Facing Truth with Compassion: Remembering Our Belonging (Part 1)

[Music] namaste and welcome most weeks as i approach doing our wednesday class and i kind of reflect on what's really most alive to me and what feels most alive in the world and the word that keeps arising and this isn't new is belonging many of you know john o'donoghue who's passed away he's a poet mystic and he writes that our life's journey is the task of refining our belonging so that it may become more true loving good and free refining our belonging we might expand that to say that it's our species journey to refine our belonging to realize our interconnectedness with all of life so i've always loved the word belonging it's a it's a heart word and it it kind of conveys to be truly at home and it starts belonging starts with being at home in the aliveness that's right here we really can't belong to anything else if we don't feel belonging and inhabiting and filling our own bodies and hearts and even as i begin to speak about it tonight we might pause for a moment just to attune some you might close your eyes and just with some curiosity just a sense well how do i experience belonging just to sense what it means to you and just since am i alive right here feeling belonging to this changing flow of sensations and energy in this body do you feel belonging to the life in your body right now just check it out are you at home with the life of your body do you feel at home with whatever emotions are here connected and open to the changing flow of moods and emotions are you belonging to your emotional life do you feel at home and belonging with others in your life if you bring to mind start with those who are easier is there a sense of belonging of that togetherness that intimacy of understanding and connectedness is their feeling of at home belonging can you imagine or sense what it would be like to feel belonging with all beings with all expressions of life all life forms belonging with this living earth truly a part of connected to this living earth can you sense what it means to have belonging to spirit belonging to the awareness the formless dimension what some may call the sacred that animates life belonging to that made of that so you can open your eyes so we'll explore this we're going to explore this tonight and next week and for some of you as i spoke you might have sensed a bit into well this is what belonging means to me or maybe some of you noticed how you don't feel belonging and i want to say that's equally valuable in this inquiry and you're not alone you know we often feel cut off from belonging from living connection in fact there wouldn't be suffering on the planet if there wasn't a sense of being cut off our most basic conditioning this is our most basic conditioning is to perceive separation and with that there's fear it said that the primal mood of the separate self is fear and so we perceive separation we feel fear and with that there's some level of dissociation from the place that fear feels raw which is the body and the heart and of course others become either somebody that can help us feel more safe and there can be some grasping or someone that feels dangerous so we easily feel afraid of others not belonging so i'm bringing this up because severed belonging the sense of being cut off is pervasive um in our huma it's part of our human conditioning and yet there's a pathway to belonging and it's important to know that we're talking about this and exploring this at times that severed belonging is most exacerbated like here we are in this pandemic globally and we humans are social creatures and yet we're being cut off and there's an epidemic of loneliness there's anxiety and of course heightened social dividedness and we all know it with a racial caste system with political parties being so polarized so there's mistrust severed belonging so i bring this up because when it's like that we suffer physically emotionally and spiritually and the big inquiry so what's the pathway back so some of you might know about this that in the early 1900s many infants wasted away and died in hospitals and institutions for unknown reasons and often on the admissions cards of these really seriously sick infants their condition would be described as hopeless well there was a famous physician his name was dr fritz talbert and he had unusual success with these children diagnosing and treating them and after examining one of these infants dr talbot would write on a child's chart with his little scroll and within days the child would miraculously begin to gain color and eat more food and move around with more ease and vitality so one time a station nurse asked him about the diagnosis and the prescription and some others were kind of interviewing her and she said and this is what she said oh the diagnosis and prescription well she pointed to the corner of the nursery and there was this matronly woman rocking a child in her arms it's old anna when nothing works he has the child spend time with old anna i've always this story's always struck me because we listen and we say well of course infants need nurturing it's we know that we know that children can't grow or thrive without caring touch that they have to be in relationship with attentive caregivers but we forget that it's really true for all of us and through our life that our well-being [Music] really our well-being is linked to a sense of some way being held by our belonging to or a part of some the larger uh benevolence in this world that we fit in that we're that we are connected all of us i often quote that evolutionary psychologist kozalino who said it's not survival of the fittest it's survival of the nurtured and we need to feel we need to feel it we need