Tara Brach - Three Gateways to Peace and Freedom (2018-01-03)

Episode Date: January 5, 2018

Three Gateways to Peace and Freedom - This talk explores the three archetypal refuges of truth, love and awareness. We look at the outer and inner aspects of each refuge, and then through guided reflections and a Refuge Ritual, deepen our commitment to the pathways that awaken our minds and free our hearts. NOTE: Includes a Refuge Ritual at the end of the talk - if you'd like to participate, you'll need some red string. We use "Classic crochet thread, size 10 in red" about 36 inches per person. Sing along - the Three Refuges chant sheet is available at www.tarabrach.com/three-gateways-peace-freedom/. Your support enables us to continue to offer these talks and meditations freely. If you value them, I hope you will consider offering a donation at this time at www.tarabrach.com/donation/. With gratitude and love, Tara

Greetings. We offer these podcasts freely and your support really makes a difference. To make a donation, please visit tarabrock.com. Namaste and welcome to the first talk of the new year. There's a story of a diamond thief that I've always loved and he used to hang around the diamond district to see who was purchasing gems and at one point one of the most well-known diamond merchants came and he got a spectacular diamond and the thief set his eyes on him. And the guy boarded a train, the thief went right after him. There was a three-day journey and through the three days he kept trying to pick the

merchant's pocket and obtain the diamond. But he used all his best tactics and he just couldn't find it anywhere. So the end of the journey came. He was totally frustrated. He's an accomplished thief and he couldn't do his job. So finally he confronted the guy and he confessed. He said he'd use all the skills of his trade and he says, how'd you hide it from me?

And the response was, well, I saw you watching and I suspected so I hid the diamond and the place you'd be least likely to expect in your own pocket. And of course the teaching is that the treasure that we seek is closer than we we imagine that the treasure of our heart and awareness is right here and it's here all the time and our only mistake is to keep looking elsewhere for it. So I just got back from retreat and one man described his breakthrough in a really interesting way. He said, he came up to me, he said, I'm not learning anything new. And first I was thinking, uh-oh, you know, but then I realized to you saying, he said, I'm remembering. I'm remembering spiritual truths I've always known,

but I'm reconnecting with them. And in a way that really is how the path goes. There is nothing new. It's a reconnecting with our innate wisdom, our innate goodness, and learning to trust it more and trust it more. A lot of times the spiritual path is described as forgetting and remembering. And you know it in each of your days. I mean, we go through the day and we have these long stretches where we're not really with ourselves in a deep way. We're kind of lost in our minds rolling into the future and we're chasing after things

and trying to get more comfortable and getting through the day, you know. And then there's these moments where there's a kind of pause. and we just take in, oh, okay, another person. You might see the gleam in a child's eye or, you know, or in some way see the wind moving the trees and just, and something in us remembers that we're not trying to really get somewhere in life, we're trying to be here. And then we forget again really quickly. So, the purpose of spiritual practices and the purpose of spiritual practices and the purpose of the

purpose of the kind of thing we're going to do as part of this class, a ritual, a creative ritual, a living ritual, is to help us remember, to help us come back to what really most matters. And there's a saying I love from Thoreau, which is that we spend our life fishing only to find it wasn't fish we were after. So through the day, you know, we get so riveted on things and what is it we really want? In Buddhism there are three related gateways to remembering and they're really archetypal gateways. They're described as refuges and what that means is that their refuges, their ways home to what's

ultimately the place of our freedom. And the gateways are found really in many, many different face and paths that I've run into. And so we're going to explore them tonight and we'll explore them through the talk and then as a living ritual how do we turn towards these gateways of freedom over and over again in our lives so that we have a way in the day that's really practical, that we really can come back and remember and not feel like we're kind of skating through the surface or racing to the deadline or home, you know, we're trying to in some way get somewhere and what's the final place. Well, okay, we die, but then we weren't around for our lives.

