← Tara Brach
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- [00:00]
A
Foreign. Welcome friends, to the Tara Brak Podcast. I'm so glad you're here. Each week I share teachings and guided meditations to help us awaken our hearts and bring healing to our world. You can learn more or support this offering by visiting tarabrock.com where you can also join our email list. Now let's explore together the many ways we can live from the love and presence that's our deepest essence. Namaste. Foreign. Welcome, friends. Today I'm sharing a conversation I had recently with Tammy Simon. It was for her podcast, Insights at the Edge. Many of you know Tammy. She's the inspirational founder of Sounds True and she's an interviewer par excellence. We had a conversation that focused on my new upcoming workbook, the Courageous Love Workbook, Choosing to Love in Perilous Times. So this book came out yesterday. If you haven't ordered it, I hope you can do so and help spread the word. During our time, we talked about what it means to be a bodhisattva, an awakening, being a caring being in these current times, you know, what is really being asked of us. And some of the themes included what it really means to be courageous and the relationship of engagement with the world and our spiritual path and how spirituality can be used to avoid engagement. We also looked at how do we actively choose to love? How do we learn to see basic goodness? And we did an experiential reflection of shifting from head to heart space. It was rich. I hope you find that this serves you on your path. Thank you.
- [02:38]
B
Welcome, Tara.
- [02:40]
A
Thanks, Tammy. I'm really happy to be with you.
- [02:43]
B
Here we are, we're talking about the courageous heart, your new inner workbook, Tara. The subtitle Choosing to Love in Peace, Perilous Times. And I think most of us, maybe we wouldn't use the word perilous, but we would use some other word to describe the times we're in, the poly crisis that we're in, and the sense of accelerated change and this question of what is going on now and how do I orient myself as a spiritual practitioner at this time? And I'm wondering right here at the beginning, how do you locate yourself at this time?
- [03:33]
A
Yeah, well, I'm really, I'm glad you're starting right there because I can feel the extremes of this time and maybe just to say in a very personal way, I can feel my nervous system and my heart very much impacted by both the speed of change, but even more by the destructiveness of the energies playing out. I think of it like we're in this kind of spiraling vortex into a shadow where we're in this collective regression where, you know, fear and aggression and violence is really there. And there's such a harshness to it, this violence against our fellow beings. So I can feel in my own body and heart going into anger and blame and othering regularly. And I can also sense under it a grieving and a deep caring. One of the kind of teachings that I keep hearing in my mind, it's from Thich Nhat Hanh, who. He wrote this. He said, this, my dear, is the greatest challenge to being alive. He says, to witness injustice in the world, you know, cruelty, violence, and not allow it to consume our light, our love, you know, our capacity to respond. So I think of that a lot about that. We all naturally have this reactivity. And I also think about how. And this is true in our individual lives. And it's also through history. What we see is that times of darkness call out a kind of deepened and more engaged caring and a fresh intelligence. And I'm sensing this happening now, a kind of emergent movement that really embodies that. And we can talk more about that, but the deal is that it needs nurturing. I mean, so when you say, you know, how am I locating myself? I'm really aware that these times are calling for us to evolve our consciousness, to intentionally wake up our hearts in a way that we're what I call widening the circles of belonging, sensing more and more that we're part of the world. We belong to the world and to each other. And I'm finding, when I teach more than ever before, so many people are directly impacted, like very few degrees of separation, directly impacted by what's unfolding, whether we're talking about ice immigrants or health insurance or the continued atrocities in the Middle East. And so when people share, when I'm teaching, let's say, a webinar online, I'll ask how many people are dealing with this, are struggling with this? And there's something so powerful about being in a collective where people can sense they're not alone and what they're dealing with. And we talk about how they're working with creates a space that's larger than that sense of an individual self and this really scary world. And I saw this most powerfully recently. I was attended and was part of, actually a memorial service. It's Israeli and Palestinian families who have lost loved ones together. And I helped guide a virtual event that followed it. And during the memorial, they spoke the names and told the stories. And there was this Grieving side by side. And it was so clear to me that their pain hadn't hardened into hatred. Instead, it became this source of courage that it's like. It's like their togetherness gave a felt sense of hope. And I feel like that's so important. And I could sense, you know, and I know of the participants in these groups. They're actually from that place of hopefulness. They're really engaged in action for justice and for peace, for a different future. So that's all to say. We need to nurture our hearts, and we need collective spaces that nurture our hearts so we don't lose the light.
