Tara Brach - True Resilience: Part 2 - Awakening through All Circumstances (2017-08-30)

Episode Date: September 1, 2017

True Resilience: Part 2 - Awakening through All Circumstances - Spiritual resilience enables us to deepen compassion and wisdom as we navigate life's difficulties. In this two part series, we will look at the conditions that incline us towards or away from True Resilience, and explore practical and powerful practices that nourish this precious capacity. Your support enables us to continue to offer these talks 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. One of the great classical metaphors to guide us in spiritual life is of an ocean and waves, with the understanding that all the thoughts and feelings and behaviors and sensations are waves and patterns of waves that move through us and that we are the ocean, we include those waves,

but we're not defined by them. We're not limited to them. And that if we remember we're the ocean, we're not going to be afraid of the waves. And if we forget that we're the ocean, we're going to be seasick most every day. And the reason I like that is because, as we know, we forget our vastness, our oneness, the depth of who we are regularly, and we know how reactive

we are, how all we can, all we need is an email that sounds slightly critical or that places a timeline on us we didn't think we had and all of a sudden our body gets tightened up and our mind starts spinning. No ocean there in those moments. So that's the beginning of tonight's exploration, which is this is part two of what I've called the resilient spirit. And the inquiry is what does it really

mean to be resilient? And how do we cultivate it? And the way I've been defining resilience is that this understanding that as the waves get stirred up or extra sticky grabbing us, possessing our attention,

that resilience means it actually in some way moves us to call on more creativity and more intelligence and more love, that the hard times in some way are what move us to become more who we really are. So I've just seen myself in working with people over the years and I know you have in your own life, how often it's the breakup that we didn't expect, the betrayal, the heartbreak, or how often it's the major loss of a person we loved, or a job that we were attached to, or whatever, that we didn't want to happen, but in some way we end up finding resources we

hadn't expected inside us that actually make us stronger. We know that. And it happens in struggles and relationships that it's not like relationships are good and deep because they're harmonious. Harmony's nice. But it's because they have the natural edginess and conflicts that all people have, and there's this capacity to learn and grow and deepen compassion through it. And similarly, with work challenges, that it's the challenges that actually have us draw on a deeper sense of what's possible. Now, one of my favorite illustrations of this, some of you might remember, it starts off describing an elderly man in New Jersey who wants to plant his annual tomato garden, but he's getting older, the ground is hard, and he just doesn't have the strength

and the energy to pull it off. And there's only some, Vincent, who used to help him with, that is in jail at the time. So he writes to Vincent and tells him his predicament, and he says, you know, it's given me so much pleasure in the past, and I'm just getting too old for it, and I know if you were here, my troubles would be over. I know you'd be happy to dig the plot for me. So he signs it, Love Papa.

He gets a letter a few days later. It's from his son, and his son says, Dear Pop, don't dig up the garden. That's where the bodies are buried. Love Vinny. Okay, so the next morning, 4 a.m., the FBI just swamps the place and local police. They arrive. They dig up the entire area. No bodies. They apologize to the old man and they leave.

Soon after, the old man receives a letter from his son. Dear pop, go ahead and plant the tomatoes now. That was the best I could do under the circumstances. Love you, Vinny. So I like that. you know, some of you might remember how Einstein put it. He said that you can't solve a problem

from the same state of mind that created it. And so it is with developing resilience. It forces us into a larger perspective. I also read that Will Rogers wrote if stupidity got us

into this, how come I can't get us out? Which is often the other approach that's taken. So in navigating the stressors, the challenges, we're not just talking when we talk about resilience, about that elasticity of, okay, we can bounce back quick enough. It's not just that. It's really becomes a trait that allows us to evolve through what arises in our life. It's kind of like the coal that's just getting, turning more and more into a diamond or another metaphor is how,

the heartwood of a tree in order to get strong needs wind. So resilience is sourced in a certain kind of trust that we have what it takes to grow and get through. It's that we trust in some way we've got the love inside us and the wisdom to be able to make it through. through. That's an essential piece of resilience. And then as we get more resilient, that trust deepens, which is really a gift, you know, that the more we meet difficulty and move through it, the more we trust, oh, it's here, I can do this. It's a strengthening.

