Courage in Our Difficult Time

[Music] the point of meditation isn't to get somewhere else but to actually become who to remember who we really are to come alive in the present moment as loving awareness itself to remember and in Bali they say when a little child is born they don't even let the babies touch the earth for six months they carry them they say those who are closest to the gods or tiny infants who've just come from the other world for old people who are getting ready to return to it and the people furthest from the gods are middle aged people with mortgages and forget who they really are so our task especially in this difficult time is to stop is to go deep as the eaching says my friend Peter the beam through that teaching and came up with the well that says to go deep in this time down deep where there's neither increase nor decrease but something timeless and otherwise we can get caught up in all of the anxiety and fear because part of what's gone viral is fear not the virus itself and the word pandemic comes from the Greek pan it's also the root of panic and pandemonium it's the wildness of them the god Pan you know dancing and this is one of the energies of life but it's not the only energy and of course there is the great cultural anxiety and global fears also there's our response I watched some of the which many of you did of the concert and celebration of working people and healing people you know the healers and so many that ate our concert that Lady Gaga had stewarded with all the amazing and wonderful singers and part of what was most moving about it was the clips of doctors and nurses and frontline people and bus drivers and people who were in the warehouses and all of that saying we're with you were part of you and there was a sense of solidarity I also love that there's so much humor that's coming out even the face of all this Dolly Parton wrote a song here's the lyrics this too shall pass as all things will if the virus don't kill us the stay in home will the kids are bored and restless they scream and yell and squawk and the teens and tweens they're just plain meaning they bite your bleep and head off and all those loving couples that were once so sweet and cozy now they fight like cats and dogs like Donald and Pelosi Laura get us back to school and get us back to work and get out of this goddamn house before somebody gets hurt and lord please find a vaccination in the form of a shot or appeal because if the virus don't kill us the stay in home will you know and so here we are all cooped up with our loved ones and as Jimmy Fallon had somebody you know tweet into the Tonight Show that she was already considering spelling her children from home school so we have to deal with this and with one another and how do we do it and what really matters a poem by Thomas santol Ella in the evening we shall be examined on love and it won't be multiple choice in the evening when the sky is turned that certain blue the blue of exam books we shall climb the hill as the light empties and park our tired bodies on a bench above the city and try to fill in the blanks we shall be examined on love like students who don't even recall signing up for the course and now must take their orals force to speak for once from the heart orestes before once from the heart and this is really the curriculum of this life in this incarnation in the midst of it all so I want to talk about how we hold this and how we navigate this with the practice that we just did together and with a deeper understanding we're part of the great mystery and the Buddhist texts began Oh nobly born you who are the sons and daughters of the awakened ones remember who you really are remember your true nature your Buddha nature and of course there's that wonderful poem from Juan Ramon Jimenez where he says yo no so yo I am NOT I I'm this one walking beside me who might do not see whom at times I manage to visit and at other times I forget the one who remains silent when I talk the one who forgives sweet when I hate the one who takes a walk when I am indoors the one who will remain standing when I die and in the meditation we shifted from the experience of body heart and mind to become the loving witness itself of our restlessness our doubting and fearful mind our tears our longing our love to bow to all these things but of course that's a very nice idea how do we actually embody it and I know being here with my beloved Trudy we're mostly doing good but once in a while we get on each other's nerves like human beings do and I have a practice I actually told her about it it's sort of a secret practice I have I think about the passage from Thomas Merton where he talked about seeing the secret Beauty behind the eyes of every being and my secret practice is if I find frustration or annoyance I look at her I look at her eyes and I see the girl the innocent child the young girl the young teenager that's in there with so much possibility and beauty and love and when I see that secret beauty and then the rest falls away even though I cleaned the stove we are taking turns cleaning the house and then she came and said Jack you know you can't just wipe the grease away and I had to learn a whole new deep dharma of what it means to properly clean stove thank you my beloved so we become loving awareness we become the witness to the joys and sorrows to the praise and blame to the things that are joyful and wonderful in our life and the things that are