- [08:20]
B
I'm so glad you pointed out this. You called it fresh intelligence rising at this time. And, you know, Tara, just to say you have a gift at pointing out things that are sometimes on the periphery, I think of my awareness, at least. And by pointing it out, it makes it more real and brings it right into the center. And when you said that, I thought, yes, I see it as, like, these little green shoots, but I don't quite know what it is or how to name it. And you talked about nurturing this fresh intelligence in ourselves, in our world. And I want to hear more about this.
- [09:00]
A
Yeah, I think the intelligence is really kind of reflects an evolution in consciousness from feeling so separate to feeling more a part of the collective. That shift from I to we that we experience when we are real with each other, when we grieve together, when we act to serve together. And it feels like this is a really crucial part of the spiritual path that. Because in the past, especially for traditions like Buddhism, when it got planted in the west, it's very individual. So there's a certain intelligence on how to work with our inner life. But it didn't so much teach us to sense the field, that we are together, who we are together, which is what gives us the space and the clarity and the unconditional caring that really lets us hold what's going on and respond.
- [10:03]
B
You mentioned the Thich Nhat Hanh quote, quote, about not letting our light go out in times of terrible destruction and darkness. And I think some people, some spiritual practitioners I know say the way that I keep my light from not going out is to withdraw, is to stop watching the news, is to not stay, quote, unquote, engaged. And I know you've been teaching and talking a lot about engaging in societal transformation at this time as a form of spiritual activism. And I wonder if you could talk directly to those people who say, look, I gotta pull out. I gotta Pull away. This isn't my time to be engaged, because I need to protect myself.
- [10:55]
A
Sure. And just to say there is. There are certain ways we do need to protect our energy. You know, I feel like we need to be on news diets and be really, really careful about how much we're on social media. And we need to do inner practices that calm our nervous system and so on. So this is all part of it. But I think there's a real misunderstanding about the spiritual path, which is that it's about an individual becoming free. It's like, I remember in Tricycle there was this personals cartoon that said, tall, dark, handsome Buddhist looking for himself. You know, there is a. You know, at the very heart of the spiritual path is awakening compassion. And that means compassion is not just a feeling of tenderness. It actually, you know, it's like the part. Compassion in the brain is the location of the network. Relational network is right next to the motor cortex. It has to do with wanting to relieve suffering and that you can't separate the inner trainings from how we live day to day, from the kindness and the caring we express. So I think that's the misunderstanding. And activism can sound narrow, like it means only, you know, politics or rallies or lobbying, but the emphasis. And we can talk more about the bodhisattva path, but on the spiritual path, this is path of awakening beings is really that our actions in the world, we're interdependent. How I right now communicate with you in some way impacts you. How you listen, receive and ask of me. It's like we're in relationship with our world. We impact each other. The spiritual path has to do with the quality of heart we bring into action. And I always think of that classic metaphor that we're on this boat together that's leaking and listing, you know, all of us, all species, and those less fortunate are privileged, are feeling the water first. And we need to bail out water for the sake of all of us. And everyone's part of us. You know, we belong together, so how can we. How can we serve all beings in a way that's heartfelt? And one of my models right now, I think of Minneapolis a lot because one of the words that came out of the protests and actions in Minneapolis was neighborliness. And I really love that word, that we have a feeling of neighborliness towards all. You know, one of the. I heard an interview, and one person at a protest says, I don't love protests, but I love people. So that's the spirit. That is the spirit of A spiritual path. And of course, as you brought up, many people use their spirituality to avoid engagement. One way that you mentioned, you know, I'm in this for freedom. There's been suffering through all the ages. And my task is to, you know, uproot defilements in my own mind and hold the world with equanimity and compassion, but not reaction. And then there's this misunderstanding. What is equanimity? That it's kind of used to disengage and pull back instead of showing up with care. And some people on a spiritual path will say, well, everything happens for a reason. Just say positive. But again, it's avoiding the reality of the suffering. It's a spiritual bypass. So I'm bringing this all up because it's very easy to use the path to pull away from suffering, when pulling away actually just disconnects us from our heart and from that fierce, fresh intelligence and from really being fully alive.
- [15:26]
B
What would you say to the person who says, when I fully engage, I feel emotionally overwhelmed?
