Tara Brach - The Sacred Work of Bridging Divides - Teachings from Roshi Joan Halifax and Tara Brach

Episode Date: September 26, 2024

There is no more relevant exploration than how we awaken to our connection as family, as belonging to this precious web of life. In their talks, Tara and Roshi Joan look at the cause of divides and their healing through wise contemplation, courageous engagement and the power of imagination. Each lead short reflections that help us bring our own hearts and spirit into this sacred work.

Greetings. We offer these podcasts freely and your support really makes a difference. To make a donation, please visit tarabrock.com. Namaste. Thank you for being with us. Welcome. Some weeks ago, I did a program with Roshi Joan Halifax on Bridging Divides, a sacred work of our times. It was a really powerful experience for both of us, for those that joined us, some of you may have been part of that. And I wanted to share it here on this podcast because the theme feels like such medicines for these times. I mean, I realized that if all I did was ask the question, you know, how am I creating separation? This moment with my inner life or with others of the world

and then ask that question then just deep into tension, my whole life would become more and more an expression of love. So it's a practice because love matters. Rochey Joan shared in such a compelling way. One of the key ways we stay stuck and separate and contracted is because we don't challenge our habitual filters, our habitual patterns of thinking and conditioning. So she offers a teaching here on pathway of imagination as a way of open. opening and reconnecting. It's really powerful and beautiful. So in that spirit, I'd like to invite me to listen, or some might be to listen again, and bring your full curiosity to how your life might become increasingly vibrant and loving and free.

Okay, I hope you enjoy. It feels like our theme, it's just saying this before we went on, is exactly what we want to be reflecting on. It's disarming our hearts, you know, opening to each other. So I'm self-nourishing these days with those who care, and you are a community of caring beings that you would be here. It matters to your heart. And it's incredibly nourishing to do this side by side with my friend,

very dear to my heart, Roshi Joan. Thank you. Thank you for being part of this. Let's just pause for a moment. Pausing is always a good idea. and in that pause, wherever you are, you might find yourself adjusting how you're sitting a little bit. This is just for a moment to let your attention turn inward. And notice what life is like in this moment right here from the inside out.

You might feel the movement of your breath. You might explore what is sometimes called in Taoism and Buddhism, the smile down, where you just soften your eyes a little and sense the outer corners of the eyes lifted, the brow is smooth, the eyes are smiling, and maybe a slight smile at the mouth, can let the inside of the mouth be in a bit of a smile, so that as you let the attention come to the heart, you can sense the energy of a smile, the curve, the receptivity of a smile spreading through the heart, and then outward and outward, just that sense of space and receptivity and warmth that comes with a smile.

And you might sense in these moments a way of just offering kindness to the life inside you. Like some message, I sometimes just put my hand in my heart and just connect with your own heart. Sense while you're here, what matters to you. just offer some caring presence inward and notice what happens with even the intention to be kind. And sensing from that space of kindness who is here, sensing all beings that all of life is in your heart as you feel ready if your eyes are closed to open your eyes. and you can smile if you'd like or not, but just to sense how, just on a biophysical level,

smiling affects the vagus nerve, which actually quiets the fight-flight reaction. It nurtures a more integrated heart-mind, so I love the power of smiling. And even when I'm not in a mood, if I smile when it gets me in the mood, I read not so long ago this research about heart cells. They take heart cell from different people and put two heart cells, let's say, together in a petri dish.

And in time they tune in together and find a common beat, this rhythm of an enlarge belonging. And I love that. I mean, imagine for a moment what can happen when we bring our full hearts, undefended, open together, that if a whole group like us just up-levels our attention to love and belonging a bit, the resonance field, because that's what love is. Love is the felt sense of belonging, that we're part of something larger, you know, are made of the same star stuff, the same pure sentience. And part of what gathers us here today is that we so regularly cut off from that realization, and especially when humans get stressed.

