Tara Brach - Trusting the Gold - A Celebration of Tara's New Book, with guest, Rick Hanson

Episode Date: June 13, 2021

Trusting the Gold - A Celebration of Tara's New Book, with special guest, Rick Hanson - The essence of the spiritual path is realizing, trusting and living from our natural awareness and love. This talk explores the two key pathways that help us awaken from the trance of identifying as a limited, separate self. It includes several guided meditations and a period of questions and response.

Greetings. We offer these podcasts freely and your support really makes a difference. To make a donation, please visit tarabrock.com. So a namaste to you, my friends. Just feeling the goodness of your hearts, this shared heart space that we get to create when we come together. And I kind of wanted to start, kind of went to where I might end usually in a Dharma talk, I just started right in with it because Namaste is kind of the spirit of this book trusting the gold, that sense that we have this capacity to see intrinsic goodness, see the sacredness,

and bring it out in ourselves and each other. That's really kind of the essence of the medicine that we most need in our world. And of course, I recently saw a Namaste cartoon. said, the woman was saying, you know, the light in me acknowledges the shadows in you. And, you know, this is part of what we're exploring, too, that there's seeing the goals, and then there's all the conditioning that blocks it. So we're going to just look at this. And I wanted to also say, right from the start, I hadn't intended to write this book. It kind of like came out of left field in a way. We had been collecting quotes and stories and so on,

But then this theme of what's possible when we really start trusting goodness, when we look towards it and trust it in ourselves and each other, what's possible. It just started becoming increasingly compelling and as you know and I feel like we probably share this, we're witnessing the most dangerous levels of mistrust in our society I've ever seen. It's with it and it kind of brings so much violence with it. Today's New York Times, two of the leading editorials. One says, is there a way to dial down political hatred?

The other, how to build trust. It's big. And I also wanted to share with you that over the last year, just the title, just the words trust the gold have become kind of a personal mantra, that when I get stuck when I get, you know, small-minded or cynical, just a little kind of grim where when there's judgment, if I in some way say it, even if I mutter it, it starts cutting through the trance. If I say trust the gold, I start getting more sincere, which to me as soon as I start getting more sincere it's a kind of homecoming. But I'm getting ahead of myself. I want to really begin with the organizing

story of trusting the gold, which is one that's captured my attention over the years. And many of you, I know, are familiar. So, but I'll bring it in so we can use it as part of our reflections. This is a story of this enormous clay statue of the Buddha in Thailand. And it wasn't handsome, refined art or anything, but people loved it, you know, just really, it had survived over the centuries. And, you know, had gone through great storms and invading armies, changes of government. Well, in the 50s, I think it was 1956 or something like that, there was a really big drought. And the statue began to show cracks and one of the crafts was pretty big. So a monk shined his pen flashlight in and what gleamed out was the light of gold.

And so they took off what turned out to be just coverings. And it was the most luminous solid gold statue of the Buddha in Southeast Asia. People come from all over now to see it. Many of my friends have visited it. I haven't been there. But here's what's most interesting to me that the monks believe that this work of art had been covered over with plaster and clay to protect it through difficult periods of unrest and actually of attacking armies so they wouldn't destroy it or steal it.

And in a similar way, we humans cover over our innate purity to protect us in difficult times. We do it so much that we actually forget the gold. We get identified with the coverings, with the egoic strategies we all have to protect ourselves and to enhance ourselves and so on. But the suffering is, it's not that we have an ego. We all need these strategies, but we get identified with them. We think that's who I am. And we forget this fundamental awareness and love and creative aliveness that is our nature.

And I think of really most, the spiritual path is really about remembering the gold, seeing it. It doesn't mean we're overlooking the conditioning, but it actually helps us to know how to wake up and respond wisely to the conditioning. But here's the thing. Suffering would not be suffering if it weren't really tenacious, if it weren't really strong. And so we very deeply can experience ourselves in our world as something's wrong. We can really be caught in the coverings. And for years I've been talking, this is probably five decades now plus, about what I call

the trance of unworthiness. That's the forgetting of the gold. It's just the basic beliefs that in some way I'm falling short, I'm not lovable, I'm flawed. the basic mistrust. And so we get like in contrast to the golden Buddha story that says, well, our essence is the gold, you can sense the creation story of the West, which basically says you're fundamentally flawed, you're out of the garden, you know, be gone. And one of my favorite little related stories of this new monk who enters the monastery and he's helping the other monks copy the old canons and laws of the church by hand.

but he notices that all the monks are copying from copies and realizes, wow, that's not the original manuscript. So the new monk went to talk to the abbot and pointed out, if somebody made an error, just keep on being repeated. You know, it's like telephone. So the abbot said, you know, we've been copying from copies for centuries, but you make a good point. So he went down to the dark caves under the monastery where the original manuscript had been locked in a vault. It hadn't been open for years. Hours go by. Nobody sees the old abbot. So finally, the young monk gets worried. He goes downstairs to look for him and he finds the old abbot banging his head against the wall and crying uncontrollably. The young man says, you know, father, father, what's wrong? And in a choking

voice, the old abbot says, the word was celebrate. I hope you get it. Anyway, so this is the trance of deep unworthiness, not trusting our goodness, just the self-mistrust. It's very deep in our cultural psyche. And what it does when we don't trust ourselves, and you can look and invite you to check in your own life, we're going to do some practices. But if we don't trust ourselves, we're not going to trust others love us. We're not going to be able to be intimate.

really with others. It stops us from being creative or spontaneous because we're so worried about making mistakes. It stops us from enjoying our moments. So I've shared about this a lot. I've shared my own personal struggles with it. I wouldn't have written radical acceptance if it weren't my radical non-acceptance of myself. I just really talked about it a lot how you know in my early 20s just hated my body. body, thought I was failing in all my relationships, was always trying to improve myself in some way, the harshest inner judge. So that kind of gave rise to a very deep yearning to be at peace with myself, to trust the goodness. When I wrote radical acceptance, I went on book tour

and one place I went to, they had a big poster with a picture of me showing that I was coming to do this workshop. and the caption at the bottom of the poster picture of me was, something is wrong with me. And it was like it was a strange way to be welcomed into a new place for teaching, but it's been almost five decades or so. And I can see, this is kind of when I want to land up, I can see in myself and I can see in many of my friends who have been practicing

as long or longer, Well, the bad news first, that the conditioning is still there. There's still a tendency or I can regularly catch thoughts or feelings of falling short. Not enough. Something's wrong. But there's much less lag time. I feel like that's really a sign of this is the path. There's less lag time from seeing, oh, that's what's going on and reconnecting with a larger sense of,

who we really are with that awareness and love. So it's possible. That's mostly what I want to communicate to really come to trusting the gold, to move from that limiting story about ourselves, to really sensing who we are, that shift to freedom. And even more we can help each other remember because we're social creatures and we're inter-influencing. There's a poem from Tukharam who says, I could not lie anymore. So I started to call my dog God. First he looked confused.

