Tara Brach - Responding with Heart to Painful Times: Conversation with Tara & Frank Ostaseski

Episode Date: April 14, 2022

Responding with Heart to Painful Times: A Conversation with Tara & Frank Ostaseski - This event includes short talks addressing the suffering so many are experiencing, and questions and engagement with participants

Greetings. We offer these podcasts freely, and your support really makes a difference. To make a donation, please visit tarabrock.com. Well, I'm very happy to be here with my friend Tara. It's good to share this day with you. And maybe Tara, you could begin and see where it takes us, huh? My pleasure, and likewise, it's a joy to get to co-teach with Frank, who's very dear to my heart. I just was looking at the picture of us. Last time we taught in Washington, D.C., really wonderful. And really so grateful to each of you who are here. And I'm imagining you here since I don't get to see you, which I always, I love being able to see and feel you

as much as possible. So thank you. Thank you from around the globe, coming from around the globe. And it feels so important, you know, a gathering like this to explore presence, explore that silence and that space that can hold, you know, with heart, all that's going on in this world in these current times. And so aware of the intensity, you know, just went ahead and looked at the front pages today, you know, the violence, all the refugees, waves of pandemic. and then of course the earth's suffering. You know, one friend described the last few years

as that she couldn't see the land. It was like being in an airplane and just navigating one storm after another and it wasn't safe and stable enough to land. And you know, it can feel that way when we're in reactivity that we're just not able to arrive in real life. Can't contact.

can't feel intimacy, we're just in motion reacting. And you know, even when we're not feeling strong emotion, you might notice there's still that habitual tendency to tense against what's next. I'm sure you've recognized it. I'm thinking of one woman, a mother who sent her son a text message and it said, start worrying details to follow. And that's kind of the way it is. We're ready for what's next. And as most of you realize, it's an illusion that life ever settles. I mean, we know that. There's always stressors and life's not going the way we think it should go. And the seasons keep changing with their creativity and their beauty and their challenges and their losses. And oh my, the losses,

they've just been really big in these last few years. So many have been going through it. To me, the deep inquiry, how in the midst of all this do we find that refuge, you know, that space of silence and presence, that space of loving awareness, that's our home? How do we find that so that the losses and the, the changes and the fears and the anger and whatever's coming up can be held with a real tenderness,

you know, with a compassion and with the wisdom. And I want to highlight one of the major challenging currents that many are facing that needs space and holding. You've probably noticed that the more stressed, the more reactive we get, you know, anxious or and with that, we're conditioned to turn against ourselves. So not only are we anxious and angry, but we don't like ourselves. We don't like how we're feeling, how we're acting. This is a really deep conditioning, and I've seen during pandemic years, you know,

along with all the uncertainties and the loneliness, the fear, these really deep feelings of personal failure. And, you know, if we were, if I could see you right now, I'd say how many, I'd ask for hand raised, just to sense, you know, how many of you are with me on that, that you can sense that feeling of I'm falling short in parenting or I'm falling short in relationships or work. I'm not contributing. I call it the trance of unworthiness because it's a trance. It's this, it just affects our entire reality, this self-aversion.

and doubt, you know, I remember, I first wrote about it in my book Radical Acceptance, and I remember teaching at a Buddhist university in Europa and giving a workshop on radical acceptance. And there was a huge poster of me and the workshop and so on. And the caption at the bottom under my picture was, something is wrong with me. as because that's the deep belief is something's wrong with me. So, friends, we're talking about the ways that we leave home. We leave that boundless, formless presence, that heart and awareness, and lock into a very small sense of a self that's separate and angry and fearful and not okay.

I often think the true sickness is really homesickness. When we're hijacked, you know, when we're in that reactivity, when we're in that trance, what we most need is access to presence. And as you know, that's when it's most difficult. That's when we forget. That's when we forget how to come back. And so what I'd like to do is explore a pathway back, a pathway of mindfulness and compassion that is summarized in the acronym R-A-I-N. And even if you're not English speaking,

what each of the letter stands for is an easy-to-remember pathway. In English, Raine stands for, recognize, see what's going on, allow, just allow it to be there. I kind of say to myself, this belongs, just like any other wave in the ocean. Recognize and allow. And then investigate means deep in attention, sense sematically how it's expressing in the body, really feel it. And that's the intimate contact that comes when we investigate. And then nurture is the natural, tender, self-compassion that comes that we can hold it with. And when we move through those steps of recognize, allow, investigate, and nurture, it opens us back to that formless presence. That's our home. The beginning, though, these first two steps, I'm going to go through it a little

with you. The first step is to pause. When you're in reactivity, just pause. Some of you I remember Victor Frankl's most, the famous line that this, between the stimulus and the response, there is a space. And in that space is your power and your freedom. So we pause. We create a little space there. And then recognize, okay, what's happening right here? And can I allow it? I'll share one one experience that has stayed with me forever. This is how happened at a retreat many years ago, a man was attending who was experiencing Alzheimer's, and he was also a psychologist. He'd been a psychologist and a meditator for 15 years. And when I met with him, his attitude, his spirit was really very spacious and upbeat.