When we feel endangered, when we feel someway threatened, we contract. We go right into that regress, fight, flight, freeze where our hearts are armored and we're not able to find that common beat. And to our survival brain, it means something bad's happening. I often think of this story of this woman in a job interview. And the interviewer says, well, tell me, what do you think your biggest character defect is?

And her response is honesty. And he goes, honesty? You know, I wouldn't consider honesty a defect. And she immediately says, I don't care what the hell you think. And I love it just because we know that when we're insecure and when somebody else triggers that, which happens often, they stop being a part of our heart. In some way they become an other. they're less real and often they're in some way bad.

So if we look at the suffering of our world, which is where we're going, it's this, that we have forgotten our belonging. We get identified as separate. It's us, them. It's really the root of all violence. And I often think of this evolutionary perspective that, you know, fear regresses us into us and them. and we have this natural capacity, this potential, like those heart cells, to realize a larger belonging.

You know, just thinking of this yoga master who wrote down the words on a big white sheet of paper, illness and wellness. And he was asking his students, what's the difference? And he circled the eye of illness and the W-E-E-E-W-W-W-Nness. Okay, so the given is. When we're stressed, we contract, we regress. And that's what's going on now in these current times in a really big way. I think a lot of it has to do with that our nervous systems detect that the life of the

planet's threatened. You know, even if our brains don't compute it and we don't do anything about it, we detect it. And then there's the unfelt grief and it turns into fear and aggression. and there's global migrations going on, economic instability, as Willam named tonight in the United States. We have this debate. And we know how huge numbers of people are watching and rooting, not just rooting for their candidate,

but feeling the other with some sense of contempt, the language of culture of contempt, that really gets to me, because it speaks a lot to the violence that comes out of dividedness. So it feels like the most important inquiry we could have. It's like how do we bridge divides? You know, what is going to help us foster belonging?

And it's really one for each of us. Because what comes so clear to me is that we all have ways of creating separation. And if we could each commit to deepening our attention in ways that bridge divides, each of us can do it in our personal life, it builds a capacity in our collective consciousness. I hope that resonates because it feels to me personally, I have to keep paying attention to it. Here's a story, because I feel like we have to do it in our personal life that's recent for me, that there are two women that are part of our meditation community, and I've known them for a long time, a mother and a daughter, and they hadn't talked for eight years.

Okay, so they're both meditators. They both are pretty awake in a lot of ways. They're helpers in the world. And yet there's generational trauma. And it played out between them, these very painful hurts. And so there was a huge divide. And daughter felt it was too painful to be with her mother in person. So it was strange men, and with all the limitations around grandchildren visits,

really very painful, a lot of anguish. Well, finally, recently, that year ago, the daughter started seeing things replay with her daughter and she realized the pain of separation, like what the dividedness was doing. And so she started doing these inner practices to be with her own pain and vulnerability. She was doing the rain practice, which is a self-compassion practice. So she started getting in touch with the hurt underneath her. anger. And I'm sharing this because the beginning of disarming, if you want to disarm in your life, it requires touching vulnerability, this willingness, its courage to feel. So she did this for a while

and last year she felt strong enough, she was able to hold her own pain with care that she could reach out and they talked and they each started sharing what's been so hard and they listened and they cried together. And they left agreeing they wanted to repair. And they weren't naive. They knew it would take time. And since then, they've met a number of times. And I'm going to come back to this in a bit,

but I want to just say that the daughter emailed me right after that first meeting. And what happened was I just broke down weeping. And part of me, it was like really sobbing. And I just let myself sobbed. but then when I realized it's just so much pain in their separation, you know, watching close in, witnessing it. And how much I yearn in my life for reconciliation for myself, for all beings. It's like it's such a deep yearning in us.

At the end of our life, looking back, we're just going to want to have had those tender moments with others. and we yearn for it for our world. We evolve our heart and consciousness. We begin to repair when we can do two things. And one is to see in our own lives how we're creating bad othering, separating from others, demeaning sometimes, dehumanizing. And the second thing is to register this causes suffering and to be willing to touch our vulnerability.

