Tara Brach - The Bodisattva Path: Widening Circles of Compassion

Episode Date: June 21, 2013

2009-05-07 - Bodhisattva Path - Widening Circles of Compassion - A bodhisattva (awakened being) is committed to relieving suffering and living life from an all inclusive loving presence. This shift of identity from a self centered focus to one of realizing our radical interdependence is a natural part of our spiritual evolution and represents the hope for healing our world. Please support this podcast by donating at www.tarabrach.com or www.imcw.org. Your donations allow us to continue to freely offer the teachings!

So good evening. Often on the last evening of the retreat, the place that we reflect is really what's described as the bodhisattva path or the path of an awakening being. Sometimes the path's described as three parts and the first is this, and they're not linear but that there's this realization. There's an intuition of what we are beyond some small story. And then there's the getting familiar that more and more moments, it's, oh, really, I am that, that this conditioning is happening and there's more resting in that. And the third part is called embodiment, where our words, our actions, everything is lived from that realization. So I'm going to open the talk in a strange way by saying that in a bodhisattva path,

it's really the recognition that all beings, all beings, that what's looking through the eyes and emanating through all beings is this one spirit. And we have a being on campus here who's the emanation of the sacred and yet something we need to watch out for too. There's a copperhead. And how is that for a build-up that's been cited, I think last night, primarily over by Holly House. And from what I'm gathering, these are not like aggressive, fast-moving creatures as much as you just don't want to step on it. So we're encouraging

just to have a flashlight when you go back and you know just so you just watch where you're stepping and on some deep level you can namaste to the copperhead too. Okay, so that's the opening of the talk. Let's see where am I going to go. So we've described this word namaste and it really means seeing the sacred or divine that lives through all beings and it really is our capacity and there's a story that I wanted to kind of start off with tonight that I've always loved and Rachel Remen who's a physician and a teacher describes this she describes a doctor one of the least leading East Coast medical schools. And one of his patients was a homeless woman. And she would

put all her possessions in two shopping carts and once a month she'd go bring her carts up this deep hill to his clinic. She'd lash them to first to one parking meter and then another and get up the hill that way. So he saw her once a month on a Wednesday. And she had some mental disorders and her speech was rambling and so on. But his way with her, was incredibly respectful and kind and respectful not just because one should be respectful. This was who he was. And so they'd talk about her different difficulties but mostly he'd just be holding a space for her. And as it turned out after he'd been seeing her for some time he became aware that she

sometimes came to the hospital in days that he wasn't there and she'd go to where his room was and she'd take her right foot and she'd just put it inside the threshold and then come back out and then she'd put it in and come out and do that a few times until she was kind of satisfied and then she'd leave and there's a sense in that that the places that we are seen and heard are holy places and that when we offer some space that lets another know their belonging, they can come home to really what they are. And I think for all of us, it's really comforting to know that we can help another in that way, that our smile, our touch, are just some reassurance in some ways a mirroring that says, we are together, we belong, come home, come

home. And, you know, in our deepest nature we want to help in that way. And you feel it here. You know, when you open a door for someone or there's some kindness or a prayer, there's something that we feel, that just feels really, that resonates. And it's layered. On an ego layer, we want to feel like a good person. We have an attachment to, you know, that self-project that wants to feel like we're relevant and helpful and so on. You know, our worthiness project. But there's something much deeper really, which is that when we sense our belonging with each other there's a natural extension of care and it's an expression of that we're at home with our own being.

In other words, it feels more at home to us when we're in that space of kindness and openness and generosity. So I sometimes like to say that even when our hearts are shut down, we're just to shut down, we still care about caring. Isn't that so? That even when we're cut off, there's something about it that matters and it might even seem abstract as I'll get out,

but it still matters. And it's because really it's what we are. So very much as we've been exploring all week, this bodhisattva path is a fundamental shift in our sense of being from a separate self-in-here world out there kind of thing to a real sense of belonging to the web, that this condition, body, mind, were made of stardust, it's playing out, and that in the deepest sense that formless presence is our home that we see it and we see it living through others.