So we're going to look at the two related pathways of cultivating resilience because it's a trait you can cultivate. Okay. It's not either. have it or you don't. And the two pathways, the first one is, and we're going to go back to the ocean of waves, mindfulness, meaning that when the waves arise, we get more and more skilled at directly being with them, feeling them, opening to them without any judgment or resistance. That's the pathway of mindfulness. And if you open to the waves fully and you're not resisting them, you discover your oceanness. And then the other pathway that we're going to be exploring is how to actually cultivate qualities of love, compassion, peace that express the ocean to have us trust the ocean more

when the waves arise so we can embrace them, not resist them. So we'll start by reviewing pathway one, which is how do we really open to waves when they're difficult? And meaning really in the present moment, letting go of the thoughts that we're so stuck in and opening in our body to what's here. It's a vulnerability. Friends sent me this cartoon. It's got a psychiatrist with a snake on the couch, and the snake's skin is on the floor. See, just when I finally started to feel comfortable in my own skin, this happens. I'll leave it out for you. Just in case, case you need inspiration and you're feeling overly tender. So this speaks to, in a way, the understanding of mindfulness as the undefended heart or the present heart that really allows

us to then respond with our full intelligence. We're not defended. We're not resisting. we can really give to the world from a deeper place. I was at a teaching a workshop last weekend, and one woman described a relationship of 30 years and being betrayed by her partner and the depth of mistrust. This had happened about five years ago and how she thought that resilience forget it.

she really felt like her destiny was to pull into a cocoon and never trust again. And she got involved with a meditation group that had one of what we call a spiritual friends group, which is a lot of the Buddhist communities have them. And the practice there is really to first sit and be mindful and then share really honestly about what's going on in our lives and how can we bring more compassion and more mindfulness to what's really going on. And she found herself gradually taking what we call the exquisite risk. Thank you, Mark Nippo, that's his phrase, to be more and more real.

And she became with this group increasingly spontaneous and honest, and her humor came back. So she found her resilience in a safe space, but it allowed her to trust herself in a way that she actually, was available for intimacy in a far more real way than she had been before. She grew through that. Resilience, we grow through the tough stuff if we're willing to be present. This is true for living and also growing through the process of dying, of real loss, including losing our body. One of my favorite current books is by Frank

Ossesdesky and it's called The Five Invitations. It's a fabulous book. So in one of the stories he tells, he describes a homeless man, his name's Lorenzo, who comes to the hospice after trying to kill himself. And he was, Frank describes him as a really intelligent and educated man. And his life had spiraled down after his marriage of many years broke apart and he lost his job and he lost his health insurance when he couldn't work because of cancer. And he was a very independent, self-determined man, and this was the humiliation of finding himself sick and on the streets was too much.

He didn't want to live. So Frank did an admissions interview with him while he was still at the psychiatric hospital. And at first he just sat with him really quietly for quite a while, actually. And this surprised Lorenzo. He said, well, you're just sitting quietly with me. Nobody's ever done that. Frank said, yeah, well, we do that a lot. And the Zen hospice, Frank founded the Zen hospice. And then he said, he basically asked Lorenzo what he wanted, you know,

and because he was kind of sensing whether or not it would be a fit to come to the hospice. And without missing a beat, the response was spaghetti. Spaghetti. Well, we make a bit. We make really good spaghetti at our place. Why don't you come live with us? Okay Frank and that was it. That was the whole admissions interview, which I thought was really cool. So they then, Lorenzo was alive for, I lived for maybe three more months and during those three months, he and Frank developed a really trusting deep relationship and Lorenzo took refuge in presence. He named his fears, he felt his fears. They kind of had a space together where they could really be honest about what was going on. Started to change quite a bit. One day, and I'm reading now, shortly before he died,

