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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. In interviews, I'm often asked what got me started on the spiritual path. And for sure, one deep element is suffering. That I was in my early 20s. I was very caught in that trance of unworthiness and just wanting a pathway for feeling more at home in myself, more connected to others. And there was something else. I had started yoga and meditation for health. I just felt like I'd get healthier and more fit and. And each of those classes, we would start and end with Namaste, just as we did today. Which means I see the divine in you, in myself, in all beings. And what I found is that over time, it became more and more of this kind of living ritual where I really sensed that reality that I was bowing and honoring this sacredness that is in all beings. And I don't really remember when I started what I thought would be the fruit of yoga and meditation. But I can say now, in this, five decades later, as this continues to be part of my practice, that experiencing that living reality behind this ritual is one of the deepest blessings of my life. To be able to be with others and in some way really sense spirit shining through, to be able to sense it coming through my own being and all beings is a real experience of love and connection and freedom. And so in current times, I'm so aware of the need for this kind of remembrance in relating to each other. So I'm sharing a talk I offered on this. I offered it five years ago. And I want to share because I think it captures the spirit of what I'm talking about here, the potential of each of us in our own way to learn to see the light that shines through. So may it serve you well. You know, I've been putting my palms together and bowing now for about, I think about 45 years, ever since I first started teaching yoga and Namaste. It's derived from Sanskrit. It's an expression of reverence, and it's often translated that the. The light in me bows to the light in you. I love this. I often think about how in the west we have a handshake and some say it came from showing that we weren't carrying a weapon. And then in the East, I see the divine in you. I see the sacred in you. It's a tad of a different flavor now. As you know, there's a growing number of meditation cartoons. And one I saw just a day or two ago, a woman's meditating, and she's got a really angry expression, and her thought bubble is saying, the light in me acknowledges the darkness in you. Many, many ways our psyche can tweak things. I know. Now, of course, the ritual of the Namaste greeting, which is done all over the east, it can be done in a very perfunctory, mechanical way. And many in Asia describe it as really being a casual hello or goodbye. But consider for a moment the power of this ritual of encounter. If we really do it with presence and heart, you know, if here we are and let's say there's two of us, and we're really, you know, feeling ourselves right here and facing each other and very sincerely, you know, putting our hands together, this gesture of honoring, bowing our head, you know, sensing the purity, the light, the goodness that's living through each other, sensing that we're being received in that way. Wow. I mean, it's just imagine and if we think of it, that if more and more of us took to heart this ritual, the essence of this ritual, if we actually practiced and encounters pausing and really honoring the spirit shining through each other, how that would wake up our own hearts and each other's. It's really. I think of it in terms of the consciousness of the planet, especially now, because I think Namaste is spreading in a certain way. You know, millions are taking yoga classes or meditation gatherings. It's happening. I mean, imagine if it really started spreading more collectively, this seeing past the mask or the affiliations, remembering our shared being. And it may sound idealistic, given how divided our world is, but if we start where it flows most easily, we can find our way to a more inclusive heart. This talk right now and the reflections we'll do really are about the potential of Namaste. It's the essence of Namaste, really learning to see the truth of who we are, learning to feel a sense of reverence for the spirit that lives through all of life. And I often think about the most radical and profound teachings of Buddhism and all the spiritual paths. You know, the ground of it is that the light of awareness and its expression as love or compassion, that light of awareness is our shared essence. It's like the sun, it's always here. Even when clouds of emotion block it, it's always here. And these same paths describe the suffering when we live in a way that is totally cut off from that, from that sense of our essence, when we're in that kind of a trance. And we're more living in a very limited sense of a self. And when we're in that, that's the lens we see others through. So really, it's the suffering of moving through our days cut off from a sense of the sacred. This is how Rumi puts it. He says, whatever comes into being gets lost in being drunkenly forgetting its way home. I really love that whatever comes into being gets lost in being drunkenly forgetting its way home. One of my favorite illustrative stories, which, if you've been with me, you might have heard it, came from when my son was in elementary school, actually. And there were these art classes. And the children would divide up into groups of. Be divided into tables, in groups of four. And the teacher would just move around and look at what the children were drawing. And one little girl was really energetically into it. And the teacher was watching from behind her. And she asked her what she was drawing. And the little girl said, I'm drawing God. And the teacher kind of chuckled and said, well, hon, no one knows what God looks like. Without skipping a beat, without even looking up. She said, they will in a moment. And I've always loved that. John o', Donohue, many of you know, as a wonderful philosopher, poet, he says, what have we done with our wildness? He talks about the wildness of spirit, of God. He