to trust our belonging as as social species we are hardwired to want to belong just as much as we're conditioned to feel separate we're hardwired to want to belong because not belonging meant death so it's in our dna so again john o'donoghue he says everyone longs for intimacy and dreams of a nest of belonging in which one is embraced seen and loved something within each of us cries out for belonging we can have all the world has to offer in terms of status achievement and possessions yet without a sense of belonging it all seems empty pointless so here we are more aware than ever of the lack of belonging in our society and for many in our personal lives and if there's belonging it's often of the type that's exclusive that's um narrow you know to an in-group or to a part of the population that's most like us we hang out with people who are similar to us this has been researched like crazy belonging to a political party belonging to a racial or religious group a socio-economic class but substitute belongings actually block the experience of true true belonging so this is the this is the domain we're looking at that the the pain of separation of severed belongings the core of suffering it expresses as loneliness our fear our shame our numbness depression behaviorally it comes out as addictions or violence or dominating and controlling or withdrawing so the crucial inquiry is how do we refine and enlarge our belonging so it becomes more true good loving and free and by way of beginning to address that um i'd like to share a teaching from someone i very much admire michael mead who's a renowned storyteller he's he talks about a healing ritual in zambia and i've always been struck by this uh included it actually in uh radical acceptance he says in zambia there's a ritual about a tooth when someone in the village is sick or disturbed they imagine that it's caused by an ancestor's tooth that's gotten inside that person and the person's sickness affects everybody in the village because they're connected with one another so they make a ritual to get this tooth the sickness out of the person but the tooth won't come out until the truth comes out and the sickness includes all of the hatreds and conflicts everybody feels in the village so the sick person has to express what's really troubling them and it's usually not very noble you know it's jealousy or rage or a dark human passion but the tooth won't come out of the sick person until all the troubled feelings come out of everybody else in the village so this release happens only when everything comes out in the midst of dancing and singing and drumming and the whole village gets cleansed by the release of the tooth through the release of these difficult truths so that's packed i mean there's a lot in that we don't have to take everything literally to get the deep wisdom in it that this pathway of healing presumes the truth that we belong to each other that's the truth and that when they're suffering when one or more of us has has disconnected from that truth that we have pathways of connecting with what's real holding it with kindness and arriving again you know there's a a word ubuntu and it's an african understanding that i am because you are you are because i am there's this interconnection that we're not alone in it and it's that's at the depth of every spiritual path really it's and it's how we live in the world we live off the breath of plants and plants off our exhalations so i am because you are you are because i am okay so the starting place in this tribe is when there's severed belonging the member of the tribe is not blamed or isolated suffering is considered a shared experience it's part of the human conditioning and in contrast think of our society which is a society built on individualism which is true for white dominant cultures we're very individualistic and suffering is seen as a personal problem and healing as a personal endeavor for the most part and it's interesting to note that in our type of societies in particular united states that this attitude sufferings a personal problem healings a personal endeavor has led to the highest incarceration rates in the world were punitive in responding to suffering in contrast indigenous cultures was more collective kind of an understanding and buddhism the recognition is that our suffering arises in this --- ering we tend to feel it means that we're in some way bad so this is the wisdom of the ancestor's tooth that our suffering it affects each other um we're whatever is going on with us you know when we're suffering it's contagious i mean can you feel happy if your partner is depressed you know it really affects our moods we're we're inter-influencing or can you enjoy plenty if you have a neighbor and you're just seeing how they're starving or maybe maybe you haven't gotten coveted but doesn't your nervous system still feel this you know horror and pain at how many are struggling how many have lost dear ones so there's a wisdom to this and we're gonna look at it in our own lives that we take suffering personally and when we can begin to get a little space around that and get wait a minute this isn't personal others feel this too there's more capacity to then relate to the suffering in a way that frees us okay let's let's check in a little because i've been talking a bit and i would like you to i like to ground it with experience so take a moment to if you need to adjust how you're sitting and close your eyes and let's just take a brief reflection and for any of these reflections if you start in with curiosity it will bear fruit so be curious we're going to try on the the kind of wisdom or perspective of the zambian ritual so take a moment and sense where you might be experiencing