Lorenzo called me into his room and said, I want to thank you. I'm happier now than I've ever been. Bullshit, I replied. Not long ago you told me you didn't want to live if you couldn't walk in the park or write in your journal. What was that about? Oh, that he answered with a shrug. That was just chasing desire. What do you mean? Those activities aren't important to you anymore. Lorenzo's side, no, it's not the activities that bring me joy. It's the attention to the activities. Now my pleasure comes from the coolness of the breeze and the softness of the sheets. I smiled. What a remarkable transformation for a man I'd met in a psychiatric unit just a few months earlier. We can awaken through living and dying and it has to do with the quality

of presence. So we take refuge in the waves. We take refuge in presence with what's right there. And the understanding that guides us is that whatever is arising, and this is whatever's going on in our lives, whatever's going on in this moment can be a portal to awakening and freedom can reveal the oceanness, can reveal our home. Whatever is arising without exception. Now that's a radical understanding. We tend to think, well, this kind of thing, that could be a portal. Yeah, when I'm on the top of the mountain, I'm seeing the ripple of other mountains or I'm on by the river, I'm with the loved one. When we have our places, that can be the portal to spiritual experience. But the deeper understanding.

understanding is whatever is arising, that we can trust that if we pay attention deeply enough, we'll find that the sheets are soft, we'll find the beings around us have a loving that we can tap into. And this is described in terms of the Bodhisattva's aspiration, this understanding and longing to awaken through whatever's right here. So, to cultivate a resilient spirit is to more and more sense that as truth. It comes in the form of an inquiry which is, okay, so how is this sickness, right, this moment going to serve awakening? Or how is this challenge my child is happening that's freaking me out going to serve

awakening? So it can come like an inquiry or can come like a prayer, please, may this be a question. serve awakening. Let's take a moment to pause and just try it on. This is really the heart of taking refuge in the waves. As you close your eyes, it's just a sense, okay, so the first pathway to cultivating a resilient spirit is this real willingness to be with the waves, to trust that whatever's arising is part of our path. It's not like we're trying to get past it so we can get to the real thing. This is it. Exactly what's here and sometimes what's here is just this off-balance feeling. We might have a stomach ache or just feel a

complaint about how somebody who's just treating us or what might be here might be a diagnosis that's really scary or something going on for someone we love that's really painful. It's these waves, these waves, if we give them our full attention, that can serve the awakening of compassion. You might scan your life right now and sense whatever the situations are that are in some way stirring up the challenging waves for you. It might be a conflict with someone in your family or a friend. be an inner conflict, the way you're at war with yourself. It might be a challenge at work

or a challenge with your health or a deep worry for someone else. Notice how the waves are landing in your life right now, what's scary or hurtful or disturbing. And it's natural that you won't like them. But see if you can include them sense, okay, so this is the path. This is part of awakening. You know my sense, how might this serve? How might this deepen my wisdom, my compassion? If you deepen your attention to the waves, how am I at awakening for you? It's called the Bodhisattv aspiration because that's the longing, that whatever the this is,

may this be part of what frees my heart. May I learn to love more fully? May I discover more capacity to be present with and open to what's going on in my life? More presence with others. Notice the difference between being at war with the waves, this prayer or wish that they may serve awakening. How does that change your experience? So this first pathway of resilience, taking refuge,

and the waves, bringing a deep attention to the waves. When you're ready, please open your eyes. The remainder of this class we'll be exploring the second pathway. And the second pathway is how to intentionally cultivate access to experiences of well-being. So whereas the first pathway is just open to the waves, the second pathway is how do you take experiences that you know are wholesome? in your life, when you feel touched by compassion or when you feel courage or when you've touched some peace or when you've opened to loving. How do you build those?

Because as we build, it's called resourcing. As you build those capacities, you actually get the taste of the ocean, you trust the ocean more. So we're going to look at how we resource, how we cultivate those qualities. and some people might be wondering, well, I thought mindfulness was that you're just accepting them being what is versus cultivating the positive. And I just want to say that our habit of what we are experiencing is very slanted to the negative.

That through evolution we have a real slant towards fearful waves, anxious waves, depressed waves, angry waves. And so although we have the capacity, for happy waves and compassionate ways, it's not as much the habit. So we're already habituated to lean one way and what this cultivating the positive does is it gives us access to what's there but what we don't as often experience so it becomes more available. So as it said, we overlearn from negative experience. That's just our evolutionary predicament. Rick Hansen coined the phrase that we're Velcro for difficult stuff and Teflon for the positive.

