Tara Brach - The Power of Mindful Investigation (from 2010-09-22)

Episode Date: December 30, 2015

The Power of Mindful Investigation (from 2010-09-22) - We each have a deep interest in reality–in understanding what is true and who we are. In Buddhist teachings, our interest, and its expression in wise investigation, energize the path of awakening. This talk explores how mindful investigation can free us from emotional suffering, nourish loving relatedness and create the conditions for deep spiritual realization. (Tara is on retreat this week, so she asked to share this talk from 2010.)

I'd like to invite you to pause. Let your attention be right here. And just notice of even in this short period of time there's been a sense of scattering. Anybody notice? Just even the intention to pause shines a light on how the attention quickly just goes out in all directions.

When we're here, when we're awake, awareness has two things. primary expressions. And one of the expressions of awareness is a quality of caring. There's a quality of tender receptivity towards the life within and around us. That's one expression of presence or awareness. And the other is interest. There's a kind of curiosity that has that inquiry. So what is this? What is happening? Tonight I'd like to reflect on this latter quality of attention, this interest or curiosity in the Buddhist teachings quite central called investigation or inquiry. And it's considered one of the key ingredients

in mindfulness or in any full fruition of presence. It's been described classically as one of the factors of enlightenment, this quality of investigation. And it's, really essential to seeing truth. I remember one of my very first retreats, the phrase, Ahi Pascico was shared with us. This is a Polly phrase. And it means come and see for yourself.

And very quickly, what was shared was that in the wisdom traditions, and I don't think this is just in Buddhism, rather than any expectation that you hear teachings and just believe them, the most basic invitation is to truly, truly pay attention for yourself to what's going on because there is no possibility of realization and freedom unless we investigate our own reality. It's just not possible. So there's not so much emphasis on, well, here are the precious teachings. you just, you know, take them all in. It's more, there's teachings to set a context for,

please pay attention. Really listen, listen to what's going on for yourself. It's very respectful like that. A. Huasico. One of the first three-month retreats at the Insight Meditation Society, which was one of the, which was the retreat center in Massachusetts that I first got introduced to this practice in. So it was a three-month retreat, and they were, Western teachers were teaching it, but there was a Korean Zen teacher who was there for listening into some of the talks. And the Western teachers gave their talks on the four noble truths and the eightfold path and the four foundations of mindfulness and so on. Well, then it was his turn to give a talk. And here's how he started off. He says, everything is wrong. Teaching's all wrong. Because not matter,

nothing mattered. There's only one thing. One question. What is? this what is this okay that was the center of the entire Dharma teaching for him is this inquiry and you know it in yourself that place in you that really wants to know truth like it matters more than anything not all the time the time's all that matters is we get the parking space we want or that you know we get to have the dinner that we want or whatever but deep down we want to know truth what is reality we want to know because we want to know what we are so this is the Zen Cohen what is this and it's an inquiry that really is designed to

dissolve all conceptual thought so we see past that veil right into the mystery so the truth is that in order to be free it's described this investigations described traditionally with a metaphor of like shining a flashlight in a dark room, that if we don't shine a light, if we don't look, we'll just keep bumping into the furniture over and over again. And this is like in our lives, when we don't inquire, when there's no investigation into the unconscious beliefs

that are running us and so on, we keep reliving the same patterns. And how many of us are really painfully aware that we keep rerunning, the same patterns. In our relationships, some of us continuously find ways to undercut intimacy or for others of us, we procrastinate and really never get around to what matters. And we each have our version. If we're rerunning patterns that keep us small or keep us suffering, it's because we haven't investigated. We haven't really looked carefully into our own minds.