some emotional suffering in recent days and just scan your life and it may be that there's some addictive behavior that you feel trapped in it may be due to anger jealousy maybe hurt some conflict hatred blame maybe you feel like you've caused harm with your behaviors so whatever version of suffering notice how it creates some separation just be aware of suffering in some way severs belonging that when you're in it when you're feeling that anxiety or anger or blame or addictiveness there's a real sense of separateness just notice that and notice how you feel about yourself typically we don't like ourselves and now opening your attention to take in the possibility of this wisdom of the ancestor's tooth that whatever is coming up in you whatever emotional reaction you're in or whatever behavior that comes out of that emotion that this has been conditioned that this the the beliefs and feelings are conditioned from the past that they were set in motion uh through the ways that you related to your caregivers are they related to you or perhaps others that had a strong influence on you early on that it's not your fault you don't own these emotions and beliefs and reactions the poet a r amman says has a a line the wind said you know i'm the result of conditions beyond my control well there's a truth you didn't come into this world and sign up for a particular kind of set of feelings and emotions and so on this this all came from the past it didn't start with you and you might reflect also i'm not alone others feel this too that the forces of conditioning that affect you also affect others the societal ones and even the shape of the ones with your caregivers so it's not my fault i'm not alone and notice what happens just notice notice if there's a bit more space more presence for some this wisdom resonates there's something that's already waking up in this direction and it's already you're kind of becoming more uh impacted by it and it's waking you up and for others it may seem more abstract it doesn't land in fact and you can open your eyes if you haven't already um some people hear this kind of uh story of the ancestor's tooth and there's a kind of inner cynic that says okay well that's real handy i lose it and i lash out at my kids and hey no problem it's the ancestor's tooth you know and who needs to be accountable you might be wondering about that so um but just to note that that perspective of um self this is a kind of self-oriented perspective this is my anger it's my fault i don't deserve forgiveness is very much part of our western individualistic culture and we'll discuss being responsible but for now i just want to name that we have a very deep conditioning to take it personally and make ourselves wrong very deep conditioning and it gets in the way of healing some of you might know that uh the story when western teachers first met with the dalai lama they told him how we were all so filled with self-judgment and self-hate and how much we you know hated our imperfections and so on and he couldn't understand it he kept saying but we all have buddha nature you know and he tried he asked them to explain it to them and they spent many hours the teachers did saying we get stuck in this well it's clear now the disjunct between the cultures that our culture is very self-focused i mean we talk about the buddhists talk about no-self and really awakening to that freedom from being organized around a separate self and when we talk about it we talk about self realization like there's this separate self that's getting somewhere on the path very different feeling what happens in this self-focused society of ours is that we fixate on imperfections and we own them there's anger here i'm bad for the anger there's shame here i'm bad for the shame there's fear i'm bad for the fear so in in societies that aren't so self-focused there's more possibility of not being anxious about imperfection we're very anxious about our imperfection okay a bit of a story for you one man who i worked with some years back his temper was really destroying his family and his relationships and he hated himself for his temper and he blamed himself and at one point i suggested is it possible that we can begin to observe the pattern of what happens but can you observe it with some kindness well he was appalled i would suggest that he said i'm a monster i don't deserve a tad of kindness so you know of course i asked him you know how has hating and blaming yourself for your anger improved things for you you know has it helped and of course his wife self knew it didn't but i remember the day that i looked him in the eye and i quietly said you know as i said to you earlier it's not like you signed up for being this way sam it's not your fault and he broke down weeping um and that was when he shifted and started to be able to deepen his attention that's when he started getting memories of his father being utterly out of control when he was 12 years old remembering being in the kitchen his father throwing glasses and shattering them and shaking his mother in rage because she he felt like she had demeaned him and then his huge remorse this is the ancestor's tooth of generational rage of in this circumstance male impotency and aggression and domination and he said to me it's clear he couldn't help himself he was just out of control and i can't help it either so as i said this was actually the beginning of him becoming responsible being able to respond because this is when he could start when he stopped blaming himself he could start deepening his attention increasing mindfulness kindness really working with the roots of the anger which were huge insecurity and lack of worth and it allowed him over time to begin to have