Then he started smiling. Then he even danced. I kept at it. Now he doesn't even bite. I'm wondering if this would work on humans. And it does. So anyway, this shift, trusting the gold, it begins by becoming alert to the conditioning that keeps us caught, what keeps us in the trance.

and to seeing these innate capacities that help us wake up, seeing what's possible. So to help us explore this further now, I'd like to invite my dear friend, a very highly respected colleague, Rick Hansen, who I know many of you know. So Rick's a psychologist, he's a teacher, author, and of a number of books, and most recently Neurodharma, which is New Science, Ancient wisdom and seven practices of the highest happiness that came out last year. So welcome my friend, Rick. Well, welcome my friend and teacher and benefactor. And I have to say, I'm in love with your book, I really am. I really, really am. Oh, thank you so much. Yeah, it means a lot to me that you say that. And I'm excited to have you here because I have actually a question that I want to unpack with you.

And here's how it goes. One of the most profound, provocative statements of Einstein is this. He said, I think the most important question facing humanity is, is the universe a friendly place? This is the first and most basic question, all people must answer for themselves. And Einstein believe there was a fundamental benevolence in our universe. and he claimed that if we trust it, it gives rise to activity that help us serve the greater good. And people ask, is that true? Is there a fundamental benevolence? So I kind of wanted to ask you how that resonates for you and what we can look to in our evolution that might shed light on that question.

Well, Einstein is a tough act to follow. You're a tough act to follow too, but I'll take a crack at it. The universe is a friendly place, and there are two parts to that. One part is just the universe in life altogether. So we have the big bang right there. The universe bubbles into being. What an extraordinary gift. What in a gift, almost 14 billion years ago, right? And then it continues to develop, and then our own planet starts to form around 5 billion years ago, survives different collisions, one of which gave us our moon, which gave us our tides, which really helped to give us life. And you have that. And then we have life emerging around three and a half billion years ago, moving into all these little sectors, growing and developing, like a mighty river,

like a mighty river of life, you know, spreading into all these places. I was on top of Icorn Pinnacle in Yosemite, as you know, just a few days ago. And it's a very unlikely place to be. You have to rock climb up in these very peculiar cracks and crevices. You get about 11,000 feet up in these really difficult places to get to where we found little droppings from pica and mice who lived there on top of this pinnacle in the cracks. And it was their home. And we had to use technical gear and a lot of skill to get there.

And that was their home. So life spreading, right? And we're living in the giving of life broadly. Just wow. All these things that had to happen, all these creatures who lived and died, all these tiny possibilities being investigated through mutations in DNA, which enabled evolution and, you know, dealing with various challenges. And here we are, big, tall monkeys, you know, like three and a half billion years later. What? I mean, how do you look at that and not go, thank you. Thank you, all of you, that whole stream of the river of life, right? Behind us. And here we are in the shores of our days. Wow. Just that. Like, okay, just that. We're living in the giving of all that. Thank you, all those who've come before us. You know, including specific people, you know, the people who made different things, invented paper, brought us Zoom. Thank you. Zoom.

demigods. So here we are. So that's the first part, just the universe in life altogether. And then a really interesting second part of the fundamental friendliness of the universe, of all of it, is kind of summarized in the clever title of Robert Sapolsky's classic book on stress, why zebras don't get ulcers. And the basic idea is that as life evolved over, you know, millions of years and our nervous system evolved over 600 million years as we've kind of progressed from little jellyfish like creatures with a nervous system through, you know, lizards, mice, monkeys, and us, as it were. Down that long run, when a zebra or a human or a lizard experiences in the present that its needs are met enough in the present, they don't have to be perfect, but there's an enoughness of, let's say,

broadly, safety, satisfaction, and connection, depending on the nature of the creature, the lizard, the mouse, the monkey, the human. You feel safe enough in the moment. You're fed, you're satisfied enough in the moment, you're connected, you're loved, you can give love enough in the moment. What happens? What happens biologically? Naturally, Mother Nature's blueprint, the zebra, the lizard, the cat, the human, comes whole. home to its resting place physiologically, which is protective and conservative and the mind broadly, whether it's a human or simpler forms of this, a cat or even a lizard, the mind is colored. When you feel like you're safe enough, satisfied enough, and connected enough, your mind is colored with a feeling of peacefulness,

contentment, and love. that's our home base. That's our resting state. That's where the animal organism repairs itself. It recovers. It rests. That's our home. And that's given to us by a serious Darwinian evolution. Thank you. Thank you, Mom. Thank you, Mother Nature. I'm loving what you're saying. I'm just thinking of that evolutionary psychologist that said it's not survival of the fittest, it's survival of the nurtured. And when those basic needs are taken care of, it's like it relaxes our whole system so we can be fully who we are. I mean, it kind of explains it, that we then are living from that love and that ease. And I know you've spoken

a lot of this, and I'm wondering if you just name it a little bit, that out of that we actually express some very good, noble, beautiful emotions and tendencies. Oh, yeah. As part of this journey, when you think of the difference between a lizard, a mouse, a monkey, and us, you see a progression, especially over the last couple million years of hominid and human evolution of what Dachry Keltner, friend and teacher at UC Berkeley world class academic, who talks about the ways in which, as the title of his book, we are actually born to be good. He's riffing off the rock and roll song, born to be bad, which has a good melody line. I got to give it that. But anyway, you know, when he makes the point

that as our hominid and human ancestors evolved mainly living in small groups, the natural social structure for a human being is a band of roughly 40 to 50 people that live together most of their lives interacting loosely with a couple, a few of the related bands amidst a whole bunch of others. And so in that context, bands that were better at cooperating, at loving each other broadly, they were better at language, they were better at planning, they were better at empathy, they were better at bonding, they were better at altruism. Those bands did better. They kept their members alive more who could pass on jeans that passed on jeans, and they could