So there's only one way to step out of the patterns. And it's described again as this inquiry into what's true. I came across this today. It says history repeats itself, which is good because most people don't pay attention the first time anyway. So a few things about this investigation or inquiry. And one is that it takes a lot of courage. We get anxious when we stop the action and try to pay. attention. We're pretty addicted to the inner dialogue going. And in the moments that we're

really investigating, we're stepping out of our kind of comfortable, familiar cocoon of thoughts, and we're also stepping out of our doings. And most of all, to really inquire and find out what's going on, we have to put aside certainty. And we get very attached to thinking we need. know. I mean, how many of us are moving through the days if we know what we're doing, we know where we're on our way to, and we certainly know people that have that kind of certainty about them. One woman writes, my ancestors wandered lost in the wilderness for 40 years because even in biblical times, men would not stop to ask for directions. So what motivates us to stop and look more carefully. Is this love of truth? It's what Rumi described it this way. He said,

grapes want to turn to wine. We want to know the truth. Something in us. Now, throughout the world in every spiritual tradition, there are stories of this journey, this quest. And in the Russian initiation tales, Baba Yaga is a key figure and she's an old woman with a wild hag-like visage who stirs her pot and she knows all things. She lives deep in the forest and we seek her out when we're frightened because she requires us to go into the dark. Okay, she requires us to go into the dark and ask dangerous questions and step out of the world of logic and comfort. So I read to you, when the first young seeker comes quaking up to the door of her hut, Baba Yaga demands, are you on your own errand or are you sent by another?

The young man encouraged in his quest by his family answers, I'm sent by my father. And Baba Yaga promptly throws him into the pot and cooks him. The next attempt, the next one to attempt this request, a young woman sees the smoldering fire and hears the cackle of Baba Yaga. Baba Yaga again demands, are you on your own errand or are you sent by another? This young woman has been pulled to the woods alone to seek what she can find there. I'm on my own errand, she replies. Baba Yaga throws her into the pot and cooks her too. Later, a third visitor, again a young woman, deeply confused by the world, comes to

Baba Yaga's house far into the forest. She sees the smoke and knows it's dangerous. Baba Yaga confronts her. Are you on your own errand or are you sent by another? This young woman answers truthfully. In large part I'm on my own errand, but in large part I also come because of others, and in large part I've come because you are here and because of the forest, and something I have forgotten, and in large part I know not why I've come.

Baba Yaga regards her for a while and says, you'll do and shows her into the hut. So there's an honesty in this inquiry of not grasping on to knowing, in our traditional ways. Whatever our habits are for thinking we know, it's this courage to put them down and really, really wonder, what is this? What is happening right now?

Who's aware? What's happening inside this other person, really? Maybe we'll just take a moment in the spirit of this and let me invite you to close your eyes. you who are on this quest to just allow yourself to pause. And in this very moment, fresh, just ask yourself, what is happening inside me right now? What am I most aware of in this moment? And in this moment? And again, right now, what am I aware of? Then to reflect for a moment,

what happens when you even ask the question? What do you notice? you notice about inquiry? You can open your eyes. So some of you might have noticed when the question was asked that you became aware of a certain part of your body feeling intense, uncomfortable, warm, achy, tingly. Some of you might have noticed an emotion. Some of you might have noticed sound. It's not so important the content as the fact that when there is inquiry, our attention becomes intensified. Did you notice that just having a question brought more energy to your attention?

How many have you noticed that? Just having the question, more attention. So this is the purpose of inquiry. When there is not an attitude of interest, of curiosity, of inquiry or investigation, we're frequently in a trance. We're living inside a kind of virtual reality and the question cuts through that.

Just saying, oh, what's really happening right now can cut through the veils? It deepens our attention. So let me speak a little bit to what wise investigation is not because there's a lot of confusion about the word investigation. And I think the biggest confusion is that investigation is mental in the sense of a lot of thoughts. Wise investigation does not take us away from the present moment.

Okay? So what that means is that wise investigation is not a kind of mental digging where you're saying, well, I'm feeling this way because so-and-so did this to me yesterday, which really goes back to my childhood, when everybody always treated, you know, it's not that. It's not mental digging. It's not analytic. It's not abstract.