- [15:37]
A
I think that's really important to bring up because, you know, people either tend towards dissociating and not feeling touched by the world or over associating, like kind of having that kind of a thin skin where they feel like they're flooded by the world. And so it feels important that we all find our ways of engaging and being able to modulate how we take in what's here so that we can respond and not be overwhelmed. And for the person who says, I get overwhelmed, I sometimes will guide in a practice. The Tibetan practice is called tonglen. It's a way of taking in what's painful but then breathing it out, so you sense that it's being held by something larger. And the key to not feeling overwhelmed is to feel that you can be touched. Your heart can be kind of a transformer of sorrows. You can breathe in and be touched, but you can breathe out and let it be held by the heart of the world. It's kind of like the ocean holding the waves. There's something larger that's holding it. And if we can remember there's something larger that's holding it, then we can let ourselves be touched and actually respond with care, but not be overwhelmed.
- [17:02]
B
Your new workbook, right at the beginning of the Courageous Heart you write this is a workbook for bodhisattvas, and you mentioned the word bodhisattvas in terms of the call to be a spiritual activist at this time. So tell us more what you mean about that. I think sometimes people Think, well, that's a archetype from a different time. Or that's something associated with great heroic figures like Gandhi. I'm over here being neighborly. Am I a Bodhisattva?
- [17:37]
A
Huh? Naverally, to me, is one of the highest of arts. So, yeah, I think of Bodhisattva as the fullness of our evolutionary potential. You know, we're all on this path of waking up or manifesting what's here and innate but hasn't been fully manifested. Our awareness, our awake awareness, our caring, our creativity, our love. So the Bodhisattva path is one of manifesting more and more. And it helps me to think that we all have these capacities, and sometimes conditioning suppresses them and it's not our fault. So when we're not manifesting, forgive, forgive. And that part of our evolution is to realize that we need to practice, to train our hearts and minds in order to strengthen those capacities, to bring them from a state to a trait and something more enduring. I often think of the Dalai Lama, had one point, said something like, I don't know why people like me so much. He says, it must be because I have some bodhicitta. That's the awake manifested heart. He said, I can't claim to always practice, but I value it. And I figure, well, if the Dalai Lama doesn't always. He's not always manifesting, but he values it. That's a really good model, that we can be bodhisattvas who sometimes, you know, get pulled around by our conditioning. But we can value caring, value being awake. And I think that really makes a difference. We don't have to be like the grand figures through history. You know that phrase that we don't have to talk about enlightenment. We can talk about enlightened moments, moments of when our Bodhisattva self is fully manifesting. And it shows up in simple ways. You know, it's the moments that we pause when we're triggered and choose to listen instead of lash out. Or it's, you know, we're with somebody who's hurting and really offering genuine attention, just kind of stopping our life, even though we're busy or we get an idea of something generous to do or say, and then we do it. And then, you know, more broadly, it's when we see harm or injustice, we speak up. So there's many, many ways that we can live it.
- [20:19]
B
You mentioned there's these moments that come up and we can pause and make a different decision. And I'm curious what you think about this sometimes I actually literally see inside of myself a fork in the road. And I think, okay, Tammy, this is a fork in the road moment. It could be something really small even. Just, am I going to say this or am I not going to say this? What's the choice you're going to make in this moment? And you know, say this thing that is a little risky. And I think that that's also interesting to me when it comes to courageous love, this whole notion of when and how we risk ourselves and the choice points around that. So I'm curious what you think about that.
- [21:06]
A
Yeah, well, if we're able to see the forks in the road, it means that there's a bit more of that witness or that presence there, which itself gives us choice. If we can see what's happening. There's a little more of a sense of, oh, this will be helpful, this will be hurtful. So, yeah, I sense those moments also, especially when I'm a little bit slowed down. Recently I was part of a kind of extended family group email and one person was sending these very triggering kind of messages. And I my want was to respond personally by email and set him straight, you know, let him know he was being insensitive and blah, blah, blah. And then there was that fork in the road. And I realized that if I did that, but I didn't, instead of taking the time to talk, it actually would create more distance. It would not reach him. So for me, in that fork of the road, choosing to love was to not send an email setting him straight, but rather to create more space for a real conversation.
- [22:27]
B
Tara, the Courageous Heart workbook includes a whole lot of training, a whole lot of practices and exercises that someone can do. I mean, if I were to list them, it would, it would go on and on. I mean, it's actually, it's a full training that you've packed into this workbook. I mean, I'll just give people a little bit of a sense. There's a self inquiry practice, a letting go and letting be practice. We examine our self beliefs. We practice rain, the practice that you are well known for, for helping people work with difficult emotional experience. We practice rain for self forgiveness, for conflict, for releasing difficult emotions, all kinds of things. But you begin with one practice. And I thought to myself, God, this is so powerful. Even if people don't get out of one of the first chapters of the book, which is declaring our aspiration, and you say aspiration is the fuel of the Bodhisattva journey. And so in our conversation, I want to hear more about that, this declaring of our aspiration and how that's the fuel for the whole Bodhisattva path. Really.