compete, frankly, better with other bands, you know, for scarce resources over millions of years. So we evolved compassion. We evolved love. We evolved bonding. Initially, the mother-child bond and broadening to the mother-partner bond, broadening further to the village it takes to raise the child bond, the group altogether. So compassion and lovingness and related. skills of empathy and being able to imagine what it's like in the other, to receive the being behind the eyes. To namaste. To namaste. To verb. To namaste is an evolved capacity that we have that helped our ancestors survive in the Serengeti plains in the Stone Age through multiple ice ages. So it's not just, you know, in addition to the ways that these very heartfelt

warm-hearted capabilities are endearing and sweet and help us feel good and generate hallmark cards and, you know, make clever jokes about celibate or celebrate, you know, write that. In addition to that, it absolutely necessary for survival, including in the difficult, challenging times that you've alluded to earlier. You know, we must, you know, as the founding fathers apparently said at the signing of the Declaration of Independence. You know, gentlemen, we must all hang together or we shall hang separately. And we really, really need to come together or we will hang separately. So I'm loving what you're saying.

And one of the things that really occurs to me is that, you know, we're evolving and it's hardwired. I mean, it's there because it's part of survival and it's just part of us to be compassionate, to collaborate and so on. In fact, when we're compassionate, we get those really good feelings. There's actually a reward biochemistry that floods us. So it's there. Do you think we're still evolving?

Is it just the way it evolved because it was needed for us to collaborate with our in-group so we could do well with others and so on? Does that evolution continue? Does it keep on ripening? Totally. Biological evolution continues. it's slower than cultural evolution. And so here's a funny thing.

I don't know if you know this. Tar up, you know, I love you and I like you and all that. You are a mutant. In this sense, you have blue eyes. No one had blue eyes until four or five thousand years ago. And then someone mutated in probably modern day Denmark, roughly, who became very popular and had many children who had many children, who had many children.

And here we are today. So biological evolution, is definitely continuing, but it's kind of slow. And one of the challenges is that we've gone through cultural evolution, especially in the last century or so, in ways in which lead us to live profoundly differently than the ways in which we evolve to live. Now, part of those differences are helpful, like Zoom, refrigerators, ibuprofen. I used a fair amount of ibuprofen over the last week, hiking in the mountains with my aging body. But on the other hand, we're not designed. designed to be so separated from each other.

That's totally counter Mother Nature's plan. And also, we are very vulnerable to what scientists call the brain's negativity bias, which because of our advanced capabilities to reflect upon the past and imagine the future, unlike lizards, mice and monkeys who live really very, very much in the present, because of those capacities and because of the brain's negativity bias, we suffer a lot and we get into all kinds of conflicts with other people. So this is good. Thank you because you anticipated me. I see the hardwiring of the basic goodness and yet we know that we forget it, that we mistrust it and that we actually go to war with ourselves and each other and not just the other

out there, even the family others. So I'm kind of interested in the conditions that end up covering over the goodness. And, you know, I'm taken by what you said, that we are meant to be in small groups of, you know, 40, 50, 60, whatever, and we're either isolated or else in much larger and getting lost communities. So we've lost that kind of contact, which is nourishing and feeds us, we've also lost contact with the earth, you know, and just to even be a part of the communities, these larger communities, we have to jump over all sorts of hoops so we're not naturally accepted. And the last thing I'll name of the things I'm noticing that would cover over the gold

is my understanding of hunter-gatherer communities was that they were fairly fairly, you know, non-hierarchical. And we live all of us in such hierarchies and so many toxic hierarchies. And the very nature of, let's say, a racial caste system, a gender class system is when there's power differentials, we're scared of each other and we don't see each other. And that makes trusting the gold really difficult. So I wonder if you have some comment I'm kind of naming some of the things I'm seeing as that would get in the way. Right. A lot there.

So just highlights. So first highlight, resting state, our home base, peace, contempt, and love. And growing psychological strengths and skills of different kinds, including the recognition of our true nature, helps us come home, helps us meet our needs without getting into big trouble. and as we repeatedly take in experiences of needs met enough in the moment or the experiences of feeling just at home like you led us into in that beautiful meditation in the beginning, internalizing those experiences builds up a kind of core inside that's increasingly unconditional of resilient well-being. So that's that's really good news. Scientifically, hardcore science, hardcore Darwinian evolution, you know, our home base is a good place. It's good to be home.

Second point is why don't zebras get ulcers? We are evolved as well to leave what I call the green zone, the green zone. That's our resting state. That's our home base for brief bursts of red zone stress. You know, the zebras are hanging out. They're eating. They're cool. They're fine.

They're rubbing up against each other. They're in the green zone. Kowush, the lions attack. The zebras rush about. And then as Sapolsky says, most episodes of stress in the wild end quickly, one way or another. right? And then it settles down again. So we're designed to go into brief spikes of red zone stress to cope, to deal. Okay, fine. And then return and stay in our baseline, long periods of green zone. But we, humans, including in our modern life, are living in the pink zone, if not the red zone in many cases, a lot more than we really ought to. And that's not good for us. And one of the results of having a brain that's like Velcro, for bad experiences, but Teflon for good ones, because that helped our ancestors learn from red zone experiences, is that we learn much more from. We're much more impacted by negative

experiences than beneficial, useful, let's say, positive ones. And that's something to really take into account. Deal with the bad, turn to the good, take in the good. To me, that really summarizes a whole lot of wisdom. We've got to deal with the bad for sure, for sure, for sure, for sure. But it's not all that's true. And that's one thing that your beautiful book makes clear. It's not all clay. There's gold in there, right? Okay, that part. And then if I'll just finish, the point you made about the difference between a hunter-gatherer band and, you know, America, let's say today, 330-plus million people, you said in hunter-gathered bands, there are these three objective conditions that constrain authoritarianism and constrain excessive concentrations of wealth and power.

All right. Those three conditions are essentially common truth, common welfare, and common justice. Common truth in a band of 40 people, you live together, you see what's really going on. Common welfare, your fates are tied together. You must hang together in that band. And common justice. Yeah, they're differentials, but fundamentally. it's not rich man's law, poor man's law.