So how to actually drop in? If you are listening online and you want to do the ritual with us, what you'll need is a 20-inch cord, it's a thread, and you all should have them on your chairs, some sort of a thread or a cord, and ideally have a person with you so you can help each other with the ritual. But right now, you don't have to worry about it. We'll get to that a little bit later. The word refuge has been a meaningful one to me. When I wrote my book True Refuge, I basically organized it around these three arctipal gateways because they give us a way to move from being trapped in an egoic trance, feeling like a small self, a separate self, a limited self,

to a homecoming to really live from our full potential so we can love without holding back and we can be creative and we can really feel fully alive. So what are they? The first of the three refuges, and the traditional order is a little bit different, but they're completely interdependent, so I'm going to give you the order I think it's helpful to practice with. The first refuge, which in Buddhism is called Dharma, is refuge in truth, the truth of the present moment. It's basically taking refuge in the here and now. It's like no matter what happens, if you can just nail your attention right to the moment, moment, you can find the space and the freedom you need to respond to whatever comes

up in your life. So the first refuge is the truth of the present moment and there's some expansions on that that I'll get to but it's really the path that's right here. The second of the refuges is love. It's refuge in the truth of our connectedness. the reality of belonging together. And the third is an awareness, taking refuge in that pure and formless consciousness or awareness that's our home.

So we'll do these one by one. I'll review them with you and we'll actually, I'll really invite you to sense how is this alive in your life. One of the words I find helps me as I reflect on these refuges and it was part of what wove together the book True Refuge. In Polly there's a word Sida and it means faith and the translation is to rest your heart in what is true. So when we take refuge it's kind of a surrendering or resting our heart in truth, giving ourselves to what is true. So I just find that a beautiful expression. The first thing in moving towards true refuge, these

refuges that truly carries home is to catch on to how we every day, 10,000 times a day, take false refuge. And false refuge isn't like bad. You know, you've done something terrible. False refuge just means that you're pursuing something that in the long run doesn't bear fruit. It doesn't actually work. It gives you a temporary relief. But it's really important to catch on to what are our false refuges because as long as we do them they obscure true refuge. In other words, you can't turn to the truth and feel an open to the present moment if you're pursuing a false refuge of over-consuming food or sleeping too much or lying. You know, so it's like you have to kind of recognize your strategies.

I often think of it in terms of the development of the brain that when we're pursuing false refuges we're being driven by our survival or limbic brain. We're just at the mercy of the parts of our brain that are telling us this is dangerous and you need to put up barriers. This is something you want, grab it. It's that part of the brain. And it's a very natural and basic part of our psychology. In fact, Buddhist psychology and Western psychology basically describes this very strong conditioning

that every one of us has, that when something pleasant arises, we try to hold on. And when something unpleasant arises and we get scared, we go like that. So in a way what we're doing is evolving our consciousness so that we don't obey the reflexes of our limbic brain. And instead are really operating out of what's called a more integrative brain or heart-mind. the more recently developed part of our psyche that knows how to be mindful and has the tenderness of compassion, lets us turn towards true refuge. Just to catch on to our limbic brains better, one of the main strategies of the limbic brain

and the way the brain perceives it is if only mind, which is that we move through a lot of our day thinking, well if only I had that, then I could be happy. So the limbic brain misunderstands what will bring happiness. You know, it thinks, the limbic brain thinks that if only I get this and this and this done, then I can really relax, you know, and it's never true. And the limbic brain thinks, you know, if only I can get this person to change how they're treating me, then I'll be happy. Or if only I get the right partner, if only I get my partner to change, or you get the idea,

That's if only mind. There was a bunch of years ago, like when I was in my 20s or 30s, I realized that when people would comment to me on how busy I was, I felt a sense of pride. Like in some way, busyness meant that I was doing important, worthwhile things and accomplishing and it gave me this temporary fleeting sense, just like every time I check something off the list, it was kind of a drug. kind of, that was my fix. And as I often now I'm aware, it lasts, you know, maybe 3.5 minutes or whatever before the mind fixates on the next thing to check off the list. But what

became really clear over the years is that when I'm resting in a real sense of intrinsic goodness are worth, it has nothing to do with accomplishments. Really? And the moments that I'm pursuing accomplishing to feel better about myself, I'm not really feeling that intrinsic goodness. In fact, any inflation like feeling of, you know, that kind of thing, our deflation is a million miles away from really trusting basic goodness. It's an if only and it never works. So with false refuges the hook is that were caught on the substitutes, approval, accomplishment, competing, comparing to others. There was one woman in her 60s, I think, and she, this was a few years ago, after a retreat she told me about her striving and she said that, you know, she had spent her lifetime with never enough.