- [23:47]
A
Yeah. So if you think of the path as it's not going somewhere, it's arriving more fully in our awake heart, in presence, and living from that. Our aspiration is remembering that that's what matters, that love matters, that truth matters, that presence matters. The Zen teaching is that the most important thing is remembering the most important thing. And we know. I mean, I think when I say that of a palliative caregiver who described working with, you know, thousands of people and the greatest regret being not living true to their heart, to what mattered most. And I think of it in a very day to day way. I mean, most of us can relate if we take a day, not a life, that we know love matters, we know presence matters. Yet it's so easy to get caught in a trance where we're anxious and we're on our way somewhere else or distracted or losing ourselves in the wormholes of YouTube or TikTok or addictive kind of behaviors. I think of one woman, she was diagnosed with cancer and she had one year to live and she had a one year old. And her mantra was there's no time to rush. She was in touch with her aspiration. So on the Bodhisattva path, it's actually a training to remember what matters. It's a training because it's so easy to forget. And so for me, I'll just speak personally. The aspiration is to realize and trust and live from loving awareness, to realize that's what we are, to really trust that. And that's been there for many, many years. But what's changed over time is that I'm more intentional about remembering it because when I can remember it, then I get more aligned. And so I actually build it into my daily practice where, you know, I'll meditate in the morning and I'll, after I get somewhat quiet, I'll say, okay, what matters. And you know, in some way it sometimes has different language, but it could be being kind, embodying love, whatever. But then what I'll do is I'll look into this day and sense who I'm going to be with and what I'm doing and how I might live that. So I'll bring the different people. I mean, first I actually bring all of my close circles to mind each person and I do a loving kindness practice. And in particular, one that very much helps me embody the sense of loving. So it's not abstract.
- [26:55]
B
Tell me exactly. Tell me what you do when you bring these people to mind.
- [26:58]
A
Yeah, so I'll bring. I'll say my granddaughter. She's the easiest. They both are. But I just start with the older. And I'll actually see her close up and I'll feel my love for her and then I will kiss her on the brow. And I actually, you know, I actually do the expression of a kiss, feel like I'm kissing her on the brow, and then I feel like she's doing the same to me and I just dissolve into a field of who we are are loving together. So I do it and I'll start with some of the easier close in people and then the ones that are a little harder, and then I open it to those I'm going to be with. So you were in my meditation today and it was very sweet. I felt, you know, as soon as I saw you, I felt. I felt more openness because I had already, you know, in a very visceral way, felt our connection. So. And I sandwich the day, Tammy. I start with that with reflecting on aspiration and imagining through the day. And at the end I'll look back and just, you know, notice where I went into trance. But it's not. It's not judging, it's just almost like it's informing me to be more alert for the next round.
- [28:12]
B
When you say you look back and you see where in the day you went into quote, unquote, trance, what do you mean by that?
- [28:20]
A
Yeah, where I got so caught up in what I need to do and what's gonna go wrong and anything where I am really taken unnecessarily from a more open presence.
- [28:34]
B
Now, I asked you, how do you do this loving kindness practice? Because I think the way many people first are exposed to loving kindness is that they'll repeat certain phrases for other people and it can start to feel sort of formulaic and, I don't know, unreal in a way or not, filled with real vitality. And I wonder, what do you do when you're thinking of all the people in your life? You mentioned the kissing on the forehead. But like with other people, what did you do with me, Tara? What do you do with other people so that the love feels like this genuine offering that's occurring?
- [29:18]
A
I sense their goodness. Like I brought you to mine and I sensed your love for truth and your love for love and your aliveness and how much I can feel your aspiration to really be real and embody. And I did do A kiss on the brow. I mean, I imagine that with you also. In fact, I've done it with strangers. I've been at retreats and seen people and just imagined it. And there's something about it that just works for me. So I just do it now.
- [29:52]
B
It's interesting that you mentioned this notion of seeing the goodness in people. And I know this is something, it's a thread, you could call it a golden thread that weaves throughout you're teaching and something you really emphasize. So tell me more about that and this practice, if you will, of seeing our own goodness and other people's goodness.