You know, eventually if a leader is a jerk or so forth, people leave or whoop on them in the middle of the night. You know, it just doesn't last. But then with agriculture, 10,000 or so years ago, and the concentrations of wealth that were enabled by that, that enabled increasing disparities and inequalities of power, which then perpetuated even more accumulations of wealth. And here we are running through the game of third. thrones, you know, to the 21st century, right? And so to me, one of the different, and when you have

that, you no longer have those objective conditions of common truth, commonwealth, or common justice. And so that that enables that kind of runaway. Those conditions used to constrain, bullying and authoritarianism, freeloaders were seen, they were punished, jerks were seen, there were consequences, they knew there would be consequences that night around the fire. You know, we've lost that. And so one of the difficult things, one of the challenges in the 21st century with approaching 8 billion people is how do we restore common truth, which is really the foundation of everything. Your book starts, you know, you have these three great themes. You'll talk more about, I know, truth, right, love, and freedom, essentially. And truth is the foundation of everything.

Ignorance is the root of all suffering. So we need, I think, that's our great challenge these days, to stand up for truth, to stand strong for truth, to witness the truth of others, to witness injustice when it's visited upon others, and to call out, to call out violations of these fundamental principles of common truth, common welfare, and common justice. Beautiful. And I feel like you've just given us the perfect segue, right in the middle, you said, deal with the bad, look towards the good. You know, in other words, they'll often be present with what's difficult, but look towards the good. And so we're going to actually go and do some practices that are just that. But I want to thank you, Rick, because I always come away.

It's like now my, you know, the red zone. I think that's such a valuable, it's such a valuable way to think about it, that we, you know, it's natural to go into a red zone. But it's the fact that we get, our accelerator got jammed and we're in this. chronic red zone, we're in a PTSD society now where everybody's in the red zone, of course we don't trust each other. So you always bring light and your heart is great and I'm so grateful. And friends, I want you all that are listening to know that if you go to Rick's website, you'll find out he offers really fantastic programs and courses and his books are amazing.

Thank you, Dr. Rick Hansen. Thank you, Dr. Tarra Brock. Yeah. Thank you. And thank you everyone for participating here, all 426 people. So thank you very much. Take good care. Love having you. Thank you. Bye-bye. Yeah. So as Rick said so eloquently, there really are two pathways to cultivating our capacity to trust the goal, to live from the goal. And one of them I think of as you start right where you are. In other words, you bring a compassion. present to what's here, including the mistrust. We just notice what's happening honestly

and we bring presence to it. The second pathway is intentionally looking towards the good, so they were undoing the negativity bias. And we're going to practice both of them in just a few minutes and you can begin to think of what you might want to bring your attention to as we practice. But for the first one, for bringing presence, here, most of you are probably familiar with that the mythic story, it was popularized by Tickna Han about the Buddha where he'd have repeated encounters with Mara, the god of the shadow energies, whether it was greed, hatred, delusion, you know, the red zone, things would flare up. And this is an expression of being caught in the coverings, forgetting who we really are.

That's what happened. The Buddha would be teaching outside a village in a field and Mara would be skirting around the edges and the Buddha's loyal attendant Ananda who's also his cousin would see Mara, see these shadow emotions and he'd go, oh no, Mara's here, you know. But the Buddha had a very different response. He would walk right over to Mara and say, I see you Mara. Come, let's have tea. So much wisdom in that, that when, whether it's self-hatred or shame, self-doubt, fear, grief, anger, when it arises, instead of ignoring it, running from it, judging it, I see you, Mara, I see it, truth, it's right here. Let's have tea, being with it, befriending. It's often called attend and befriend. And the practice I find most useful when we're really entangled in the red zone is

I use the rain practice which is really mindfulness and compassion. I see you Mara, let's have tea. And so we learn to, let's say Mara is like waves, we learn to attend and befriend the waves and the gift of presence with what is, the gift of tea, why it's medicinal, is that we move from being caught in the coverings, in the waves, to remembering the ocean. We can be the ocean and cradle the waves. So I've had many, many rounds of having tea with all different expressions of Mara. And a lot of them were encounters with the trance of unworthiness. One of them that I'll share with you was when I was in my early 50s. I was kind of in a downward spiral struggling with illness, I'm much better now, but we, you know, didn't know what was wrong and it was actually

years where I was experiencing chronic pain and fatigue and loss of mobility. I could barely walk up a hill. So during that time, along with the discomfort, emotionally, Mara was really active. I get depressed, discouraged, irritated, anxious, you know, just the whole array. and the deepest pain was a kind of self-mistrust or down on myself that, you know, I just, I couldn't believe how I was handling things. I didn't feel like I was being spiritual. So I did rain a number of times and you know the R of rain, recognize. I would notice, okay, I'm really grim, I'm really down, recognize.

eye of rain, I'm sorry, the A of Rain is allowed, just let that all be there. That's I see you, Mara, you know, okay, I see it. I'm grim, down, let it be there. The eye of rain is investigate and I could sense right away the belief was something's wrong with me for the way, for being sick, it's my fault and I'm being a bad sick person. That was the belief. The feeling was shame. It's just a sense of shame and fear that, you know,

my life wasn't going to work out. When I could investigate and feel that in my body, that sinking feeling, it was an ouch, you know, it was like that's suffering. When I could sense that with investigating and how often I had been there that I had made myself wrong, we call it the second arrow, you feel bad, I am bad. That's the second hour of the judgment. How many rounds I had kept myself in the trance of unworthiness. That was the ouch of investigating. And then I started nurturing because I started feeling tender towards myself. And often I'll just put my hand on my heart as I'm doing now and send some message of kindness. And in this case, trust your goodness. Just trust. Trust. That's rain. But the essence of

transformation comes in what I call after the rain where you don't just move on, you just sense the presence that's come up. And for me, it's a kind of a space of compassionate presence. That's the gold. It's after we have said, I see you Mara, let's have tea, and then we sense who we are, we realize, oh, I'm no longer stuck, I'm no longer plagued, I'm no longer the the self that's angry or failing, it's this compassionate space of presence, that's what I am. Every time we do rain and then slow down after the rain and sense that, we trust the gold more deeply. But what's important and the reason I'm mentioning this is if we glance over that, then that familiarity doesn't build so much. And as Rick Hansen teaches really, really

