Tara Brach - Seeing Basic Goodness - Part 2 (2018-05-23)

Episode Date: May 25, 2018

Seeing Basic Goodness - Part 2 (2018-05-23) - Most of us long to trust our goodness, but get caught in stories of deficiency and striving to affirm we're ok. These talks look at the block to realizing the loving awareness that is our essence, and the practices that help us see this essential goodness - in ourselves, dear ones and in those we might habitually consider different or "other." Both talks include reflections that can help us appreciate the basic goodness that lives through these precious, changing forms. Your support enables us to continue to offer these talks and meditations freely. If you value them, I hope you will consider offering a donation at this time at www.tarabrach.com/donation/. With gratitude and love, Tara

Greetings. We offer these podcasts freely and your support really makes a difference. To make a donation, please visit tarabrock.com. Namaste and welcome. As many are aware, one of the great gifts of meditation is to wake us up past the thinking and conceptual mind. So we really have access to the universe in a very living, vivid, immediate way. and I had a birthday last week and I got a birthday card and it said, not thinking of you, which I thought was really cute. And it reminded me of something I've had in my files for a long time.

I thought I'd share and it's a picture of two monks and Abbott and the novice and the novices is like this. And the abbot is saying to the novice, I've never met anyone so thoughtless in my life, keep up the good work. And the novice, of course, is saying, thank you master, thank you, master. So a key element on the path is that we start becoming more and more aware of what we might call the trance of thinking. We can look back at the last hour and realize, boy, I was often a dream, you know, riding many trains into the future

and the past. So we start noticing that more and more and the effect of it, the effect of living in the narrative is that it really distorts our perspective. We are in a virtual reality and we're actually not aware what's going on right here. And relationally with each other to the degree that we're living in our ideas, we have a kind of veil that makes it very hard to pick up who's here. Does that make sense? There's that veil. And so, expect, Especially if our trance of thinking has got a lot of judging or judging ourself or self-consciousness or we're anxious or we're worried, we just don't see who's here. So in our last class we explored seeing goodness and how do we begin to come into the kind

of presence that lets us look at each other and see past the way. the mask, so to speak. And sometimes I start on a theme and it is so alive in my life and I get enough input from others that it turns out it's talk part two and that's what we're having right now, which is part two on seeing goodness. And just to say that it's considered that this capacity to appreciate is the very ground of loving kindness. our ability to love each other comes out of this capacity to see goodness, to appreciate

who's really there because we're loving who's really there. And by way of definition, when I talk about basic goodness I'm not contrasting it to basic badness. Basic goodness is seeing how universal qualities that we intuit, the universal qualities of love, and of kind of an intelligence, a creativity, aliveness, how they live through our particular unique body mind. And so we all have basic goodness that comes from these universal qualities, but it like light, it has different frequencies and expressions. I've noticed for myself when I reflect on my parents who've passed away a while ago now, what most brings me to tears

and brings up all the tenderness, is when on some level I'm just tapping into their basic goodness. I'm just going, wow, what a good being, you know, that kind of feeling. And what I realized is that it makes sense. It's easiest to see basic goodness when somebody's not alive or when they're very, very young, or when they're very, very relaxed and non-reactive. because then all the personality stuff that often grabs our attention isn't there and we're kind of seeing a more pure channeling really of who they are. And yet of course seeing it in all of us when we're in our personalities is exactly the task.

It's like one of my teaching colleagues and a friend, his name's Anam Thubten, who's a Tibetan teacher, wonderful teacher if you happen to be able to sit with him. And how he puts it is this, he says, loving nature is easy. If we really want to wake up our hearts, the trick is to love humanity. And he says, not abstractly. He says, love our fellow humans. So it's just getting it, that this person like me feels hurt and feels fear and feels the uncertainties. And the like me feels a sense of wonder in beauty and in nature and loves to love to be able to get that. I did a workshop a couple of years ago that had, you know, really had the theme of waking up our hearts and I remember at the end of it one woman was upset and she said to me that she