and at that retreat she said I touched some moments of enough just as I am and deep peace and then she got really sad and she said why did I have to spend so many years trying to prove myself and compare and compete and be something how come I to spend all those years and I think of that that's the going fishing

We do spend years and decades on that track of what we think will bring happiness. In the same way, we do it in resisting unpleasantness. We have our strategies, whether it's distracting ourselves or numbing ourselves with too much food or obsessing or anger. Big one is judgment. I was teaching a true refuge workshop. out and one person was describing this being hooked, her false refuge was chronically blaming her partner for being so too busy and for not really being in touch with his feelings and communicating with her. And so we did a process I often do which is if you had to stop blaming, in other words

put aside the story you're wrong, what would you have to feel? What is it? it that's difficult to feel? In other words, her false refuge is blaming, what happens if you stop that? What would you have to feel? And then her response was that everything was out of control. I wouldn't have any way to control things he'd never change. I'd always feel separate and I'd always feel rejected. Then I said, well, does your strategy work? Does the blaming make you feel more loved and more contacted and so on. And, you know, she shook her head sadly because our false refuges don't work. So we use them to control things. We use them to try to get people to be different, get ourselves to be different, and use them to feel superior to others. One story,

a Taoist master was sitting naked in his mountain cabin meditating and a group of Confucian decided they were going to hike up to set him straight because they thought it was really a very poor and improper way to be conducting himself. So they go up the mountain and they're going to lecture him. And they see him sitting naked and they're shocked, although they already knew it because that's why they were going up to talk to him. And so they say, well, what are you doing sitting in your hut without any pants on?

And he said, this entire universe is my hut. This little hut is my pants. what are you guys doing inside my pants? You know, there's a saying that the world is divided into those who think they're right. And that's the whole saying. But you can see it, again, we're talking about false refuge on a personal level, but then you can see it on a societal level.

The false refuge of blaming and trying to be superior and thinking others or others judging, the tribalism that is makes others not so real. With tribalism it's like we're the ones and others are less than human which then leads, if so much less than human you feel like you can hurt them and abuse them. It's what leads to violence, to racial injustice,

to genocide as we're seeing with Rohingya because they're considered less than real, less than human. and I speak a lot about with animals they're less than human and then we stop recognizing them as sentient beings that our hearts would include and kind of turn a blind eye to how every day hundreds of millions of animals in this country

are being tormented in factory farms so these false refuges of making less than and create tremendous suffering. So the deep inquiry is, okay, we know we have our strategies and every one of us has ways of blaming and judging and avoiding and oversleeping or overeating or whatever we do. So the big inquiry is how do we really seek a true satisfaction in life? How do we really find happiness?

You know, if we really looked at the ways we go about it daily, we'll find they don't work. So how do we really do it? And this was the Buddha's inquiry. And for the Buddha, it's really the inquiry of all spiritual seekers. You know, what really brings happiness and peace? So these three refuges are where the Buddha turned. And the first refuge, it's in the Buddhist tradition, refuge in the Dharma, are truth. there's outer refuges and inner refuges.

So as you reflect on this, because we're going to be doing a ritual with it, your outer refuge in Dharma or truth would be your way of learning about the path, the ways that you might use the practices of meditation, the ways you might listen to talks, the ways you might use prayer, the ways you might explore the teachings, the ways you might contemplate, whatever you do, activity-wise, it helps you to be more present. That's considered taking refuge in the Dharma, coming to classes, going to retreats. That's refuge in the Dharma, in the truth.

The inner is paying attention right to this moment. Refuge in the Dharma is learning to pause and say, well, what's happening inside me right now? learning to go from the story into the energy that's right here. Charlotte Joko Beck says, return to that which we have spent a lifetime hiding from to rest in the bodily experience of the present moment even if it's a feeling of being humiliated, of failing, of abandonment, of unfairness. So there's that inquiry, what am I unwilling to feel? You can even ask that right now.

