Tara Brach - The Space of Presence

Episode Date: November 9, 2011

2011-11-09 - The Space of Presence - The perception of "there's not enough time or space" in life blocks our natural capacity for intimacy, creativity and wisdom. Pausing and connecting with the space of presence transforms our entire experience of being alive. This talk explores the pathways that reveal the space that is always here, the awake and loving space of our own awareness. Please support this podcast by donating at www.tarabrach.com or www.imcw.org. Your donation makes a difference! Thank you!

I wanted to start tonight with a brief story. Given the time of year, one student fill into a cycle of classes of studying and working and sleeping and intense stress and didn't realize how long he had neglected to write home until he received the following note. Dear son, your mother and I enjoyed your last letter, of course we were much younger then and more impressionable. Love dad.

So I share that because for many of us, this is a season that feels like things are speeding up fast. That, you know, we're kind of, everything's racing through school, through school semesters, towards the holidays. So the currents of life are in full tilt, and it's not just students, as you know, it's parents getting their kids to school and so on. And I shared some months ago about one woman. who described in her busyness, she was trying to get her daughter out of the house, and her daughter was trying to show her something, and every time her daughter would call her over, she'd say, well, just hang on a moment. I'll be there in a second. So finally, her daughter came out of her room, and she was tired of waiting, and she said, you know, hands on hips, why are you

always so busy? What's your name? Is it President Omama or something? So she said she was called out by her four-year-old. So I share this because along with the speediness is a perception, which is there's not enough time. And it's interesting to observe how often we are living with that perception. There's not enough time. And with that, there's this squeeze where we sense and I don't have space in my life. I don't have space in my life. And the expression of it is there's an anxiety. I'm not going to be prepared. There's something around the corner that is going to be too much. I'm going to fall short. I won't get something critical done. You know, so there's this sense that we're on our way somewhere else and that what's right here is not the time that matters. We're kind of trying to get to the time that, you know, we get things checked off the list. Then we can rest. And, you know, and as long as that's our mental. we're really racing towards the end of our life. It becomes a real habit of being on our way

and never discovering the space that is here if we learn to stop, learn to slow down, learn to touch in. So I have always resonated with this description of Thomas Merton. He describes the rush and pressure of modern life as a form of contemporary violence. Of contemporary violence. He says to be surrendering to too many demands

and too many concerns is to succumb to this violence. And I often am just kind of one of the wake-ups is this in the Chinese script how the word for busyness and the word for heart killing are very similar in that script. Heart killing, meaning our hearts get squeezed.

When we're not in that openness, we're not able to be in a resonant field with others. We get tight, we get small. So tonight I'd like to explore this. I'd like to explore how we can choose to pause and how we can discover and rediscover that space of presence that feels like it's not here. It feels like there is no space.

but how when we can discover it, there's a radical shift in our experience of being alive. When we touch into that space, we access a wisdom and a love and a creativity that are not available when we're on our way somewhere else. For most of us, that takes a commitment because our patterning is really strong and we'll explore a little bit about how come it's,

so strong to contract and be on our way. But I do find that when we hit a certain juncture and this kind of a wake-up, I have people that will talk to me then about a kind of despair that they feel they have been skimming the surface. They've been so in the habit of being on their way somewhere that there hasn't been a real sense of arriving. There hasn't been a real sense of intimacy or contact or our realness and the regret and I have described one woman who worked extensively in hospice described the main regret that she encountered with people that were dying was I wish I had had the courage to live a life true to myself not according to the expectations of others. And I think that's really powerful, that we are so in the habit of

being driven by certain expectations, ideas of how we should be, that we don't pause long enough to find out, well, what really matters? We don't arrive here. You know, the other major finding she had in working with those that were dying was the regret, I wish I hadn't worked so hard. They go together hand in hand. So for some it may be the sense of, you know, I have too much time on my hands, but either way, there's still a sense of something's missing in my life. I'm on my way to something else that hopefully will be better, but now's not the time. And for most of us, now is not the time because we have more to accomplish and more to do. We're not allowed to rest yet. So I read to you a poem that in a way I'll consider this as our metaphor for the evening.