cleanly and clearly, we need to install the good. We need to really remember it for us to have access to it and trust it. So stay with after the rain because rain, it dissolves the opakness of the covering. In other words, my ego was still there, but it wasn't as solid and I wasn't as identified and the gold could shine through. So let's practice having tea with Mara. We're just going to do a, these are going to be short practices. I'd like to give you tastes and hope you spend more time with it and I know many of you already do these practices but hopefully this will give you some new fresh angles. So if you've been sitting really still you might just shift your posture around a little

and make sure you're comfortable. Take some moments to find the position that works for you and come into stillness when you're ready. Let the attention go inward. Notice how it is right now. Just take a few full breaths. The more you arrive, the more you can have to you with Mara. So just with some sincerity sense what it's like to be right here. Breathing, feeling this breathing body, you might even mentally whisper here, here. And maybe even let go a little if there's areas of tightness or tension, and bringing to mind something, some way that Mara is showing up right now, whether it's self-judgment or fear, anger, some way that probably will turn you against yourself

where you don't like it, you don't like how you're being, maybe something in a relationship, something at work, something in your own behaviors, maybe an addictive behavior. And bring yourself to the situation that helps you to get in touch with it and go right to the place you feel most triggered. There's really a sense of something's wrong. The R of Rain is to recognize whatever's predominance. So just notice whatever strongest feeling is there. Fear, anger, hurt, judgment, shame and mentally whisper it. The allow, it's like saying, okay, this belongs for right now. It's a wave in the ocean, let it be there. Just let it be there.

And investigating you might sense what am I believing when this is going on? When Mara is really present, when I'm caught in my coverings, what am I believing? Is it that I'm falling short, that another is not loving me or that I'm not lovable, that I'm failing, that something bad is going to go wrong in the future? But mostly as you investigate, as you have tea, notice how it feels. Having to with Mara is kind of a courageous feeling what's here in your body and I encourage you to put your hand on your heart or if you'd prefer on your throat or belly and just keep company with what's here.

Let your hand be the beginning of the end of rain, nurturing and breathe and feel what's here when Mara arises. Maybe a squeeze in the chest, hollowness or ache in the belly. belly, clutching at the throat. And sense what this vulnerable place inside you most needs right now. Because the last part of rain, nurture, when we're having tea, we're offering our friendliness, our care. So sense that you can offer care to whatever's here.

It might be just the energy of care, that you just sense a caring atmosphere that's kind of bathing the vulnerability. Or maybe some words, a message like, thank you for trying to protect me, but I'm okay right now if it's fear. Or maybe it's trust your goodness. Or maybe you're feeling like you're speaking from your most awake hard and you're saying, I'm here, I'm not leaving, I'm with you. Or maybe you're hard to nurture yourself and you bring in somebody, you bring in a spiritual figure or your dog or you bring in a grandmother or a child and you let the sentiment come from them that helps to nurture you. But send some words, feel the touch and let the care in. That's the trick. Rumi says, don't turn away. Keep your gaze on the

wounded place. That's where the light enters you. Letting in care and gradually widening the attention, this is after the rain to notice the quality of presence that's here, just the difference from when Mara first was arising, completely stuck on the coverings and the waves, to something larger, something more whole, more of a space of tender awareness. And take a moment to get familiar with that larger space because that's the goal, that's the light, that's the essence. Now, this practice is going to move into part two looking towards the gold, but if you'd like to take a few breaths, if you want to open your eyes just for a few moments between

this and the next part, please feel free. Because we talked about, Rick spoke of the negativity bias and, you know, when we're in trance, the sign of it is we really forget that the source of the gold is inside us. We might even have the idea in us. You might say, oh yes, God and the divine lives in everyone. But in those moments when we're caught and you know how it is, it just doesn't feel that way, right? It's like it's maybe within others.

I'm thinking or it's outside somewhere. I'm thinking of that young girl in the art class that she was completely immersed in her drawing and the teacher standing behind her saying, well, what are you drawing? And she says, I'm drawing God. And the teacher kind of juckles and says, well, nobody. knows what God looks like. And without skipping a beat, without even looking up, she says, they will in a moment. And it's like that that, you know, we forget that we really know. We know that experience. But when we're in the ego story, the divine sees them outside.

So we need some active, intentional practices to cut through the trance, to cut through that negativity bias, and start really seeing, oh, this is the gold. It's like when Rick started talking, he just started speaking of his gratitude for life's generosity. He was looking towards the gold. And as he did, you could feel it just created a buoyancy. They work. It works to look towards the gold. Why?

Because the gold is here. It's just forgotten. It's like the sun shining and, of course clouds come, but the sun's still there. So we're going to do a heart practice that is looking towards the gold and we're going to emphasize what people often miss when they do a practice like loving-kindness, where we you know maybe start and sense our own goodness. What people miss and the reason it doesn't turn into from a state maybe of feeling good to a trait of trusting goodness is not staying with the positive experience long enough.

We need to install it. So you'll sense that piece in this. So again, if you want to shift around a little bit and then we're going to go right into this next practice, when you come into stillness and let the attention go inward, you might bring a smile to the mouth and feel like your eyes are smiling too. See you're looking right towards the goodness. You're actually allowing your body to assume a facial expression that puts you in touch with goodness, with our resting and natural state. And you might breathe into your heart

and sense the curve of a smile spreading through your heart, not to cover over but to create space for anything that's here. So the eyes are smiling, the mouth, and the heart. And invite you to bring to mind someone you love in a relationship that's not complicated. Take some moments to sense, you know, where maybe a child, child, grandparent, could be your dog, friend, someone you really love and appreciate, you feel loving connection with. All relationships may have a little complication because we've got complicated inner lives, but minimal.

And whoever you bring to mind, bring them close in and take some moments to reflect on what you appreciate. might just recall their humor, what's like when they have a twinkle in their eye or when they're happy, their intelligence, their kindness. Picture this person when they're feeling love for you and it's expressed. So you kind of see in their eyes just that message of, I care, I'm interested, I love you, and just be aware of their essence as good and wakeful and caring and mentally whisper their names. or you can do it out loud if you'd like, whisper their name and the words, thank you.