And I asked him how it was for him. And he described early on in the onset of Alzheimer's, He was leading a workshop, had a hundred people or so there. And before he started, he went completely blank. It was just absolutely no idea why he was there or why others were there or anything. So here's what he did. He paused. And then he put his palms together. And he started naming what he was aware of.

He said, confused. And then he bowed. afraid, heart racing, embarrassed, breathing, bowed. And this went on a bit and finally he was able to say relaxing. And when he spoke next, he said, I'm so sorry, but as you can imagine the people listening, many had tears in their eyes and one person said, you know, no one has taught us the Dharma like this, the teachings. And what did he

done? First he paused. And then he simply started recognizing naming his experience. It's so powerful to name it. You know, either out loud or a mental whisper, naming it. And then allowing it. Allowing it.

It's like saying yes to the moment. Not I love this, not I want this to continue. But this is reality. allowing reality. Just to name that when we bow or say yes, when we allow what's going on, we're not saying yes to something external like somebody's abuse or our own behavior or even to the content of our thoughts. We're saying yes to the felt experience of the moment. That's the radical allowing in rain. Okay, let me tell you about the rest of rain. When it's a really strong emotional reaction, that initial mindful awareness can easily get destabilized. So that's where we need

to deepen with that investigating and nurture. And I can say that during the pandemic and I got a lot of email talking about what was working and what wasn't working, I had so many people saying rain saved my life in the midst of the fears for their parents and the real losses and dealing with children at home from school and their work. And so, and I was, you know, rain is so powerful. I was recently asked to share this practice of mindful self-compassion with those working with refugees in Poland right now and frontline workers still in Ukraine. It cuts through. But let me share, this is a pre-pandemic story that motivated me to write about rain. And it's in the book, it's called radical compassion.

And my mom had come down to live with us when she was like 81 or 82. And she needed a lot of help to get settled. She lives right here with us on this property. And I was in a very busy phase. So I kind of vacillated but feeling guilty that I wasn't helping her enough and showing up and feeling anxious about showing up on my with students and teaching and so on. And one point, it was so clear, I just needed to do rain. I mean, she had come into my office and to show me an article from the New Yorker,

and I barely looked up from my computer. And I was actually writing a talk on loving kindness, but I barely looked up. And then when I watched a retreat, I said to myself, you know, I don't know how long she'll be here. So I did rain. And the R of Raine was to recognize, you know, the anxiety in my system. And the A was, okay, just let it be here. You know, this belongs. It's natural. The I, as I investigated, I asked myself, well, what am I believing?

And it was this belief that I'm going to fall short on all fronts. You know, I'm going to fail my mother. I'm going to fail my students. Hence the guilt and the anxiety. And then deep in the investigation, feel that clench, that twist in my heart and chest. And I did then what I often do with nurture, which is I put my hand on my heart. And if you do it just for a moment, even a gesture of kindness begins to soften the armoring. Put my hand on my heart and I just sent a message inward, you know, a sense what I most needed to hear

and I just told myself to trust, trust my goodness, trust the purity of my heart. And through those four steps, there was an enlarging. I was no longer trapped in the identity of a daughter who was guilty for not doing enough or a teacher that was going to fall short. I was just resting in a tender, more open space. And in the days and weeks to come, I found when I was with her, I wasn't plotting on when I could go upstairs and work again. we'd have our big salads together and we were walking at the river, I'd really be by her

side walking. And when she died and it was only like three or four years later, you know, I felt huge grief. I can feel it easily. But no regret because Rain had saved my life moments with my mom. And so it is that we need a way home, you know, when we've left home. We need a simple way to honestly and courageously feel what we're feeling, regard it with kindness. And the kindness is so important. Jeff Foster writes that the most potent medicine is this ancient commitment to never abandon yourself,

to discover wholeness in the whole mess, to be a loving mother to your inside, to hold the broken bits and open awareness to illuminate the sore places within with the light of love. So often we forget to pause and we forget to bring that attention and that care inwardly and yet it's the beginning of all healing. So the gift is when we come home more to the fullness of who we are, to that beingness, to the silence and the stillness and the tenderness, the awakeness of our heart-mind, then we actually naturally extend and feel our belonging with each other. The great suffering is when we forget our belonging.