- [30:19]
A
So this has been one of the most meaningful and healing and freeing practices of my life. I mean, I think radical acceptance came out of not trusting my own goodness. And so learning to feel the pain of that and sensing under my conditioning whatever I saw as flawed, sensing deep down this tenderness, this caring, this awakeness, paying attention to that and then just wishing to live from that more was very, very healing and of course very much noticing that the more I see the goodness in others, the more loving there is. So I teach about it a lot. And I mean, I remember about 15 years ago giving a talk on it and my mother was with me when she lived here. She used to come into town to my class and I'll say to give context, my mom was a graduate of Barnard and her area was philosophy. So she just took me on. She said, well, why is goodness more basic than badness? And she talked about attacking Iraq and cutting down the rainforest and humans and war. And isn't that basic badness just as much there? And so it was great. She loved to tussle. And I'll say that in her life she was very much a person. To bring out people's goodness, that was the main thing people talked about at her memorial service, that they liked who they were in her company. But anyway, back to that, it wasn't. I just basically, this is not one I can argue cognitively. It's experiential. And that, and I shared this, that when I am most resting in presence, when there's most clarity and openness, there's a sensing of the sentience and awareness really of all of life. That sentience and awareness is animating all of life. And it has a sacred sense. It's a oneness. And I've never been proximate with, close with someone, you know, to spend time with someone when I couldn't sense it. And it gets covered over in ways that allow for unfathomable hurtful. Cruel behavior. So for me to know that, but also to look and see the goodness and remind others, it just calls it forward. And I was talking with Father Gregory Boyle last year, who very much embodies the Bodhisattva spirit. Many listeners are probably familiar with him as an author, Tattoos on the Heart and other books, and his work with LA gangs. He created Homeboy Industries and this amazing community of loving, trusting, healing, being, serving each other and others with made of people. Young people with this history of great violence would have been very hard to see the goodness if you met them. Younger rivals killing each other's friends and family. And so my inquiry to him, of course, is what made this possible. And he said that there were two unwavering principles in their community. And the first was that everyone is unshakably good, no exceptions. And the second one is, we all belong to each other. No exceptions. And then he went on to say, well, do I think all our vexing and confucial dilemmas would disappear if we embrace these two notions? And then he paused and said, yeah, I do. I do. So it's not so easy to remember that there's basic goodness because there's such strong conditioning in us to fixate on the flaws on. On feeling separate. One of my inspirations on the path tell you one more story here. This is John Lewis, lifelong civil rights leader and congressman. And here's what inspired me. He was sharing a story about, I think it's 1961 being in a bus station, Rock Hill, South Carolina, and he and a colleague were beaten with baseball bats by a group of white men. And they didn't fight or press charges. They just treated their wounds and continued their work. So five decades later, one of those attackers, his name was Elwyn Wilson, walked into Lewis's Capitol Hill office with his son. He said, I'm one of the men who beat you, and I want to atone. Will you forgive me? So Lewis is telling the story. He says, I forgave him. We embraced. He, his son and I, we wept, we talked. But after he finishes telling the story, he says that. He says this kind of quietly, almost to himself. He says, people can change. People can change. So I'm sharing that because that understanding of our potential, it allowed him to maintain his engagement and his heart through all these decades of real cruelty and injustice and hatred. But it needs to be cultivated, most of us, to be able to see that and trust that. And one Tibetan teacher said, never give up on anybody. So to me, it's one of the core Practices on the Bodhisattva path is to commit to seeing the sacredness and the goodness in others.
- [36:35]
B
You mentioned when talking about this basic goodness with your mom, you had to move from a cognitive space to a heart space in having the conversation. And as I was reading through but not doing all of the exercises in the courageous heart workbook, but I'm reading it in preparation for our conversation, I then got to one of the practices that was moving from the head space to the heart space. And the moment I engaged with that part of the inner workbook, I thought, tam, this is what you need, girl. Like, I'm just talking to myself. I'm like, as long as you're processing all this, you're like, this is interesting. This, I don't, you know, shredding this and that. And then you get to this movement into the heart space, and suddenly you're, like, right there in the center of your true aspirations. So I wonder if you can help people who are perhaps listening and have a pattern like me to keep, you know, dissecting everything into bits. You dealt with your mom, so you're. You've got a lot of facility with this, Tara.