says, we're so busy managing our life that we forget this great mystery we're involved with. So we do forget. I think of spiritual life as forgetting and remembering. And we remember because there is very deep within each of us something that keeps calling us. Some yearning to reconnect with the sacredness that's here, to reconnect with a pure heart, reconnect with being awake. And it dwells within all of us. One of my friends and beloved colleagues, Sylvia Boorstin, describes a man's name's Phil. He's a Buddhist practitioner in New York. And he was being mugged at gunpoint. And he had been working with the loving kindness practice for a year. You know, kind of namaste, seeing the goodness. So one evening on a small side street in soho, a very disheveled man with a scraggly beard, dirty hair, costed Phil demanding money. And Phil gave him $600. He had carried in his wallet. And the mugger shook his gun and demanded more. And stalling for time, Phil handed him credit cards, soul wallet, Looking dazed, maybe high on some drug. The mugger said, I'm going to shoot you. And Phil said, no, no, no, wait. Here's my watch. It's a really good one. So disoriented, the mugger took the watch and waved the gun again and said, I'm going to shoot you. And somehow Phil managed to look at him with genuine care and say, you don't have to shoot me. You did really good. Look, you got nearly $700. You got credit cards, expensive watch. You don't have to shoot me. You did good. The mugger's confused. He lowers the gun slowly. I did good? He half asked. You did really good. Go and tell your friends you did good. Days. The mugger wandered off, saying softly to himself, I did good. I did good. That story always touched me. You know, each of us, we get trapped by our conditioning act in ways that are driven by anxiety or fear, grasping or confusion, you know, drunkenly forgetting our way home. And there's a longing to trust that basic goodness, to live from who we into it we really are. Okay, so how does the forgetting happen? And I often imagine that we incarnate and we're incarnating into a challenging environment, all of us. And it's part of our natural development, it's part of evolution to put on a spacesuit to help us navigate and our survival brain uses a spacesuit to detect danger and to protect and aggress where we need to. And our egos scouting for what will nourish and enhance and meet needs. And the more threats, the more unmet needs, the more active our spacesuit. But here's what's important about this metaphor. In the moment when you are identified with the spacesuit, you know, with the defending and the judging and the getting something and the performing whatever it is, you're forgetting the awareness and the love, the aliveness, the basic spirit looking through. You're forgetting your own true beingness. And of course, you'll be forgetting others as well. It is natural to get identified and to forget. That happens to all of us. And we have the capacity to wake up, to cultivate mindfulness, to see it's happening, to see. Oh, okay. I was caught in that limbic hijack. I was in trance. Here's how I can notice it next time. Here's how I can be more present. I think one of the most powerful places to witness going into trance and to explore waking up is in relating with each other. And just really sense, well, how does our spacesuit self filter our experience of each other? And if we're witnessing, if we're paying attention, we'll start noticing that when we first meet. What's going on is that our survival brain instantly is scanning for difference. And assessing how dangerous or safe the other is. That's the first scanning that goes on. It goes on like a flash. We notice the other's appearance because we are through the eons looking for difference. You know, color, how they dress, their face, their body, you know, how they speak, what they do. Because we're very quickly placing them in a hierarchy in a socioeconomic caste system. And sensing who's higher and who's lower. If it's safe enough and we get closer, then there's another level of witnessingness to notice that we often don't get much closer. If the other is from a different part of the caste system. Just we don't have that many close people outside our level, which is, of course, sad and something to change. But if we get closer, then the spacesuit self, the egoic spacesuit self starts filtering other things like what we're attracted to or moving towards. For instance, drawn to those that are affirming us. Or those that have something to offer us. Those that are stimulating, exciting. And we start noticing where we defend and move away from those who, you know, we don't want to be around. The grasping or the neediness. Maybe it's pulling away because of the other's judgments or anger, aversions. The way their insecurities express pulling away because of a power differential. So we have these stories that we develop through our spacesuit self. About who we are and who they are and who we are relationally. They're behind a lot of the ways we behave. And they're behind the way that we continue to look at each other. Because when we're living inside the spacesuit identities, we don't see so deeply. We don't keep wondering about who the person is. Okay, an illustration of this. Two priests decide to go to Hawaii on vacation. And they. They're going to make it a real vacation by not wearing anything that would identify them as clergy. So as soon as they land, they head out and get some outrageous shorts and shirts and sandals and sunglasses. You know, the whole beach. Get up. Next morning, they're on the beach, dressed in their tourist garb and sitting on beach chairs, enjoying the sunshine and scenery. When a lovely looking young woman in a bikini comes walking Straight towards them. And they couldn't help but stare and notice. And the woman passes them, she smiles and nods at each of them, saying, good morning, Father. Good morning, Father. They're stunned. How in the world did she know we're priests? So next day, they go back to the stores, they buy even more outrageous garb, you know. And again they're sitting there in their disguise on the beach in