It's a poem I love by Judy Brown. It's called fire. What makes the fire burn is space between the logs, a breathing space. Too much of a good thing, too many logs packed in too tight, can douse the flames almost as surely as a pail of water wood. So building fires requires attention to the spaces in between as much as to the wood. Building fires requires attention to the spaces in between as much as to the wood. When we are able to build open spaces in the same way we have learned to pile on the logs, then we can come to see how it is fueled. and the absence of fuel together

that make fire possible. We only need to lay a log lightly from time to time. A fire grows simply because the space is there with openings in which the flame that knows just how it wants to burn can find its way. What makes a fire burn is space between the logs,

a breathing space. So this feels like beautiful advice to us a kind of an invitation to pause and to find the spaces in our life that allows spirit to shine through. I then, you know, ask myself and I ask all of us, so what stops us? What makes it so difficult?

Because we know what happens. When we're in a rush, when we're in that busy mode and feeling stressed, the hardest thing in the world is to stop. You stop at everything in your body and your mind is still like charging forward, trying to get to and finish things and check things off the list,

and it's really physically uncomfortable to pause. Have you noticed that? Yeah. So what stops us is that we have behind the lines always in some level humming away in us an existential fear. There's some perception of our temporariness and some fear around what's around the corner is ultimately loss, loss of our own bodies, loss of other bodies, loss of what we love.

And that apprehension keeps us tense so that we spend many moments trying to defend against loss, trying to predict loss, in some way trying to occupy ourselves because when we're not occupied, we have to face the rawness. So in this culture, it is pretty aggravated. We have a, what many have called a death-denying culture, where we are hell-bent on dominating nature and putting a stake in the earth saying, I exist, you know, ideally forever. And we then try to kind of fight away any sense of vulnerability by continuing to grow and expand, and spend more money and buy more and do more and consume more. It's an addiction.

This is constant expanding and just moving faster and faster and faster. In some way, if we move fast enough, we'll beat the shadow of death that we always sense over our left shoulder as Don Juan, the shaman says. So what our culture admires? it admires the kind of people that are busy and larger than life in some way that stand out. So how we present ourselves to others, what we present is usually the doing self, the self that's out there doing things. I mean, how often have you been in some conversation? You know the basic inquiry is not the deep who are you, but the, well, what do you do?

And that's what we present? Some of you might remember the story of this man that was driving in the backwoods of Montana, and he sees a sign saying, talking dog for sale. So he rings a bell, and the owner appears and tells him the dogs in the backyard. And the guy goes in the backyard. He sees a really nice-looking Labrador retriever, just sitting there. You talk, he asks. Yep, the lab replies.

After the guy recovers from the shock of hearing the dog talk, he says, so, what's your story? The lab looks up and says, well, I discovered I could talk when I was pretty young. I wanted to help the government, so I told the CIA, in no time at all, they had me jetting from country to country, sitting in rooms with spies and world leaders, and, you know, because no one figured a dog would be eavesdropping. I was one of their most valuable spies for eight years running, but the jetting around really tired me out. I knew I wasn't getting any younger, so I decided to settle down.

I signed up for a job at the airport to do some undercover security, you know, wandering near suspicious characters and listening in. I uncovered some incredible dealings, and, you know, I was awarded a batch of medals. Got married, had a mess of puppies, and, you know, now I'm just retired. The guy's amazed. He goes back in and asks the owner what he wants for the dog.

$10, the guy says. $10? This dog's amazing. Why on earth are you selling him so cheap? Because he's a liar. He never did any of that shit. So it's a little bit of a strange idea of this, you know, we talk about human, or instead of being a human being or a human doing, and this is a canine doing, you know.

But the truth is that we do organize our sense of self and our activities around some notion, some expectation that more doing is better. We're safer if we do more. In some way, it's our protection against the shepherds. of death. Just keep busy. So we find that we have little time and little space. And just to acknowledge there are real demands on planet Earth and being human that we have to sustain some level of a lifestyle and shelter and food and support dependent. So this isn't pretending that, you know, at a moment's notice we could drop it all and give ourselves to

spacious living. And it also can be somewhat of a classist notion, you know, because some don't have the luxury. It's much, much harder to be able to find space. It's much easier if you don't have huge financial pressure. A lot of people dependent on us. But I can say that I've seen people from all walks of life, or many walks of life, let me say, I haven't seen all walks, but who realized this trance of have to do more, I'm on my way somewhere else, never enough time, and find ways of discovering breathing space. Find ways, because it's always here in the moments