And then again, and to let it get even more sincere once again. And just notice in the expressing how that appreciation actually viscerally fills your heart. Thank you. And now bring attention to your own being, your own heart, the care that's here, the tenderness, and take some moments to reflect on your own goodness, whether it's your own, your honesty or you're caring for another, your dedication to waking up and really sense, you know, what is my deepest aspiration? What does his heart long for?

Maybe it's to love well, to realize truth, to live fully. Just sense the goodness of your heart's deep intention, seeing your goodness. It's difficult, you can look through the eyes of your own, awake, most awake heart, or what I sometimes call our future self who we're evolving into, or look through the eyes of another who loves you, maybe the person you brought up. Just remind yourself of the gold, the same gold that's living through all of us and its own expression through you. And if it helps to put your hand in your heart, do that, but breathe and feel what happens

when you're aware of goodness. Just sense what it's like inside. Let it really let your attention saturate this experience. There's goodness. Sometimes there's like a joyful feeling, sometimes peaceful. Sometimes just it feels like homecoming, really at ease. It's feel it in your body. You might sense if there's some novelty about it, what feels new, why it's so important. Mostly just let it sink in. Let the light come into it. It's like water into a sponge, just lit in, absorbing the feeling. Just notice what's enjoyable about it and sense what you want to remember. And for some, if you want to write down something you might write down, what are some of the expressions of the gold that shine through you? Taking a few full

breaths, opening your eyes. When we can touch into the gold in ourselves, we begin to be able to look and see the gold in others much more easily. We often move through this world and if we're stressed, we tend to see just what I call the space suit. Like we feel like we're our ego self, we're on the coverings and we just see each other's coverings. So it's a real gift. to be able to slow it down and just as you did with yourself and with the person you love, to take the time to sense, well, what is this other person's deep heart intention or aspiration? What do I love about them? It's a sobering thought, writes Anthony de Mello, that the finest acts of love you can perform

is not an act of service, but an act of contemplation of seeing. When you serve people you help, support, comfort, alleviate pain. When you see them in their inner beauty and goodness, you transform and create. When we see goodness, we actually behave in the world differently. I'm going to share with you an essay. It's one of my favorite poems slash essays, Naomi Shaiyb Nyeh. And then we're going to open this up to questions. She writes this. She says, wandering around the Albuquerque Airport terminal. After learning my flight had been detained for four hours, I heard an announcement. If anyone in the vicinity of Gate 4A understands any Arabic, please come to the gate immediately.

Well, one pauses these days. Gate 4A was my own gate. I went there. An older woman in full traditional Palestinian embroidered dress, just like my grandma wore, was crumpled to the floor, wailing loudly. The flight person asked for my help. Talk to her, what's the problem? We talked to her. We told her the flight was going to be late and she did this. I stooped to put my arm around the woman and spoke to her haltingly. Shud thou ah, Shibshud Ahhabiti, Stani Shue, Min Fadlik, Shubbito siway. The minute she heard any word she knew, however poorly used, she stopped crying. She thought the flight had been cancelled entirely. She needed to be in El Paso for major medical treatment the next day. I said, you're fine. You'll get there. Who's picking you up? Let's call them.

son and I spoke with him in English. I told him I would stay with his mother until we got on the plane and would ride next to her, Southwest. She talked to him. Then we called her other sons just for fun. Then we called my dad and he and she spoke for a while in Arabic and found out of course they had 10 shared friends. Then I thought just for the heck of it, why not call some Palestinian poets I know and let them chat with her? This all took up about two hours. She was laughing a lot by then, telling about her life, patting my knee, answering questions. She had pulled a sack of homemade Mamuil cookies, little powdered, sugary, crumbling mounds, stuffed with dates and nuts out of her bag, and was offering them to all of us at the gate.

To my amazement, no one declined. It was like a sacrament. The traveler from Argentina, the one from California, from Laredo, we were all covered with the same powdered sugar and smiling. There's no better cookie. And then the airline broke out free beverages from huge coolers and two little girls from our flight ran around serving us all apple juice and they were covered with powdered sugar too. And I noticed my new best friend, by now we were holding hands, had a potted plant poking out of her bag, some medicinal thing with green furry leaves. Such an old country traveling tradition.

Always carry a plant, always stay rooted to somewhere. And I looked around that gade of late and weary ones and thought, this is the world I want to live in the shared world. Not a single person in this gate once the crying of confusion stops seemed apprehensive about any other person. They took the cookies. I wanted to hug all of those others too. This can happen anywhere. Not everything is lost. So this is a bit of the blessing of a world when we attend more and more to the gold. We're not overlooking the conditioning which is so very real towards cruelty and ignorance, all the painful conditioning. We're not overlooking it, but we're also not forgetting the essence, the intrinsic

goodness in all beings, and that way we can be part of bringing it out. So I'm going to pause here. I know there's some questions and take about 20 minutes, I think with questions and then we'll do our closing meditation together. Thank you, Tara. Yes, we have some nice questions here in the chat. There's one from Naveen. Compassion is the heart of the Buddhist gold. Seeing the gold in oneself and others, but in today's world, so much of that gold in others is so much so much suffering and evil onto others. How can we live in the gold when at times it is so hard to see it in others? And I'll bring Nevin on camera now. And Neveen. Hey, welcome. Hi, thank you. Thank you so much for your question because as I mentioned, we are in such a

traumatized world and when people are in the red zone, when people are fearful, it brings out the worst and it is really hard. And it's even harder if we feel directly threatened or we feel like those people are hurting people we love. So I want to acknowledge your question. And you're, yeah, and you're wondering really, how do we do it given that? Is that it? Yes, yes. I think, I think the essay, Naomi's poem essay answered part of my question. But for me, having lived in perpetual conflict, surrounded by conflict in my part of the world. It's sometimes even if we live, if we try to live in gold, there are so many hurdles along the way. And you just keep getting reminded that maybe that gold doesn't exist in others the way that I'd like to see it. So

it's just how do we bring ourselves back in a space that is, so filled with these, you know, tarnished, with this tarnished gold, if that makes sense. Yeah, yeah. And you kind of are intuiting it when you said the words, how do we bring ourselves back? How do we come back to that place in us that can see the conditioning, can respond wisely to it, but can hold in a really healing way how much pain there is? And there's a metaphor that has, I find really helpful from the Roshi Joan Halifax. And she describes a strong back and a soft front.