It's like, what am I willing to feel? And we can sense that there's sometimes this agitation that's between us and presence. And yet why do we spend time with agitation? Because if you bring your attention to the present moment, you become the presence that includes the agitation and then you discover the space and you discover the awakeness and you discover the awakeness and heart that's really home. But you have to be willing to be with what's here. So that's refuge in the Dharma and there's a wonderful cartoon where you have Swami Satchananda on his surfboard and he's riding the waves and the caption goes, you can't stop the waves

but you can learn to surf. Come meditate with Swami Satchananda and on and on. Refuge in the present moment is learning to surf. The waves keep coming but you find that balance, that presence. It takes patience. There's really deep conditioning to leave which is why we practice over and over again coming back because you'll just notice it. We want to leave. We all have the reflex to complain about what's here, not like what's here in our inner life. Because life doesn't cooperate. It just does what it does. We're trying to find a relationship to it. A novice is introduced to her new cell in the monastery and she's told, this is silent practice, no speaking at this monastery and she's given an interview once every five years with Mother Superior.

When she has that interview, she's only allowed to say three words, okay? So five years passed and at the interview Mother Superior says, how are you doing my child? And the novice answers, bed too hard. So Mother Superior says, well, just keep practicing and praying. Five more years past, they meet again. Mother Superior asks how she's doing. The novice says, food is bad.

Again, Mother Superior says, keep practicing, keep praying. Next interview, it's been 15 years. Mother Superior asks how she's doing, and the novice says, she's no longer a novice, actually. She says, I quit now. Mother Severe looks at her and says, I'm not surprised you've done nothing but complained since you got here. So we tend to, you know, with the unpleasantness, push it away rather than come into presents.

I was thinking about us, you know, preparing to speak with you about my experience around the holidays. each year I have my extended family comes to town and a number stay with us. And so there's a stretch of time that I've got a lot of family and we get together. And at the same time, I'm preparing for a retreat and writing talks and having a bunch of other things go on. And often, you know, in the past I have felt really pulled in different directions and I felt a bit stressed. And I sometimes when I'm, you know, getting together won't feel like I'm all.

there, that I didn't really show up for who was there, that in some way I was fragmented. But a few years ago, I realized very much that this was practice in taking refuge in Dharma, in truth and presence, and turned it into that. So I'd be talking to someone and realize that part of me needed to get back to finish up a talk or whatever, and I'd just feel my body. I'd just stay and breathe and feel that kind of squeeze of tension. and the thoughts going through, come back to my body, breathe with it, and tell myself, okay, this belongs. Whatever arises when we take refuge in the moment, this belongs.

And I'd find that if I just stayed and felt it and let it be there, more space and presence would open up. And then I'd end up being able to be with the person and really be true to what mattered to me the most, which is I love these beings. you know, show up with them. And I realize it's so easy to have that anxiety about getting things done, pull us away, and to take true refuge in the moment

actually allows us to come back to what really we care about. So let's just check out refuge in truth, refuge in the Dharma. Just if you will, close your eyes. This is the first refuge in taking true refuge. And as a way to explore it, you might bring up what for you over these last weeks perhaps has been a pattern of reactivity that you know pulled you away, something where you felt like you were hooked on consuming or maybe you got aversive and felt judgment or had some conflict somewhere that you can see the false refuge.

refuges are always ways of kind of escaping the moment, trying to control things. So if you have one in mind, you bring the situation a little closer in. So you can sense what's going on inside you when you start in some way reacting. Is it fear? Is it anxiety? Is it that you're wanting approval? you're wanting to look good, you're wanting to numb yourself. To take refuge in the moment means that you bring yourself right into your present moment experience

in your body. You might just feel your breathing and sense whatever's going on inside right now. What happens if I'm fully right with this? What happens if I rest my heart just in this immediate moment? these sounds, these sensations, these feelings, whatever's here belongs, and just bringing presence and kindness to what's right here and you can begin to sense that there's space. This is the diamond in the pocket that right here, if you step out of thoughts and into the aliveness right here, there's awareness and it's tender. There's room for your life.

So, refuge in the Dharma in truth is refuge in right what's happening right here and now. And as you're ready, we'll take a few full breaths and explore the second refuge. The second of the true refuges is Sangha. And that's the Polly word. and it's really our web of loving relationships. And the outer way that we take refuge in Sangha or love is in our conscious relating with other people. And that's where we recognize our connection. So traditionally it was spiritual community.

