepening his presence and he saw this guy was being really honest. And he knew him, the guy had been around for a few years, he sensed his commitment. So he let him know that. He said, I get that you're, I trust you're trying as hard as you can, which was not the kind

of thing he usually said. So at the end of the meeting, his manager said to him, you know, I wasn't planning to share this but my wife has stage four breast cancer and these last ones have been really tough. I have two teens and it's just a really hard time. And then both men had tears in their eyes and they hugged. He told me, he said, you know, if it happened a month earlier, he would have, he said, I would have unwittingly added to this man's burden. But just that pausing, naming it, okay, anger, it's okay.

Interrupted the pattern. So this is the practice of rain where we recognize and allow it and we stay. We don't try to... try to fix it. Turgim Trunkpah says this. He says, as long as we're trying to figure out how we can escape from our present situation, we can't notice much about it. Only when we feel that this is it, this is how it is right now, without any clutching towards something different, will our intelligence really come alive? Our compassion unfold. So our practice, you know, we have all the limbic reactivity. It's to recognize it and pause. Allow, allow the experience, deepen our

attention. Now, as I said, there's a fear, and I want to name that, that there's a fear of I deepen my attention, I open my heart to what's here, and everything will be out of control and I won't know what to do and all my familiar strategies aren't available. In one group we talked about the strategy that so many of us have of self-judgment and striving as a way to accomplish. Well, what would happen if we stop striving and stop self-judging? Would we all of a sudden just, you know, sink? Would we stop doing things? Will we stop accomplishing?

And yet, a lot of us believe that's what would happen. It takes courage in the face of that fear to draw, our old strategy to shed our skin. And I want to honor that, that it really takes courage. It takes courage every time we decide to really step out of a thought pattern and just be with what's here in our body. But what can help give us that courage, what helps us to trust, is that we do it in bits and we start sensing that we open into something more resourceful and more true than where we've been. There's a parallel in biology that I think is really fascinating to this.

It has to do with the metamorphosis of a caterpillar into a butterfly. And so as many of you know, the caterpillar has this period of ravenous consumption and it just fills itself and fills itself. And then it finds a perch and it forms the chrysalis and it gets inside. Okay, so it sends inside. and here's what happens, is that it's unable to move, and then it dissolves into an organic goop. And that goop is made of what are called imaginal cells,

from the word imagination, imaginal cells. And those cells, they've been dormant in the caterpillar. And I think it's poetic genius to call them imaginal cells. because the goop, out of the goop, those cells form the structure of the caterpillar, which is to say that each of us has within us the blueprint already for becoming what we really are. And even though it seems like we're letting go of our virtual reality and letting go of our strategies and our old skin

and becoming goop in a way, It's like we're losing all our normal orientation, and it can feel completely out of control. Like it just, if you really let go, it's like this changing river of sensation, sound, and there is no body there to control anything. Or goop. But there's some knowing, something calling us into whether you consider it your future self or your, enlightened, high being, there's something that calls us into a new beingness, a new expression of our beingness where we're really inhabiting our wholeness. Every time you let go of your skin, step out of the thoughts, open into real reality, you

begin to trust more and more that you can become that goop and emerge. more and more true to your potential. The trust deepens. One of the beautiful aspects of this path that we're on is that this practice of meeting our edge, you know, being really in that limited cocoon and then using this attending and befriending, these wings of mindfulness and heartfulness and opening,

is that as we offer that to ourselves, we become more and more a space of caring for others, that every time we dissolve the skin and open to a more awake and loving version of ourselves, that awake-loving version of who we are includes more and more of the life around us. So that rather than second-arrowing ourselves with judgment, we're embracing ourselves, we embrace others.

We see past the mask in a way. A story for you of a woman who had done a lot of practice. This is told by Catherine Ingram about a friend of hers. And this is a woman that had worked a lot with children. She says a few years ago I was with a close woman friend in a grocery store in California. And we snaked along the aisles. We became aware of a mother with a small boy moving the opposite direction and meeting us head on in each aisle.