But the gift of this is that we feel that belonging and the kindness ripples out. Maybe one more story for you that again has carried with me for years of a lieutenant in the army who was forced to take an anger management course because of his temper. And in that he got training and mindfulness and empathy. And he went one evening to the supermarket and felt, up his cart. He was very busy. He had to get home and fill in more reports, so he did it really quickly, got in line. Well, the woman in front of him in the line had only two items, and she had a little girl, and she hands the little girl over to the clerk, and they're ooing and eyeing, and he just

got triggered. You know, she's not in the express line like she should be. She's in my line, and I'm busy, and I have so much to do, and, you know, just ahead of steam. And then you're going to Oh yeah, mindfulness. Pause. And he just began this process of just sensing, okay, this is what's happening. Angry, angry, feeling it in his body, just feeling it and then continuing to feel it

and sensing under it fear, fear of not getting things done and of his world falling apart. And then bringing a gentleness to that, it's okay, it's okay, it's gentle nurturing. more expanded. And so that this woman had left and it was his turn and he said to the clerk, you know, that little girl was adorable. And she beamed. She said, oh, that's actually my child. That was my mom who brought her. My husband was killed in Afghanistan. And so my mom brings the

baby over every twice a day so we have some visiting time. You know, not everyone is suffering in that particular way, but life is hard. I mean, everyone's living with uncertainty and fears, loss of their body and mind and of others, failure, sense of failure. You know, that anonymous saying, be kind, everyone you meet is fighting a hard struggle. And I often think, what if we could move through this world and pause enough to be in touch with ourselves and then look at the other and kind of as Ruby Sales puts it, just ask inwardly even that question, where does it hurt? Where does it hurt? You know, as our world continues in crisis, this is the possibility and the hope. I mean, the only thing that will heal us is consciousness, more humans that

cultivate a pathway to this awake, tender heart, the more there can be love in action. Love in action and that is the true medicine. L.R. Noss puts it this where he says, do not be dismayed by the brokenness of the world. All things break and all things can be mended not with time as they say but with intention. So go, love intentionally, unconditionally. the broken world waits in darkness for the light that is you. Thank you, friends. Thank you for listening. Thank you for your attention.

And now Frank and I are really interested in hearing whatever questions you might have. And it needn't even be a question. It might just be something that you want to speak to it. It's on your heart and mind now. And just so everyone knows we're in a webinar. So we won't be able to see you. but we'll be able to hear you. So, Anessa.

Thank you for taking my question. I'm in the process of providing care to my mother who's slowly dying. And I find myself so often very overwhelmed in the moments. And then they pass like waves. And I do what I can with the resources that people like yourselves have so generously offered to us. But I wondered if you had some counsel for when it's really overwhelming, how to navigate. Oh, boy. It's hard, isn't it?

It's so hard, Anissa. And sometimes, you know, we just have to acknowledge just how difficult it is for us and step away, actually. Step away into the other room with ourselves, reach out for support for ourselves. Those are very practical things that we can do, of course. But what Tara was speaking about earlier, about the man with Alzheimer's, just naming his experience, that can be incredibly powerful for you to do. This is hard. I didn't sign up for this. I'm really scared.

Yeah? So naming your experience can be incredibly helpful, of course. Then there's one more thing I want to say, Inessa. when you go out of the room and come back, one calm person in the room can make all the difference. And you can be that calm person. You know, when you move your mom,

when you turn her in bed, you lend her your back, you use your arms and legs to turn her. You can also lend her the calmness of your mind. And you can open your heart in such a way that she might be inspired to open hers. And then you can be in it together. You can do that in a sense.

that lives in you. You can have confidence in your good heart. Thank you, Nessa, for the question, Frank, that response, because it's so meaningful to so many of us. And I have a question for you, Vanessa, which is, what is it you most feel like if you could remember or be reminded in those moments? Like if the most wise and loving part of you

could just whisper something, your ear, what do you most wish you could remember in those moments of overwhelm? I guess there's probably two things that come right to my heart and mind. And one is, this is like this is all okay. This is all normal. This is, this is how it is, you know, just kind of a breath of that, you know, just like, ah, this is okay. And then the other is to just, sorry, was your question, what would I say to myself? Or what do you, yeah, what would you say? Or what do you wish you could remember?

Oh, remember, yeah. The light and the love that shines out of my mother, actually, you know, and that we've had some incredible moments where she just, and then I realized that she's okay, she's being held, you know, and it's her process, but she's being held. And I don't have to hold her all the time. Or I'm part of that holding too, you know, like we're just, that life is holding us. Okay, that's, first I just want to bow, because that's really a beautiful sharing and teaching for all of us. And it may be that during the moments of overwhelm, you can more quickly,

you know, I often just put my hand on my heart and just hear that voice, that reminder, you know, this belongs. This is a natural, this is just the way this human body mind works to get overwhelmed. It's okay. It's just part of nature. And then just to remember, there is a light and a love that's coming through your mom, that's holding your mom, that's coming through you, that just is always here, even when we can't immediately sense it and contact it, and to trust in that. And this is your wisdom. So draw on that. I mean, the more moments that you turn to that, that's a refuge that can carry you.