So that first element, you know, really getting divides, cause, suffering. For me, it was in my 20s and I was very much a social activist. I was doing community organizing, going to rallies, kind of raising my fist up against the enemies that were landlords and police and conservative political leaders. And I was kind of a leftist that was along with everybody else. we were very strident. It was very us in them. I remember the calling police pigs. And I say that

now and it's like, oh my gosh. Not that I have anything against pigs. I mean, I'm actually very concerned for pigs, but just the intention of demeaning. I think you understand. Really dehumanizing. And so there I was

doing that and then I was going to yoga classes once a week and it was like, I go to these yoga class and I remember one time coming out of the yoga class and walking, it was a beautiful spring evening and standing still and finding that my body and my mind were in the same place at the same time. That was really precious. And then when I opened up my attention, I could just sense this longing and care for our world that everybody was included. Everybody. And I realized in that moment that this is what's needed to bring healing, this quality of heart and consciousness,

and that the fist, you know, flailing my fists up angrily, was just participating in the violence. And then I moved into an ashram for 10 years, a spiritual community, and over the decades, I've come back into being much more activists. and I want to say quite humbly that I still over and over again have to reckon with the deep conditioning to make a bad other and to be in my mind contributing to the violence and to over and over again get that the only way there's going to be healing is if we care if we're compassionate for all that are suffering.

So, I wouldn't just invite you to check for a moment and sense what I'm calling bad othering means really sensing that the other is in some way inferior, less moral, less ethical. And if you think of your political views for a moment, you know, your political party or your views on Israel and Pakistan, along with creating divides, there's a sense of being right, and others are wrong, and that wrongness has badness to it. And you might just sense if that's there, not to judge it. Because we think society's thoughts, we're just trained that way. Where might you be in some way demeaning or putting down others?

So we're going to do a brief practice with this. And then you might ask yourself the same for anybody in your personal life. When we do this, it takes a real effort. Like we have to pause and pay attention. Now, there's a story I want to share with you about this camp in rural New Jersey where 22 teenage girls from Israel and Pakistan, some years back gathered for two weeks to do just what we're talking about, to be able to face how they were othering and step beyond it.

and they did this process of compassionate listening, which is just what we're talking about, where they'd actually listen and let themselves feel vulnerability. And even though they had volunteered for the program, they're initially very mistrustful of each other, sometimes overtly hostile. But I want to, you know, the basic felt sense was,

you're my enemy, a danger to my life. So one of the descriptions of a waking up was when a Palestinian girl was telling the others about how an Israeli soldier had barged into her family's house, beaten up everybody, and then after finding out that they were in the wrong place, just left. No apology, nothing. And then an Israeli team repeated the story in the first person and included the feeling she would have had. This is letting ourselves feel the vulnerability. And afterwards, after the Israeli retreat, told the story, the Palestinian girl began to weep and she said, my enemy heard me. My enemy heard me. And the two girls

cried, became close friends. One Israeli girl put it this way, she said, if I don't know you, it's easy to hate you. If I look in your eyes, I can't. We can't always go to a camp. We don't always have that kind of a contact with others. but the possibility of disarming is something that each of us has. I saw in 2014, New York Times has these portraits of reconciliation that were taken from the genocide in Rwanda. Please look, just look it up if you have a chance.

It just made me cry with a sense of possibility. And okay, so one of the pictures has a man, Francois, who's the perpetrator and a woman epiphanate. It's the survivor. I want to read you their words. Francois said, because of the genocide perpetrated in 1994, I participated in the killing the son of this woman. We are now members of the same group of unity and reconciliation. We share everything. If she needs some water to drink, I fetch some for her.

There's no suspicion between us, whether under sunlight or during night. I used to have nightmares recalling the sad events I've been through, but now I can sleep peacefully. And when we're together, we're like brother and sister. She says, he killed my child and then came to ask me for pardon. I immediately granted it to him because he did not do it by himself. He was haunted by the devil. I was pleased by the way he testified to the crime instead of keeping it in hiding because it hurts if someone keeps a crime, he's committed against you.