Really for us it's whatever community helps us heal and helps us wake up. Then it may be a 12-step community or a spiritual friends group or a church community. church community, it might be a meditation circle or a meditation class. It's also the individuals in our life, our friends that in some way are aware of and wanting to be conscious and relating, wanting to speak truth, wanting to listen. And when that's there, we help each other wake up. I was thinking of one couple who is aging, he's losing his eyesight, but she could see really well. So she would really help bring a live beauty

and describe and just help them to notice things. But she was losing her hearing. So he would help her with hearing things. And so it really worked well. Then with another story about an elderly couple, there were actually two elderly couples that were having a conversation. And one of the men was asking about the other

about this memory clinic he had gone to that was supposed to be so good. So Fred, the guy that went to it said it was outstanding. It was such a good training for me. They taught us all the latest psychological techniques of visualization, association, so on, really made a big difference to me. As friends said, that's great, what's the name of the clinic? So Fred, of course, goes blank, as you might imagine. He thought and he thought, but he couldn't remember. And then a smile breaks across his face. And he goes, okay, what do you call that flower with a long, stem and a thorn and his friend said, Rose. He goes, hey Rose, what was the name of that clinic? So we help each other. The path of Sangha, taking refuge in Sangha is to be there for each other,

to show up for each other. And it's in our relationships when we're serving, when we're really there for another, that we actually, our own heart becomes tender. There's one, story of a man who was living in a monastery, he was an engineer, and all the practices made sense to him. He was very pragmatic guy, but they gave him sense that he might overcome his chronic unhappiness, but as much as he did the practices, he just thought he was such a thinking guy that he kept encountering this wall of suffering. He couldn't pass by, he could not think himself through it, and he was very much into his thoughts. So, finally the Abbas, who who was the head of the monastery, said, I have a different approach I want you to do.

And I want you to leave the monastery for two years. And here was his assignment. He was to volunteer for 10 hours a week at a maternity ward at a hospital and hold babies that were born prematurely. And the understanding is without enough physical contact they can't grow and be healthy. So that was his work. he would hold these fragile beings and he found it helped to hold them right to his own chest. Then he'd suddenly just watch every breath and just hold them and watch.

Six months passed and he starts feeling something new. He starts feeling a warm spot in his own heart. His softness and it's very foreign because it isn't fit his ideas of himself, but he just keeps doing what he's doing, not thinking it out, which is good, it would have interfered. and over the months that warmth expanded to fill his whole body. And he wasn't so desperate, he wasn't trying to fit anything into a conceptual framework and gradually it just dissolved that hardened wall around his heart.

So he completed his time, he returned to the monastery and the abbess saw that he was transformed and he had new instructions was, when you're meditating don't think about what is happening. Rather, let your awareness be seated in the tender warmth you feel in your body. Just keep bringing your awareness to that tender warmth you feel in your body and if you do it you find your practice will be fruitful, it will be freeing, which the man found to be true. So it's a movement, this refuge in love from the head to the heart. It's a realization that and this is one of the great takeaways from deeper practice and from retreats, you don't have to believe your thoughts.

And if you can get unhooked from thoughts, just say, I don't have to believe these and come into your body and into your heart, take refuge in love, then there's a freedom that you might not have imagined possible from the head to the heart. One of the great ways into the heart is to see our own and others' vulnerability, to be able to look and say, everybody's human just the way I'm afraid, others are afraid. And also to see others' goodness, to the extent that you can take refuge in love by seeing goodness

and letting people know you're giving them the greatest gift you could. One of the stories I've always loved is Rachel Naomi Remen. She describes how growing up her early years her grandfather, who was a rabbi, would call her her Neshimile, which means little beloved soul. And he would just let her know how beloved she was in the eyes of God. She, you know, just, she would, he just let her know her goodness. And she said that after he died, she was afraid that in some way God wouldn't see her anymore and she would no longer have that goodness.