So our challenge, and this is the challenge we've experienced all week, is that we have this very deep conditioning, every one of us, to perceive that we're separate and to live out of the primal fear that arises with that, to feel a sense of dividedness. And that perception of separation divides us from the life inside us and from others. So we can see the trance. We can do a metameditation in here. And I know many of you have experiences where you can even start feeling that the field, like there's something that you really sense that's what's here. And then in a very short time, be contracted and be in line and sense, you know, somebody's going real slow or, I mean, like how long at the salad bar do they have to like be plucking

at the olives? I think it was George Carlin who said, let's see if I got this, he said, ever noticed that anyone going slower than you is an idiot but anyone going faster is a maniac? But you know how it is that we, that on some level, you know, I think we once put it this way, that whenever you're in traffic, traffics everybody else, you know, and we're the ones that are, so we know it here how we quickly go into judging others or feeling separate. And the more there's strong emotions and the more we're believing our thoughts, the more there's a sense of being really pulled in and contracted, others out there.

And we definitely know it in daily life. I mean, we can see how when we feel cut off, how it plays out in our relationships with others where we just find we're replaying the same pattern of trying to get that person to cooperate by either giving us approval or giving us space or in some way we want to have our way, prove ourselves. And so, and we see how it gets played out in terms of avoidant behavior. One person's out demanding, the other's avoiding. I love this story of a man and a woman sitting in a living room and he's saying,

you know, if I ever get in a vegetative state and I'm dependent on a machine, please pull the plug. And she goes over to the TV set and pulls the plug, you know. So, and sometimes one of the worst places in terms of, of the trance of separation, we are so wedded to our opinions and our beliefs that when people disagree, that can really create this kind of sense of severing and anger. There's a story of a little girl talking to her teacher about whales and the teacher said it's physically impossible for a whale to swallow a human because even though it's a very

large mammal, its throat's very small. So the little girl states that Jonah was swallowed by a whale. Irritated, the teacher reiterates that the whale could not possibly swallow a human, it's physically impossible, and the little girl says, well, when I get to heaven, I will ask Jonah. And the teacher says, well, what if Jonah went to hell? And the response is, you ask them. So we can see the play. And I'm being playful, but the reality is that it's much easier to operate out of that dividedness than open to the vulnerability. It's easier to hate and blame than be vulnerable. And we can see it playing out in a societal way between countries.

It's so hard to get bodies of humans to talk and express needs and listen. It's so much easier to go to war. I heard recently a few months ago that China, China, which is very much controlling and oppressing Tibet, has made this new law that Tibet's llamas have to obtain permission before they can reincarnate. Did you hear this? I mean, can you imagine this dying llama filling out this forms, including intended embodiment and date and location and submitting it to a government office?

But that's what they're requiring. Anyway, so it's humbling how we go into trance. And I'd say of the interviews in the last couple of days, there is what wakes up on us is a sense that it's not our fault, that this forgetting just happens, that it's not our fault that these thoughts come into our mind or that we get caught in a story about what's going on, that it just, it happens. And yet we can see the repercussions in our own life with so many people I've worked with in the last couple of days, there's a kind of grieving for lost life, a grieving for the

way the trance creates distance with others and how we can go months and years and live kind of like reckon with oh it's like this but not in a healthy way it's just that we've kind of accepted a distance because it's too scary to really start facing the levels of vulnerability and then we see how the trance of separation in a horrific way operates globally so that as Pat described vividly last night, the fear and insufficiency sense has us destroying our world, our environment. Our nervous, I'm naming it because our nervous system feels it. Our nervous system knows it.

Wendell Berry says, it's the destruction of the world in our own lives that drives us half insane and more than half. to destroy that which we were given in trust, how will we bear it? So the magnitude is hard to let ourselves go near and yet it's only by being touched that we can respond and with that in the way that Pat described we can respond and discover in us something that cares and that knows our belonging and knows the value of what's here. So that's basically the alchemy of the bodhisattva path. It's to quiet enough so we can let ourselves be touched by what's real.

We don't have to worry about how we'll respond. I mean, if we really quiet, if we stop all our strategies of avoiding and let ourselves feel the realness of what's happening inside ourselves and others. The very nature of awareness is to have a tenderness, a tender response.