difficult and in this we open to a deeper mystery we open to a mystery of becoming that one as Machado says who sees ourself walking or talking but we know we're greater than this we're not just caught in our personality and in our small self we're actually timeless awareness itself the Buddha nature itself witnessing it all so the story I want to tell which I've told last time a couple a few years ago and some time a decade before that is a famous story of initiation an initiation means going through a difficulty in order to find that which is unshakable sometime it's deliberate where the maasai will send the young man out into the desert for the spear and the initiation is to confront and kill a lion and bring it back to prove that they're a man or a young woman in that Masai people who learns what it means to give birth and become a creator of the world through their body but an initiation requires us to face a difficulty to go through such a narrow place that it divests us of all our baggage of all the things that we held as being true or dear to find something deeper sokar freed dürkheim the great Zen teacher writes the person who really being on the way falls upon hard times in the world well not as a consequence turn to those friends who offer comfort and encourage their old self to survive rather they'll seek out someone who will faithfully and inexorably help them to risk themselves so that they may endure the difficulty and pass courageously through it only to the extent that a person exposes themselves over and over again to annihilation can that which is indestructible be found within them in this daring lies dignity and the spirit of true awakening and sometimes initiation is deliberate but most often it comes as they say in the Greek as a kata boss as a blow an accident an illness a divorce the loss of business uh something that happens in your family but now we have the blow to our worldwide and global culture and it's a cultural initiation that's released some of the Furies on the earth and if you look into the Greek myths of the Furies none of the gods can stop them vengeance and the power of the Furies paranoia because they arise when truth is not being honored and in the end the only thing that could stop them was the great goddess of wisdom Athena who took them into her temple and made an altar and say we respect the truth that need to be spoken and thus we respect you so here we are needing to embrace all of the difficulty and to go through it as an initiation and say yes we will bring all this into the temple of our awareness so the ancient story a myth is of NACHA kata from the kata Upanishads NACHA kata was a young man years ago centuries ago born into a wealthy family in the top 1% of the culture in a li --- you still have to go through what we all have to go through as human beings I give all I value to the priests and temple and his son was so upset at this he said out loud in front of everyone all you value what about your son as if to shame his father for his hypocrisy and sham and being publicly rebuked in this way his father turned to him and says I give you I give you to death for he was mortified more to what his son said in front of everything he'd done Nachi Keita as young man do turned toward him and said I accept and now it's time for our young man not chaqueta to enter what the poet Dante called the dark wood that one finds at a certain point in life the unknown and Sonakshi kata said all right my father gives me to death I will go and I will seek out death and find what I can learn and he went deep into the forest and sat without moving for three days and three nights through pain and hunger and fear waiting to see if death would appear this is like the poet Kabir who said I decided to go on a great pilgrimage so I sat still for three days and somehow not chaqueta knew that something had to die that he had to confront something deeper that wasn't just the money of his father or the acclaim of the community and I see this often when people will talk to me about depression or even suicide and someone will say I feel suicidal or this person I know is asking me about suicide and of course our first response is to say don't do it it's the wrong thing to treasure life but there's another deep response as well which is to understand that something does have to die it's not the body the body but that that feeling that they have to die is really a false identity the job that they can't do anymore the relationship that's killing them that speed the grasping all the things we've seen in the toxic qualities of our culture that have slowed down now somehow there's something in that person that says I know something has to die and they get confused and think the body is that which it is but it's something deeper that's called and in us there's an intuitive wisdom that knows that we can go to a descent so not gk2 went to the kingdom of death and after three days of not moving and the flyer and his body and the pain and the fear and the dark of the forest and everything that we confront in meditation times a hundred four not moving through three days and nights he found himself at the kingdom of death Lord Yama the King of death wasn't there only his assistants war pestilence and famine were there he asked for the king of death and they said I'm sorry he's out collecting rent you will have to wait until notch akkada waited longer and finally when death returned his assistants said you