more space and choice when the anger would come up to not play it out so i want to say it once again that letting go of this idea that it's my fault actually frees us to then do the healing that allows us to live the way we want to align with our hearts self-blame and shame shut down our learning centers we can't grow so when we get hijacked we have to find her way out and the beginning of it is knowing that self-blame doesn't help and also remembering others feel this too and as i mentioned we're not saying it's not my fault to um in any way turn a blind eye to where we're causing harm and when we're helping each other and you're talking to a friend you say it's not your fault it's not a way that you want them to ignore wrongdoing you know i think of some of you might remember this story of franklin roosevelt he he complained that guests at the white house were never really listening to what he was saying so he decided to do an experiment and a reception and when each guest arrived he'd shake they'd shake the president's hand and he'd smile politely and say pleasantly i murdered my grandmother this morning and as he anticipated most guests responded with comments like marvelous keep up the good work we're proud of you sir you know at the end of the receiving line he greeted the ambassador from bolivia and he actually listened to what roosevelt was saying and the ambassador leaned over and whispered i'm sure she had it coming so as you can see it's we're not trying to accommodate our you know turn a blind eye here's the thing you can't change harmful actions from your past but you can seed your future by changing how you pay attention right here and now by learning how to face the vulnerability that's underneath the behavior with kindness and so that's what happened with sam when he stopped blaming himself he could do that healing so we're going to turn to okay so how do we when we're hijacked i find our way back to belonging and what we learn from the tribe is really the same practice that we've been doing together here expressing truths means to investigate contact name be with the truth that's right inside us the vulnerability and being able to then hold it with kindness that nurturing begins to free us up so in our lives there are many you know different triggers that we encounter and many times that we have to do that inner process but as we'll see we also need to learn to do it with others so i want to give you an example from my own life of where i kind of had to learn that lesson and and it involves an ancestor's tooth so i'm going to share that and hopefully that'll it'll give you a sense of the pathway so some of you that are on the older end will remember twiggy who birth burst forth as a model the super skinny model defining fashion for females in the 60s and my medium weight mother was always admiring slim women and i started drinking carnation slender for b --- i would feel the vulnerability whether it was shame or self-judgment or fear about my body or what self-consciousness whatever it was i would recognize it allow it investigate find it in my body and i can say honestly my hand on my heart many many rounds some message of kindness whether it's i'm sorry and i love you or trust your goodness or it's okay sweetheart just different messages and so so and sometimes when i needed to i'd call on some larger sense of belonging some sense of sacredness and love in the universe to to hold me and what happened is it was countless rounds probably hundreds of thousands of rounds of as they say in the tribes you know just expressing those truths and holding them and each after each round to some degree and i call this after the rain there'd be a shift in identity and rather than being the you know ashamed self or fearful self or whatever it was um i'd be resting in a a tenderness and a spaciousness that really felt like home there would be a sense of belonging and so over time that helped me to be more and more and i was doing a lot of yoga so i was really learning how to just keep coming home and belonging to my body and belonging to awareness and what was equally necessary was doing that same process in a parallel way with other people and that came next for me it wasn't my first entry is always inner but i have to say that a close friend from high school who's still very very close struggled in a similar way so every time we would compare notes something in me would go i'm not alone and so many others over the years whether i was in the role of leading therapy groups or working individually with people or in meditation interviews or with other friends or other teachers it finally got through that this was not my personal suffering it just was not my personal suffering you know i it felt so personal and i don't know how to better express it but the ancestor's true tooth was so clear that through the history of patriarchal societies women have been enslaved by ideas of what they should look and be like to appeal to men and our sense of value has been hitched to attractiveness according to certain standards and often unreachable and unhealthy standards i'm so struck that research shows anxiety about not meeting the standard starts so young that 92 percent of teen girls don't like like how they look and want to be different body weights most common what they don't like and sixty percent sixty percent of teens are so concerned it affects what they're willing to do in daily life whether it's swimming or playing sports or visiting a doctor or going to social events or even school speaking up in group situations think of that six of ten teen girls i think of my granddaughters of all of our children so this is deeply disturbing and sad this ancestor's tooth of male dominance