Okay. It's not problem solving. A lot of the inquiry we do is that in some way there's a problem, like how can I get this for the least cost? Or how can I talk to that person? Well, maybe I'll email them because I don't really want to spend a long, you know, it's that kind of thing. It's not problem solving. somebody sent me this a few years ago. I thought I'd share in the spirit of problem solving.

In this one airline, pilots fill out of form called a gripe sheet, and then mechanics have to solve the problems that the pilots are noticing. So it's investigation and solution. And the airline is called Qantas that I'm reading from, and this is the only major airline that's never had an accident. I'm going to read you a little about the gripe sheet, what the pilot said and then what the mechanics discovered in their investigation. Pilot.

Left inside main tire almost needs replacement. The mechanic almost replaced the left inside main tire. Pilot, dead bugs on the windshield. Response. Live bugs on back order. This is true, by the way. Pilot, DME volume, unbelievably loud response. DME volume set to more believable level.

Pilot, IFF, an operative. Response, IFF, always in operative in off mode. Pilot, suspected crack in windshield. Mechanics, suspect you're right. Pilot, aircraft handles funny. Response, aircraft warned to straighten up fly right and be serious. Pilot, mouse in cockpit. response cat installed i'll just read you one more pilot noise coming from under instrument panel

sounds like a midget pounding on something with a hammer response took hammer away from midget so inquiry is not a problem solving as i said and it's not in answering the question why why is there evil in the world it's not that kind of thing and it's not investigation and this is really important when you're meditating is not a kind of stepping back and observing from a distant like you're looking through a window you're not in your body you're just kind of looking at things from a distance some of you might remember the book zen and the art of reading all the books about zen i don't know but it's not that kind of thing so we turn to true inquiry okay and we'll look at it i'll give you some examples and we'll practice a little together it is a sincere attitude of interest

in what's true right here and now. And there are three domains where we can really see the power of wise investigation that I want to spend the rest of the evening going over. And one of the domains is that wise investigation leads to emotional healing. That when we have a tangle, when we're stuck in emotional suffering,

wise investigation is part of what untangles the tangles. Okay. The second area is that wise investigation fosters loving relationship. We cannot have an intimate relationship unless there's a quality of inquiry into what's going on. And the third is that wise investigation reveals the very nature of reality of what we are. It is the key to liberation. Okay. So I hope that makes you think it's going to be worth it, right?

Those are pretty big claims. So we look at emotional suffering and really if you say, well, what's the formula for emotional suffering? Emotional suffering happens when we have beliefs that are not fully, at least not fully in consciousness, but beliefs about ourselves in the world

that are limiting, that we're believing, that are triggering off feelings that are not totally in our consciousness, that often trigger off reactivity in the world that's not fully, fully in our consciousness. So we're in a trance.

And there's a looping between the thoughts and the feelings that keep us stuck in a limited sense of who we are. That's the setup for emotional suffering. Our sense of identity, who we are, becomes small, separate, we're deficient. Okay. So any process where we begin to investigate, bring mindful investigation to the beliefs and feelings

begins to loose. the bind of suffering. Many of you will remember the acronym that I teach a lot for mindfulness rain, which is recognizing and allowing what's going on and then investigating with an intimate attention. And when we practiced like that,

when there's this investigation that's very open-hearted, you get to the end of rain, which is not identified, no longer bound in a small self-hearted, identity. There's a freedom there. So an example of investigation, I'll give you a couple here. One was quite beautiful last week. We had our monthly, and this is open to all of you, we meet once a month in Carter Rock for those that want to have a longer sit and then explore practice.

It's called satsung. And in satsung, one friend in the community who is a woman from Iran described her deep upset, which many of us feel and share at the growing backlash against Muslim people. And here she is feeling this sense of the pain of it. So we began investigation together. I mean, I asked questions, and the group was quiet as she turned the investigation inwardly. And the first question really was, well, so what's the worst part of this for you? So she could begin to really sense what is really upsetting in her body, in her heart. And it was really feeling misunderstood, feeling not seen. Okay?