know there's a very unusual young man who's come here to see you and the Lord of Death sat opposite notch ikata and said you are indeed unusual for you sat for three days and nights to come see me and then I wasn't here and you sat for three more days and nights and because you've come in this amazing or in this remarkable way a courageous young man and because I have not received you directly in a worthy way I will offer you three boons three wishes now of course we're in the mythological territory of a of a fairy tale what are the three wishes that the king of death has offered to nachi Keita and they're part of this story that has been told for thousands of years so notch okay okay Tessa [Music] asked for his first of three moons the first was I asked for the blessing of forgiveness and this is why we teach Metta now at the beginning of our retreats and we weave it into our meditation and to mindfulness why we call it mindful loving awareness not chaqueta said I asked that my father forgive me and that I forgive him that my father could see me with the eyes he saw me when I was his first born son and the reason that this was the first boon that he asked is because we can't go any further in the liberation of the heart and the freedom that we seek without starting with the balm of compassion and forgiveness and love for we've all been disappointed trade we've all been hurt in so many ways our self and others and in the end if we are to live in a free life what machi kata was seeking a new life a death and rebirth it starts with a forgiving heart to not put another being out of our heart there is a extraordinary book by psychologists and masters who helped with the truckin truth and reconciliation process and she decided in her work to try to understand what she called the evil that had come upon people and she spent a year going into the prison to talk to the architect of apartheid who had ordered the deaths and killings of so many Amanda de Kock and she sat opposite him week after week after week talking to him and listening to him this is a recorded in her book and one night after listening and talking on and on he said I think that I lost it all it's the feeling of loss the first thing that goes is innocence there's no more fairy tales or Bambi that's gone we killed a lot of people and they killed some of ours we thought for nothing we fought each other basically eventually for nothing we could all have been alive having a beer so I'm confused I'm so very tired and he hung his head down and shifted his a his legs to adjust to the chains that bound him to the chair his eyes downcast like someone reflecting on the greatest tragedy and lost in his life and the fact that she could go and sit with him and listen with an open heart and a curious and a not even compassion but an interest in understanding in a a presence was the very energy that truth and reconciliation process grew out of we all have forgiveness to do and in this difficult time we're asked to do some reflections in the heart what do you have to forgive small and large for your heart to be free some of it is self forgiveness some of it's forgiveness of others asking forgiveness but holding yourself with tenderness my old faults like snow falling on warm ground when we hold ourselves with self compassion even the difficulties are held in a new way I remember sitting with Ram Dass and he told the story of being with his guru neem Karoli Baba a neem karoli baba looked at Ron das with so much love and gave him very simple instructions das love everybody and then he paused and he said Rahm das tell the truth now these seemed like beautiful spiritual instructions right but as Rhonda said I was surrounded by this hold coterie of Westerners who come because I was with the Guru and I was irritated by them they were taking up time and the more I looked they were there on their own ego trips and they were puffing themselves up and they were grasping and grabbing and they were neurotic and their personalities were quite unappealing in many cases and I looked at them and I said ah but my guru said tell the truth the truth was I hated them I didn't like them I wanted them out of there and then he said round us love everybody and that was his column and he sat with it made me work with it and he said one day he was sitting there looking in the eyes of his guru with that glance of mercy from his guru that is the name for when someone sees you so deeply so lovingly that it changes the cells of your body and you remember that you are loved and he looked and he said all these crazy Westerners like me who came I love them all I love every single one of them it was a breakthrough in a transformation and it asks us what do we have to forgive for our hearts to be free this was logic eight is first and it's yours as we go through this descent because it is difficult it's difficult for all of us collectively and in our families in our communities and as a society and forgiveness this forgiveness doesn't mean that we accept things that are being done that cause suffering that we don't try to change him to stand up what matters to stand up for care and justice for everyone what it means is that in and we don't put anyone out of our heart that we can wish everyone may you be free from hatred may be you be free from fear may be free from ignorance so I'm not she Kate to received his first burn in his heart became softened and he was able to now live through the next