Strong back, soft front. And the strong back is that in us which is going to enforce boundaries and see clearly what's needed and has agency and is going to work for change, is motivated, has that courage and clarity. That's a strong back, okay? And that allows us to have the kind of soft front because we feel, Rick said we feel, we have enough safety and so on, to then look past the conditioning. I often give the story of if, you know, the man or a person walking in in the woods and

you see a little dog and the dog, you go to pet the dog and it lurches at you with its fangs bared, you know, and you get really angry at it, but then you see its leg is in a trap. and then you're not angry anymore but you might not go near it. So you're strong back as you keep your boundaries, but your heart's able to be soft. And that requires that we can look pretty deeply at others and realize it's not a bad other, it's harmful actions. It's in other words we pay attention to the harm, not a harmful person because that person's got a leg in a trap.

I mean there's many, many beings that have their legs in trap. So the first step is coming back to ourselves, which means for me, and I'll just share my process, which is here I am in the States and I am horrified by the white supremacy that lives in all white people but I see it most, it's most violent in some and when I see it playing out I get really angry at the actors and the tarnished gold of the actors just the way you're describing and because racism is so ugly and so I get really angry. So what I have to do is what I call a U-turn is come back and say, okay, feel the anger. And I literally put, you know, this is me having tea with Mara inside myself.

And under the anger, I will sense how much fear I have. And under the fear, so much grief for how many BIPAC people, black, indigenous people of color have been violated and feel that. grieving and underneath the grieving care. And then I can bring that care into the world, but not as blamed towards the particular person. That's the shift. You're not saying that person has tarnished gold. You're saying that there are conditions that end up blocking the gold in many, many people. Is that helpful at all, Nevin? Yes, I think it's very helpful. I like to think of it the way that you began the session by saying, I see the, I see the, the, um,

the shadow in you that we say, namaste, I see the light in you. I see the light in me, but there's also the shadow part. And that's okay instead of maybe spending that energy to change that into light. But that in itself is, there's gold behind that shadow. Does that make sense? So yes, I hear you. I love what you're saying, though. You're acknowledging the whole truth. Yes, there's a shadow block. And yes, I'm going to give my life to trusting the gold is there because that's really what's being asked of us right now, is to dedicate our lives to trusting that the gold is there because how else will we live in terms of really bringing it out in ourselves and each other if we don't, I think of it almost as decide to trust, even at times that we're feeling

a little bit low. It's kind of in some way a choice. Yeah, thank you so much. These are, you're asking questions that we're all, it's in the field. So I'm very grateful. Yeah, thank you. Thank you, Neveen. Next, we have a question from Leila. I'm stuck in the trends of unworthiness. I'm habitually afraid of messing everything up. That fear leads me to compulsive behaviors, including procrastinating, eating, judgmentalism, and being out of alignment with my spirituality. How do I get unstuck? What about spiritual evolution?

And where can we all move more towards bodhisattva? And I'll bring up Lela now. Hey, Laila, thank you so much. Pleasure to see you. Pleasure to be seen. Yeah, yeah. So the most stuck place is that you get into that trance of unworthiness and really turn on yourself. Yeah, strangle. Okay. Strangle.

And do you sometimes put your hands like this softly? And yeah. I practice rain. It's usually somewhere around the throat or the mouth. And that's where I kind of feel something. So let's, can we take a moment together in practice? Absolutely. Oh, good. This is for all of us. Anything that you want a little more practice with, this is a good opportunity. Am I pronouncing your name right? Lala. Lala. Beautiful. Thank you. I'm glad I asked. So if you want to turn the attention inward, you'll probably make it easier and I'll ask you questions and you can just keep your attention inside. But pick something that's very current where you get that turn on yourself strangled feeling.

You've got something in mind and you might actually go slow through the steps, like literally name it in your mind and allow it and see how truly the allowing can be Lala for right now. This is for all of you. The allowing we can just slide right through but to really say yes doesn't mean I like but it means this is the actuality. I'm going to let it be. Yeah, create some space. And then, yeah, tell me what you're noticing. Sadness. Yeah. Sadness and shame. And there's a little speck of hope in there. Yeah. It kind of boys it up from feeling like it's not all horrible. but the hard part is just turning on myself, as you said, but in a negative way, not a positive way.

Yeah, turning on yourself. And for a moment, let's just take the turning on yourself, the shame, and let it be there. And just from the kind of, this is called comprehensive mindfulness, just look at your lifespan and sense how often it has happened and even maybe when it started. how old you were? Probably around four or five. Okay, so just let the four or five year old be here. Let them be here right now and just sense how much as that four or five year old went through the years, how much was lost from turning, from that kind of turning against, you know, how it, how it affected

connecting with others. And just notice what happens when you sense the lifespan, like the effect of coming down on yourself. Just notice what feeling comes up. Exhaustion. Yeah, exhaustion. What else? Just a deep hurt.

At five, I'm depending on adults to protect me and to guide me. and they weren't able to. So there's betrayal. Betrayal. Betrayal, hurt. Okay. And where does that place in you live,

that vulnerable place that feels betrayed and hurt? Where are you feeling it? Yeah, shoulders, right. Yeah. Yeah. So what I'd like to, if you can do it comfortably, to put your hand on your throat, one hand on a shoulder, you know,

just, just, just, You know, just know, just in some level know that you're witnessing and keeping company right now. And send the message that you're here to that younger one, that you're paying attention right now. And notice whatever she wants to let you know, or they want you to let you know. They want to let you know. She wants to know when she's going to be okay. Not when she's going to be okay, but when it's going to be okay. when it's going to be okay.

So sense what happens with that question. And see if you can listen from the wisest loving place in your heart. Just listen to that question and sense what happens. When's it going to be okay? In truth, it's been okay. Almost all along, it was just I had no way to communicate that to her. Okay. So let's slow it down because that truth is important and make sure you're comfortable.

I don't want you to be uncomfortable. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So sense that you had no way to communicate that and so she's lived these years really thinking something was wrong and I'm wondering just to listen in and sense what would she need to hear or feel from you right this moment? might just begin to soften that hardened belief. What would most help just in this moment?

You're much more than you think you are, than you feel you are. Yeah. So now let yourself take some moments and sense yourself communicating that from the deepest, most sincere place in you to convey it energetically. Yeah. Really with that care. That's, yeah. Yeah. So do you want to just name what you're noticing here? There's just so much to that five-year-old that was light and spontaneous and it just all got tamped down. Yeah. Yeah.