And then we, as with Rain, the next step is, okay, recognize and allow that. Just let that be there for now so we can deepen the investigation into truth. So she did that. And then the next question is really, okay, so what's happening? What's going on inside you when you're experiencing that? and the feeling she contacted were a very deep hurt and sorrow. So investigation and finding that hurt and that sorrow. And then I asked a question I often ask with inquiry,

which is, what is this part of you most need? And it's not mental. You ask the question and you feel inside out what's needed. Okay. And for her, what she experienced when she asked that was that that part needed to feel seen and understood by her. In other words, okay, the world is not seeing and understanding in a clear way, but the starting place is that she can see and pay attention to how much pain is there. And we often find this that the parts of us that are suffering need our attention. that's what they need. Once they have attention, something shifts. Which was the case for her,

that when she started just saying, okay, I'm paying attention, I see you, I see this place in me that feels misunderstood, there was a loosening and her sense of who she was shifted from the misunderstood self to that space of awareness that is attentive. Now, it was also part of the healing, that she was with a group of people, others, that were also attending and seeing and attempting to understand. So that's just one way that this begins to unravel. And with another friend I met with individually in a similar way. And by the way, this investigation can be done with other people. If you're with someone else and you begin to investigate, what's going on in this relational field.

It's the beginning of waking up to deeper truth. And for this woman, in this relational field being with me, what was coming up was this fear of not being accepted. So investigate, investigate what is going on. And underneath that was unsafe. Just that clench of fear. And by being able to name that, investigating and naming. There was some space that opened up within her and also you could feel it in the field.

We were more intimate because there had been some investigating and naming of what was going on with each other. This is the power of investigation. I sometimes think of it that the parts of our being are like shy, timid creatures, like wild creatures that when they come into the meadow of open awareness, there's healing, but they tend to hang out at the fringes where the woods are. They tend to stay in unconsciousness. Our job is to invite them into awareness. When you investigate your experience, you're inviting the parts of your being that tend to stay out of awareness. You're inviting them here. It's a movement towards wholeness. So when we say what's happening, and we listen, it's kind of like a vibrational hug

that melts the edges and allows our experience to move and to dissolve. As you're practicing on your own, you can say what's happening, you can say what color is this or where do I feel this? Where is it strongest? What does it need? Now here's something that is key

when you're investigating, which is often there's a very, very, very strong belief that's keeping the clutch going. So, for instance, one man I was with last week basically had that sense of something's wrong with me. And when I asked him, what's the belief? It was, I'm worthless. I'm not contributing anything to this world. In some way, he was a disappointment. He had a message early on that to be a worthwhile person, you are successful and you do this amount of stuff and you make a difference. So he had this standard and on some deep level, I'm worthless.

And he'd always compare himself to other people. And with some people in comparison, he felt like he was doing okay. But with many others, especially the people he admired, there was a deep sense of not being a valued human. So we began to practice with that with inquiry. Okay, so when you're feeling that belief, when the belief is there of unworthless, what's that like in your body?

body. Weight, heaviness, like I'm sinking, a kind of shame, a kind of heat. I want to disappear. How long have you been living with that? So many moments. And when he began to sense how many moments? Oh, compassion. Oh, the who he was was shifting. It was no longer the worthless self. It was the compassionate place that was aware of that. Do you understand? how the investigation shifts our identity? When you start noticing, you become the awareness that's noticing. You're no longer living inside the identity. Then you can ask the question, well, who would you be if you weren't believing that about yourself? It's a very powerful inquiry. We're going to practice in a moment. Who would you be if you weren't believing that? For him, in the moments of that

question. There was a sense of light. There was a sense of possibility of creativity and joy. He didn't land on, oh, I'd be a fantastic successful person. It wasn't another identity substituted. There was space, presence, creativity. So let's practice. Let's again invite you to close your eyes. So this is a chance to choose somewhere in your life where you feel like you get stuck, where you're in a kind of an emotional reaction of some sort, and not to choose something that's traumatizing. We have too short a time in these few minutes

for something that's going to bring up terror, but to pick something where you know you get reactive and go right to a situation that really illustrates it for you. So it might be where you get reactive in relationship with somebody else. Or it might be your reaction is about something going on for somebody else. Maybe how your child is doing or something. Might be that you're in a place of reactivity about something going on with your body. It might be one of your behaviors, perhaps an addictive behavior. It might be the way you relate to other people, pattern you see.