It just kind of slides through. And examples, it takes five positive compliments to begin to kind of balance out one criticism. Or somebody can have like 100 encounters with dogs that are completely fine, but one dog will be aggressive. That's it. That's what stays and trained in the brain. and basically our ancestors wouldn't have survived to pass down their genes if it was different. In fact, if you think of the way the brain is designed,

the amygdala which registers emotions and danger and so on, completely mature by seven months. The frontal cortex and the parts that know how to regulate our emotions and so on, three years. So very early on that the young child's brain is very plastic for negative experience. Again, from Rick Hansen, he says, we have a well-intended learning disability, which I think is brilliant. But it's really the evolutionary design for our ancestors, they were trying to survive Jurassic Park and we're still as if doing the same.

Okay, so trauma or no trauma, we have this negativity bias. We all, as part of our path, find the waves of doubting ourselves, of getting suspicious. suspicious and mistrustful of others, anxious about failing. So how do we develop access? This is what we're going to explore. One of the examples I like of cultivating a trait. A historical example was from William James. Many of you know, I've heard of him.

He came from a really accomplished family. His brother was a successful writer and so on. in his 30s he was totally unaccomplished. He wanted to be a painter and he tried that but he kind of that didn't work and then he enrolled in medical school and quit to do an exposition up the Amazon and then that didn't work out. So he in a moment of reckoning he questioned his innate capacity to do anything productive in his life and that he should be alive at all. Okay? So he had hit a bottom and he decided, before he did anything rash, that he would conduct a one-year experiment.

Now, this experiment is an example of cultivating the positive. And here's what he decided. He said, no matter what thoughts arose, he would keep turning his attention to the assumption that change was possible. In other words, he keep turning towards hope over and over and over again. And he tracked it in his diaries. you can read it. He basically practiced each day as if things could get better, as if he could transform. That was his assumed lens and he became receptive to opportunities.

His energy got engaged and he became increasingly aligned with his deepest interests which he was able to discover and he married and he ended up studying at Harvard and he ended up creating a metaphysical club and he wrote to one of his partners there, he says, I possess for the first time an intelligible and reasonable conception of freedom, hope, possibility. Hope is a flavor of the ocean. The ocean has infinite potential.

Our oceanist knows that this is unlimited creativity. Anything can happen. We're open to it. And that's what he trained himself to do. But it was in fact a training. So due to neuroplasticity, we can have corrective experiences that change our brain, but how does it work? And again, I'm very good friends with Rickanson and I recommend his books highly and

he recently gave a talk that I found really clarifying on this on how learning works but he says it's really two parts. You have to have an experience and you have to feel it. You know, have an experience of hopefulness or of love or compassion or whatever. And then you have to saturate yourself in that feeling sense for the brain to learn it. In other words, it has to get installed, okay? Just like William James had it over and over again keep turning to hope. And researchers have shown, and it's very interesting, that the long-conciful something's held in awareness, the more emotionally stimulating it is, the more neurons

that fire and wire together and the stronger the trace in memory. So these two steps have the experience and sustain the experience. And Rick says both steps are necessary and people usually forget the second one, flattening their growth curve in life and in therapy, coaching and mindfulness training. And we know it. We know what it's like. We have a positive of experience, will be in nature and have a moment of awe. Or we might be with a loved one and feel very touched by something or our witness and act of kindness and sense, you know, hope for humanity or in some way. But it comes and goes and we have these flitty minds that just get distracted and go on to the next thing, which is often a worry about what's around the

corner. So we don't sustain our attention. The point is for our nervous, a system to transition from having a state of mind to creating a trait, a habit that's really deep in us of hoping, of loving, of compassion. We need to practice it. Story of a little girl Carmen who's at the park with her mother and her aunt and they're teaching her how to jump rope and every time she gets it right, they're clapping and she gets better and better and they're clapping more and more so she's really excited. And her mom said, okay, now you you go off and practice and we're going to talk for a while together. She comes back 15 minutes later and she's slumped. She's depressed. She said it's not as much fun without the clapping.