Before, when I had not yet granted him pardoned, he would not come close to me. I treated him like my enemy. But now, I would rather treat him like my own child. Bill Hooks writes, the moment we choose to love, we begin to move towards freedom, to act in ways that liberate ourselves and others. Choosing love isn't easy, though. So, take a moment to pause. will just do a very short inner reflection, one that you can continue it on your own and deepen.

Take a few full breaths and please choose a situation where you know that you bad other someone. It could be an individual in your personal life or it might be a group of people of difference or a particular leader, something to do with difference in views, behaviors, politics, religion, race, whatever, but that brings up your anger and your aversion. So, focus in. Imagine one person and imagine what it is that triggers the bad othering. And ask yourself, when this is going on, what am I believing about the person or about what's going to happen and what am I feeling? And see if you can let go of right and wrong and just go right

into your body and sense what am I most unwilling to feel? Where's the vulnerability? If you weren't blaming, what would you have to feel? Is it fear? Hurt? What's difficult to feel here? And I invite you if you are comfortable to put your hand on your heart and just offer a very kind presence to what's there. whether it's fear, hurt, grief, or powerlessness, that's a big one. And just sense with your hand on your heart the warmth of care, of bridging the inner divide, that you're intimate with the vulnerability that's here. There's kindness, there's care that's holding that. So that if you widen your view and looked outward, you could sense this other

and ask that same question behind the behaviors behind behaviors that cause suffering, they're suffering. What's that person's vulnerability? And is it possible to sense them as a maybe traumatized, hurting, fearful member of our human family? Is it possible to perceive them as parents or children

or siblings or friends who, like you, want to feel safe, valued, loved? just notice what happens when you let your heart be touched by this larger reality. Staying connected with your heart. Again, feel the breath. Nelson Mandela says no one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin or his background or religion. They must learn to hate. And if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love. For love comes more naturally to the human heart than the opposite. these cells can find their common rhythm.

We can belong. Okay, friends, please open your eyes if they're closed. And thank you for your attention and the courage for going inwardly. Bless you. And my dear beloved Roshi Joan, you are on. Tara, thank you so much. I needed permission to unmute, but also in a certain way, We're together asking of ourselves and each other, do we have the support to unmute our heart in the midst of so much polarization and conflict?

And I think in this regard, I had a huge wake-up call when I was working many years ago in the penitentiary of New Mexico on death row and max. maximum security, only with men who had murdered other people, children, their parents, strangers, other gang members. I had such a powerful experience of letting go of othering, of rehumanization, of not turning away from the incredible suffering that these men had brought into the lives of others, but also the suffering that they experienced in the states of mind and heart and body

and in their lived experience that had given rise to so much violence. And at this time, there was a vice president I found particularly loathsome. and it was very interesting for me to be in a state of moral dissonance where I could really touch into both the suffering and the horror of the men that I was working with and rehumanize them, see them in a wide spectrum of their lives. their deep lives, lives that were often rising out of the grave social and economic disparities in our society. But why couldn't I bring that same sensibility to our vice president at that time? And in a kind of feeling thought experiment, as I was sitting with this dissonance within me,

a kind of not just cognitive but sort of moral dissonance. I asked myself since I spent so many years coming alongside dying people. If I were asked by someone to sit with this man as he was dying, would I? And of course, I said internally, yes. And when that yes came out, of me, another question arose, can I see that this man once was a baby, completely vulnerable?