part of his dee --- ries came carried by terror from across the world the virus came the Sun rose each day and so did the numbers the streets quieted these integers came not always in that order unable to see or hear or hold each other we had to unlearn how we showed love we wondered what will it feel like but no one could tell us we did not know that we were grieving only that we were grieving for something unknowable yet circus so we the South Africans waited the Sun rises each day and so do the numbers because I not cannot hold you I must cling to these precious things truths I do know immutable facts which are immune to a virus I do know we are South Africans we have endured what most others have not we the South Africans have survived many times that which is unfathomable if pain builds resilience and if one can suffer without succumbing to cruelty then perhaps although many of us are sick and poor and unable to self isolate we are prepared in a way that is not as apparent in a manner not born of wealth or infrastructure you see in a part of us so deep that it is fathomless there's a key to choose I for us arrive together and those of us who have already lived apart but together through so much we've been asked to decide there's so much I do not know but I do know we are South Africans I do know our decision was made long before this pandemic many times over we have chosen us I do know one day the Sun will rise and the numbers will not and this is what not chaqueta asked for he asked for that strength of heart to go through everything that was difficult and it's never too late to start this is the time as one of our great founder says one person with courage is a majority standing up for justice caring for others in the middle of this time speaking the truth with love as Nelson Mandela says do not judge me by my successes judge me by by how many times I fell down and got back up again and this is your humanity and this is what's possible for you and so the second wound was granted an educator and now it's the last loon it's the last gift the last blessing from educator said quietly and he looked at Lord Yama and he said what I ask now is a great boom I wish to know that which is immortal kind of audacious young guy he was his last wish and Lord Yama looked back him and said really you could have anything here look at this and he showed him visions of royal chariots with great steeds basically the you know Ferraris of the day and devyse of you know beautiful women and consorts and the best of banquets you couldn't have anything make sure that this is your true wish a notch occator applied with a question will not all of these return to your kingdom soon enough and Lord Yama had to nod and reply and say yes for all of these things are temporal are impermanent they rise for time and they pass away you you so lord yama said then i will give you your answer and he brought not chaqueta an extraordinary gift a beautiful mirror handcrafted there in the underworld and he said I place this mirror in your hand and with it posed a question to you that will be the gateway to immortality itself and the question I pose for you is Who am I really look deeply in this mirror and see it's what the Zen masters ask when they say who are you or what is this this great mystery of life and you sit with that Coe on day and night what is this Who am I but it happens in a moment when you go in the bathroom and look in the mirror and notice your body is aged that the fur is missing in some parts that it droops in other parts you know how it is wrinkles are coming it's changing its shape but even though you've noticed that your body has changed there's that weird experience that you don't necessarily feel older you know that and that's because it's only your body that's aged but the consciousness the loving awareness the witness of it who you really are in that moment steps back in system hmm how's this body doing in this incarnation oh it's sagging here and it's learning there and it's getting this way or that way you start to see who you are is not this body but the awareness itself you become the witness the consciousness itself this is from be here now speaking of around us he says as we awaken we watch the entire drama of our lives we are watched the illusion with unbearable compassion for you are all form your breath you are the river you are the void the desire and the illusion and the awakening beyond it for you are beyond space and time nothing and everything everything is me and you see it all form an eternity as a miracle then you entered the marketplace with this bestowing hands you chop wood and carry water if you return to the world to be in the world but not of the world and in all that you're going through the difficulties in the fears know that this is not the end of the story we human beings have been through earthquakes and floods tornadoes and tsunamis and Epic's that include epidemics and pandemics over the centuries and we've survived it's in our genes it's in our cells it's in your nervous system and in your collective memory and in your heart and it was passed on to you by your ancestors and their ancestors generation after generation we know how to do this and when you get quiet and you get the boons that nachi Kate has asked for the loving and forgiving heart the courage there's not an absence of fear but the courage to be true to yourself and what matters even when fear arises and then you remember who