Thank you. Yeah, that I can feel the calmness with that. So, yeah, I appreciate that. Thank you. Thanks, Vanessa. We have a question from a Spanish speaker. Sylvia, do you want to come on and ask? Sir, this is coming from Monica, and she asks, how do you forgive yourself?

Oh, my, I, well, one, I have to say that I think forgiveness is a fierce practice. It has been in my life. and I'm a little suspicious of forgiveness that comes too quickly. For me, forgiveness is the willingness to see the parts of myself, the sometimes very ugly parts of myself, that I would rather not see, and to touch it with mercy, to touch those parts of myself with some mercy,

yeah, to recognize my humanity and my ignorance. Yeah? So I think the first thing I do is is to recognize it may be a long, slow process. But it's both a kind and fierce one. And well, I want to stop there, actually, and see what else Tara has to add to this, actually.

Frank, what you just said about it being a long process has such truth to it. I think there's a lot of premature forgiveness of others and ourselves. and the pathway is really through the vulnerability of contacting the pain of what's inside us. What helps me is to feel the pain of that and feel under it what has been driving it. And there's sometimes a metaphor I find really helpful if you're walking in a woods and you see a little dog by a tree and you go to pet it and the dog leaps at you ferociously, bare teeth, you know, bared fangs, and you go from being friendly to being really angry.

And then you realize that the dog has a paw and a trap. And then something really shifts. And you might not get near it right away because you want to protect yourself and protect others. But your heart shifts. And I think that's the shift that happens when we, we go through that portal of feeling the painful parts of our being, the conditioned parts of aversion and aggression and all the things we don't like, is that we find under them that we have our leg in a trap, that there's some real pain, some fear, some hurt. And then we tend to that

and gradually intending to that, the forgiveness naturally unfolds. I hope that's helpful. Thanks, Frank. Can we take another question? Yeah, please. Here I sit, kind of wrapped up in blankets because I'm not feeling well, and I'm 84 years old, and thinking about the challenges of getting old,

losing your family, and staying in the game, which I really want to do. So I guess that's my quest right now. Tara, why don't you take a shot at this? Yeah, Patricia, I hear less of a question and more of your heart's aspiration to stay true to your life and what's here. And I'm wondering, what is it that might get in the way for that? Is there a belief or a feeling that makes you feel that in some way you want to resign or you're not going to show up?

Oh, right on the money. Poetry has been my kind of go-to avocation, and I'm writing what I keep calling my last book of poetry compiling it. And so I have this argument going on, well, let's stop talking like that. That's silly. You're making everything too important. And then saying, oh, yeah, but. So it's, it's, it's.

interesting and it's a challenge to put all that down right to go ahead with the work and not complicated with that question so what what i'm hearing is that there's a self-doubt that it's valuable or it's worth putting forth is that right it's that and that and um yeah Yeah, and not so much that is my work, but what is that? What has value? You know, kind of that larger question, I guess, what's the point? So, and I think my advancing age really drives that question a lot. Yeah.

I think that's a question that I wish the earlier we can ask it, the more awake will be. It's one of those wisdom of impermanent. questions, like what matters? And as the Zen teacher say, the most important thing is remembering the most important thing. So it's almost like that. If you just keep asking, okay, what really matters? You know, if you had just a minute or two left in your life, what would most matter? What would be the quality of heart and awareness and beingness that would most matter? Just asking that question, I think, well, in full, form any activity, I just honor you for being in the inquiry right now.

Thank you. Thanks so much. So awakening in the midst of life, being in love, death, and grief. Wow. You know, as we venture into this, I think it might be useful to think about the two dimensions of being. I mean, there's the action of being, right? like being with someone we love or being placed in an ambulance or being with dying.

And then there's being which is a way referring to that all-inclusive, that endlessly expressive, that source of all manifestation, the ground of being, right, which is our essential identity, which we know through presence, this Tara reminded us. And to me anyway, this dimension of being is another way of naming or talking about the insurperable unity of reality. And to know reality in the midst of this life with all these beauties and horrors, well, if I'm going to know it,

I want to be as real as possible. And that's actually my hope for us today that we'd be real together. And to me, real, it indicates having some measure of self-love, some kind of love of what we essentially are. And so we want to move toward it, toward what's true, and what we feel is real in us. And I think that wholesome wanting, the love and appreciation of our essence,

that's central to our spiritual practice. That's central to awakening in the midst. Without love, you know, well, our practice is being done for all the wrong reasons. So to me, this love isn't selfish. We don't love because it's good for us, you know, well, because our preferences are met or we realize some special attainment because we know, you know, that being real

it means allowing sometimes a lot of unexperienced pain to surface. So we need to love being real in order to go through all the trouble and the discipline of inner work. And you can't be real if you're pretending to be something other than you are. I mean, how many times have I chosen comfort over truth or found myself living in the idea of who I think I am instead of in the direct experience of my life?