knows she loves her friends and her family and so on. And people think of her as a person with this huge heart, but she said she realized she rarely feels it. It's like she knows she loves people, but it's not like this tender, warm, glowing heart feeling. And she says more, I usually am feeling busier, distracted, or preoccupied, or sometimes competitive, sometimes controlling, but it's not like I'm sitting there going in this vibrational field of loving. And I said, well, you're all alone in that one. The rest of us are really feeling this whole field of love. But, no, I basically reassured her that a lot of us feel that,

that we care about loving. It matters to us and we're not embodying it in the ways that we wish. And so this is really what I think of as the grounds of the both of the bowels of Bodhisattva path. The Bodhisattva path, that's the Buddhist language for the path of awakening, that we, of course, we get caught in our trance of thinking and our emotional reactions. And there's something deep in every one of us, and you wouldn't be here right now, or if you're not here, but you're listening. if there wasn't some deep yearning to love without holding back, to move through this world and appreciate, to be in love with our lives.

We want that. We intuit it's possible. So I know for myself that when I'm quiet, when my mind really gets quiet and I'm not in reactivity, and then somebody comes to mind or in. encounter someone, there's just a spontaneous caring and tenderness. That just happens. It's not like I'm willing it. It's, you know, what I sometimes call our future or evolved self. It's just resting in presence. And I also know that when I'm in a rush, when I have my to-do list and it's, you know, not very many checks are on it and, you know, when I'm irritated, when I'm reactive, then somebody

comes to mind or they call or the email and it's not a very tolerant, open, accepting, tender feeling. It's like another task. And there's no attuning to the real human. So we're going to look more closely at just acknowledging we all get reactive, we all get caught in the trance and yet we have this yearning and we can train in it and we can learn. to actually attend more deeply and see another person's goodness, and not only that, mirror it back to them in a way that can be incredibly healing. Now one thing to kind of a reminder is that, because we began last time talking about mirroring goodness,

being able to let people know, is that there's a real difference between mirroring goodness, and flattering or praising. And there's a lot in the literature right now that it's really not great to be flattering and praising our kids too much. That the whole movement of like trying to pump up and boost self-esteem, there's something that goes on with that that really plays into a suffering,

which is when we are sending the message, you know, congratulations, you're great for looking really pretty or academically, you know, getting all A's or being, you know, top in sports or whatever it is. We're setting up something so that their goodness is hitched to what I call the coverings. Remember the golden Buddha, right? It's the covering, not the gold. And I know many, many people that I've worked with as a teacher, as a therapist, that are trying to undo the message that had them feel like if they didn't keep living up to certain expectations,

they were going to lose love. I have to be better than everybody else. That's a really big one. We have to be special. You know, I have to act a certain way, look a certain way. So it's different than flattery. I'm reminded of a story of a mother takes her daughter Carmen to the park, and she's teaching the daughter to jump rope.

And the pastor of their church is there, comes by. So the mother and the pastor are there, and the child Carmen's learning to jump rope. And she really is getting it. She's getting some mastery and they're kind of cheering her on. And she's glowing and the more they cheer her on, the better her rhythm is. And so they finally say, why don't you go off and practice a little? We're going to talk some. So she goes off to practice.

And they're talking about five, ten minutes later she comes. back and she's all slumped and looking depressed or her ropes over her shoulder. What's wrong? And she said, you know, it's much harder when you're not clapping, you know. And we know it. Affirming helps and affirming mastery helps. It's just very much knowing the difference between, you know, padding on the back for something's surface and really letting someone know we see the depth of who they are. So as I say, we can train. But I want to name the challenges, like how our mirroring gets distorted. And basically, I often use that metaphor, whether it's the covering on the golden Buddha or space suit, that we, you know, we come into this life and

it's difficult. We have, you know, we come into a culture that's filled with, you know, greed and competition and violence and the messages that come through our parents are often fear-based messages that you have to be this way to succeed and they worry about us and so on. So we put on a space suit to try to navigate all this. And the spacesuit is all of our defenses and our strategies to get approval, to look good and so on. And we come to think we're the space suit. We forget the one who's looking through the spacesuit. You know, we forget the heart that's there. And we get very identified with the egoic coverings. I heard a story about a, there's a group people having a meeting, a business meeting, and one woman walks into the meeting, she's a little