the chairs, enjoying the day. The next day, after a while, the same young woman, taking her sweet time, comes walking right towards them, greets them individually. Good morning, Father. Starts to walk away, but the priests couldn't stand any longer. And one of them says, just a moment, young woman. Yes, she replies. And he says, you know, we're priests and we're proud of it, but I have to know, how in the world did you know we're priests? And she replies, father, it's me, Sister Angela. So I know it's a bit of a stretch as an illustration, forgive me, but there is a point which is, once we've locked into our stories about the other, especially when they fit in a hierarchy in our mind, which they usually do, we don't keep looking and attending. So I've mentioned that the first thing that happens when we meet each other, the brain scans for safety or danger. And then when we start getting to know each other, the ego is scanning for what we like, what we don't like. The roles, if we're mindful, and we start with those that are closer and start asking, well, who's really here? What's life like for you right now? What matters to you? What's making you laugh? What makes you cry? The trance starts thinning. We're no longer living from our spacesuit self. There's some deeper presence that is emerging. And we start becoming aware that, well, just like me, you're experiencing human vulnerability. Just like me, you feel the pain of separation. Just like me, you have longings for loving, connection, understanding, being peaceful, being happy. We get to a deeper dimension than the spacesuit self. And then when we really start living in that presence with each other, that's where the true sense of Namaste unfolds. And because we sense, even under the waves of vulnerability and longing, we start sensing a fundamental innocence or purity, a kind of a light, a spirit that's shining through this being. We start to be able to see that and sense that. So let me slow down here, pause and invite you to reflect. It's interesting to scan and perhaps bring to mind someone, you know, friend or a colleague, Bringing someone to mind. And notice what you attend to when they come to mind. Whether you're seeing a visual image. And you're kind of remembering what they look like. Or maybe it's the story of their work, what they do. Or maybe you're noticing things about their personality. What makes them appealing. Or things that are irritating. So just to notice how much filtering from the spacesuit. The story about who they are. That you always carry in your mind. And how much do you sense as you bring them to mind. That there's that kind of inquiry and interest and openness to. Well, who's really here. To sense their vulnerabilities, the yearnings, what matters to this person. And to sense their heart, their spirit, the consciousness or awareness that looks through those eyes. Just as we attend to others in either a habitual way. Or perhaps with more mindful attention. It's the same in how we're relating to our inner life. You know, often we go around in a kind of habitual way. Identified as a small self who's doing something. Who's got to get something done. Who's either doing it well or not well, who's fearing something. You know, a familiar sense of the role that you're playing. And that's the whole you're identified with. And it can require pausing and deepening presence. To sense beyond that spacesuit self who's really here. That formless presence and love. That's way beyond any story we could ever tell ourselves. So this is our inquiry, you know, this pathway of how do we deepen attention. So we can learn to truly inhabit Namaste. That sense of seeing the sacred in ourselves and each other. And having some reverence, some true honoring towards what's beyond the spacesuit. And this will be for the rest of this reflection. Together, we'll be looking at two completely related pathways. That wake us up to this. And one is we start right where we are. And we notice the pain of trance. The suffering of identifying as a spacesuit yourself. You know, smaller than what we really are. And the second pathway is intentionally looking towards spirit, towards the good, towards what's beautiful, towards what we cherish. Okay, so we'll start with the first. And you see the first one. This pathway towards Namaste. By paying attention to here's where I'm suffering. Here's where I'm actually blocked from sensing who I am. And you sense this process. If you think of a chick breaking out of an egg. Or a fetus coming out of the womb. Or butterfly emerging from a chrysalis. That there's pressure, there's pain of too tight a container that we have to respond to that tension, that tightness, that pressure in order to grow and wake up. This is that first approach responding to the suffering. And if you think of all the adaptations through evolution, all the evolving that we do, it arises from stress, it arises from pressure, from pain, from something out of balance or not working. So this also goes to the process of evolving human consciousness that the way we evolve is we're alerted by stress or pain that we're living in too small a container. We're identified with limiting thoughts and beliefs. We're identified with spacesuit self and forgetting the larger sense of who we can be. So what that means is if you're suffering, you're pressing against the chrysalis. There's a pressure of living in too small an identity. And the primary expression of this, I find, is really the limiting beliefs that we're believing. We're a failing self, we're a threatened self, we're an unlovable self. And these block or obscure the realization of who we really are. They block. Namaste. So if we don't pay attention, if we just go on believing the beliefs, we stay in prison. And the squeeze is very painful. And it only gets more painful because there's something in us that really wants to grow and be who we are. So we sometimes act in ways to find comfort and soothe that through addictive behaviors or dominating others, or trying to control or defend. But that just plays into the suffering that actually builds it. The prison that we all find that we're in when