if we know how to have the courage and the willingness to stop. It's here. So the wake up for most of us, you know, What brings us to meditation practice, what brings us to committing ourselves to presence, is that we find that in some chronic way we're missing out and we're hurting, that we're living in a kind of stressful lifestyle that precludes touching any real happiness. And there are a number of ways we discover this that our busyness is really dousing any sense of spirit

that we just don't feel a sense of soulfulness or spirit or expansiveness at all. And it happens in a few domains that really bring people to saying, okay, I'm going to commit myself to finding space, to stopping. And one of the big ways is that there's a lack of intimacy. There's no way if we're always speeding along and there's always a sense of got to do more

and there's no sense of space right here, no open-ended space, there's no way we can really contact others in a deep way. We're not there for the contact. I can't tell you how many parents have talked to me about regretting how they raced through the years with their children growing up. You know, or how many people I've had come and say, you know, that have been in a long relationship saying, I think it's too late.

I think the relationship kind of died on the vine, you know. We just didn't give it the attention. Because intimacy takes paying attention. We have to nurture and nourish our relationships. Doesn't happen when there's no space. When we're speeding along, we can't see who's here. We're in our human doing space suit. You know, I talk about the space suit self.

And what we see in others is the mass. We don't see who's under there. It says one woman went into a meeting. It was being held, and she let the folks in the meeting know that there was a clown outside. And one man asked, well, was it a real clown or just a person dressed up as a clown? I think that's a sleeper. But we know what it's like when we're hurrying around in Russia. We see two-dimensional beings.

We really see just the presentation, and we don't see who's there. And when we're looking that way at others, we forget what matters to people. Just the way our life matters to us, and we're afraid of many things. We live with fear, and we have a longing for feeling safe and feeling connection.

We forget that others are living with that, too. So I'm describing some of the, ways that the kind of wake-ups. I think another a really deep wake-up is that, and I have this happen a lot,

people saying, I just, you know, I'll do a meta or a loving-kindness practice or something. We'll say, you know, I just feel like my heart is a chronically closed heart.

You know, I believe in love, but there's not a real visceral sense of aliveness in that. Just the way we talk about compassion, but how often

often does our heart really feel that tenderness of really caring? Many of you might remember the example of the Good Samaritan study at Princeton, which I think so interesting that the seminarians were given two different possible stories to study. One was a Good Samaritan study and the other was a random Bible study, and the job was they were supposed to study and then go into another building and give a sermon on whatever they were studying. But on the way to the other building where there's supposed to, was to give their sermon, they were going to pass a person in a doorway who was moaning in

distress. Now, the question for the study was, you know, whether the seminarians would stop to help. And what they found out was that that was determined by how much time they felt they had before they had to give a sermon. And for those that felt like they didn't have very much time before they were due to give the sermon, they went right by the guy moaning in distress. and didn't matter that they were giving a sermon on the Good Samaritan story. I think that's really interesting. Our nervous system is deeply affected by a sense of not enough time. It sets off the sympathetic nervous system, fight-flight,

and fight-flight, our hearts get tight. Our limbs get a lot of blood. We're meant to run and move and so on. It's not the time we feel compassion. My own story on that, I went last month to teach in California, and I was teaching a day-long unradical acceptance and the practices of compassion and mindfulness. And I was going out on a Friday, teaching all day Saturday,

taking the red eye back, so I'd be back first thing Sunday morning because I was in the middle of a lot of busyness. So I took the flight out. My taxi driver was a man who couldn't speak much English, and I told him the place that I was going to where I was conference was, and a very well-known resort right outside of San Diego. But he looked kind of clueless. He didn't know where it was, and I got nervous,

but he convinced me I've got the GPS I can do it. So we get in the cab. It's a 20, 25-minute ride to get to this resort. about 45 minutes later, we were tooling around these business parks, and he just had no idea. And I finally suggested that it was probably the other side of the highway that we were on because the ocean was on the other side, and this I knew was on the ocean side. So he turns to go back the other way, but I realized that he turned onto the highway going against the traffic. So I see these lights, you know, kind of whizzing by me,

and then all of a sudden the light way up ahead changed, and they're all coming directly at us. And I said, got to get off this. And he takes the steering wheel, and he yanks it, and we go over the median, which was a slanted rocky median, bumping, bumping, bumping, down into the highway. Fortunately, there was nobody coming in the direction we were going.