and females out of fear and shame not trusting and valuing our innate goodness so if we're to have deeper species belonging if we're to refine our belonging we need to step out of dominance hierarchies and i'm naming one which is the gender one there'll be more on race next week okay so my point is that i needed to do the inner healing and i needed to connect with other women so it would be clear it's not personal it's not my fault so here i am i'm 67 i still see some of the old thought patterns but the difference is that my identity is not hooked in on them the ancestor's tooth makes it so it's really not personal this uh this sharing reminded me of social activist fran peavy she was walking on a stanford university campus one day and she happened upon a group of people who were carrying video equipment and they were crowded around a mail chimp who was running loose and a female chimp was on a long chain and the chimpanzees were had apparently been part of a research project but the scientists and the spectators were mostly trying to get them to mate and the male didn't need occur encouragement he was grunting and tugging at the smaller chimps chain but she was whimpering and trying to avoid his advances and she's the one on a chain and this feeling of empathy swept through fran and something happened and she wrote about it that she'll never forget she says suddenly the female chimp yanked her chain out of the male's grasp and to my amazement she walked through the crowd straight over to me and took my hand then she led me across the circle to the only other two women in the crowd and she joined hands with one of them [Music] the three of us stood together in a circle i remember the feeling of that rough palm against mine the little chimp had recognized us and reached out across all the years of evolution to form her own support group adrian rich writes honorable human relationships that is where people have the right to use the word love is a process of deepening the truth they can tell each other it is important to do this because it breaks down human self-delusion and isolation so friends i've i've spent some time giving one example of severed belonging and a wound uh my particular story but whatever your struggle is whether it's addiction or anger whether it's anxiety whether it's dominating and controlling or defending or judging whatever it is there is such power to seeing that it's conditioning it's not your fault and others experience this too and if you can remember that and if you can remember that and do the relating to the inner life as we've talked about just naming it holding it relating with each other there is a powerful freedom now some of you will be listening and thinking well it sounds really good to be talking to other people and getting it that we're in it together but what about if i'm really isolated and i want to speak to that because when we feel severed belonging we create more isolated societal life and right now is a time that for for many many people it's exacerbated but i also want to say there's increasing opportunities online and live if that's our intention if our intention is to deepen the truth we tell each other i'm seeing this you know we've it's been for years of course in 12-step groups that work on addictions in spiritual communities we have what are called spiritual friends groups you can find more about that on our website um affinity groups serve that in a beautiful way around race sexual orientation there are more and more interactive meditation courses where there's sharing and there's deep sharing that remind us that we're in it together meditation mentoring groups on saturdays i leave what's called satsang and people tell me how much whether they're speaking and asking questions or holding a space it reminds them that it's not so personal i'll give you an example this just this saturday one person shared her her son had died and had to face the holidays in the future without a loved one and another about a relationship breakup and the rejection and the feelings of heartbreak around that and another described being from a culture that's very rigid in terms of male female rules of interaction how he was shamed for behaviors that made others feel unsafe and there was something for each of them and for all of us about hearing and the naming of truths that all have ancestors juice to them naming of the truths and and being held in a space that's so kind and so caring it reconnects us to belonging so tonight we have stayed with our focus of uh it's not my fault others experience this too and then nurturing both inner nurture and with each other and we'll expand this next week uh to how do we widen the the circles of compassion and belonging but i'd like to offer a closing reflection and then and then invite your questions so you might just move around a bit and then come sitting still for this final final reflection and we'll begin uh by reviewing what we did earlier which is to choose a place where you're caught in some reactivity that ends up feeling like suffering and again suffering has degrees but where you in some way get caught and reacting and feeling hurt or afraid or angry perhaps you feel like your behavior is out of line is causing harm perhaps you are believing when this is happening that something's wrong with you that you're judging yourself for it so you might sense where there is some area like that where you feel like you're caught in suffering and you feel more separate what's hard to forgive hard to accept and as we begin this reflection together you might consider something that marianne williamson recommends that i think is really valuable which is to ask yourself and sense am i willing to see my relationship