Too many times. You know, awakening in the midst, sometimes it seems impossible to me. And I know that I can't do it alone. None of us can. We need support. and the support that we need, it comes from being, from reality itself. It's not something external or other than who we are. It's who we fundamentally are.

How do we awaken in the midst? I don't know for sure. But it seems that some of it is about getting really interested in being real. Being interested in being as clear as possible about what's happening as it's happening. And knowing it as intimately as possible. Like when I'm feeling anxiety or fear or sadness, I'm aware of it not from some distant place, but up close and personal. Honestly, what's this fear like?

What's this love like? What's this lost like? This means that awareness receives and holds the experience without my interference. You know, it knows all parts of it. Awareness knows through intimacy. It's like when you fall in love, right? With someone, you want to find out everything you can about them. You want to be completely familiar with them,

to be intimate with them. And I think we need to apply that same interest in knowing ourselves. I mean, these days when people ask me what my practice is, I say it's the practice of intimacy, learning to become intimate with myself and the world. Being aware of who we are, it can only arise from loving being where we are. Love is in a gated community.

Everything's allowed in. Every part of ourself. Awareness doesn't exclude anything. It's not in the nature of awareness to resist. We can have resistance without resisting it. And if we're aware of our experience, rather than trying to get rid of it or trying to change it, we create this loving, holding environment.

that allows our experience to unfold to show itself. And in this same way, I think, at least in my experience, the process of dying can open us to being in a very real way. I mean, there are certain conditions, I would say, in dying that are conducive, supportive of awakening in the midst. And they're not always seen in that light, but or recognized as opportunities, but they are, they exist. The process of dying, well, it's almost imperceptibly a process of letting go, relinquishing what we know we can no longer control.

Like I remember this one hospice residence at the Zen hospice. He was a well-known rock musician, actually. And one day he was just weeping as he was telling me about his losses and everything he was having to let go. of. And then the next moment he was smiling at the idea that he was going to give away his treasured Gibson Les Paul guitar to his friend. He said, we're not what we have. And there's no storage units in heaven. So letting go can be an act of generosity, right? We let go of our old grudges and give ourselves to peace. We let go of fixed views and we give ourselves to not knowing. and we let go of self-sufficiency and we give ourselves to being cared for.

And we let go of clinging to give ourselves the gratitude. You know, when we're dying, when we're facing long-term illness, all the ways we've defined ourselves, you know, I'm a mother, I'm a father, I'm a people person, I'm a loner, I'm rich or poor. All of these identities are either stripped away by illness or gracefully given up, but they all go. And then who are we? I remember this woman at the hospice said to me before she died, she said, if I had known the silence was this beautiful, oh, I would have spent a lot more time and quiet. Letting go is how we prepare for dying. With Suzuki Roshi from the San Francisco Zen

Center, he said, renunciation is not about giving up the things of the world, but accepting that they go away. and acceptance of impermanence, that's what helps us to learn to die. You know, many years ago, I was studying with Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, the pioneer in death and dying, and she helped so many of us understand what the process is like. And she developed those famous five stages,

you know, that model of dying, denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance. Well, I'm not sure Elizabeth ever meant them to be such a linear path that others have mistakenly turned them into. Dying certainly doesn't happen in such a tidy way. In my experience, I differ with Elizabeth because acceptance isn't the final stage. Acceptance is still a strategy of the personality. There's a sense of me choosing to accept. However, as that small, separate sense of self shakes loose. in the dying process, there can be a kind of chaos

that acceptance born of personality can't manage. And it can be filled with agitation and can be frightening to some people. But I think it's here in this chaos that's something infinitely deeper than acceptance or letting go arises. And that's surrender. And that's a process by which we cease all struggle

and resistance. And surrender is a kind of gateway to transformation. I'm not really sure we even can choose surrender. I think it's more like it chooses us. It's more like a karmic thread or an undertow that takes us. Certainly we know that there are certain things that can engender surrender, right? Like our spiritual practice can agenda surrender, or our deep faith can engender surrender.

But also exhaustion can engender surrender. And I've seen this many times with people who are dying. at some point in the dying were just too exhausted to keep up the fight. And it's in those moments that I've seen ordinary people, people like you and I develop profound insights

at the end of their life that have them emerge as something larger, more expansive than the more real than the small separate self they'd taken themselves to be. I don't think this is a fairy tale, happy ending. I don't believe in those.