RELCA has this phrase I just love. He says, I live my life in widening circles that reach out across the world. I may never complete the last one, but I give myself to it. So there's a sense of coming home over and over to the life that's here and sensing that that life that's here is really very edgeless. But we begin in our practice and we do this over and over is right here

in this body, mind, heart. Because if we can't be intimate with what's right here, if we can't get still enough to sense, okay, what's the truth right in here? We can't open and include the rest of our world. And that's why it said that the heart of Buddhism is compassion and the heart of compassion is compassion for the life that's right here. We start there. So on the path, the energy of the path comes from our getting more and more conscious about our intention. And one of the expressions of the Bodhisattva's aspiration, I'm going to kind of do just a brief reflection on it and invite you to kind of just close your eyes and tune in because this is the first

kind of dimension of the bodhisattva's aspiration and you can translate into your own language but just to I just like you to kind of try it on and feel it and see how it resonates in your body and heart whatever arises whatever arises in this life may this serve to awaken this heart and mind may this serve freedom. And that means failures, disease,

loss, fear, the difficulties of beloveds. Whatever is arising, may this serve the awakening of heart and mind, the awakening of love. So as you sense that,

you might sense in your life whatever might be difficult right now. Just choose something that you might be going home to and as you bring it right close into focus and sense what's difficult about it, maybe what you're afraid of, what bad might happen, and just for a moment just sense how you've been relating thus far. Have you had the sense that this is a bad thing and something's going wrong? Is there a sense of a that's oppressed by it, that's blowing it in some way, failing, that you wish it away, the situation, trying to fix it without judgment, just noticing how, what kind of story and reaction there might be.

And again, just perhaps sense this bodhisatt for prayer, may these circumstances, these very circumstances, serve to liberate, awaken, awaken from the trance, serve realization of what's true. And since what happens when you, from a sincere place, wish that these circumstances might serve freedom. Since even in this moment what it's like to bring a real presence, a forgiving, clear presence to what's difficult, in the sense if there's some space that can open up, may this serve.

Please may this serve to awaken this heart. When we're dedicated to natural presence, to an unconditional presence, often what we open to is the realness of loss and there's a natural mourning, grieving, and then underneath that a kind of space that has love as its very essence. So we begin with the first circle in the bodhisattva path where there's this dedication that no matter what it is that's happening, it be included in presence. And what happens is that as we are more and more intimate with what's right within us. There's a natural capacity to be there for others. And I don't know how many of you have had this experience, but this is happening more and more

in my life as more and more people die. But when you look into the eyes of somebody that's just experienced a deep loss, there's an amazing intimacy that's possible because there's nothing left to defend against. It's like when they've just faced the loss, there's kind of been that dropping of holding, there's this raw open space that allows for a deep sense of connection. It's undefended. There's a Lakota, Sioux tradition that a person who's grieving is considered most walken. That means most holy. Read you this. There's a sense that when someone is struck by the sudden lightning of loss, an openness to that which is beyond this world can occur.

This state of holiness is respected. Grieving people's prayers are considered especially strong. It is proper to ask them for help. Most walking, most holy. So widening the circles, really opening to what's here and then finding that in that opening, we become that openness. It's like others can swim in our ocean.

were able to join, we're able to be with in a whole different way, both in terms of giving and receiving. I was very struck by a story I heard last year about a female psychologist walking over the campus at Berkeley and she came upon this group of men that were gathered around a couple of chimpanzees and one was on a leash and the other was free. The one on the leash was a female and they were using the female chimp to try to catch the male one and they figured if they had a female chimp that the male would come and be drawn to her and that's what was happening. Actually the male had a hold on the female's leash and was trying to pull her to mate with him. And the female was really not into it. I mean she was totally not into mating with this guy and then there was this group of

men that were kind of cheering on the male chimp and the handler was just letting it all happen. So this woman, this psychologist, her heart really went out to this chimp. And at that moment that she just tuned into the chimp that the female chimp turned to her and they made eye contact and the female yanked her leash away from this male chimp and her handler and walked directly over and took the woman's hand. And they both stood there looking at the now silent group of men. And then the chimp saw and felt another woman that was standing kind of on the edge of the group and led her new friend over and took the other woman's hand.