And of course, yes, came out of me. And it was in that moment a kind of pivot happened, which was to see his state of mind, as I had experienced it in the political realm and in the social realm, to see it as suffering, just as I had seen the suffering of the man on death row with whom I'd been working. And I realized that it was a complete lack of imagination that allowed me to not see beyond my biases, beyond the kind of stereotyping that had guided much of my social and political life where polarization were not belonging

and those who were othered who did not belong in my end group were considered to be in my or pre-conscious experience a threat to me and I really began to value the role of imagination as a way to look more deeply at my life and at really the lives of others,

that this lack of imagination in a certain way, as we see it today, has allowed political entities, corporate entities, educational entities, racial entities, to colonize our thinking, our feeling, our views in a way that we've allocated our imagination into others, the others that seem to hold power in our society. And in a certain way, we need to take back our imagination. I remember reading something that, Tan Jeff Tanisarubiku wrote

he said what made the Buddha special was that he never lowered his expectations he imagined ultimate happiness one so free from limit and lack that it would

leave no further desire a need for more And then he treasured his desire for that happiness as his highest priority. And extending that thought of Tan Jeff, I would say that in addition to one's own happiness, the question arises, I think, for all of us, do we have the imagination to actually allow ourselves to treasure the happiness not just, just for ourselves, but finding that energy and insight and wisdom within ourselves deeper than the threat, deeper than our secular identity in relation to the happiness of all

beings, the well-being of all beings. And yet in a certain way, we've been not only called. in a mind of poverty, caught in a kind of grip of narrowness, and this being caught in the grip of narrowness, of polarization, of othering, is in a certain way very much rooted in our ability or lack thereof to open up this capacity to imagine. to imagine deeply. So I want to share a story. It's not as recent as the beautiful story that you shared, Tara.

It was a story shared by Roshi Norman Fisher. This happened some 80 years ago, but there's so many lessons that have come out of the Second World War. and it's about the French poet, Robert Desnos. And I just have to thank Norman and also Susan Griffin for finding and capturing the story. Because for me, it is about the power of imagination to create a radical shift in the midst of suffering.

So in the midst of the midst of, of World War II, Desnos, who was a poet and a Jew, he joined the French underground resistance movement in the fight against Nazis. And unfortunately, he was captured. And he was sent from one concentration camp after another. And then one day, Desnos was herded with other men in the camp into this crowded truck that was transporting prisoners from the barracks. And the men, they knew. They knew where they were going because they had witnessed trucks leaving the barracks full and returning empty.

And of course, the destination, it was the gas chambers. It was the ovens. And in that truck, as it was moving, no one in the truck spoke. The move was resigned. It was completely stricken and the eyes were lowered and the faces of the men were so grim. And then when the truck arrived at its terrible destination, these men slowly and silently descended, as if they were in some kind of terrible dream. And the guards were silent, and the guards were unable to escape the prisoner's state of mind.

And there was almost a kind of religious silence, but suddenly it was interrupted. Desnos wildly jumped up. grabbed the hand of the man behind him. His nose almost touching the man's hand. His body was coiled tight with energy, and he began to read the man's palm. And he said, I'm thrilled for you.

You're going to have three children. You're going to have a beautiful wife. You're going to have wealth. It's so fantastic. It's so wonderful. And his excitement was contagious. And then one man after another in shock and a kind of bewilderment thrust out his hand and then another hand and another.

And each one received a kind of similar prediction of long life, of children, of beautiful surroundings, of peace, of happiness, of joy, of success and so forth. You know, it takes a poet with imagination. And then Desdaos reading one poem after another. And slowly but slowly, drop by drop, the atmosphere of the moment began to change. And then as if in a kind of sudden breaking like a wave on the beach all at once,

the field was just completely transformed and prisoners were. smiling and they were laughing and they were clapping one another on the back and their burden was lifted and their reality was really transformed imagination. But the guards were also affected. I mean, really like the prisoners, they too had been living in a dark spell in which forcing men to slaughter had become completely. completely normalized, had been acceptable to them. But now with this absurd event, a kind of evocation of an alternate reality, that spell was broken. The guards were confused.

The reality that they'd been living a moment ago had been suddenly cast into death. they weren't sure what was real and what wasn't real. And maybe something also touched their better natures. That had long been suppressed in this effort to conform to the Nazi madness that find the world, that it had been numb to grief. numb to guilt, numb to horror. And all this in a way was stirred by this poet's completely absurd, but maybe not absurd act.