This regularly occurs for people in the final months or weeks or days or sometimes even moments of their life. And you might say too late. And I might agree. However, the value is not in how long they enjoyed the experience, but that the possibility but transformation exists. And if that possibility exists then, well, it exists now. And we can harness the awareness of death now to appreciate the fact that we're alive, to encourage self-exploration, to clarify our values, to find meaning, and to generate, hopefully, positive action in our world, and to palpably touch to know ourselves as being.

Oh, there's so much more I could say, but what I want to really touch on is a little bit on grief. You know, the grieving, the death of someone we love, it's like being thrown into a raging river. And it's powerful and it pulls us down, you know, below the surface to the deep, dark places, you know, where we can hardly breathe. And frantically we try to escape, you know, and then we feel ourselves pulled further down and then gradually we're released and we step on shore with fresh eyes. Like sadness is just one of the faces of grief, one of its many faces.

And grief also is a, it manifests lots of things, as anger and its self-judgment and as regret and guilt and blame and shame. There are periods of numbness that feel like we're walking through molasses. And I think our task is to sit down with grief and to let her show us what she has to teach no part left out. And most of us, you know, we're not prepared for the intense feelings that engulf us sometimes when we least expect them.

Like my friend, we said she completely lost it one day in the cereal aisle in her local supermarket, you know. She said, I just lost it right there between the Cheerios and the Raisin brand, you know. And it's our fear of this lack of control that leads us to ideas about managing our grief or getting over our grief. But grief is our common ground.

It's what we share with each other. I mean, it's curious to me, you know, we never speak about managing our joy or getting over our happiness. Grief is the normal response to loss. And this pandemic and this wars and this climate catastrophe that we're in the midst of, it's putting us in touch with the multiple losses that occur daily in our lives. the everyday grief of our lives. Someone said recently when Roshy and I were teaching together that grief is love that has no place to go.

I think our relationship to a particular loss changes over time and with attention. It won't always have the same intensity for us, but response to loss, well, it will remain and maybe last a lifetime. I think we're barely human if we don't grieve. And the resistance to it, it only intensifies our pain. The grief challenges our notions of control.

It cracks our defensive shell. It shows us how vulnerable we are. Some people cry oceans of tears and others feel numb. Men grieve differently than women. There's no right way. There's only your way. So I want to stop speaking now and again turn to you. and engage with you in a kind of conversation

and a dialogue with you about what's on your hearts and minds about being and life and love and dying and grief. We're just able to touch on these things now, but I really want to hear from you. So, you know what? I wonder if we could again ask people to raise their hands if they have a comment or a question they want to share

and then Tar and I will do our best to try and be in dialogue with you and respond as best we know. know how to do anyway. Yes, yes, we already have 40 people with raised hands. Oh, Alyssa. Thank you so much. This month marks seven years since my only child, Jake, passed by suicide.

Within three years, I had lost my mother, and I had a physical disability, which were and I had to leave my career. I have no living relatives. My marriage has survived beautifully. We've worked through it. But my fear going into this, what I call, season of Jake, because of Mother's Day, because he was born on my husband's birthday. my my fear is I I survive my husband and I want to go on as far as I can but who will take care of me and while my practice helps me stay in the present moment during this season I go back

to those old questions like you said with what grief can do to a person. And I so want to stay in reality, but I struggle with grounding myself. Thank you for your kind attention. Oh, Lisa, may I ask you just one question? Please. Tell me something that you miss about Jake. Jake? I miss his giant hug. I'm five foot three and he's six foot three and he gave these giant bear hugs and I miss that tremendously. Yeah. I like you. You said he is six foot three. Yes, he is. And when I was sick, he always, he would say, Mama, what do you need? And he'd

make me a cup of blueberry tea and tea. Beautiful, Alyssa. Yeah. So this relationship with Jake, it continues, doesn't it? Oh, yes. Of course it does. Yeah, it's not over. It continues.

And if your husband should die before you, that relationship will continue also. That's important to remember that even when people die, Our relationship with them continues, okay? Okay. That's enough for now, huh? Okay? Yes, present moment.

Present moment. Yeah, yeah. But no ideas. Just be real, okay? Just be real. Be real as you feel Jake with you right now, that real. No ideas. Okay?

Yes, thank you. You're welcome. Very welcome. Okay, Noah. Sarah. Oh, hi, thank you. So my question is regarding death and dying. I am currently 52 years old and have been struggling with stage four cancer for seven years.