The car stabilizes, and about five minutes later, we land up at the hotel. so I was shaking really a lot and so I got out of the car got my stuff and and then I was about to go in the hotel and he said aren't you going to pay me and I put my arm my hand on his arm I said you have to understand I can't pay you for that ride you know and he he very dejected kind of surrender because he kind of knew so I went inside and I went, you know, got my room and went up to my room and sat for a bit. And as I sat, you know, as things began to settle, I started including more and more of what was going on, you know, upset, afraid. You know, it was kind of traumatic. Sort of settling and some space opened up,

and all I could see was the look of dejection on his face. And this enormous remorse came up in me. and it didn't matter anymore that from most of the world's perspective I was probably right you know like it was fine not to pay I mean I could have been killed and not paid and that would have gotten paid

but you know but it didn't that none of that mattered because when I was in fight-flight there was no question it was like you know I was completely cut off he was not a human he was just the guy that didn't know what he was doing and almost got me killed but when I went up

stairs and settled down his dejected face was all that was there and I wept and I felt terrible. And I share this because in a way it happens a lot that we do things when we're when there's not space when we're in that kind of fight, flight, speediness, we say things and do things that we regret in our life. And it also happens that because we speed along in our life so much that we don't do the things that at the end of our life looking back we wish we would have done or we don't say the things to the people that are close to us that we wish we had said, like I love you, like you matter, like I see your goodness. So for me, this was yet another wake-up. In some sense, it had to do with, you know, when stress

overrides space, because that's what it does. When we lose the space because we're stressed, we become a contracted separate self. I'm separate, you're over there. Others are other. And they're unreal others. And in the moments that I said, no, of course I can't pay you.

And I said it was such composure and, you know, matter of fact. And my tone was just right. He was still other. but it wasn't until there was space that he became real. And I could see how I was in a separate self-space suit of the entitled righteous person. And I don't say that with pride. It feels really painful. But that's what was there when there was no space.

So the suffering of not having space and being stressed, is that we lose sight of who we are. We lose sight of the love and the awareness and the presence that's really our nature. And we live inside something smaller. And then our way of looking at each other is we see something smaller in others. So how do we wake up from that?

This is the last part of the talk, which is really how do we start paying attention in a way that, allows us to discover the spaces between the logs. So that really the flames, the flame of spirit can shine. And what we're doing here, this mindfulness training, where we notice what's happening in any moment that you notice what's happening, in that moment you're no longer hitched to it,

you're no longer identified, you in that moment of, oh, fear, oh, obsessive. of thought or thinking, you know, a squeeze in the chest. In the moment that you're aware, you become that awareness, you become that space that's larger than. So the meditation itself is the practice that wakes us up out of this sympathetic nervous system's kind of speediness. And what we find on a scientific level is that it stimulates mindfulness, stimulates the parasympathetic nervous system, which puts a break on the sympathetic nervous system. That's what's happening on some biological level, but we can feel it.

When we start naming, oh, this is what's happening right now. There's more space. But it doesn't happen right away. If you stop in the midst of busyness and start naming what's there, first you'll come to a layer of raw, perhaps anxiety. Because what happens is we're coming from virtual reality, from the thoughts that keep on kind of firing up the engine, you know. We're coming from the virtual reality of our thoughts into our body.

So first we have to contact the fears we've been running from. That's the first layer usually. But if we stay, if you have the courage to keep staying with what's here, in the practice of staying, you discover the space of presence. That's the gift of practice. Now there are ways that we can directly pay attention that help to link us or connect us or open us to that spaciousness.

And one example is the kind of meditation that I led tonight. And if you weren't here, if you're listening from podcasts or watching a video, Just you can get that on my website, tarabrock.com. But that meditation on open awareness begins to bring the attention to space itself, to the space that's inside these bodies. It's this awake space that's aware of sensation, to the space that's around us, and to that continuity of space that's really the very nature of awareness, spaciousness.

So there are a number of ways that you can pay attention in daily life that you can pause and redirect your attention to contact space and one of them is listening to sounds if you just start listening to sounds you'll sense the space they're happening just listening

if you imagine and send sky that will connect you Now why do these things work? Because awareness is space, is openness, it's already here. These are ways of directing your attention to what is already here. Let's practice a little. It's the best way. If you'd like to close your eyes, please do.

Just let your attention collect a little bit, just feeling the breath so you know you're here. One of the key ways of discovering the natural openness of awareness is to wake up your senses. To come out of thought, thought is always a contraction. When there's thoughts, the body is simultaneously in some way contracted. It might be subtle or it might be overt,

depending on the content of the thought. The only way to be free of that contraction is to wake up out of thought, and you might listen, the sounds. And as you listen, see if you can listen not just with your ears, but your whole awareness. Listen to the space in the room or whatever space you're in. Listen to more distant sounds.