But she says, once, bless, forever, blessed, because something about her grandfather's blessings really stayed with her. When her mother got much, much older, she began to light candles and have more relationship with the divine herself. And Rachel told her mother about these blessings. And this is what her mother said to her. She said, first she smiled really sadly. And she said, I've blessed you every day of your life,

Rachel, I just didn't have the wisdom to do it out loud. That is taking refuge in love, to be able to see what we love about another and let them know. So the final thing before we reflect on this refuge is that the heart space that we develop as we take refuge in love keeps on getting wider and wider. It's only really when all are included. included in our hearts are we truly awake and free. Which means really we can't push anyone out of our heart including ourselves without creating a prison in some way for our being. St. Teresa Vilella says only at the shrine where all are welcome will God sing loud enough

to be heard. So the inner gateway of taking refuge in love is any reflection you do that allows your heart to become more tender and soft. So let's pause and reflect on this refuge now. Taking refuge in love, we begin by just sensing someone that you feel love with, that you feel belonging with, again that's uncomplicated. You include pets, include someone who's no longer alive, and as you bring that person to mind, let yourself become aware of what it is you really love about this being.

how you sense their goodness, what it's like to feel their love, their humor, their aliveness, see them, like see their face when their expression is loving or when they're in good humor or happy. Imagine telling them what you love about them, how that might light up their heart. And sense the quality of togetherness, what is that connectedness or togetherness? togetherness, how does it feel, who you are in relationship? Let it be visceral, like feel in your heart, that warmth. It's resting your heart in what is true in this loving connectedness and sense how that heart space of loving connectedness is really wide open and inclusive.

You can imagine and sense others also right here and as you're ready to take a few full breath and you can open your eyes if you'd like or you can continue with your eyes closed as we do our final, final true refuge of refuge in the Buddha are awareness. And often when we talk about refuge in the Buddha and the word Buddha means awake or aware, again it's universal. You could say refuge in Christ's consciousness or it's really refuge in the the pure awake awareness that pervades the universe, but you can reflect on a historical figure who's been awake or somebody that's contemporary that's very awake. So it could be a Buddha or Christ

or bodhisattva of compassion, a divine mother, or some wise and loving teacher, or could be anyone that reminds you of the awakened awareness, that radiance of the diamond. So that's one way to reflect on refuge in awareness in the Buddha. The other way, the inner, inner practice is just to sense the intrinsic awareness that's right here, that which is looking through your eyes, that which is listening, the stillness and silence that's listening right now, that space that everything's happening in. Now much of the time it's obscured, awareness gets obscured by our stories and And most of our stories are about ourself and there's a saying that 98% of what you do is for yourself and there isn't one, that's Wee Wu-Wei.

The separate small self stories are just the trance that we're usually in. So it takes some practice to take refuge in awareness. But that's the potential, that's our awakened potential. So we'll move right into a reflection on that right now. because it's better to reflect than add a lot of words to it. So again you might close your eyes and just experiment by bringing to mind some figure that expresses to you the enlightened heart mind, the awake luminous heart mind, some figure and it could be as I mentioned, Buddha or Christ, a bodhisattva, spiritual figure that's well known like Gandhi

Gandhi or Dalai Lama, someone you know. But imagine and sense that being. Imagine the mind of this awakened being, that vastness and lucidity, that clarity, that openness of that mind. And imagine the heart. Let that fill you with warmth and sensitivity. Just imagine that that heart is your heart. That mind is your mind so that beings luminous and loving presence is surrounding you,

soaking into you, being felt from the inside out, even in a cellular way. Luminosity is shining through you. Tender, radiant, all-inclusive awareness. You can feel the body and heart and mind light up as if it's the sunlit sky, is suffusing every cell of your body and shining through the spaces between the body. between resting your heart and what is true in the awareness that's here. There's a poem from Sri Ramakrishna that says, O longing mind, dwell within the depth of your own pure nature.

Do not seek your home elsewhere. Your naked awareness alone, O mind, is the inexhaustible abundance for which you long. So feeling yourself right here and sensing. our day-to-day life as forgetting and remembering, and that we have these three arctipal pathways, homecoming to sacred presence, by coming right into the truth of the present moment, what's it like right now?