The woman barely noticed us because she was so furious at her little boy who seemed intent on pulling items off lower shelves. As the mother became more and more frustrated, she started to yank at the child, and several aisles later progressed into shaking him by the arm. At this point, my friend spoke up, a wonderful mother of three and founder of her progressive school, she had probably never once in her life treated a child so harshly.

I expected my friend would give this woman a solid mother-to-mother talk about controlling herself and about the effect this behavior has on a child. So I was braced for a confrontation. Instead, my friend said, what a beautiful little boy. How old is he? The woman answered cautiously. He's three. My friend went on to comment how curious he seemed and how our own three children were just

like him in the grocery store, pulling things off shelves, so interested in all the wonderful colors packages. He seemed so bright and intelligent, my friend said. The woman had the boy in her arms by now and a shy smile came by her face, gently brushing his hair out of his eyes. She said, yes, he's very smart and curious, but sometimes he wears me out. My friend responded in sympathetically, yes, they can do that. They're so full of energy. As we walked away, I heard the mother speaking more kindly to the boy about getting home and cooking his dinner. We'll have your favorite, macaroni and cheese, she told them. You can see the shift from the patterning to set people straight to really sensing the goodness in them and calling it forward.

Wes Angelozzi says, go and love someone exactly as they are and then watch how they quickly transform into the greatest truest versions of themselves. When one feels seen and appreciated in their own essence, one is instantly empowered. So that's what we can do for ourselves to have that quality of loving ourselves into healing, to bring out the best in ourselves. We can do it with each other as this woman in the supermarket and as the businessman who, when he could interrupt his patterning, could show up for someone. And I think of it also as, you know, we can do it with our society and what it requires is a deepened attention.

You know, I mentioned earlier the limbic society that we're in. When we're below the line and in the grip of our survival brain, others seem like unreal others and their threats, and we can't really relate to their humanity. And animals, we can't relate to their kin. The earth, we can't relate. I saw an article in the Washington Post that someone sent me last week and just read you a couple of lines, said, the current administrations considering measures to halt a surge

of Central American families and unaccompanied minors coming across the Mexican border, including a proposal to separate parents from their children, according to officials with knowledge of the plan. So I heard this and I felt anger and I said, oh, that's my limbic trance responding to the limbic trance of our society. Because you have to be in a trance and not paying attention to cause suffering. The opposite goes too, that in the same way we're talking about shedding skin and deepening attention with ourselves, when we do it with each other,

we end up bringing out a quality of kinship that's really beautiful. The expression from Gregory Boyle, who's a priest that works with gangs in Los Angeles, is radical kinship. So here's a story of how that worked. This is in a Greg Boyle store. This one came from actually San Quentin where there was going to be a group of Gioto-Tantric choir monks,

the Tibetan monks that do this amazing sounding and they were going to do their multi-vocal chanting and the other performers were going to be from San Quentin, the San Quentin Gospel Choirs. They were going to perform for each other. And the organizers got concerned that there might be

some tension. And as it's written, the members of the San Quentin Gospel Choir were all African-Americans, many big men who worked out with weights in their years of prison, they'd been born again and touched by the Spirit of Jesus. And their songs were testimonial to the depths of their suffering and the light of the gospel that had been awakened in them. And the Tibetan monks, they were afraid they'd appear as merely foreigners and heathens to these newly awakened Christians. And when the heathen monks arrived, the contrast was even more apparent dwarfed by the African Americans was a group of small Asian men wearing maroon skirts. So you see it there, right? And so here's what happened. Here's how the introduction went that really was inspired. I want to read this to you.

Almost all of these Tibetan men who joined us today have spent years in harsh prisons. The communist Chinese army not only imprisoned them for expressing their beliefs but tortured them as well. Somehow they were released or able to escape from prison. Then to find freedom, they walked across the Himalayas, the highest mountains on earth. Some tied rags on their feet because they had no good shoes. But even now, they are in exile. They are forced to live far from their home, apart from their families and community, and they don't know if they'll ever be able to return.