late, and she tells the people in the meeting that there's a clown outside in front of the front door of their building. And one man said, well, was it a real clown or was it just some person dressed up as a clown? I just love that. Was it a real clown? Yes, it was a real clown, you know. So we see the space suit. We don't see who's under. And what we see, even where we look on the space suit, is all kind of determined by our habitual wants and fears. And When more we're reactive, the more we see the covering, and the less we see the gold. So you might just inquire within and if it helps to close your eyes, just consider, how much do you see if you're with somebody and you're insecure about them judging you?

I mean, how much can you really see? Or maybe you have someone in your life you're afraid of disappointing. How much are you aware of who's really there then? or maybe you have someone who's making too many demands of you. How much do you really notice? How much do you notice if you have an agenda with someone, if you want a favor from them, or you want their attention or their approval? What we find, you find to keep your eyes closed or knocks, I mean I should reflect again

in a moment, but what we find is that if there's any wants that we have of another person, or any fears, rather than seeing them, we're just caught up in our own reactivity. Similarly, we have the habit of fixating on appearance and the habit of fixating when we see another's insecurity or their sharp intellect or whatever is more dazzling. And in a deep way, and this is the thing that's often we don't notice, we get in a habit of who we think others are. And when we see them, we're seeing the person in our narrative, our story about them. We're not checking again to really see, well, who is this? Some of you might remember this from T.S. Eliot, this is the cocktail party. What we know of other people is only our memory

of the moments during which we knew them, and they have changed since then. We must also remember that every meeting we are meeting a stranger. So we're going to circle back to this. How do we have that freshness so we're not meeting each other and looking through our storyline? You know, we're just so used to having a static impression. So I'll share, this is a kind of illustrative story that I really like about two priests who decide to go on a vacation to Hawaii, but they want to kind of keep the vacation as secret and they actually want to go and drag, meaning they don't want to wear all their stuff, their habits. So they really want it to be a real vacation.

So as soon as the plan lands, they go to a store and they buy sunglasses and kind of outrageous colored bathing trunks and the whole get-up, you know. So they're dressed in their tourist garb and they go and settle a brightly colored umbrella on the beach and there they are. They're enjoying a jink and sunshine and so on. And then this wonderful-looking woman is strolling down the beach in her bikini and she walks straight towards them. Okay, they couldn't help but stare.

As she passes them, she smiles and nods and says, Good morning, father, good morning father. Addressing each of them individually passes on by. And so they're stunned, like how on the earth that you know were priests. They're also embarrassed because they were kind of caught, you know. So the next day they go back to the store, and they get even more outrageous to kind of stuff to discuss. guys themselves, go back to the beach and there they are sitting and enjoying the day. Well,

same woman comes by and she slows down right in front of them and says, good morning, father, good morning father. They can't stand any longer and they say, just a minute young lady and she said, you know, we're priests and you're right and so on, but we just really want to know how did you know? And then the young woman says, father, it's me, sister Angela. So we get in a habit of how we perceive each other. You get it, a habit of how we... Sorry, okay. Sorry, okay.

All right, let's do a reflection. We better switch gears here. So close your eyes, if you will. Then you might take a few full breaths and take some moments to gather your attention right here and do a brief review of today and invite you to bring to mind some of the different people you encountered through the day. And as you bring them to mind, sense how you were relating to them,

what were you paying attention to? Were you paying attention to some of the coverings, like noticing how they were behaving in the moment or, you know, in some way, what you know, you really wanted from them and whether or not they were giving it to you or what you, if you were afraid of judgment how they were relating to you or you wanted them to do, if it was a child, you wanted to make sure they cooperated. Like, what were you paying attention to?