you are the great heart of compassion itself you get still in quiet and this from my beloved Trudy who wrote when you go out and see the empty streets the empty stadiums the empty train platforms don't say to yourself it looks like the end of the world what you're seeing is love in action what you're seeing in that negative space is how much we do care for each other for our grandparents our parents our brothers our sisters protecting people we will never meet people will lose their jobs over this some will lose their businesses and some will lose their lives all the more reason to take a moment when you're out on a walk or on your way to the store or watching the news to look into the emptiness and marvel at all that love let it fill you and sustain you isn't the end of the world it is the most remarkable act of global solidarity we may ever witness and when not chaqueta had received this third blessing and looked deeply into the mirror to ask Who am I really and could see that he was in fact consciousness itself as tick not han says since before time I've been free birth and death are only doors through which I pass this body is not me I am life without boundaries I've never been born and never died he stepped out of the land of the Lord of death into the unborn into the timeless into the loving consciousness that gives birth to all that we really are that was born into your body and he could see the world with the highs of love and return to it then like the old man and the Zen pictures going back into the marketplace with his wine bottle and his staff saying and all I look upon with love become enlightened for something then becomes holy every spring crocus a newborn fawn and plum and apple blossom and I watched my year and a half old grandson pick up a pebble and he could stand at the edge of the Grand Canyon or the biggest marvel of the world and say look look at this red pebble it's a mystery isn't it beautiful - Baba and Nene his grandparents yeah I believe it was in leaves of yes Whitman said a mouse is miracle enough to stagger sextillion zuv infidels just the existence of life of ours and others in this planet among the vast galaxies and here we are and yes we've been through pandemics and epidemics and whatnot chaqueta realized was that there was something bigger and more beautiful that he could find and it wasn't just in the vastness but it was in the tenderness between people and what we touch and how we listen a poem by James Davis may even on the night my friend died even on that night the feral cat the one that's white and fluffy still crossed our driveway quietly from my neighbor's Pines to our own rhododendrons even on that night she would look for some rodent or bird to terrorize and I drink --- day to settle yourself and set your best intention and in little bits in the day after you clean the stove and walk the dog or Daikeler the child or answer the email or go on the endless zoom until you get zou crazed and you take a breath and feel yourself on the earth let your heart soften and hold it all with compassion say thank you for trying to protect me and take care of me and live in a great heart of love it is your birthright it is who you really are thank you and good night so to do a meditation practice now let yourself sit in a way that is steady feet flat on the floor buttocks on a seat and feel a sense of groundedness and when you're ready allow your eyes to close gently and this will be a practice that combines elements of mindfulness mindful living awareness and other dimensions so as you begin to sit you do what I do at the end of the day actually and when I sit first take a couple of deep breaths and release whatever tension there is that you easily with those breaths and then as I start to pay tenshun I realized that I have to sense my own body my heart and mind in a deeper way than when I'm going through the tasks of the day whether it's doing the dishes or offering teachings or interacting with others I really need to sit quietly and tune in and find a different dimension of possibility and as I do I find there are all kinds of things that are beneath the surface that my body goes into fight flight or freeze picking up the alarm of the world around me or my own fears my heart does so as you sit quietly now having taken those breaths let yourself feel a sense of connection to the earth a grounding in which almost as if you had energetic roots going from your body into the earth steadiness deep connected your body comes from the earth it's part of the earth and feel that strength and steadiness you take your seat halfway between heaven and earth in this human form and let your roots go deeply into the earth steady strong and now from this place of presence begin to tension to the experience just now and we'll go through the dimensions of mindful loving awareness first bring your attention to the whole field of your body the sensations the energy of the body the areas of tightness or tension that come from this fight flight or freeze that gets triggered in us the areas of hot or cold a pleasure or pain feel the whole energy field of the body with a loving awareness that has no judgment but is kind and curious and as you do places of the greatest tension and the greatest holding in your body invite them to open to increase to get stronger to to spread out through your body or beyond invite them to show you what you're holding and you receive them in the space of mindful loving