Bring to mind where this is in action, where the situation is evoking and you fear or judgment or hurt or anger. So this is where the stuck place is, where you can sense a trance a bit. You kind of know you're caught. And the beginning of rain is just to recognize and allow okay, it's like this. This is the stuck place. So right away there's a quality of investigating.

Like you're noticing and naming, okay, stuck. Here it is. And then beginning to investigate a bit more sense, well, what is going on inside me in this situation? What are the feelings? And see if you can just name feeling angry or anxious, down to myself, hurt, confused, just with some interest and attention, just notice and name whatever you can about how

you're feeling. Your intention is just to investigate with a gentleness. You might investigate by asking, well, what am I believing? And again, this isn't mental. If it doesn't come right away, then don't you have to dig, but you might find, oh, I'm believing that I'm a failure, that I'm not going to ever make progress or I'm never going to be happy or people will never really love me just if it comes quickly

what am I believing? Maybe like this man there's just this belief something's really wrong with me and your job in investigating is just to notice this keep investigating what does it feel like in my body when I'm believing this

just offering an intimate presence with what you're noticing. You don't have to do anything about it. Just rest in that attention that's investigating. It's as if you're the ocean attending to the waves that are moving across the surface of your being. They might feel like deep surging waves, but there's still waves in your being and you're investigating with interest, with care. If there's a strong belief there, you might ask, who would I be if I wasn't believing this? Who would I be if I didn't believe something was wrong with me? Or if I didn't believe that something was going to be too much to handle?

What if I didn't believe that? Can you sense the glimmer of freedom? Sense who you are, the sense of your own being, when you're investigating, when there's this mindful inquiry. What's your sense of yourself? And then simply dropping all inquiry, just pausing to rest in that presence itself. And you might notice if there's any more space,

any more freedom, just by having inquired, taking a few full breaths, opening the eyes. So one domain that we bring this mindful inquiry is to emotional tangles. Now another domain, as I mentioned, is to relationship, to being with others.

And this is really the heart of the bodhisattva path, this path of awakening beings, that we have the wiring inside us, the mirror neurons and the other equipment, so that we can pay attention to each other and have a resonance field and pick up what's going on. Now we might overlay it with our assessment and evaluation

and comparison and judgment, but we can pick up a lot when we pay attention. So the very ground of empathy and compassion is having this kind of interest with each other, that we look at each other, and there's something in us that wants to know. We want to know who's there. and it's that wanting to know that actually connects us.

So we might begin by sensing as we did with this group, our monthly group, can we be with someone who's part of a group that's being demonized, my friend from Iran, and can we imagine what would that be like? Can we do that? You know how Thoreau puts it? that the miracles to look through another's eyes for even a moment. Can we do that? Or for those of you that are listening that are in a majority group,

to imagine being a person of color in a group where there's just primarily Caucasians. Can we switch roles and imagine what that's like? Whether there's a sense of sensitivity, do I belong here? What would it be like if you were one of five white people in a group that was predominantly people of color? What would it feel like? Would you automatically feel welcomed and comfortable? Can we attune ourselves?