Sense what happens when the sounds just wash through you with the same receptivity of listening. Just to open to and receive the sensations, this play of sensations, absolutely no resistance. Letting the whole universe of sensations wash through you. sounds, sensations, feelings, that everything happen without resistance. As you feel this aliveness and listen to this universe, the symphony of sound,

to sense the space it's happening in. It's the space of your own awareness. Everything you're experiencing is happening in awareness, arising out of the space of awareness. The Tibetans teach in the following way, they say utterly awake, senses wide open, utterly open, non-fixating awareness. Awareness is like a sunlit sky. The light is this wakefulness, this knowing moment to moment, and yet it can't be separated from the skylight quality of mind. This boundless openness.

that this life is playing in. So we can begin to train the mind to become familiar with openness by pausing and moving from thoughts to sensations. And you can do that in your formal practice of meditation and through the day you can stop and just say, okay, let me get back into my senses. And I really invite you as you explore this,

Maybe commit yourself to three times a day in the midst of some ordinary activity. And it might be getting the mail or washing the dishes or folding laundry. Just to do what you're doing but completely experience it through your senses. Taking a shower through the senses. Step out of thought and you'll find that you discover an openness in that presence as you contact the senses. Now sometimes you'll find that the mind is racing off and that your inner reactivity and your question will be then,

well, how do I get back to some openness and presence then? And I want to share with you a story that one woman sent to me, emailed me. Her husband titled this Sacred Pause. She just titled it Dashing Dog, which you'll understand in a moment. She said her Sheltie has won six prize, first prize, ribbons and obedience and is a lovely dog but when we go off to the off-leash park it's a whole different story if I'm not paying attention he'll spot another dog across the field and go dashing after it no amount of calling him will make

him stop we have coyotes in the area so this is potentially dangerous behavior what I find is that if I catch his attention in that split second between his ears going up when he sees the other dog and him starting his dash I can say fin stay and his focus is returns to the sights and smells right here at hand. And the same happens with me. If I'm paying attention, I can be aware of stimulus, and if I can be aware of the stimulus is about to trigger a strong reaction, and I can say, Janus, stay here, be here. And then this image of the dashing dog also helps me to see my own reactiveness in a kinder fashion, because even when Finn

is running away in reactive mode, he's so darn cute when he's in full flight. So if I don't manage to catch myself in time, I can just bring myself back instead of feeling the need to reprimand myself. This is Janice Hurlbert. So she's describing how in between the stimulus and the reaction or the response, there is a space. And in that space is our power and our freedom.

So when we're moving through the day, if we notice the reactivity is about to happen, pause. Pause. Say to yourself, whatever your name is, stay, come back. Come here. Breathe. Reopen your senses, because that will give you access to openness. So sacred pause. So we close with some of the blessings. What are the blessings of finding this space between the logs? What are the blessings? One of the most clear ones is we can actually be happy. There's no real happiness when we're in pursuit. Even if we get what we think we wanted,

the habit of pursuing the next thing or thinking something's missing will make it so that we can't enjoy what's here. Happiness comes from simple things. Have you noticed? And why is that? It's because it's not the thing. it's the quality of presence. When there's space,

we can enjoy amazing, infinite variety of things. I find for myself, I used to have these really strong ideas about what seasons I liked and what visual kind of parts of nature and landscapes I liked and, you know, favorite weather and so on.

And because my meditation now is pretty much every day outside, unless it's very, very wet, are very, very slippery, in which case I can still see the beauty in it, but I'm watched through a window. But what's happened is because I pause in midst of all these different conditions and get really present and open, it's so clear the beauty in all of them in every infinite version of this natural world. so we start cultivating this capacity to love what is when there's that space in the moment

and what I mean by love what is the coziness of our bed at night time it might be the coolness of the air other particularity of each person just their particularness we love it not we don't always like it but we love it because there's that presence I dream of a quiet man

who explains nothing and defends nothing but only knows where the rarest wildflowers are blooming and who goes and finds that he is smiling not by his own will so one of the blessings is this happiness that becomes available to us another one of the blessings is that if we have space then when we encounter the suffering that is in this world we're there to respond I think one of the biggest regrets many of us have is that we can kind of track the times that we've been with other people that are having a hard time and in some way we know we were preoccupied we just know it already occupied so our heart wasn't there to be touched so one of the gifts of this practice of finding space between the logs is that in all those moments that we encounter that natural suffering in