And she's so much more than what she feels. Yeah. You can sense right now that light that shines through her that got tamped down. tamped down? Yeah, it's good to let her know you see it. It's really good. That's her goal, I guess. Yes, yes, yes. That's her goal. And it's here right now. It's never gone away, but you're right, it got tamped down. So take a few moments, Lala, just to let her let that in. Just let that be the deep intention that she let it in, that she trust that.

And just sense what you want to remember as you go forward, ways of being with her, what you want to remind her of, whatever you think will be helpful. Affirmations. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So as you're ready, just take some breaths and kind of rejoin me and us. How are you doing?

Open. Open. That's, bless you, bless you. Well, I want to thank you. I think it takes a huge amount of honesty and courage to just let yourself be real. And it serves everybody here because you just kind of demonstrated the pathway to getting the glimmer of the gold. that's just what it takes many rounds but you just walk through it so thank you thank you yeah well it's an honor dear yeah blessings I think what we just did is something that was really for all of us

and I'd like to have everybody have the opportunity to do just a simple closing practice and, you know, because we've really been exploring how do we realize the gold in us, how do we see it in others? The most powerful gift we can give when we start sensing the gold inside us is to mirror it, to let other people know. That really is the gift. One of my, one person I have huge inspiration from is Rachel Raymond, who's a physician and teacher and writer and wise women.

And she describes when she was a child how her grandfather, who was a rabbi called her Nishamalay, which means little beloved soul, you know, he saw the gold in her. But he died when she was pretty young. And she was afraid without her grandfather to remind her that God would forget her, and God would not see her. But she found that once you're blessed, once somebody's mirrored the gold, you're really forever blessed in a way. Well, when she was older, when her mother was really old, she told her mother about her grandfather's

blessings. And her mother looked at her sadly, and she said, Rachel, I've blessed you every day of your life, but I never had the wisdom to do it out loud. When I think of that, it really, it seems like it's such a deep truth in our world right now is we forget that everybody we meet is struggling hard. We forget that we all get in that trance and get caught in the coverings. We need to remind each other. So this is the closing meditation. It's kind of a, it has to do with that, that, you know, to love someone, as Arn Garberg says, to love someone is to learn the song in their heart and sing it to them when they have forgotten.

Okay, so final meditation friends. Again, because you've been in one place for a while now, just feel whatever needs for adjusting how you're sitting or you want to be lying down, whatever, please do. And as we have with each reflection, take a moment to invite yourself right here. The more here you are, the more you'll be able to touch and feel and see the gold. feel your breath, take a moment to relax, let go through the body a bit and as a kind of intimate witness, just notice what's it like inside right now? Real honest. Just notice how it is. Maybe you're feeling open and tender. Maybe you're feeling anxious, maybe you're feeling

down on yourself, maybe you're feeling restless, maybe you're feeling peaceful, whatever it is. The first place is to just honestly notice how it is. And take a moment in whatever way works for you, for many it's putting their hand on their heart, to offer some blessing, to offer some wish to yourself, whatever resonates in this moment and feel in that wish in some deep way that you're, there's a namaste that you're honoring the light that's there, you're calling it forward. You're entrusting yourself to it. And then bring to mind a loved one, someone that you care about. This can be complicated or not complicated, whatever, whatever draws you.

And as we did before, bring them close in and take some moments to appreciate the way the gold shines through them. Just to appreciate their vitality or their curiosity, their kindness, to appreciate the way they show love. You might imagine them when they're happy or when they're laughing, just to remember what it's like when they're in that buoyancy of more of that resting place where they're not encumbered by fear. Notice what you care about, what you appreciate, and imagine being with them and with words or end our touch, letting them know what you're appreciating. Actually to communicate it, I meant to say with words but you can also

add touch if that's an intimate person, let them know. Just imagine letting them know what you love. And notice what it's like, how it's received, the experience for them of being mirrored, and the deepening of the relational field, the tender rising and deepening of the relational field when you mirror the good. For this next part of this meditation, if you're not already, please come to gallery view. And one of the nice things about doing loving-kindness practices with Zoom is you can look at other people and they'll have no idea you're looking at them. So it feels a little bit less self-conscious if you know what I mean. So just look at other people and just kind of sense behind those eyes, the consciousness, the sentience.

This person's here because they want to, they care about love. loving without holding back. This person's here because they want more truth. Yeah. And then as you're ready, just to pick somebody, scroll through and pick somebody, maybe somebody that's a very familiar-looking person or maybe somebody that looks very different than you and the people you're around. But just pick somebody and let your gaze settle with them so you deepen your attention

now. that. Yeah, if it helps put your hand on your heart, look in those eyes and know that that person right now is very intentionally opening, tenderizing, they care, they too like you want to feel that goodness of loving, of presence, and see the goodness in them and feel like your way you're looking at them, you're letting them know. And sense from their gaze they're letting you know. So there really is a relationship here. Don't worry about any of the other thoughts that come to your mind.

Just trust in the gold. It's beautiful. It's the same gold living through all of us so it really didn't matter who you chose. But it comes through in very unique ways. And you might pick one more person, let your eyes move and just kind of scroll. It can be really fun when you start realizing your life can be an adventure where you can, anyone you see, it's one spiritual teacher said, just reflect I am God and you are God. The gold is coming through me and through you.

So pick that person and see their gold, see their goodness, their intelligence, their care, their presence. know you're sending your message of appreciation. Trust that they're, they get it somewhere. Yeah. And let yourself receive too. It's beautiful. It's a field of gold. And if you want to take a moment to let your attention goes inside because it can get pretty strong and just really come home to just the feeling of expansiveness of light, this heart space that's more the truth of who you are than any story you could ever tell about yourself. Just imagine a world where we can move through and recognize the light in each other. Truly say namaste. Life is this simple.

We are living in a world that is absolutely transparent and the divine is shining through it all the time. This is not just a nice story or fable, it is true. May all beings everywhere. wake up to recognize the loving awareness in their being, the gold. May all beings everywhere live from the gold, see in in each other. May all beings everywhere touch great and natural peace. May there be peace on earth. May there be loving connectedness everywhere. May there be justice.

May there be well-being. May all beings everywhere be free.