And they stood there silently but connected and the men kind of dispersed but they had formed their own women's group. Compassion is more powerful than we can imagine. It communicates across time and space. It's timeless. It said that really when we're fully present, the very radiance of the empty heart is compassion. Whenever there's full presence, because in that fullness and that presence all the separateness of self has dropped away, we just intuitively know that we belong, we know that.

So one of the kind of awarenesses that arise on the Bodhisattva path is that either we feel that belonging are we become more and more attuned to the longing to belong. I don't know if that makes sense but to me I'm finding more and more that when there's different language for it but the reason the Buddha said there's three refuges, the refuge in Sanga is this refuge in a visceral sense of belonging that we belong to this earth, We belong to each other. We belong to these bodies. There's a story about a boy named Eddie Shell, and I want to read it to. He came one afternoon to play with Frank and me, and at the hour for going home he didn't know how to do so.

This is a malady that afflicts all children, but my mother was not sure how she should handle it in Eddie's case. She consulted us secretly as to whether he should be asked to stay for supper. We thought not, so she hinted to him that his mother might be expecting him. He was so slow in acting upon the hint that we were all in despair, and we began to feel guilty because we had not pressed him to stay. What I remember now is Eddie standing at last on the other side of the screen door and trying to say goodbye as if he meant it. My mother said warmly, well Eddie, come and see us again.

Whereupon he opened the door and walked in. It's a deep longing and the reality is that feeling our belongings is not easy. I mean, most people, when I talk to them about, you know, they've been at a party or social gathering, their perception of themselves is that they were around the edge looking in in some way. Very few of us think of ourselves at the hub and that we really are a part of things. Usually it's the outsider syndrome. And what happens is that because our conditioning is to feel separate, we're usually scanning and there's either the unreal other

that in some way can provide us something we need, whether it's company or approval or in some way giving us something, are the unreal other that's going to be a problem that's in our way, that's going to be an obstacle, that's going to cause trouble, in which case we want to push them away, are the unreal other that in no way has anything to do with our need system,

in which case there's disinterest. And when we're stressed, when we're caught in our self story, most people in some way fall in those categories. Attractive for a reason? Not there. And what happens when that's going on, when we're in that trance of unreal other, is we're living in an unreal self. We're living in a self that's made small,

that's the needy self or the angry self or the fearful self or the disinterested self. And often what comes along with that is when there's a needy self is there's a self-consciousness when we're in that self-other. Another story, Michigan woman and her family are vacationing in a small New England town where Paul Newman and his family often visited. And one Sunday morning she gets up early to take a walk and then goes to her favorite place for, she likes to get a double-dip chocolate ice cream cone, right? this bakery, ice cream parlor.

And there's only one other patron in the store, and it's you know who, it's Paul Newman. And he's sitting having coffee and donuts. And the woman's heart skips a beat as her eyes make contact with those famous baby blue eyes. And the actor nods graciously, and the starstruck woman smiles demurely. And then she's telling herself, pull yourself together. You're a happily married woman with three children. You're 45 years old, not a teenager. So the clerk fills her order and she takes the double-dip chocolate ice cream cone in one hand

and her change in the other. Then she walks out the door avoiding even a glance in Paul Newman's direction. She glides smoothly away. When she reaches her car she realizes she has an empty, has a handful of change but the other hand is empty. So where's my ice cream cone? Did I leave it in the store and back into the shop she goes, expecting to see the cone still in the clerk's hand or in a holder on the counter. no ice cream bones in sight.

With that, she happened to look at Paul Newman's... Paul Newman, his face breaks into this familiar, warm, friendly grin, and he tells her, you put it in your purse. So I share the kind of a silly story, but this is one of the things that I'm most aware of at retreats like this, is that we're in a really unusual setting where we're not contacting each other verbally, and some of our normal trance stuff isn't playing out with each other,

but it's there anyway. There's still these ideas about who's there, and there's still the self-consciousness. I mean, how many times are you in walking meditation, and part of you's in walking meditation, and in other parts imagining how somebody's watching you do walking meditation? It's like we have that self-consciousness, and when we leave retreat, we have such deep conditioning to re-enter our patterns with each other. It's just like those, um, we're some candles I told you about, you know, we were talking about how the self just re-kind of incarnates itself all the time. With each other, we just so quickly flip back into the personality that wants to be seen a certain way. We have spent decades, decades, learning

this, I sometimes think of as this space suit that we present, this mask that will get what we want from people, have them respond to us the way we want. So, part of the waking up on this path is to recognize our trance, how we get into our own kind of constricted self that's acting out with others and how we are perceiving others and not seeing who's there. So about, now it's been about eight years ago, I'm, I went to church with my family and we went with another family and the son of that family was there, a 20-year-old young man who had some disabilities and he sat next to me at this. This was a Christmas Eve gathering at our Unitarian church in Montclair, New Jersey.