Their looks, their behavior, something about their personality, and notice to whatever degree it might have been there, how much was there the kind of presence that was picking up more, was picking up some of the gold, was seeing the sparkle in the eye, was seeing the innate intelligence or the goodness of the heart. It's the aliveness. How much appreciation was there? Notice if there's any judging because that actually gets in the way of seeing goodness.

And you might just sense the intention maybe with one of these people to look fresh. Like what would it have been with one of these people if you had said, okay, whatever my story, whatever I knew from the past, what if that just dissolved and this was a stranger in the best sense of the work, a real mystery to deepen my attention with? What about that? So as you close the reflection, you might just sense in yourself that that intention, getting a little stronger to break out of the patterning and just look more deeply. Now, just mention a few other ways that our lens gets distorted and one of the big ones,

and now we're going to move more to the societal level, is whenever there's a hierarchy that most of us subscribe to. So imagine you're in a workplace and there's a hierarchy as there usually is and somebody, is, you know, the CEO of the company is talking to you and you're, you know, in some way in that conversation, how much you're going to really see of that person past the label an idea of where they are in the hierarchy, you know? It's interesting. Are you, for whatever reason, talking to someone who's a famous Hollywood star or a politician or athlete, whenever we have an idea of somebody being ranked, you know, or you're, for whatever reason,

in a certain way, that runs interference with how much we can see past the spacesuit. Does that resonate for you? We get distorted. One great story of the Pope, it just finished a tour of the East Coast, he's taking a limousine to the airport, and he's never driven a limo himself, so he asked the chauffeur if he could drive it for a while. So the chauffeur didn't have much of a choice, so he gets in the back and the Pope's in the front and takes the wheel. So the Pope's proceeding on Highway 95 starts accelerating to see what

the limo could do. He gets to 90 miles per hour and then the state can, the blue lights of behind him, the state patrol in his mirror. He pulls over, the trooper comes to the window. The trooper sees who it is and says, gets really nervous. He says, well, sir, just a moment I need to call in. So he calls in. He goes back to his car, calls in, asks for the chief, he's shaken. You tell us the chief he's got a really important person pulled over and how is he supposed to handle it. So the first question is, well, you know, it's not Barack Obama. Is it?

No, no, no, no, sir. This guy's more important. You know, is it the president right now, replies to him? No, no, more important. Well, who the heck is it? Screams the chief. I don't know, sir, replies the trooper, but he's got the pope as his chauffeur. So hierarchies, they blind us.

and they blind us in all sorts of ways but of course and this is where it gets to the core of the suffering some of the hierarchies have historically generation by generation been so insidious they've caused huge huge pain and oppression whether we talk about gender

through the eons or class racial hierarchy with white supremacy it blinds and this is why there's so much more and more of a lens on white bias like what are we seeing and I was reflecting on this and reminded of a study that really caught my attention last year that said so much because you know this so we're talking about mirroring goodness but when there's hierarchy and let's say there's racial bias bias, what we're mirroring is inferiority, not goodness. And so in this study, 100,000 students were studied and the results of it was this.

This is really the impact of expectations in education. It says having just one black teacher in third, fourth, or fifth grades reduced low-income black boys' probability of dropping out of high school by 39 percent. one black teacher. And by high school, African American students, both boys and girls who had one African American teacher, had much stronger expectations of going to college. Now keep in mind, this effect was observed seven to ten years after having just one black teacher. How come?

White teachers have lowered expectations. Their hierarchical lens is you are less than a little. I'm not expecting as much as you. Not so with black teachers. To me this is massively revealing that, and this is the institutional level. So while tonight we're primarily emphasizing individually, you know, how can we come into presence, how can we wake up out of our thought patterning and see fresh and see who's here and mirror that, it is equally essential that we do it on an institutional level. This is the Bodhisattva path, the path of awakening beings. And if we begin to sense the impact of being mirrored, then we want

to dedicate ourselves to it. I'll share my own experience that when I was in my late 20s, I was doing my doctorate and I had a supervisor and he was, oh God, he was in his late 70s, he was an elderly man and he was an amazing therapist because he had the capacity with anybody he was with to see the light and the beauty in them and have them begin to trust themselves. Like, everybody I ever encountered that worked with him in some way started feeling good about themselves. And he was an astute observer of egoic patterning. So once somebody was feeling like really a little more trusting of themselves, they could team

up and look at where the stuck patterning was. He was really, really good. He basically said, I see the beloved in everyone. And there are many beings, I've, you know, heard people describe. the Dalai Lama in that way too, that just the capacity, whoever he's with he can hold their hand and really sense their goodness and have them feel that in that field. Many of us can review our life and remember certain people who in some way helped us to trust ourselves.