- [37:53]
A
Well, the time that we get most locked into headspace and in the ways that most hurt us are usually when we're feeling separate, are threatened. Those are the times when we feel divided from others. We lock into. He shouldn't, I didn't. He couldn't. The defense, the blame. And those are the times I find it's most valuable to explore moving from the head to heart space. So I'll do a brief example as a guided practice. So for anyone here who's listening, you might just take a moment right now to settle and feel your breath. And you might even sense what wants to let go. Right now. You might just sense there's a way to soften or relax a little bit of the habitual tightness in the body, Breathing, relaxing, sensing yourself right here. Then you might invite forward. If there's a difficult relationship or a situation that comes to mind, where you get triggered in some way, irritated or judgmental, where there's a sense of separation, I wouldn't pick something that's traumatic, just something where you notice that there's some distance and you get caught up in judging or resentment or blame, And notice it. Be that witness that notices what does arise in your mind, maybe thoughts about what's wrong with the other or what needs to be different. What should be different. Sense of should is usually a great flag that we're caught in the head. And just notice how the thoughts and stories tend to reinforce separation. No matter how right they seem, they in some way reinforce separation. They're kind of protective armory. Then you might gently shift your attention from your head to your heart. It helps to bring a slight smile to the lips and allow that sense of a smile to kind of spread through your heart. Can you feel the breath at the heart? Invite the goodness and love in this world just to bathe and fill and open your heart? You can do that. Imagine and feel into the heart space as warm and tender and spacious, filled with light. And then bring the person into your heart space. Just notice what happens. Some might find that where the thoughts create separation in the heart, you can feel a different quality, more of a felt sense of aliveness, of openness, commingling, communion. So you're resting in a. In a more expanded field of being, more embodied, awake, tender, Just sensing what unfolds for you in your own being when you experience this person not from your thoughts, but from your heart. Okay, thank you. Your eyes are closed. Open them. And here we are again together.
- [42:41]
B
You mentioned, Tara, that we might, as we touch into this tender space, find armoring. And I don't think we can talk about something like the courageous heart without addressing that. And I think a lot of people, what they find is not just tenderness inside, but a lot of pain. And it's, you know, physically can be felt. And like, you know, I have every good reason to armor my heart because of XYZ pain. So talk to me about the training process of working with our own armoring.
- [43:27]
A
Well, first of all, thank you for the question, because it's not always so simple. There's a reason we armor our heart, and it's because of fear. I mean, our deepest longing is to feel connected and belonging in our deepest fears, to feel rejected, humiliated, pushed away. So we're armored because we're protecting ourselves. And I'd say a huge part of the courage on the Bodhisattva path is this willingness to feel the armoring and deepen our presence to the armoring. I often will say, you know, what are you trying to do for me? And it's to protect me from being hurt and then to be able to keep bringing attention to the fear that's trying to protect. And that itself is kind of a life training. And we can only do it at the pace we can do it because some of us have been wounded more deeply. There's trauma, and we have to go really, really slowly because there's what's called the window of tolerance. How much we can be with the fear. But the intention. The intention is to meet that armoring and that felt sense of fear with as much care as we can. Like, ultimately it's to love the fear, but not. But right away, initially, it doesn't feel that way. The reason I teach rain so much is because it's such a powerful sequence in being able to start to lean in to being with fear. Where we start with rain is recognize, allow, investigate and nurture. We start by just naming. Oh, we feel the arm ring, recognize it. Okay, fear, fear. And then allow means not to fight that. It's there just to say, okay, this is here like waves in the sea. It's like saying, this belongs. It's part of things, which is really powerful because if we don't try to get rid of it or fix it or judge it, we can actually drop deeper in just learning to be with the waves. So the A is to allow it, the I is to investigate it. And that means just to sense as well as we can. Okay, well, where does this live in my body? You know, can I let myself feel it to the extent I can? And nurture means to hold whatever vulnerability is there with real kindness. And it's a whole training to how to. I'm putting my hand on my heart right now, but how to really bring care to the fear. Because ultimately, if we can love the fear, we become the loving presence that's holding the fear. And we're not so caught, identified with the wave of fear. And that is the radical shift in healing that actually frees us, you know.
- [46:35]
B
Sounds true. Works with a whole range of different spiritual teachers, as you know. And some of them, when they're teaching about difficult emotional content, will simply say something like, look, you're the sky. It's bad weather, it'll pass. Let's move back to the sky. And I'm wondering what you think of that kind of perspective on difficult emotions. And if you're like, yeah, that makes sense, or there's something missing because there's not a kind of deep time being spent with quote unquote, bad weather. It's like, I'll just wait, it'll pass.