And I want to share the story that some of you have heard that was read that night because it's to me teaches me a lot every time I reflect on it. It's a story told by Unitarian Minister. So it was Sunday Christmas, our family had spent the holidays in San Francisco with my husband's parents. But in order for us to get back to work on Monday we found ourselves driving 400 miles home to L.A. on Christmas Day. It was normally an eight-hour drive but with kids it can be a 14-hour endurance test and when we could stand it no longer we stopped for lunch in kids. King City, this little metropolis made up of six gas stations and three diners, and it was into one of those that we fortruped, road-weary and saddle sore. As I sat Eric our one-year-old in a

high chair, I looked around the room and wondered what I was doing in this place. The restaurant was nearly empty. We were the only family and ours were the only children. Everyone else was busy eating and talking quietly. My reverie was interrupted when I heard Eric squeal with glee. Hi there, two words he thought were one. Hi there. He pounded his fat baby hands, whack, whack on the metal high chair tray. His face was alive with excitement, eyes wide, gums bare, and a toothless grin. He wriggled and chirped and giggled, and then I saw the source of his merriment

and my eyes could not take it all in at once. A tattered rag of a coat obviously brought by someone else eons ago, dirty, greasy worn, baggy pants, both they and the zipper at half-mast over a spindly body, toes that poked out of wood-be shoes, a shirt that had ring around the collar all over, and a face like none other, gums as bare as erics, hair uncombed, unwashed, whiskers too short to be called a beard but way, way beyond a shadow, and a nose so vericose that it looked like a map of New York. I was too far away to smell him, but I knew he smelled and his hands were waving in the air, flapping about on loose wrists.

Hi there, baby, hi there, big boy, I see you buster. My husband and I exchanged a look that was a cross between what do we do and poor devil. Eric continued to laugh and answer, Hi there, every call was echoed. I noticed waitresses' eyebrows shoot to their shoulders and several people near us out loud. This old geezer was creating a nuisance with my beautiful baby.

I shoved a cracker at Eric and he pulverized it on the tray. I whispered, why, me under my breath? Our meal came and the nuisance continued. Now the old bum was shouting from across the room. Do you know Patty Cake? Adda boy, you know peek-a-boo? Hey, look, he knows peek-a-boo. Nobody thought it was cute. The guy was probably a drunk and definitely a disturbance.

I was embarrassed. My husband, Dennis, was humiliated. Even our six-year-old said, why is that old man talking so loud? We ate in silence, except Eric, who was running through his repertoire for the admiring applause of a skid row bum. Finally, I had enough. I turned the high chair. Eric screamed and clamored around to face his old buddy.

Now I was really mad. Dennis went to pay the check imploring me to get Eric and meet me in the parking lot. I trundled Eric out of the high chair and looked toward the exit. The old man sat poised in waiting, his chair directly between me and the door. Lord, just let me out of here before he speaks to me or Eric. I headed toward the door. It soon became apparent that both the Lord and Eric had other plants. As I drew closer to the man, I turned my back, walking to sidestep him, and any air he might be breathing.

As I did so, Eric all the while, with his eyes riveted to his best friend, leaned far over my arm, reaching with both arms, in a pick-me-up position. In a split second of balancing my baby and turning to counter his weight, I came eye-to-eye with the old man. Eric was lunging for him, arms spread wide. The bum's eyes both asked and implored, Would you let me hold your baby? There was no need for me to answer since Eric propelled himself from my arms to the man's.