And I'm curious how many of you here, if you think in your life, actually can remember somebody who's positive feedback made a difference. actually remember. Can I just see by hands? Yeah, thank you. It's so powerful. It shapes our whole life. I mean, I still remember when I was a teen, a friend's parent telling me that I was a good listener and I'd be able to help others because I could listen well. And then I remember this Harvard divinity student. I was having almost like a kind of intellectual argument but I was asking these really probing questions. I was very argumentative when I was younger. But he basically said, I think you're spiritually deep.

And I remember thinking, hmm, me? Because at that point those words weren't meaningful, but there's something like he told me I had depth. And like it made me want to be deep. And it made me want to look more deeply. And I'll share that I mentioned I had a recent birthday. Well, last week on Facebook, we invited people to share different experiences

they have of the goodness in other people. It's such a beautiful practice. And I shared some of those in the last talk, if you haven't heard it. Well, after that, one of my dear friends sent me a birthday card, and the birthday card was a whole list of, I see the goodness in you when. And she just listed all these different things. And by the end of it, I was in tears because I felt so seen.

and so attended to and cared about. But even more, I was in tears at her goodness at the one in her who was able to attend and see and care like that. It's a profound experience. And so maybe let's pause together here and take a moment to check in. In some spiritual traditions, when people really remind us of our goodness,

they're a benefactor. They help us believe in ourselves. I'd like to invite you to take some moments to bring to mind someone in your life who has been a mirror of your goodness, someone who's gotten you. In other words, they really kind of got something about you and let you know. You see if you can slow down enough to really go into that. that experience, remembering perhaps the content of what they mirrored, but also the look, their look when they were sharing it or just the experience of it.

Take it in fresh. What's it like to have your goodness seen, to be felt? What's it like to be felt? To be experienced in that clear way. We flourish with mirroring. We all need it. We flourish with it. And if we can remember how much it nurtures our hearts, we will naturally want to extend it

to others. You can keep your eyes closed if you like or open them. Share one of my favorite stories and this is a friend tells that she was with a teacher, a progressive school teacher in a supermarket. They were shopping. every few aisles they would crisscross with a mother with a small boy and the mother didn't really notice them because she was so furious at her little boy who's just, you know, he's pulling all the items off the lower shelves, things like that. And the more frustrated she gets,

she starts yelling at her son and several aisles later when they crossed him, she was shaking them by the arm. And so then this woman's friend spoke up, the teacher spoke up and and And my friend describes that she was nervous because she was a friend there'd be a confrontation because this teacher would never in a million years treat a child like that. But here's what the teacher said. She said, what a beautiful little boy? How old is he? The woman answered cautiously.

He's three. My friend went on to comment about how curious he seemed and how her own three children were just like him in the grocery store pulling things off shelves, so interested in all the wonderful colors and 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 upon 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 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 as dinner. We'll have your favorite macaroni and cheese, she told them. You can feel in that that we have these crossroads in our lives of whether we blame or criticize or whether in some way we find a way to acknowledge somebody's vulnerability and see where the goodness lies and and the effect of that, the effect of seeing the goodness and how it really brings out something we might not expect in those moments. So let's look at how to train in this, okay? The last portion of our time together. And the first piece I've noticed that can be really helpful

if you're wanting to help mirror goodness is to start attuning to what another person cares about. Do they care about helping others? Do they care about creativity and beauty? Do they care about something they're learning? learning about in some area of mastery, what is it that's really inspiring them? Because to see what a person cares about is to see the gold. It's a pathway into the gold.