- [47:19]
A
Yeah, it's a really important question because there are a lot of ways that we're conditioned to try not to feel. In other words, one of my key inquiries for myself is what am I unwilling to feel right now? And there are many practices that are meant to transcend, including sometimes using non dual practices like, well, what's aware of the fear. I mean, you're not the fear, you're what's aware of it, which is very powerful and very helpful. If this is the. If there's already been a willingness to allow just what's here to be here, but because we're so habituated to get away from it, to avoid in any way any of those moves to transcend, actually disconnect us from our bodies and our hearts. So the emptiness or the spaciousness we feel is actually quite dry. It's dry. It's not rich with embodiment. The Tibetans describe emotions as the juice. They're forms of life loving life. And they're torqued by the perception of separation and wanting and fear. But there's still life loving life. And I really resonate with that, that their life loving life. They're sometimes described as the animal headed goddesses. You know that if you think of Tibetan art at the entry to all the temples, there's these animal headed goddesses and they're just the life loving life energies that can also be incredibly. Seem very demonic or threatening or jealous or aggressive or whatever. And the teaching is we don't get to sacred space by bypassing them or transcending them. It's by meeting these goddesses with presence and with heart that actually frees up their inherent aliveness. It actually infuses us with more presence and love by moving through them. And it is the entry to sacred space. So I'd say that for me, in my experience, it's more about transmuting through presence than any form of bypassing.
- [49:45]
B
And I'm curious for you how that connects back to where we started our conversation and the time we're in and the pain people feel, the sorrow, the grief and entering that and what it releases.
- [50:04]
A
Thank you. Because it feels in these current times, crucial that we grieve. And grief is usually covered over by the fear and by the anger and by the aggression. And when it's not processed, of course, it becomes very destructive. So what we need is people who have the courage to process, to get, to feel what they're feeling and find underneath those feelings what's there, which is. Which is usually grief. There's that one movie where they had this brilliant line which was that vengeance is a lazy form of grief. And that as long as we stay in those cycles of blaming others and anger and aggression, we're not getting to the whole deep realm underneath, which is hugely tender. Because embedded in grief is love. Embedded in grief is a profound caring. So I found for myself that If I want to engage in the world, and I'm doing it from an us, them kind of divided, angry, righteous place, I am planting seeds more of the same. But if I can let my heart be broken, like, feel the feelings, feel the anger, feel the fear, and go underneath it to the grief, then when I act, I'm really coming from a place of care, from sensing belonging and trying to further belonging.
- [51:45]
B
Now, you mentioned when people go into their heart will find different things. And for some of us who have had a lot of trauma, we have to take care and go at the speed that works for us. And I would like to hear Tara Brock's pith instructions for working with excruciating pain in the heart. I'm going in. And what. That's what I. That's, you know, really, we're talking here about the courageous heart. But let's get right to it. What happens is I feel this pain and I bounce off. I'm like, ouch. That. You know, it's very physical, actually. Yeah, very. You know, it's like, ow. No way. 10 seconds, 20 seconds, I am out of here. I'm scrolling or doing something productive. I'm no. Like, no.
- [52:39]
A
So first step is to. To forgive and honor the. No. Because if it feels like too much, it feels like too much. And we need lots of breaks from trying to feel. And it may be that we can find more healing or nourishing ways of responding that for many people who are just with excruciating pain, lying down outside on the earth, are leaning against a tree, are having the company of a pet, are learning the different kind of grounding processes that help us to just feel ourselves as part of the earth, feel ourselves more rooted. Helps. Ultimately, trauma is about disconnection. That's what it is. It's a feeling of. Of complete separateness. That is anguish. And the healing for the pain of trauma always is some form of connection. You know, reconnecting with earth, reconnecting with another person, reconnecting with a sense of spirit, reconnecting with our own hearts. It's always about reconnecting. And so when I work with people, I ask a question. What helps? What helps even a tiny, tiny bit? And what I'll find is that even when there's huge pain, there's a tendril of what helps connect. Even when somebody feels really isolated, there's a tendril. There's something. There's some beauty or some person that's dead or some spiritual figure or some pet. And I'll build from there. And I Think we need to build from wherever we have some access to feeling connection. That's called resourcing. And just to build from that, that's called resourcing. And just to be able to build some sense of safety and nourishment is what then gives us the capacity to start widening the circles and feeling more at home in ourselves, in our world.
- [54:57]
B
Okay, Tara, just two final questions about your new inner workbook, the Courageous Heart Choosing to love in Perilous times. Sometimes people look at someone's life that was really courageous. And, you know, I've heard people say that about my life, and they often pick things that were not the courageous thing I did. They think it was courageous. That wasn't courageous. You want me to tell you what was really courageous? So I want to ask you in your life, what has actually asked you to be really courageous? Truthfully?