And I've had a pretty good run of it. I mean, I've had a really great quality of life. But recently, and sort of, yeah, a lot of times not forgotten about it, but it doesn't identify who I am. I'm going to have three teenage children, and recently I've learned that I have a lot more cancer. It's affecting my lung, my lung workings, and I have pain, and I am just so full of fear. And I keep, I listened to Tara's lecture last week about, you know, pain plus resistance

is suffering and I try to stay with what is and not resist it, but I'm afraid of suffering more. I'm afraid of dying. Well, I'm not so afraid of the dying, but I really don't want to leave my kids. One of them is very, very depressed right now. Okay, so Sharon, we just have to go right to the essence of it right now. Yes. Okay. So let me just, maybe since you've been listening to Tara, let's listen to her a little bit more and see maybe if she has something.

She wants to respond. Yeah. Yeah. So I guess a question for you, dear, is when the fear comes up, how are you relating to it? Are you feeling like I shouldn't be afraid right now? Something's wrong that's going on. Tell me what's happening. I hold her like a baby and I just sort of rock her and like cuddle her and say it's okay

and her name is Sally and but it still can be like I can hardly even talk about it it's so as you can tell it just blows my blows me right out of the track of yep it's living in yeah it's huge So let me ask you in this moment as you feel like you're holding her and rocking her. What else you feel she needs in this moment? What would give her more of a sense of space or comfort, you know, just right now? What is it? Just you asking that helps.

I don't know. And you're not supposed to necessarily know. That's exactly right. Yeah. It's, this is all about our relationship with fear. The fear is a given. You know, I sometimes say thank you to my fear because my fear is coming from my love of life, living, you know?

Exactly. Yeah, it's just that, that essence of you that just wants to live. And so just know there's a love for living and a love for the relationships and keep saying, what do you need right now? And it may not be that there's a small self there that can offer something to her. It's okay to call on something larger, okay?

Call on whatever sense of love you have, sweetie, that is in this universe. Whatever light, love, formless presence that you in some way detect, call, call on that. You know, let that help you to hold this little precious being. Thanks. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Yeah, bless us dear. Thank you. We have a little more time. Noah, so we're going to ask people just go right to essence. Go right to essence if you can.

Yeah. Sylvia, yeah. Okay. So this is coming from Graciela and she says, the husband of my daughter has cancer. and he's not the same person he used to be, is brain cancer and it's very hard to take care of him

because we don't know him, we don't even like him, what to do. Well, this one strikes home for me because I've had some strokes in the last few years and I'm not the same person I was before the strokes. And sometimes I'm not so easy to be around, at least not for the people who love me. And so I'm sad about that. And maybe this person is sad about that as well.

And it might be helpful to recognize that in this other person, how sad they might be, how afraid they might be, by not be able to recognize themselves. You know, I had an aunt, Aunt Mimi, and she was 80-some-odd years old. I forget and she had severe dementia. And when I would go and see her, he didn't recognize me who I was.

She was always chaotic and she'd throw her dress over her head and, you know, was difficult to be with. And she'd been a spinster, they said, in those days, a woman who lived by herself all her life. And so I was always curious about this. So one day, very brazenly, I said, Mimi, all these years,

you live by yourself. You never had a beau, you never had a sweetheart all these years. And suddenly this woman who had been throwing her dress over her head sat up straight in her chair and folded her arms in front of her and said, some questions are too personal to ask. And it reminded me that there's always a whole human being there. There's always a whole human being there. Sometimes in a very distressing disguise. But we can always we can find a way of speaking directly to that whole human being. We can find a way or seeing ourselves in them and seeing them in us. And I think that matters greatly in how we care for them. Thank you, Frank.

A couple more questions. Yeah, sure, of course. Let's try and go until our time runs out. That's how I intend to live my life to keep going until my time runs out. Mary. My question has to do with the Greek. of having a several relatives within the last couple of years who have been diagnosed with mental illnesses and sometimes it's very confusing to me to figure out what is

you know right speech and right practice toward people for instance who have bipolar where it can be really tricky I'm glad to start just because there's several people. I'm in active relationship close-wise. And I don't, it's very hard for me to legislate for myself what's going to be right behavior more. I have to come back into my heart and sense get re-get in touch with what my deepest intention is. Like what is it that my heart wants in this relationship? And I know deep down I want there to be a loving connection. And so I have to go back to that,

even though I know that there's going to be all different filters of interpretation, and start with a sincerity. And I know that when I get sincere, I'm more discerning. And I seem to flow more with what's needed. And the other piece is to really sense impact. And it's like it doesn't matter how good my intention is when the impact is such that it throws somebody off, that's just an invitation for me to go back

to that intention and not be down on myself, really forgive myself, and just experiment. And I find that all relationships are an experiment. We're always exploring what is it that will most serve a real heart connection. So I hope those few things give a little bit to work with. And Frank, I'd love to hear whatever one. Oh, I have nothing to add, but I do want to try and include some more people. And I don't want to rush us, but I feel so many, the hearts of so many people here online. And I want to know if there's someone else, Noah, who wants to speak.