And I give by way of an example, one young man came to a retreat and he was completely sunk in self-doubt and feeling flawed and feeling his own badness. And so I was trying to work with him and I basically said, well, is there anything you like about yourself. And he said, I can be kind. So this is what mattered to him. I can be kind. I said, well, give me an example. When were your last kind? And he goes, well, actually, yesterday, he said, I was looking across the meditation hall and way across on the other end of the hall, I saw this old woman. And she was sitting there, but she was real short and her legs were swinging. You know how when you're sitting and your legs are swinging, how uncomfortable

He says, well, I figured it was uncomfortable. So I went all the way across the hall and I put a cushion under her feet and I could tell it made her more comfortable and I felt good about that. So, you know, I had him get in touch with his kindness and feeling good about it and I mirrored her back. I said, I can see that matters to you and kindness is beautiful and you have it. And I also let him know because he had some interest in teaching that his kindness and care for people and his sensitivity would serve him well, that he had the capacity to do well teaching.

And so before we ended in, you know, that session, I shared with him and I thanked him personally for his kindness towards that old woman because it happened that that old woman was my mother who happened to be at that retreat. And I also had watched her swinging her legs off the chair. So, just to move forward a bit, this young man, about within two years, he was teaching in prisons, teaching teens. And he shared with me being at a teen retreat and a young teen coming in and she had devastating harsh self-critique going and so on. And he was asking, Harold, what do you care about? and, you know, what matters to you? And she's helping people.

Well, he goes, well, yeah, I did help somebody. It turned out not so long ago. So he used the strategy. But he mirrored back her goodness. And everybody deep down in some way cares and cares about becoming more honest or present or loving or creative or alive. And when we see that,

when we get them, we can have them feel seen and felt and honored. It helps them trust themselves. That's the gift. We all have doubts. We all forget. We all need to remember. So that's number one, is that we can begin to sense what people care about, you know, where their goodness is and look forward and mirror it back. The second, and I want to circle back to what we talked about earlier, we get habitual. So the second part of the training is to intentionally look fresh. How is this person a stranger? Look fresh. So this is Anthony DeMillo and you may just close your eyes and listen to this because it's so good. Think of some of the people you like and are drawn to and maybe let one person float into the forefront of your awareness.

somebody you like and also who's drawn to you where there's a connection. Attempt to look at this person as if you're seeing them for the first time. So not to be influenced by your past knowledge or your experience of them, good or bad. And look for the things in them that you may have missed because of familiarity. For familiarity breeds staleness. blindness and boredom. You cannot love what you cannot see afresh. You cannot love what you are not constantly discovering anew.

So this is part two. The first is to sense what a person deeply cares about because what we really love is what we are. The second is that freshness, looking fresh. The third is express it. express what we see. There's a story I like to share whenever I have a chance because it affects me so much. Rachel Naomi Remen, physician, teacher describes her grandfather telling her who she was by calling her the name Nishumala, which means little beloved soul. And he died when she was young,

but she really felt that him seeing her and honoring her in that way. Nishumala. Much later in her life, her mother was kind of near the end of her life, and Rachel told her mother about her grandfather's blessings. And here's what her mother said. She smiled at me sadly. I have blessed you every day of your life, Rachel, she told me. I just never had the wisdom to do it out loud. Don't wait. We think we have time. Just don't wait. It's like in the moment that you feel love and you say, I love you, it activates the love. You feel it more strongly and it transmits it more. Let people know what you see.

Tukharam writes, I could not lie anymore. So I started to call my dog God. First he looked confused. Then he started smiling. Then he even danced. I kept at it. Now he doesn't even bite. I'm wondering if this smile.