Can we ask those questions? They're important questions. Our day to day when we're moving through our life, can we be at the grocery store and sense, well, what's it like for this person behind the register or for the customer service person on the phone when we're angry at something that didn't get to us. What's it like for that person? Imagine globally if there was ongoing dialogues where people really were wondering what it was like to be in the other person's situation. What a different world. So the inquiries can we begin to do it in the relationships in our own life? And I'll share one person's experience.

every time her husband became short-tempered, which happened a lot, she would feel hurt and she'd withdraw. And it felt very personal. On some level, she felt not liked. If he was irritable, she was not liked. And so she started this practice where whenever she'd sense his irritation, she would slow things way down in herself, and she'd asked the question, well, what is it like for him right now?

you know if he's happy he's not going to act this way right no so he's not happy so she'd actually really have to slow it down because it was such a quick response to go oh he's irritated he doesn't like me something's wrong with us you know but no he's irritated what's it like for him right now he couldn't be really having a good time and then she'd look even more closely and she'd say you know she'd ask the question what does he need and what she started getting when she got past her projections was that he, when he's irritated, he's insecure that something's going wrong. He doesn't feel well received in his world, that he's valued or worthy, much like that other story I told you. And there were conflicts going on at work, a kind of hierarchical

thing that was very difficult. And so what does he need? He needs to trust him on his team. He needs to feel me valuing him. And when she could get that, it wasn't about her. She started behaving in ways that actually helped him to relax more. It kind of shifted the dynamic. It's an amazing, radical approach to relationships to ask the question, what does this person need? So I want to invite you to reflect on this one within yourself for a moment, if you will, just to close your eyes.

And let the pause be a moment of reconnecting if you've left with your body. just feel your breath, feel yourself here, and feel your heart, and bringing to mind someone that you see regularly who you know is having a hard time. Now not somebody that brings up a super strong reaction in you, not if you feel a huge amount of rage or deep woundedness because then you need to take care of that first, but somebody that you know is having a hard time. And as if you could zoom in a bit with the camera, really let yourself attune some. To sense this person in his or her life, seek to understand what's it like for this person right now? What's going on?

Is it fear or disappointment, feelings of failure, not feeling appreciated? Do you might imagine being inside this person's body, heart, mind? and just sensing what's life like. This is the inquiry. What's happening? I'd ask, what is this person most need? What is this person most need for me? And if you widen the attention and sense others in your life,

just letting different people come to mind. People you know or don't know so well. And if you just had the inquiry of, so what does this person need and this person? we begin to sense how in some basic way we each need to feel loved we each need to feel seen we're really paying attention to each other

and sense that it becomes quite natural that our hearts get tender and that we extend ourselves in a way that's healing and beautiful so taking a few breaths and opening your eyes So we've covered two of the main domains that this practice of inquiry of asking questions to deepen our attention can really wake up our world. And one is the kind of inner healing.

You know, what's going on? What am I believing? What am I feeling? You know, just really listening and intimate listening attention inwardly. And then we bring that to each other, which is revolutionary in relationships. The final piece I'd like to talk about the last few minutes tonight is the deepest inquiry really of the question really, what am I or who am I?

And this is the question the Buddha asked when he sat under the Bodhi tree and he looked into his own mind. They didn't look anywhere else but into this moment's experience. He looked into the presence right there, his own presence. Now, if you ask this question, if I said right away, okay, you all, just let's close your eyes and ask that question, who am I? What would happen is, if your mind was busy or if you had a lot of thoughts, a lot of stories going on, you'd just come up with another story of, you know, who you are. Because that's what happens.

When there's a lot of waves in the mind, you ask the question, the attention just fixates on another wave. or you'd get irritated. It's like what kind of question is that, you know? So it's not necessarily the inquiry for when our minds are busy. And I do use the metaphor of ocean and waves, and I invite you to really consider this, that when the mind has got a lot of waves, the practice of attention that's most useful

is to become aware of the waves, to name them, to notice them, to bring a kind attention to them. and in that presence with the waves, you reconnect with oceanness, with a vast attentiveness itself. So attention to the waves reconnects you with the ocean. Now, what if the mind is a bit quieter?

What if, as you've been here tonight, there's been some settling so that even right now, if you just closed your eyes and paid attention, you'd notice, well, there's awareness. You're aware of what's going on around you. It's not that busy. Yet you might notice there's what I call a ghost self.