Suddenly a very old man and a very young baby were involved in a love relationship. Eric laid his tiny head upon the man's ragged shoulder. The man's eyes closed and I saw tears hovered beneath his lashes. His aged hands full of grime and pain and hard labor. Gently, so gently, cradled my baby's bottom and stroked his back. I stood awestruck. The old man rocked and cradled Eric in his arms for a moment

and then his eyes open and sat squarely on mine. He said in a firm commanding voice, You take care of this baby. Somehow I managed, I will from a throat that contained a stone. He pried Eric from his chest. unwillingly, longingly, as though he was in pain. I held my arms open to receive my baby and again the gentleman addressed me. God bless you, ma'am, you've given me my Christmas gift.

I said nothing more than a muttered thanks. With Eric back in my arms I ran for the car. Dennis wondered why I was crying and holding Eric so tightly and why I was saying, my God, my God, forgive me. After that story, I told you I was sitting next to this young man with this disability and we left the church and he was weeping and as his parents told me he said that that was me, you know, he felt that was me. When I listen I can feel both it being me being the unseen one in different ways but also how many we don't see, how many beings we put in a

category. And we do it all the time. Our brains are kind of designed that way, that we, you know, this person's my type or not my type, this person's better or worse, but how many beings do we not really see? And how much does that confine our existence? So this training in this Bodhisattva training, and I think of it that way because it's intentional, is precious beyond words, because it's got that intention to see who's here. It's to see who's here. We've been spending time this week,

that we started getting intimate with the vulnerability and in that intimacy discover this compassion that's really what we are. And then we get intimate with who's here. the other beings in our life. Just do a short reflection for a moment. This is just a reflection on seeing who's here. Just to bring to mind someone in your life who's close to you,

maybe someone who's having some difficulty. And as you bring him or hurt to mind, like kind of imagine them and just think about them for a little bit, the way you normally think about that person. and what they look like, or activities that person does, how they speak, or if they're too young to speak, how they Google and guggle and verbal, perhaps review the last time together that you were together. So you have a sense of how it is your, you bring someone to mind. Now for a moment, just bring your attention right here to your own experience.

just for a moment the perhaps just in this pause the awareness of sounds and sensations feeling your heart so you can feel whether there's maybe tenderness or

numbness maybe feeling tired peaceful whatever it is maybe widening it to sense the experiences of recent days it's just a natural movement of fear, sorrow, stillness, openness.

And just sense the presence that's here that's aware of all of it. As you do, just sense that the being that you are bringing to mind is more like this, this subjectivity, this realness, this awakeness, this vulnerability, mobility than any habitual idea we might run in our minds. We live with our ideas about each other most of the time. We don't pay deep attention to who's here. Now continue with this person in your mind. Just take a little more time and you might sense looking through this person's eyes, feeling with this being's body and heart, sensing the life. life circumstances, perhaps the disappointments, the fears, the challenges, so that you can sense

what is this being need really in the deepest way? Is it to be seen, to be loved or accepted? As you sense what's needed, it can be very natural energetically in a very subtle, pure heart way to offer what's needed. Just to feel your heart holding this being. There's a deep power of healing when we're sincere and feeling some being in our hearts. The rose says, could a greater miracle take place than for us to look through each other's eyes for an instant, opening your eyes whenever you'd like? So this is the essential practice of Karuna, which is compassion. and it's really the practice of presence, it's being present in a way just as we are with our inner life with who's here and so that we can feel who's here and we can feel the vulnerability

and let ourselves be touched. And just as with our own hearts we are not, we don't like to feel enormously raw, difficult feelings so we have all sorts of strategies not to feel them, we have the same thing with others. So others come and they might tell us what's going on in their lives and we can sound sympathetic but it's not so common that in a kind of visceral way we let the poignancy in. It's not so common and yet when we do there's an energetic field that gets intensified and opened of love that's healing. So I mentioned the bodhisattva aspiration. The beginning of it is whatever circumstances may they serve to awaken. And there's a kind of second part that you can reflect on also that is the natural extension. And it is through timeless existence,

may this life serve awakening and freedom. Now some of you when you hear this and most of us at certain times when we hear that, we think that sounds really grandiose, like through timeless existence made this life serve the awakening of freedom of all beings. And it is if we think of this life as owned by a self. And in the moments that we sense this life as a life stream that's really animated by spirit, there's nothing else that we could want because we belong to all life. This heart space includes all of life. What else is there to want for? You know? The bodhisattva has been, has often embodied.