And they were so undone, according to the story, that they really didn't know what to do. They couldn't go through with what they were ordered to do. so they marched the prisoners back into the truck and sent them back to the barracks. Imagination. Unprescribed imagination, unbounded imagination.

These men were saved from execution, including Desnos. I want for us to take her imagination back. We are living at a time of, even no matter what side we're on and the right and wrong equation that operates within our moral universe right now. I really want us to take our imagination back from those influences external to us, but also our conditioning. And in this regard, I think, of my old friend John Paul Lederach,

who has done extraordinary work in the field of conflict transformation, working in places where conflicts like Nepal and Somalia, Northern Ireland, Colombia, Nicaragua, all these issues related to direct and systemic violence that are really

primed by othering and by the absolute lack of sane and brilliant imagination. John Paul has talked about different kinds of imagination, and I'm just going to mention them quickly, so we have time for some back and forth, but he encourages us to actually cultivate the ability to imagine ourselves in a relational network. He calls this the grandchild imagination and he asks us this thing. Could it be that those whom are enemies, their grandchildren, could find themselves best friends in the future? Could we see things in that way? And then he talks about another capacity of imagination, and that's the ability to rest in not knowing. And what my our good friend, Frank Osteske, who always emphasizes the power of curiosity,

can we rest in openness in the field of ambiguity and actualize not only humility, but curiosity? in relation to what we feel are attitudes and behaviors that are fundamentally intractable. And then he talks about the imagination that allows us to actually see a different future. You know, so much of what we're experiencing not only in our country, but in countries around the world is a kind of toxic, prophecy, if you will, that we are marching toward in a way that is deeply unseen.

Can we actually imagine a different future and build toward that? And I think in this regard about the work that Rebecca Solnett and I have done around hope. And then the fourth kind of imagination that John Paul talks about is the imagination of risk. And that's not being attached to our outcomes and to be able to really sit with the unknown and to have the fundamental courage to reach through the differences between

oneself and others, much as Tara was describing of his mother and daughter. And to meet the unknown openly and with courage. So I think that's in terms of time. all I can say right now, but I want to just say that the profound value of practice in supporting us, in opening our eyes to the whole world so that we can see deeply into the truth of suffering, you know, to see the world in a different way, to have the moral imagination, to actually see our grandchildren and quotes their grandchildren meeting each other. So I invite us to bring your attention to your breath as we sit with a question or two and let the body settle and imagine a peaceful and a just future. And what will truly serve?

and making this happen and see what arises in your heart in these next moments. Thank you both so much. Thank you. We've had some really beautiful questions coming in that were guided by both of your inquiries.

And so the first, we'll bring Gabrielle on. And Gabrielle asked, I made an unskilful and judgmental comment in a group text with my husband's siblings and their spouses, who all have religious beliefs informing their politics that are very different from ours. I don't know how to apologize without seemingly capitulating to their views. Okay, Gabrielle, we'll ask you to unmute, and if there's anything you want to clarify about your question, please do.

Thank you for taking my question. Hi, Tara. Good to you. Yeah. So I think it was, I tried to state it as clearly as possible after long texts from many of the siblings in this family, a large family. And my husband and I are here and everyone else is there. And I tolerate and I tolerate and I listen and we write back, love you, love you. But it just became too much. I won't get specific about it. It's not necessary. And I just wrote a very flippant comment. You've got to be, you can't be serious or something like that. And everything shut down. And then a week or two later, my sister-in-law wrote a scathing email about how disdainful we were and especially me and on and on. And it was so hurtful.

and I've had enough practice so that I know, you know, what I'm supposed to be doing, how I'm supposed to forgive. But I'm having problem. I'm stuck. And in my stomach, in my gut, there's this agitation where it's so important for me to stick with my principles and be right. And yet my heart is broken. And I don't know how to get there. And I feel that if I make overtures, that I'm either going to have to accept everything that they say or they're not going to hear me. I don't know what to do. First, I'm really grateful that you brought this one in because it's the kind of place that so many of us get stuck,

that there are these differences, and they're just rooted in such strong emotion. So I guess it brings up some questions for you. The first one is if you're down the road, end of your life looking back, how do you want these relationships to be? What is it that most matters to you? And I am down the road. I mean, that's the thing.