Yeah, thank you, Heather. Thanks, Mary. Megan. Hi, I'm wondering, I have a progressive disease and the end has me, you know, if I fall within a dementia in a wheelchair and, you know, dying of some secondary infection. How do you balance acceptance with hope? Because minty a practitioner says, don't will yourself into a wheel. wheelchair. So I get you sit with yourself and your your leg is numb and you can't get off the floor and you accept that. But have you deal with the fear of what happens next week or the

week after? You know, really what you're asking, I mean, this is very, very touching because so many of us are in situations where we have a story that seems really. about how things are going to unfold. And for me, acceptance is only an opening, acknowledging the reality of just this moment. And hope means not expectation, but just staying open to possibility, open to possibility. And the deepest possibility doesn't have to do with the progression physically. It has to do with how your heart can wake up more and more to have space for whatever unfolds. That's the true hope.

So what I'm encouraging is to be real with what's right here and sense that hopefulness for the possibility of a freedom, a kind of heart space that's free to be with what unfolds and stay open to it unfolding in a way you like too. Okay. Thank you. Yeah, bless you do. Carl, Eugene.

Hi, my name's Carl. Can you folks hear me okay? Yes, Carl. Well, so first of all, I just wanted to say to both of you, I just have such. Yeah. Okay, so some emotion of gratitude here. Just such deep gratitude to both of you for,

I can do this. the vulnerable sharing of your stories and of your teaching. I just wanted to say that. I've been struggling with two questions, actually, and I don't know how I'll tell you. You get one, Carl. You just get one. I only get one.

Oh, okay. Go to essence here. If either of you could go back and live life again, what would that one thing be that you would want to do differently? I hope this doesn't sound arrogant. I don't know that I would want to do anything differently because even all of my mistakes have helped. You know, they've helped me create a meeting place with myself and others, you know?

My fear has helped. My anger has helped. They've helped me to find a meeting place with others who experience something similar. And so I guess I wish I would have been conscious of that reality that much earlier in my life. But every aspect of my life, even my deepest errors, have been the ground for an empathetic connection with others. And I'm internally grateful for that. I don't have life regrets. I have more of a sense of...

an ongoing aspiration to live from love and to have my moments be an expression of love. And so to the degree I could have wished for myself more quickly softening into kindness, you know, more quickly trusting the goodness inside me and others, you know, sure, but that's more of an idea. It's more right now just that longing to live from love and underneath that longing, that love of love. Yeah. So Tara, I'm aware of time, which is an unusual thing for me given my strokes. But I want us to close with a meditation by you.

I just want to thank you, my friend, for being a friend, first of all, and for your great, generous, kind heart that has shown itself today, your wise heart. Thank you for being willing to offer that to all of us today. I'm immensely grateful to you. Thank you. I'm feeling that field of loving very real and very here. It means the world. When dust is dust, it's what matters.

Yeah. Yeah. And that extends friends to all of us. There's something incredibly precious to create that together. So I'm going to close with a brief meditation. If it helps you to close your eyes or lower your gaze, please do if there's some adjusting of how your posture is so you can feel a little more awake in your body and at ease. As you adjust yourself, you might listen to these words. This is Mark Nippo. He says, My Soul tells me, we're

all broken from the same nameless heart. And every living thing wakes with a piece of that original heart aching its way into blossom. This is why we know each other below our strangeness. Why when we fall we lift each other or when in pain we hold each other? Why when sudden with joy we dance together? Life is the many pieces of that great heart loving itself back together. So in these moments to sense that beautiful, great, vast, formless heart space, and as you do, feel right into your human body and heart and mind and just sense if there's any place in you

that needs to be reminded by love, needs to feel more accepted, needs some tender attention. And if it helps to put your hand on your heart and just have that intimacy with the life inside you and sense and imagine that warmth and light, that formless heart space, just bathing, really bathing, permeating, whatever part of your being needs inclusion right now. You might feel your breath supporting that. Tender, receptive. Perhaps there's even a message, perhaps there's some words to your own human heart from your spiritual heart, some words of reminder that you want to take with you. And then sensing the quality of the presence that's here. Just sensing the vastness, the silence behind the sounds,

the stillness that everything's happening in, and that exquisite tenderness that expresses the love, that's essence to our being. And since that heart space, the collective heart space that each of us is held in, you might bring to mind those who have spoken, shared their realness, include in that heart space those you know, those you don't know. So it extends its edgeless, boundless, including the humans and the non-humans everywhere,

this earth our mother in your heart. Just feeling our collective prayer that all beings might be held in loving presence and filled with loving presence. That all beings everywhere touch a natural great peace. that all beings realize the joy of being alive, that there be a growing justice and peace and compassion on our earth, and that all beings everywhere awaken and be free. Bless you friends, Namaste.