So what are the ways that we really install and experience? And part of it's to know what's happening, to saturate and to really appreciate it. That's part of the installation. So I want to practice with you. I want to practice getting a taste of how to install an experience. Letting this pause be an invitation to sense what's right here. So just begin with mindfulness because everything we're talking about requires mindfulness. To install a positive experience requires mindfulness. Attention to when we're having a good experience. Attention to what it feels like. And you might sense more for yourself right now, you know, what is it that you really want

to experience more regularly? Is it peace? Is it gratitude? Is it love? Right now we'll explore just a deepening and installing more of that sense of loving care. And you might bring to mind an experience with another person. person, someone that is easy for you to feel love with, to begin with.

And bring that person to mind, sense them right here close in so you can remind yourself of how come you feel loving with them. You might see the look in their eyes when they're feeling loving towards you, the expression on their face. you might remind yourself of qualities you love about them, how they look when they're happy, when they're amused or entertained, they're laughing, or in a really tender place maybe, reminding yourself of their goodness, basic intention to be honest, to be caring. As you begin to sense in your body, what's the felt experience of loving this person?

and what's it like? You might mentally whisper the person's name and say thank you just to feel, just sense your appreciation and notice how that loving grows in your body, imagining them receiving your thanks and the connection very alive, letting the feelings of love be as full and strong as they might be. For some it's lovely to put your hand on your heart. and just feel that you're just inviting the feelings of love to be as much as they are. You might even mentally whisper the person's name,

I love you, and just say their name and say, I love you, and just imagine them receiving that. Letting the feelings be as full as they are and sensing what matters about this loving to you, what makes you value it, how it's relevant to you. sense how it's not always so accessible and just the valuing and just the kind of the wonder of it. Wow, it's just beautiful to have that tenderness, just sensing a freshness and experiencing it. And feeling the loving as if it's possible to let it into your body and your cells even more

as if it could just saturate you. Like you're a sponge just filling up with water. or as if there's a syrup that could just completely fill you, golden syrup just covering and saturating and filling your being, you can bathe in it, really letting yourself let it in, ah, this loving, let it fill me. If it helps just to mentally whisper the person's name and say, I love you, and just feel it again, just really light and warmth filling you. and sense what you want to remember about this.

Know that you're rewiring your brain, your heart, your body, your mind and that the more times you do this, the more you really give it 20, 30 seconds to feel directly the loving, the more access you have to this very innate capacity in your being. So a few comments, I'm going to wind up a bit. that this is one of the life practices that really transforms our experience, to choose the qualities of heart-mind that you want to develop. Look around for the experiences that touch them off. And then when you have that experience,

so you can evoke it just as we just evoked it, let yourself really get saturated with it. feel it fully in your body, sense what you value about it, just really live inside it. And the more times you do that, the more your brain gets entrained and it can change your life. And it can be for love, it could be for peace, for quietness,

touching those moments and really sensing them and savoring them. The poet Yates writes, we can make our minds so like still water that beings gather about us that they may see it may be their own images and so live for a moment with a clearer perhaps even with a fiercer life because of our quiet

as you cultivate these qualities you create an ocean other people can swim in that's the beauty of it It's the nature of cultivating a resilient spirit that it affects others. Ticknad Han describes how this happened after the Vietnam War when people, they were called boat people would be risking their lives. They'd go out on these small boats and storms and they knew their lives were in danger.

But if one person on the boat could keep calm and not panic, that made it possible. that others could really stay at ease and people would listen to him or her and keep serene and there's a chance for the boat to survive the danger. Ticknahan writes this. He says our earth is like a small boat compared with the rest of the cosmos it is a very small boat and it's in danger of sinking we need such a person to inspire us with calm confidence to tell us what to do Who is that person? The sutras tell us that that person is you. You are that person.

And only with such a person, kind, calm, lucid, aware, will our situation improve? I wish you good luck. Please be yourself. Be that person. So we cultivate these qualities and it seems like we're cultivating it

so we will in some way be awakening in a personal way, but it absolutely creates that oceaness of peace or love that others benefit from. This brings up the last bit of the inquiries, which is as a collective really, as a human collective, what makes us more resilient. And if we look really at the human species through time, what has made us resilient are the very capacities we're talking about

cultivating individually. can we communicate with each other? Can we collaborate? Can we love each other better? That's what this frontal cortex allows us to do. It allows us to be with each other and have these mirror neurons that care. So we see that picture.