- [55:34]
A
Yeah. So first of all, I'm with you that a lot of people don't feel like they're being courageous. But courage has to do with some willingness to feel what we're feeling and to act anyway, because there's something we care about. And here's a big one for me that over the last decade, so my teaching has kind of expanded and shifted in its emphasis. It's as we're talking here and as the book is reflecting this kind of inseparability of inner practice and how we are living in the world, what it means to really widen the circles of our care. So we're feeling truly a belonging with all beings. And in our culture, spiritual path is very individualistic. As I mentioned, most people really have come because they want help with their emotions. They want more learning about self, compassion. They want to feel more freedom. They're not as drawn to what it means to live that in widening circles. So that's a kind of preface to say that To Live from Compassion has asked me to have the courage to see clearly and name what I see in the collective. Because if you don't name the particulars of suffering, we can't respond. So I name them. I talk about the intense domains of suffering that are very charged and controversial, whether it's people of color being violated and dehumanized, when immigrants are grabbed by ice and deported, or as we speak, Palestinians being killed, their homes and land taken by settlers. So when whole populations are subjected to. To cruelty right here, now on this earth, and this includes talking about animals and factory farms, I just name what I can, and I often get pushback. You know, stay in your lane. Sometimes it's Anger. And I care about being trusted and being helpful. So it can land to me, this fear of falling short that, you know, maybe if I had found better words, it would have landed differently. So my process to be able to show up is I have to say yes to what is what the experience is, accepting that some people are not going to like what I say. They'll be upset. They'll be upset with me. They might pull away from engaging with me. I have to say yes to being imperfect in how I communicate. I mean, I have to say yes to reality and keep connecting with the sincerity of my deepest aspiration, which is to serve more loving in this world, to have to kind of help support a more loving world, especially for the most vulnerable. You know, taking care of the most vulnerable and letting that guide me so that I haven't named it out loud in this way so much, Tammy. But that would be, for me, taking courage, because it's hard to do.
- [59:01]
B
The courage is risking public criticism, public misunderstanding, speaking out in ways that potentially alienate certain people. Stuff like that. That takes a lot of courage, Tara,
- [59:15]
A
just to say, yeah, risking being rejected, you know, and daring anyway to speak what feels to be important.
- [59:28]
B
Choosing to love in perilous times. Let's conclude our conversation circling back to that idea and that person who says, I'm inspired by Tara's courage. I'm inspired to be more engaged with the world, but the truth is, I feel alone. I feel isolated. In my mind, I'm connected to the collective, but I'm not really that connected to that many people. What do you have to say to that person, Tara, who feels this sense of disconnection at this time?
- [60:04]
A
Yeah, disconnection and often stress and not knowing where to start. You know, I did a webinar recently, and one woman, very close into trauma and the suffering of Ukraine, and she said, I got in this habit where I would just reach out and touch the world in these tiny ways, like a text or a smile or a hug or an errand for someone who's sick. And she said, reaching out saved my life. She said, I began trusting that the smallest things that I did did make a difference. Here's a quote that I love. This is John Rodell. He says, whenever I feel helpless in this overwhelming world, I become a helper. Oh, oh, my love. On the days when it feels like I have no power, I serve others. You see, whenever I wash the world's feet, my hands immediately stop shaking. That feels like truth to me, because when we reach out and engage, we start Sensing a larger belonging. And that is the healing of fear. That is what heals fear. Our action absorbs anxiety. And our action, when we take action with others, deepens. Belonging to it serves the world. So for people who are saying, well, what can I do first? I want to just say, I have more and more people now saying, I want to help. It's in us. There's caring that's living through us. And there's so many different ways of love in action, whether it's speaking out or writing something, or talking to others and just letting them know what we're distressed about. Showing up for collective events that are speaking out for the vulnerable, voting, volunteering at voting sites, volunteering for organizations, doing good, donating. Mostly it's about refusing to look away and just sensing what's ours to do. Often I'll ask, what breaks your heart and what is love asking? You know, what breaks your heart right now? And then what is love asking as even something small and immediate, just touching the world, as that woman did, that's from Ukraine. It can be small, it can be local. Helps to join hands with others. And it's a gift when we do, when we in some way engage. It's a gift to our own heart and the world's heart.
- [62:52]
B
I'm here with Tara Brock. She's just released with Sounds True. It's a new inner workbook, and it's a way to really direct your bodhisattva aspiration in your own unique way that fuels your journey. The Courageous Heart workbook, Choosing to love in Perilous times. Tara, thank you so much for your courageous heart. Thank you so much.
- [63:21]
A
Thank you, Tammy, it's really, really good to do this with you.
- [63:25]
B
Thanks.