There's certain embodied deities and beings that have been on earth that that embody that identity that is totally inclusive. And there's a poem called Jesus Incognito that I want to read that has a little bit of that flavor. She writes, don't tell anyone, but I love Jesus. I love his big, dark, Jewish eyes, so full of suffering soul. And the way he always argues with everyone and will go to hell for love. He's just like that Buddhist god Avalo Kitsvara, the emanation of compassion,

except his name is easier to pronounce. When you're in trouble, it's really hard to remember to yell for Avalo Kisvara, but, oh, Jesus, arises naturally. I don't want to die saying, oh shit. I'd like to leave my body consciously like a debauchessly, like a Tibetan llama sitting in full lotus with my head turned towards where I'll next reincarnate. But let's be realistic. I probably don't have time to meditate enough to get enlightened in however many years I've left. Jesus seems easier. All you have to do is love everyone.

Well, seems is the key word here. Sometimes the more you try to love people, the more you hate them. Maybe it would be better to try not to love people and then watch the love force its way of you like grass through cement. Jesus, I don't believe you died a virgin. I think you needed to taste everything human and have it the whole mess. I owe you and all the other bodhisattvas and sages and newborn babies a debt of thanks for agreeing

to come back and marry yourselves to our painful predicament again and again and I do thank you, bowing to the infinite directions. Jesus Incognito. The illusion is that it's Jesus out there, or Buddha out there, or Buddha back then. That's probably the most profound illusion we live with. That every one of us right here is an awakening being. That awakening is happening through these body minds.

That awareness is realizing itself through these forms. It's in our biology to care. You know, Pat mentioned this the other day that there's the neurophysiological basis of empathy is we've got these mirror neurons that actually perceive what another is feeling. And it's contagious when we sense it. So children, and we know this, children actually can feel the mood of other children and they cry with them or laugh with them. He was one kindergarten teacher who was, when her children heard about the war in Iraq

described this, she heard about them and their upset was that we were sending bombers over there. It was right before we started sending bombers. And they asked her, do they have children over there? And the response was yes. And the children said, they must not have known that, we have to let them know. So what they did was they went into the playground and they used different materials to write this huge thing saying Iraq and then have a picture of a child to try to have bombers not get sent. It's deep in us to care that there are, when we remember Afghanistan and know there's real

children and when we remember everywhere there's real parents losing children. I remember reading this in the post some time ago and it was after several other people I know told me about their sons in some way having to be part of this war over these last few years. I loved him before he ever was and now so much it hurts sometimes. Eyes the color of green tea, soft cheeks only promise a beard. At 19 he slipped from my grasp. His friends joined frats. He joined the National Guard.

They're going to college. He's going to Iraq. Barely a man, he wants to fight a war that can't be won. He's my son, the baby I bore, the child I nurtured. A proud American soldier. Each day as he left for school, I reminded him, be kind. What do I say when he leaves this time? So it's part of the training of Karuna to be willing to pause and to let ourselves be touched,

not so there's pity, but to feel our shared humanity. And when we see the truth, the separation dissolves. And in the same way, just as much as the Bodhisattva training is to be touched by the vulnerability, it's to see the goodness. it's to see past the veil and see who's looking out. It's to see the goodness, to see the love that wants to be loved. So we practice the meta, these are the two main practices we have gone over here as a way of just because our, it's like I think one person described it,

we're like a vilcro for the stuff that's difficult that we see in each other and we're teflon for the good stuff, it's like to switch our conditioning around, around a little, we begin to really sense the goodness. And one of the questions that comes my way a lot with the metta practices, but what if it feels mechanical? You know, what if it's kind of like going through the motions? And just like Karuna, it all comes down to your intention. If you begin a heart practice and your intention is, I want to feel this heart awake, then it almost doesn't matter. what happens through the practice.

There's one description of this that I think is so wonderful. There was a group of people doing a meta practice, an urban meta practice. They were doing a little bit of the stealth meta we've described here, where you kind of pick somebody and you just kind of tune in and you just feel who's there and just begin to send some phrases of care, some prayer, some blessing. So they were doing, this was happening in Oakland, California. And so a couple of these folks, it was right near an Amtrak station, so a couple of people

went to the train platform and just they each picked their person and started doing meta. Here goes the story. When the train pulled in one woman from this class noticed a man disembarked and decided to make him the recipient of her loving kindness meditation. Suddenly she began reciting the phrases for him. almost immediately she began judging herself. I must not be doing it right because I feel so distant. I don't have a great wash of warm feeling coming over me.