And by feeling that loving connectedness with the whole web of life and realizing this radiant awareness, the diamond that's right here, here in this awakening heart mind. And we're going to move from this right into our ceremony. I'm going to give you a little bit of information about it, a little background just for a minute or two, and then we're going to practice and explore with our strings here. So here's a little bit about it. In Buddhist Asia and in Hindu countries too, this thread is a symbol of

blessing. And it's described as a thread from the robe of a monk. And it's called the protection cord sometimes. And when one to-ben teacher was asked, well, what does it protect us from? His response was, why ourselves, of course, you know. And the understanding is we forget. And it's protection against forgetting. It's protection against being lost in obsession or lost in judging and blaming, it's to help us remember. And so when we wear it and you're going to be invited to either wear it on your wrist or around your neck, some people I've noticed recently have been wearing ankle bracelets, which is fine, whatever you'd like. When you wear it, it's described that in the marketplace you're a monk or a nun in drag, you know, here you are

and you're looking just the way you are, but you've got this reminder, this cord. And it's a way to say against yourself, rest your heart and what is true, come back, don't have to be lost. So it's a beautiful way, a quiet and beautiful way of coming back and more and more deeply trusting yourself and your path, really bringing it alive. So we're going to reflect on the refuges and with each refuge we're going to tie a knot in the cord, so they're embedded in this cord. And you can begin by holding the edges of the cord in two hands like this.

And then again you might close your eyes so you can really bring your attention into your heart, into your present awareness. So the first of the refuges that we explored was refuge. in the Dharma are the path, which is really refuge in the present moment. You might sense for yourself the outer expression which is the meditations, readings, classes, retreats, everything that helps to deepen your capacity for presence. So when you take refuge in the Dharma you're taking refuge in all of the activities that deepen presence and in an innermost way it's your commitment to turn again and again to the present moment.

So as you feel that in your heart, that aspiration and dedication to take refuge in the present moment, then please tie the first of the knots into your chord. The second reflection is refuge in the Sangha, refuge in loving relationship, in love. And again, the outer is this deepened commitment to our relationships with each other, to awakening and conscious relationship, speaking truth and listening, serving and receiving. So as you sense the people in your life and that commitment to deepen your engagement in a conscious way. And as you sense the inner commitment to awaken your heart in the way you pay attention,

to go from the head to the heart, then please tie the second knot in your cord. And then the third of these true refuges, refuge in the Buddha in awareness. And we can, our pathways either by remembering and reflecting on someone who expresses that radiant mind and loving heart and then just sensing how that's inside us, that diamond's always here, or we can go directly to the awareness that's here and sense this awakeness, this space of presence and awareness that is our own consciousness, taking refuge in that. So as you sense your dedication to turning towards awareness, resting your heart in that truth,

tie the last knot into the cord. And once you've done that, deciding which way you'd like to put it either on your wrist or around your neck and if it's around your wrist you might circle it around a few times and the actual final knot that you'll put in to secure it requires taking refuge in the sun go which is other people. So if you will just to stand up once you're ready and turn to to somebody nearby and if it turns out like everybody has turned to people and you happen to not be, have a person right nearby it's fine to have threes and you'll just take turns. And in silence you're going to invite, ask somebody to tie the final knot for you and after they've tied the knot for you to secure it on your wrist or around your neck then take a moment

to just sense that you're offering a prayer, and then you tie theirs. So you're just taking turns, wrapping the string and tying the final knot. And as I mentioned, if you don't have a partner, then you can be in threes and just get somebody to help you out when that pair is done. Don't be shy if you need help and you haven't yet had yours completed. And once you're done, just come sit down quietly for a few months. moments. And once you're seated, you might get your sheets because we're going to be closing with a chant and the words are on the sheet. Don't worry about pronouncing anything properly.

All that matters is just from your heart. Join in as you feel inclined. Sambudasan Namotasa Bhagawatu Arahattu Arahattu Samasam Sum budasa

Namotasa Bhagawatt Arahattau Arahatau Samas Samas Budam Seraanam

Gautcham Gauti, Dham Sarenam Gautchami, Sangam Seraanam Gautchami, Duttiampi, Budam Seraanam Gautchami, Duttiampi, Dhamamong Sarenam Gautchami, Duttiampi, Sangam Serenam Gautiami

Tatiampi, Buddha Seranam Gautchami Tatiampi Dama Seranam Gautchami

Tatiampi Pongam Sangam Sernam Sernam Gautchami May these refugees, these gateways serve to remind us day to day to turn towards the truth of the present moment, the love that is always and already here and the awareness that's our deepest nature.

And may this remembrance awaken us in a way that ripples out to serve all beings everywhere. Namaste and blessings. Thank you. For more talks and meditations, and to learn about my schedule or join my email list, please visit tarabrock.com.