There's still some trance. There's still some sense of there's someone in here listening or someone meditating. There's still someone behind the curtain that things are happening to. So there's still a subtle story going on. These are times when inquiry can be very, very powerful, where you can actually say, well, who really is listening? Who is paying attention? Who is guiding this meditation? When we begin to look back into, it's as if there's a projector that's running a movie of life, and we begin to look back into the projector and to who's actually creating all of this, the dependence described what we're,

we see, the supreme seeing is a seeing of no thing. There's no answer to that question that we can put in words, who's back there listening. If we have an answer, it means we've landed on another story. So there has to be this willingness to truly not know, to just look and then relax. So we're going to explore this in a final meditation. This deeper level of inquiry, but I'd like to just say that any level of inquiry is going to begin to open the gateway to truth. And the sign of a invigorated spiritual path is interest. If you find that you're moving through the day and there's some interest and, well, what really is happening? You know, what is going on here or with someone else?

and care, your path is coming alive. Henry Miller put it this way. He says, the moment one gives close attention to anything, even a blade of grass, it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent world in itself. This curious attention is the energizing element in mindful awareness. We bring it when there's an emotional tangle because there's something in awareness that wants to untangle and be at one with itself. It wants to know what's going on. We bring it to each other where we really slow it down. And by the way, it takes slowing it down. If you want to be intimate with someone, there needs to be a kind of pause where you're really asking that question,

what is it like for this person right now? Who's there? Who's looking out through those eyes? Really who's there? I used to share a number of times when I'd put my son Narayan to sleep when he was a baby and I'd watch him as he'd fall asleep

and I'd say, who is this? And at first, you know, I had the stories of this is my son and I'm his mother and he's this kind of a child and so on. But I dropped them and drop them until there was just this pure sense of presence or awareness, of consciousness embodied. Can we pay attention and sense each other as this sacred awareness that's just taking form temporarily? That it's that light of the divine shining through these eyes or listening. that's no different than who's looking through our eyes.

So inquiry is the power to attune us to the who we are together. And then in the deepest way, as I've mentioned and we'll explore this when we really have that sincerity of not knowing and we ask who is aware right now inside right here, who's listening, who's attending? We can open into a mystery

that's liberating, that's freeing. Open into a sense of beingness that's empty of any solid center and yet full of wakefulness and aliveness and tenderness. So let's close tonight with a very brief final practice of inquiry. And as a way to enter in,

just give yourself this gift of from the inside out, finding the posture that will allow you to be present just for these last minute or two that you're here so that as you come into stillness you can feel from the inside out this field of aliveness you might sense that half-smile again to reconnect with a receptive kind of presence slight smile, eyes soft, and mostly feel your intention, that sincerity to open to what's true right here, right now, that curiosity that wants to know truth,

wants to be truth. We begin with that simple inquiry of, okay, what's happening inside me right now? Relaxed opening to the aliveness, the sensations, letting life live through us exactly how it is and a listening not just with the ears but with our whole awareness

the close in sounds and the more distant so you can listen to and feel this whole moment not controlling anything and still inquiring sensing all the phenomena that's happening the sounds and sensations but can you also You also notice the presence itself, your own presence, that alert, inner stillness that's aware,

the silence that's listening, the openness that everything's happening in, intuiting that this silence, this openness, this wakefulness is what you are. You might inquire who or what is aware right now, turning the mind to the mind. towards awareness and then just letting go and being that which you experience, being it. The silence that's listening. The alert inner stillness. The space it's all happening in. Who or what is aware?

We close with Rumi. The lamps are different, but the light is the same. One matter, one energy, one light. one light mind endlessly emanating all things. One turning and burning diamond, one, one, one. Ground yourself. Strip yourself down to blind, loving silence. Stay there until you see you are gazing at the light

with its own ageless eyes. you just listened to has been freely offered. If you'd like to make a donation, learn more about my schedule, or about programs offered by the Insight Meditation Community of Washington, please visit either my website, which is tarabrock.com, our IMCW site, which is IMCW.org. Thank you very much.