with this suffering differently right now to sense if you're willing to kind of open your perspective and then remind yourself of this of the situation when you get stuck when you feel hijacked when you feel caught in fear anger when you act out an addiction and you might just sense well what is stopping you from stepping out of that what's really going on what's really driving it you know if you couldn't stain your anger what's under there what's keeping it fueled or if you couldn't play out the addiction and just sense the most vulnerable place underneath whatever you're judging the fear the vulnerability that's really keeping you hooked in that you might for a moment just widen your perspective as if you could witness yourself from the view of a loving being like a loving grandmother or spiritual figure and just see yourself stuck and see the vulnerability that's there that there's some some deep place you're trying to protect or defend [Music] and you might even sense intuitively how the past has conditioned you you might just intuitively sense some feeling some way that you've been hurt not attended to unsafe not good attachment with caregivers you might sense the messages of the society that have shaped you you don't have to go into it far and you certainly don't have to think it out just see if it's intuitive what from the past might have shaped your reactivity there just might be an image that comes to mind or some understanding e --- e lot of resentment he's made some very nasty comments that as he was speaking i felt myself feeling like oh is this who this person is but um but on the other hand i can hear the pain and still have the compassion so i want to find a way not to to be compassionate and be present but not judge what he's saying so here's what i'm hearing a bit is that you might be useful to consider the difference between judging and wise discernment you may be picking up something that's valuable now that doesn't mean that you discard him discount him and close your heart but you may be picking up that he's got some unprocessed stuff that needs attention so maybe what you can do is just name that okay noticing this noticing this and and feel what your body does like there's a lot of times when people are being vulnerable you know especially family and close people because you know i'm much better with people that are you know a little bit i don't know as well but you know they'll be vulnerable but i'll be having a judgment and i just so and it's got a mix of you know the narrowness of judgment which is aversiveness but it also has something i'm recognizing so i think that there's some intelligence that you need to honor in what you're noticing but just put in put a little frame around it and say okay well there's some judging and there's some wise discerning and let's just know that and that if you put a and i actually like literally put a frame around it in your mind and then just say okay let's listen again come back and you can trust that what you need to remember that might be important will still be there yes yes but don't don't fight the judgment is what i'm saying okay does that make sense no it it does because that was my initial instinct was perhaps this is something valuable that i shouldn't necessarily um dismiss but when there's all these other i've got a dog that keeps doing that to us so i i'm i'm right there with you and the fact that you see unprocessed stuff in somebody doesn't mean he's bad and that you have to write them off just noticed as that that it's okay there might be something there to come back to when he's less vulnerable that he might be able to pay attention to really lovely to connect tiffany be well our next question is from bronson and please forgive me if i'm saying your name incorrectly how do you deal with the fear of waiting for medical results welcome i didn't know my hair very nice so i heard your question are you is this currently what's going on for you you're waiting not me but my husband yeah yeah pretty scary it is scary you know what my sense is for all of us is that there's times that we can't avoid just facing the rawness that the fear is here you know and if it feels really overwhelming if it if it leads to panic or if we feel traumatized by it then there's some ways that we can redirect our attention you know if your husband's if it's if it's really shaking up that kind of trauma then you can um you know watch more movies or listen to music or make a good meal or get out for a walk or you know that kind of thing but ultimately we can't really sidestep our fear of death you know our fear of loss we can't and so what we can do is be very tender and real about it if two people can name it together it actually creates more safety well yeah yeah i thank you so much you really saved me in many moments in my life and i guess you save a lot of people through your well i'm so glad you're feeling a part of this yeah thank you dear thank you and take good care and many prayers and blessings for your husband thank you so much yeah okay our next question is from ming satanvi i am so sorry for saying that incorrectly and the question is is on top on the topic of gender lines i come from a culture that focuses on marriage being end-all be-all for women as an american-born indian i have had to fight that deep conditioning my entire life but it is at a very deep tooth i can often get through the voices telling me that my worth depends on marriage but how do i rationalize the fact that there is a biological clock for those of us who do want family and is it biased against women hi tara hey there uh lovely yeah rockstar um you have you know i don't know what to say other than you have been a part of my life at the most