I'm wondering if this might work on people. So say it out loud. And we begin to practice in our meditation saying it out loud. In a meta or loving kindness practice, the basic form is reflect on the goodness, a person's goodness, and then you offer phrases of well-wishing. So we practice inwardly,

and that kind of gets us more inclined. about five years ago I was at a retreat and this loving-kindness or meta-meditation, it's meant to be customized. Whatever the classic structure is, play with it to get it to match you. So I was playing with love and kindness practice and, you know, I'd look at people and I'd sense, you know, at this retreat where it was, I was there for a month so it was a very quiet place. You don't have eye contact but you're aware of each other. and I'd have different people come into my awareness

and I'd kind of just energetically sense their dedication or their curiosity or their tenderness or whatever and send them a wish. And then I up-leveled it and I saw this elderly man and he looked so gentle and he looks so kind and so I was appreciating him and I imagined going over to him and kissing him on the brow, you know, and just offering a blessing. And as soon as I imagined that, I just felt this upwelling of incredible love and connectedness.

It was just, it was beautiful. And so I started this practice where I would bring to mine different family and friends, and I would just imagine, you know, I'd sense their goodness, and I'd just imagine just lightly kissing them on the brow and just even, the pucker of the lips and the tenderness of the kiss, it was like, embodied love. And I found, you know, I still do it. It's one of my favorite practices. And I find what it does is because it's such an active embodied gesture that when I'm actually with people, I'm much more inclined to express, because that's actually not so intimate and hairy as kissing someone on the brow,

you know so it's like I'm more in the mode of of saying what I feel and in my morning meditation every morning I'll do that you know internally that you know that meditation and then I get up and the first thing I do is go to my dog and I kiss her on the brow and if Jonathan's behaving well then I include him on the back so as a way of closing when we look and see the goodness in others and we let them know they begin to trust the goodness. It brings out our love and it seems to ripple and ripple and ripple. And the more we do it, the more dedicated we get to it because it's so clear that if we want to evolve and awaken our hearts and we want to sense that rippling in the world,

that it starts right in our lives, right what the circles we're with, pausing and looking more deeply. So let's close with that. Let's take a few moments to just practice in a very simple way. You might let the sense of the breath be felt at the heart, slight smile spreading through your heart. You feel the mouth smiling, the eyes smiling. Again, bringing to mind someone who is dear to you, who's easy to love.

It takes some moments to look fresh and sense who's there. Remind yourself of what this person really cares about deep down, what this person longs for, what this person is like when they're happy and relaxed and loving, sensing the aliveness that flows through. You might feel your heart offering them a wish or a blessing and if you want to explore it, imagine that gesture of a kiss on the brow or hand on the cheek or a hand on the shoulder. And you might imagine being with that person in the next days or weeks and in some way letting them know their goodness. Imagine how they experience that. and just open to that natural connecting that comes, feeling the goodness of them and of you

in the field. You might experiment now by bringing to mind someone you don't know so well that you see perhaps in a regular way but you just have never really, you don't have a negative towards, but just that you've never really connected with, deep, or gotten to know and bring that person to mind. And take some moments to sense you can look fresh at this being, past any ideas, stereotypes, past the biases or anything that would have you fixate on the mask, looking fresh and imagine and sense what might matter to this person.

Sensing this person's innate goodness, offering your way. well-wishing, which can include if you'd like to explore the gesture of a kiss on the brow, hand on the shoulders, words. And just sensing how in deepening your attention this person is included in the heart space that's here, widening, resting in this heart space, this goodness of your own heart and just sensing as different people come to mind in your life, your intention to deepen your attention when you're with them. These next moments of quietness as people come to mind just sense,

oh, this person too, a mystery, a stranger, and the adventure of sensing the goodness that flows through them. learning to see the goodness really arises from the goodness in us, from the awareness, the heart, the love that is our essence. So as we close, just to let yourself rest in that, to sense the possibility of trusting that more and more. And we sense our shared heart space, this edgeless heart, we bring our hearts together in prayer that all beings everywhere might wake up to trust and live from their basic goodness,

to trust and live from the loving awareness that's here now always, that we might help each other not awakening by looking more deeply, seeing who's here, expressing our care, that all beings everywhere might realize loving awareness might awaken and be free. Namaste and thank you. For more talks and meditations and to learn about my schedule or join my email list, please visit tarabrock.com.