Nonetheless, reaffirming her intention to look on all beings with kindness instead of estrangement, she continued reciting, may you be happy, may you be peaceful. Taking another look at the man who is dressed in a suit and tie and seemed nervous, she began judging him. He looked so rigid and uptight. Then judging herself, here I am, trying to send loving kids. kindness to someone instead of them disparaging him. Still, she continued, repeating the phrases,

aligning her energy with her intention to be a force of love in the world. At that moment, the man walked over to her and said, I've never done anything like this before in my life, but I'd like to ask you to pray for me. I'm about to face a very difficult situation in my life. You somehow seem to have a really loving heart and I'd just like to know that you're praying for me. Imagine, and sometimes it's almost exciting to sense the possibility, but imagine if we could slow down intentionally and take the time to look and see, just to really make it part of our lives, just to slow down with different beings in our life. And what happens when we do is we come home to our own awakened heart.

shift in identity that we've been talking about all week from the story of a small self that's mostly kind of circling around with ideas about what I need, what's going to make me more comfortable, what's going to go wrong for me, we wake up out of that. By paying attention to the goodness, we wake up out of that and we discover this kind of dissolving of that separation. there's a freedom in it. Nikki Giovanni says, and if ever I touched a life, I hope that life knows

that I know the touching was and still is and always will be the true revolution. So the ground of living a compassionate life of this embodiment is getting more and more familiar

with this pausing and seeing who's here? Seeing when we're in trance, just to ask the question, am I dreaming? What story am I living with? When you're with any particular person in your life, you might just, in your own mind sense when I'm with that person, what's the story about myself I'm living in? Is there some sense of less than or more than or going to be imposed on? What's the story? And who who would we be if we stepped out of that story? Who would we see if we stepped out of that story? And so as we begin to practice, it becomes more and more natural to kind of wake up out

of our habituality and then to respond and that's compassion and action. And whether it's respond to the pain in the world in one of the ways we know about, writing letters, giving money, becoming involved with some social actions, speaking, our truth. In some way there's a spontaneity whenever we see in front of us something that there's a need. Priest sees a young boy struggling to reach a doorbell. He walks over and presses it. Now what? Run like hell is the response. So our intention's going to be really good and you don't know how much you're helping. I began tonight with this story about this homeless woman. I just want to come back to say that the greatest gift perhaps that

we offer to each other is reminding each other who we are, just the way that doctor in some way created a space that let her be at home in her innate dignity. We can become mirrors of goodness. We can look at another and be with another in some way. It's like when we say namaste, we call out the sacred, we call out that beauty. It's like our seeing and being actually calls it forth. To live as a bodhisattva is to touch the spirit of the Buddha within us and to allow that to shine through our individual life. So I'd like to close with just a brief reflection with you.

And to sense how this is really a journey of spirit to move through the world, friends, strangers, and to look and see who's here, to discover the truth of connectedness. So again just pausing and as Rolka described with these widening circles, just begin with the circle of the life right here and sense what it means to be truly intimate with this aliveness that's right here. Sensing the particulars of your experience right now, sensations, vibrations, vibration. the mood of the heart

and also sensing the space of awareness that includes all this that's aware of this the tenderness of that heart space and sense how this heart space can include others that are here and just might bring someone to mind resting in awareness

and sensing how this heart space can include with great tenderness and care whoever you bring to mind. The heart space where all it is is welcome. Closing prayer written by Diane Ackerman In the name of daybreak and the eyelids of morning and the wayfaring moon and the night when it departs, I swear I will not dishonor my soul with hatred.

but offer myself humbly as a guardian of nature, as a healer of misery, as a messenger of wonder, as an architect of peace. In the name of the sun and its mirrors and the uttermost night, in the crowning seasons of the firefly and the apple, I will honor all life wherever and in one, whatever form it may dwell, on earth my home and in the mansions of the stars. Namaste.