Yeah. These are the tender years. I don't want the separation. Yeah. Just say a little more. Like, how do you want the relationships to be? Respectful and loving. Yeah. So when you imagine communicating something and having it have the impact that you would want, what's the impact?

Like, if you did write something now, what would you hope it would, the other, they would experience in receiving it? forgiveness and somehow not not blaming me i don't know i don't want to be blamed i i don't know it's tough um how would i want it to be received i don't i don't want to be threatened or... Right. So how do you want them to feel? When they get something from you, what is it you want them to feel stated and positive? That I'm sorry, that I'm sorry and that I hope that we have a better future, that we can overcome this somehow. Okay, so you want them to feel that you care about them?

Yes. That you care and that you want connection, right? Yes. So you might just stick with that. In other words, not try to go into the rights, wrongs, blame, and just say, you're feeling a lot of pain because of the separation. You care that your connection matters way more than the beliefs and that you're sorry. And I might add, if it were me, that I can understand how they would feel.

deride it in some way and that that really makes you sad that that's what happened. You know, because we do get that way. But I want to go slow here and say, how does that land? Just keeping it simple like that. It's certainly a start and I think it would probably be a successful effort. Feels like something I can do. So you're speaking truth basically. You're going to truth and you're speaking to

and you're trying to have an impact towards what matters to you. The only other thing I'd add, and this is where Roshi Jones' beautiful words really impacted me, is to imagine it. Imagine what can come out of this that's really, really good and get pulled towards that possibility of loving that's manifesting. Just imagine it. and Roshi Joan, I'd love to hear whatever you have to say on this one.

Actually, I have nothing more to add. I appreciate your questions so much, Tara, and also, you know, your openness, Rebecca, because we don't know how things will turn out. But one is, as Tara has suggested, It's imagining the most generative, the best outcome for all. And at the same time, knowing that anything will happen and developing the kind of resilience or openness or, well, I'm not sure of the word, but sort of, you know, anything could happen, including as the Desno story, you know, the men were not executed.

Your family did not turn against you. And it's holding it instead of holding tight to a vision that is not serving you or serving them. Thank you very much. Maybe take a big walk in the woods before you. That too. Walk in nature. Roshy Jones said the word resilience. and again, this is for all of us.

We don't know how it's going to go, and there may be a part of it where you feel the shutdown and not forgiving. Be really, really take good care of your heart. Just take good care of your heart because then you'll be able to keep on being undefended. Thank you so much. I'd like you opened all of our hearts.

Thank you. Okay, so our next and probably our last question, We might have a little more time is from Chad. And Chad asks the beautiful question of how does one get through to others who are lost in the trance of delusion, untruths, and hate? I'm going to defer to you, Tara. I was just hoping you would. Oh, no. That's a great and tough question.

Indeed. It's great and tough. So we'll weave. We'll both speak a little bit. what I heard you asking, I want to make sure I've got it right, is how do we respond when others are caught in delusion and the kind of delusion that causes suffering? Is that it? Yes. And I'm thinking specifically not only those who may not be on the spiritual path, but also younger people who are living in a different sense of reality, in some cases disconnected from nature, living completely online, and maybe getting information from.

alternate sources. I think the reason I'm really grateful that this is the question is that we are living, the scariest thing about these times is that we're living in siloed information zones that get reinforced by the degree of online activity and that when we're living in different realities, it's really hard to have those heart cells come together and have the wisdom that comes with that. What comes up for me, and I guess I would ask you, has anything that you've explored seem to make a difference, just a little bit of difference in terms of establishing

connection? I think, obviously, as you shared before, time together, face-to-face-time, whether it's taking a walk, going to lunch, communicating by phone, or in passing, just doesn't seem to work. But capturing the imagination, you know, through shared experience is, has been challenging because, you know, it seems that youngsters don't read like former generations read. And even watching a movie together can be challenging because the way that their brains seem to be prefer, you know, shorter modes of communication. So, but, but I just want to go on that track and say there's spirit, creativity, and heart's still there.