vulnerable most intimate moments and so i thank you from the bottom of my heart truly and i'm a physician um and being someone who provides a lot of support you have been that support for me so i thank you so much thank you for naming it and i'm touched thank you yeah so dear i want to make sure i'm saying your name right so do you mind i'm sorry i didn't rename my name is mamtha lovely so let me um hear a little bit more is the is part of what's going on that you actually do want a family and feel like you're feeling the squeeze of the biological clock is that part of it right i mean i guess again again coming from a culture where that's just been inculcated that that's what you got to do first of all it's hard to tease out what is yours and what is someone else's um and so i've worked a lot on that but even beyond the fact of like okay fine marriage maybe not you know the end all be all but for those of us who do want children it is a very real feeling that there's you know there's there's a bit of unfairness of there is kind of a limit for women that and i'm not saying across the board but it's not so kind of um delineated for men so i just wanted to hear your thoughts on that because it's not so theoretical it's not so abstract it actually feels very real yeah well i'm curious if you'd share a little bit what you have discovered in having to face this like what has helped you to hold it in a way that gives you some a little more space and ease thus far um i don't know if this is answering your question but a little bit more is that i i definitely want to pay attention to my intention i don't want to rush into relationship or marriage simply because i'm stressed out about the fact that i if i want to have children i need to procreate like yesterday right so yeah that's another thing i think intention has played my mind so much um that that's one of the things i always come back to but i don't want that to debilitate action either if that makes sense okay so i'm hearing and the reason i asked you is i actually trust your wisdom and intelligence on this and it makes it more personal and what i'm picking up is that in order to step out of the delusion of the societal conditioning because that you're it's it's a huge oppressive trance we get put in it takes a deep attention to what your heart really longs for a really deep attention it takes a profound commitment to really say what matters and it's um it's it's a practice and in the buddhist tradition reflecting on aspiration is a practice like what really matters in terms of my whole life if i only had a few moments to live what would matter right this moment and over time like if i was at the end of my life looking back what would matter and you might find well what matters is love but it doesn't have to be love in that particular package although that would be nice you might find something like that but it's really important for it to come out of you in a very pure authentic way so that's your path right now and it's a harder path when you have very heavy-handed cultural conditioning yes yes you're absolutely right yeah now what skews things is when we toss in this pesky biological clock thing you know and there's not a it's like saying that's this is nature we can't you know this is just the nature of things you can't control that one but where you do have agency is aligning with the purity of what your your aspiration is it doesn't mean it'll come true in a certain package it just means that the essence of it will keep on guiding you i can tell you understand yes i do that makes perfect sense thank you so much yeah i'm really glad you asked the question and because this is really for all of us because i talked a lot about ancestors tooth and you've just named one version of it the conditioning that can really make us small and to get out of that conditioning we have to really keep on every day reconnecting with that deep inquiry about what matters yeah thank you tara many blessings dear yeah yeah so i love your questions and uh thank you shannon for uh for bringing a few people on um those of you that are with us and had more questions invite you to join us again on saturday we do every saturday and then once a month we'll be doing this as part of the wednesday night but i'd like to end briefly by first of all inviting you to go on gallery view so if you aren't ready to shift from from speaker view to gallery view and i want to just read you something a very dear friend of mine dana falls wrote to begin so you might just be in listening mode she writes everything every little thing is unique at its surface and indistinguishable at its core everything everything every little thing is unique at its surface and indistinguishable at its core i want to remember this today the oneness the oneness underlying our differences and the truth that we can never really be strangers even if we never laid eyes on each other before we can never really be strangers even if we never laid eyes on each other before and with that to take some moments to take in these fellow travelers oh beautiful beings i'm getting to do it too and i love it yeah just to take each other in and sense you know all these different surfaces and it matters we cause huge violence because of the surfaces and we can learn to feel that sacred essence so just taking each other in you might pick a couple of people just randomly and just send send your goodwill your good wishes just let it flow from your heart to theirs and i'm doing the same and then if you'd like you could unmute yourself feel free to send your blessings and wave or bow or whatever you'd like to do thank you thanks everybody thank you everybody thank you everyone [Music] wonderful thank you guys [Music] you