awareness and as you allow the sensations and the intensity of tension or pain all the things held to open to get stronger to expand to show themselves to be received notice how as they expand they also soft them become more spacious now bringing the quality of compassion to hold all that your body's been holding with a compassionate awareness and say to your body thank you thank you for trying to protect me thank you for taking care of me and as you do notice how the body softens with that gratitude how holding it all with compassion and kindness just as aa QR now like you would hold a child was going through a hard time such tenderness thank you it's okay I'm all right for now and notice how the body relaxes and opens as you do it breathes easier space opens up your allow the body to release and come to a greater more natural presence just as it wants to open to be filled all of it and receive with love tenderness now shift the same mindful loving awareness to the area of your heart and notice what feelings and emotions are present I notice at the end of the day that there's an accumulation there might be grief deep tears of sadness there might be fear anxiety longing love joy mixed together with all the rest with this mindful loving awareness since what's there in your heart that asks to be filled that you're carrying sometime for a long time and let it open let it intensify that it gets stronger more painful or more beautiful more sad let the feeling is open in the vast space of loving awareness fill your body in war let them show you what your heart is carrying and you become the loving witness allowing the heart to be fill all of it and as you hold and allow all these feelings to intensify and open the tears the fear the longing the love hold them again with compassion like you'd hold a crying or frightened child tenderly not trying to fix them but honoring them and say thank you thank you for to protect me all these feelings thank you for trying to keep me safe I'm okay for now thank you thank you for everything you do and notice what happens in the heart how spaciousness grows naturally how the feelings are received and soften and how the gratitude thank you and compassion for all of them for trying to protect me opens his face of tenderness and presence [Music] and now bring your attention to your mind that very busy organ sometimes considered located in the brain but actually much bigger than that filled with cycles of thoughts and images and perhaps now repeated patterns of worry and concern and imagination cycling and circling and busy feel all the energy of the mind just note what it's like and hold it to with loving awareness invite it to open to display to show its energy let it get more intense if it wants let it cycle and twist and get wild and imagine and feel all that energy and give it space to show you the energy of the mind and bring it the compassion to hold all these energies with kindness they're just doing their job as you do and thinks often you can say thank you thank you to your mind that over busy organ thank you thank you for trying to protect me bow with gratitude thank you I'm okay just now I'm okay you can relax and notice how the mind to softens and settles when you allow all the energies to be held in compassion and loving awareness when you offer gratitude everything softens and now became is something quite remarkable and important and liberating as the Buddha would say the essence of liberation notice that the body with all its sensations and experiences the heart with all its emotions feelings in the mind that you are able to pay attention to these with awareness itself and shift your attention to realise that you are this awareness you are this loving awareness not the body although you are gifted with this body in this incarnation and not the waves of emotion the love and the longings and the fears and not the thoughts and images sense that you are the witnessing consciousness itself here are the space of awareness that knows this all timeless open vast silent filled with and tenderness for all the struggles of the body and mind and life around and rest in this deep loving awareness who you really are and in this loving awareness like an ocean of peace or stillness vastness that contains everything let yourself sense that just as you can be aware of body and heart and mind you can also be aware of the field of being of the beings all around you those making love and those in fear and those being born and those who are sacred I mean the vastness of beings and that your loving awareness can extend and become a kind of loving compassion just as you hold your own body and heart and mind with tenderness now let the vastness of your loving awareness extend in every direction as you could hold this whole world in the great heart of tender compassion you can this is your birthright your Buddha nature born into you is the great heart of compassion and timeless understanding you and send out well wishes of love and tenderness in every direction from this place of stillness take compassion you you become the lamp the beacon to healing heart you the medicine of the awakened heart the medicine law offer to all holding on when a child is born or first response is one of love when a person is dying our last response is to hold their hand who we really are as love itself our true nature loving awareness consciousness itself rest in it you returning to it it is your home you you