There's so many pictures from Texas. I just was struck by the one with an assisted living home with an elderly woman up to like five, all this water around her, one woman who was rescued. We see that and it's just our nature to care. So it's a horror what's going on in Texas. It really is. It's a horror what's going on in Bangladesh, Nepal, and India, where 40 million some people's lives are being affected by monsoons.

when we actually pay attention, it's our nature to care and to reach out. This is what makes us collectively have a resilient spirit. And I think for many people there's been a sense of hopelessness or despair because we've been watching really the more primitive energies of not caring, of considering others as other, of not really trying to take care of each other. We've been seeing how much they, how visible they are. And as we really pay attention to our hearts and pay attention to where the kindnesses are,

we can see that we are evolving and it is something we can do on purpose. There's a story that I love that took place at San Quentin Prison that really described this innate capacity of the human spirit. and some years ago a woman arranged for the Guiotto Tantra Choir. These are Tibetan monks to do this multi-vocal sounding, chanting, to perform at San Quentin.

And then the San Quentin Choir, the gospel choir, is going to sing in response. But then there was some worry that there would be some conflict or culture gap to overcome between the groups. the San Quentin Gospel Choir were African Americans who were large, worked out with weights, and really had been born again, really touched by the Spirit of Jesus, the heart of Jesus, and their songs were testimonials to the depths of their suffering and to the light of gospel that had been awakened in them. And then you have the Tibetan monks who were,

the fear was they'd appear as foreigners as kind of heathens, and not only that, the contrast was, here they wear these small Asian men wearing these kind of maroon skirts. So there's a wonder about how are they going to bridge the gap. So I want to read to you how the sponsor set a context that speaks to the resilience of spirit and what brings us together. First she said almost all of these Tibetan men who joined us today had spent years in harsh prisons.

The Communist Chinese Army not only imprisoned them for expressing their beliefs but tortured them as well. Somehow they were released or able to escape from prison. Then to find freedom, they walked across the Himalayas, the highest mountains on earth. Some tied rags on their feet because they had no good shoes. But even now they are in exile. They are forced to live far from their home, apart from their families and community. They do not know if they ever be able to return. What's kept them going through all their struggles have been their songs and prayers. This is what they will sing to you today. And of course, for the gospel choir, the same thing, marginalized, isolated from their communities, being really those that are oppressed, not given justice

in a way that we know is deserved. And in an instant, the gospel choir and the Tibetan monks looked at one another with eyes that shared the vulnerable depths of human sorrow. and they found understanding. Each group sang to the other from the heart and when their music was finished, they came together to hug and embrace like long, lost brothers. So this is the possibility that it's through the challenges that we as individuals say, okay, and may this awaken, that we open our hearts, that we call on our deepest wisdom, and and then collectively the same that we are collectively encountering tremendous waves of hatred, waves of violence.

May this awaken our hearts, may we respond from some larger place of loving and wisdom to help evolve our world. So it's with that that we close, take the final few moments, to common sense, right? in this moment what's going on inside you. It starts right in this body and heart and mind, this capacity for resilience, for awakening. So start fresh this moment. Whatever is moving through you right now. Tiredness, excitement, sorrow, fear, inspiration, ache, flow, these are the waves of the moment. How might they awaken?

Is it possible to deepen presence to open your heart to what's right here? Open and in that opening discover the openness and tenderness of the ocean that can include all the waves. The poet Dana Fault says trust the energy that courses through you.

Trust then take surrender even deeper. Be the energy. Don't push anything away. Follow each sensation back to its source in vastness and pure presence. Emerge so new, so fresh that you don't know who you are. Welcome in the season of monsoons. Be the bridge across the flooded river and the surging torrent underneath. Be be unafraid of consummate wonder. Be the energy and blaze a trail across the clear night sky like lightning.

Dare to be your own illumination. Dare to be your own illumination. Namaste and blessings. For more talks and meditations and to learn about my schedule or join my email list, please visit tarabrock.com.