the world, there is a responsiveness and it's very natural that those folks about to do the Good Samaritan talk would have stopped. And I would have responded differently to that taxi driver and how many examples do we have in our own life that are something like that that teaching to be kind, you have to swerve regularly from your path. To be kind, you have to swerve regularly from your path. to be kind you have to swerve we can't just keep going on a goal-oriented way we have to swerve when we have that space in our beings

then when there's something a truth to stand up for in terms of social activism whether it's responding to some form of social injustice or if we know it's our time to support Occupy movement or in some way take a step for our environment that tenderness of heart responds with a wisdom and an intelligence

not with not with an anger not flailing our fists at the skies it's with intelligence with care and when we have that space of presence and we're with others

the love is visceral the love is real and not only that not only when we're with our child or our partner or our friend And it's not like we're skimming the surface anymore. These moments matter.

How many times have we been on a phone call or had met somebody for lunch or been in a situation where on some level we're on our way to the next thing? On some level we were protecting our time. We know that, right? When we have that space of presence, we not only sense our connection with other beings, we see past the mask, we sense a timeless kind of love. And I'll share a story that I was very moved by. This is Tikna Khan.

He says, the day my mother died, I wrote in my journal, A serious misfortune of my life has arrived. I suffered for more than one year after the passing away of my mother. But one night, in the highlands of Vietnam, I was sleeping in the hut in my hermitage. I dreamed of my mother. I saw myself sitting with her and we were having a wonderful talk. She looked so young and beautiful, her hair flowing down.

It was so pleasant to sit there and talk to her as if she had never died. When I woke up, it was about two in the morning and I felt very strongly I had never lost my mother. The impression that my mother was still with me was very clear. I understood then that the idea of having lost my mother was just an idea. It was obvious in that moment that my mother is always alive in me. I opened the door and went outside. The entire hillside was bathed in moonlight. It was a hill covered with tea plants and my hut was set behind the temple halfway up,

walking slowly in the moonlight through the rows of tea plants. I noticed my mother was still with me. She was the moonlight caressing me as she had done so often, very tender, very sweet. Each time my feet touched the earth, I knew my mother was there with me. I knew this body was not mine alone, but a living continuation of my mother and my father and my grandparents and my great-grandparents of all my ancestors. These feet that I saw as my feet were actually our feet. together my mother and I were leaving footprints in the damp soil so this is about waking up out of the

trance of time that we're on our way somewhere that we have something to lose and opening into timeless presence and in those moments you can find those you thought you had lost are in your heart they're always in your heart those moments we can't lose, all we can do is arrive in that sacred presence and inhabit it fully. So the deepest way that this discovery of space frees us is that we're really discovering who we are. If you want to understand the nature of awareness, you'll keep on coming back to these two basic qualities like the sunlit sky of wakefulness that you'll sense a wakefulness in your in your heart mind and space there's room for this universe this entire play of phenomena is arising out of that space

is known by that wakeful space we come home to that inherent wakefulness and openness that's our true nature so as i mentioned it takes practice it takes many many rounds of pausing It takes recognizing, oh, in my life, I've been piling on the wood too thick. That's simple. That if you leave here tonight, if you stop listening, if you're listening, and you just in some way can see how the piling on of wood, the creating so much activity in this mental activity has not left the space that actually allows you to touch into freedom.

That recognition will bring you to choosing to pause and to coming home again. So let's practice. Let's just quiet for a few moments together. And the invitation again is to come into your senses. Inhabit your senses. So that you're truly occupying this moment. Listening, listening, and sensing the silence

that's listening to sound. sensing the aliveness of sensation and sensing the stillness that's aware of this aliveness. Listening to this whole play of sound and sensation and feeling, letting it be as big and full as it is, utterly awake, senses wide open, utterly open, non-fixating awareness. Sensing this wakefulness and openness. this tenderness as your true home, your true nature. What makes a fire burn, this fire of spirit is the space between the logs. May we pause, may we pause in our lives. May we inhabit the spaces of presence that give rise to love,

to creativity, to happiness, to happiness, to feel. freedom. May all means be blessed to realize this freedom, this loving presence in the midst of their lives. Namaste. The talk 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, Thank you very much.