You know, the Buddha nature, the nature, the light, the shine is still there. And you're right, there's a lot in the society that covers things over. The thing that helps me the most is to know that if I can see their goodness, and if I can see that light, if I can see whatever ways that it manifests, if I can just feel my care, on some level I can imagine and expand that sense of their goodness and mirror back. Become a mirror of goodness wherever you can because it calls it out of people. There is something in them that wants to wake up and be free and be creative and live to that goodness. It's just a lot of societal conditioning. So you can be part of what calls it forward.

And trust in that. There's real power to it. Yeah. Thank you. So Tara, thank you. I think that the theme of imagination here is so present for us, you know, in terms of, as you're kind of suggesting, let me see. I can't see your name. Chad. What is it? Chad.

Chad. Okay, great. Somehow it's below the horizon of my access. the thing about the Desnos story is I have a feeling that Desnos didn't plan that intervention, so to speak. And part of it, I think that intervention was made possible, you know, really out of, in a certain way, being a poet and not kind of being caught in that which is obvious and prescribed. But there's another piece, and it comes out of John Paul Lederach's work, and that has to do with our commitment toward rehumanizing ourselves as well as others. And to looking at deeply the roots of why certain sectors of individuals have dissociated from our society and becoming part of the force that brings us back to the natural world, to our society. but most importantly to ourselves and each other.

And in Zen, our thing is warm hand to warm hand. You know, maybe you want to change a whole generation, but just connecting with one person who's out, so to speak, of connection with themselves or the world. One relationship, and again, this comes right out of John Paul's work and also my experience of working in the prison system. And I'd like to change the whole institution. It's an institution of violence that breeds violence.

But if I can connect warm hand to warm hand, this is my vision of when I was working inside with just one person. Transformation at some level, and it certainly happened within me. And it happened in a few cases. is possible. So find the scale that works for you that rehumanizes.

Thank you for your question. And Tara, thank you and our friends who are online. Very grateful. Yeah. So any final words, we're in a wrap up, my friends. And Roshi Joan, anything you'd like to say is. is a offering as we close up here? I think I have one thing, and that is the power of gratefulness.

Again, I go back to this notion of mind of poverty as though we are insufficient, we don't have enough. And I would really, I want to express my gratitude to you, Tara, and to the team, but also all of those who are online, that there is a force for good that is much bigger out there in the world, and I'm grateful for all of you. Well, thank you, dear, and so much gratitude to join together on this. And to all of us here, I love the word imagination. And thank you for bringing that alive. if we all could imagine that we belong to a larger movement of consciousness and heart

that we're really part of something and that something is intrinsic and beautiful and by nature can help the world wake up we can be part of that awakening. So I'm feeling the same gratitude that you came that we're part of this together that we can imagine together, creating the world we believe in. And I want to just close with a little bit of a sharing with you that our hosts, Banyan, some of you are members, some of you are not. It's a community that just keeps bringing people together in a really beautiful way. And I was part of co-founding it because really feel like the deepest need is that we have places of connection.

like in the moments that we feel belonging, we have access to all of our wisdom and all of our, you know, all of our creativity. So it's a community that brings connection with each other's, peers, with teachers. It's a place to deepen practice. You know, I see people join Bannon and their practice gets way more deep and stable. For those of you that are interested in exploring Banyan as a community, You can sign up for a 14-day trial for free. And there's a link in the chat. You'll see it there.

I hope you do. It's one of the warmest and most authentic and supportive places that I've ever encountered online. Yeah. So again, dear ones, thank you so much for being with us today, sending love and blessings to each of you.