What's kept them going through all of their struggles have been their songs and prayers, and this is what they'll sing for you today. And in an instant, the gospel choir and the Debedan monks looked at one another with eyes that shared the vulnerable depths of human sorrow and they found understanding. Each group sang to the other from the heart and when their music was finished, they came together to hug and embrace like long-lost brothers. I love this story because there's this sense of the potential if those people who feel different to who each other could express what's really true for them. There would be understanding. If we can

create situations where we can speak and listen. So tonight what we're really exploring is we all get caught in a limbic trance and we all have the potential to awaken. It takes a commitment, a commitment to ask that question, what is between me and loving presence in some form that question. Am I entrance? To shine that light of presence and care right this moment. So we'll end in that way. We'll end with just a brief reflection inviting you to explore the exquisite risk of presence. Again, if you want to adjust how you're sitting in any way, it's fine, so just be a couple of minutes. I'd like to invite you. to bring to mind a situation with another person that brings forward that kind of a limbic

reactivity and creates separation. It could be something to do with work or home, friend, children, parents, something that brings up either aversion or fear or anger, grasping, selfishness, shame. So you're already bringing to mind something that comes between you and really loving presence. This is the trance that you can begin to witness more, that you can do what I sometimes call the U-turn and sense maybe a situation where it's most activated so you can get in touch with it.

You might visualize the person and what they're saying when you're feeling that you're feeling reactive and making that you turn sense what goes on inside you. What are you believing about what it means if they're going to be behaving like this? What it's going to mean to you or what's going to go wrong? And mostly what are you feeling? What goes on inside you? What is the feeling in your body? You're most aware of.

Because now is when you can take that exquisite risk to deepen presence, to really choose presence, to recognize and allow what's there and investigate in a felt-sense way into your body. What does it feel like? And you might sense how this part wants you to be with it, the part in you that's activated, the part that's angry or heard or afraid or aversive. How does it want you to be with it? What's the quality of care or the expression of care that would really be healing? And sensing you can just explore how to offer in this moment.

moment, that kindness and care from your own most awake heart inwardly. It may be the care of just forgiving, forgiving yourself that you even have a reaction. Or it might be that kind of compassion that really says this hurts, to name that it hurts. And it might be you put your hand on your heart to deepen the compassion just to experiment what's it like when you really offer kindness to yourself when you're reacting. We really can't shed skin without kindness. You can't dissolve the hardness without kindness. When you offer kindness and presence, you can better sense your intention.

What's your intention with this person? What is you really want to experience between you? Sensing the possibility of really looking and beholding that person from your wisest heart, seeing their vulnerability. They may be afraid or embarrassed or self-conscious or feeling not enough. And sense the possibility of new choices of how you respond. The gift of taking the exquisite risk of letting go of old skin is that we have new responses. We can be more spontaneous from our hearts. What's possible?

This is a more evolved consciousness. Just rest in the sense of who you are and there's been this quality of presence and kindness. Inhabit it. What happens if you let yourself fully inhabit in this moment your awake heart? The poet Dana Faults writes, There is no controlling life. Try corraling a lightning bolt containing a tornado. dam a stream and it will create a new channel. Resist and the tide will sweep you off your feet.

Allow and grace will carry you to higher ground. The only safety lies in letting it all in, the wild and the weak, fear, fantasies, failures and success. When loss rips off the doors of the heart or sadness veils your vision with despair, practice being becomes simply bearing the truth. In the choice to let go of your known way of being, the whole world is revealed to your new eyes. In the choice to let go of your known way of being, the whole world is revealed to your new eyes. Namaste and thank you for your presence. For more talks and meditations and to learn about my schedule or join my email list, please visit tarabrock.com.