we're identified as a small self is created by society and by our caregivers that give us messages about who we are basically that the self you are is not okay. And in a caste system which we all live in, it's inevitable. It doesn't matter where you are in the caste system. We all have intersecting identities still. It's an identity that keeps us separate. And we're stuck if we're higher up the hierarchy. We're stuck having to defend the position because there's insecurity in maintaining it. Through dominating, through violence, through grasping, through greed. And you can see that right now with white supremacy in so much of the world that as there's some waking up to the cruelty and ignorance of racism, white supremacy, and I wish it were true, that it's a final throes of grasping on. But you can sense how intense it's getting. Any struggle with feeling like we have to defend our position and we tighten. Or for those that are lower on the hierarchy, there's the pain of oppression, of fear, shame, anger, addiction. And of course, this is all deepened by caregivers who send the messages through family systems and raising us. So there's trauma, especially when lower on the hierarchy. There's that message of this is a dangerous world and you are less than. Again, I want to just say, for all of us, the society reinforces a spacesuit self. It gives us standards we're supposed to meet, like success, like looking a certain way, having a certain body. Achieving keeps us striving and monitoring and afraid of falling short or feeling like we are falling short. It stops us from seeing who we really are. So the waking up, bringing mindfulness to the place of suffering. Let me share. We'll look at this, but I'll share a story of one man's prison, which was created both by our society's racial caste system and also through caregiving. His caregivers. And this was a friend from college. And he contacted me some years ago. We both were practicing meditation and he needed some support in a life situation. I was active as a clinical psychologist then. So this man's African American. He was a photojournalist. And he married a Caucasian woman. And as it turned out, her mother was outwardly hostile. They'd visit and she'd be rude, she'd ignore him. And her view was basically, this is a man of a different race. It's going to mean trouble and unhappiness for both of them. He was hurt, he felt angry. His wife was outraged, didn't want to visit anymore. Said, this is it. Let's just sever. But his path, his spiritual path basically had taught him that to open to whatever circumstances are arising and basically have the prayer. This is called the Bodhisattva prayer. It's the prayer of an awakening being. May whatever arises awaken this heart and mind, no matter what it is. So that was his kind of approach to life. He also had a Tibetan teacher who sent the message or gave out the teaching. Never give up on anybody. Okay? So these combined, basically, he wanted to stay in the game, but he needed some support on how to do it. So we met and we did some processes of him getting in touch with where behind the anger that he was feeling and hurt now, how that had lived in his body and in his system for his whole life. He had a single mom, and he felt like to be an okay person, he had to live up to who his father might have been if he was home in Other words replace his father. And he always felt like he was falling short. Felt not seen, not valued, not enough, not belonging. And that intensified. He went to a white, primarily white college. He was in a professionally white world. So he was always trying to prove his worth and feeling a sense of not belonging. And of course, this situation with his new mother in law was just brought right up to the surface. So that's what we practice with. And he brought a lot of presence to it, a lot of kindness to it. You know, really, really holding with tenderness that old feeling of shame and not belonging and pain. And after some weeks of really being with himself in this way, he felt stronger. I mean, it wasn't healed, but he felt stronger. And he wanted to do the next visit with his wife. It was Thanksgiving and she was his ally. And he also brought his camera as kind of a resource so he could stay behind his camera and have something he could do that would give him a way to engage, interact and be there but still take care of himself. Well, they went. The mother in law was still rude, wouldn't respond to questions. He was trying to bring her out. Some refused to go out to dinner one night because she didn't want to be seen in public. The mixed family. He had his camera. He stayed present with himself. When he emailed me about it, he said, you know, I was able to see her more. It didn't feel quite as personal. And she's a really frightened woman, a very controlling, frightened person. Real tight heart. Next holiday, Christmas. And he increasingly was feeling more strength as he did a practice with himself that was really staying right at the edge of that place of suffering and bringing kindness and coming home as he did it. Each time he'd bring care to the place of hurt and shame, he felt like he shifted and became that caring presence. He could feel his own light. He could feel who he was beyond the spacesuit. Okay, Christmas holidays they go, there's a gift exchange. And the mother in law and family, they gave him socks that didn't fit and a box of candy. And he's a health nut. He gave her gifts and she was sitting across the room opening them. And there were two framed pictures. It was from Thanksgiving. And in one of the pictures, well, before I tell you the pictures, when she was looking at them, she started weeping. So others came around back to see what they were. Well, one was her playing with her new granddaughter. The wife of this man, her sister brought the daughter. So there's the mother playing with her new granddaughter. And the other, she's in her husband's lap and they're being playful. He had caught her goodness during that past holiday. He had caught her goodness. So I'm going to fast forward a bit and say that the relationship did not do an immediate thaw. There was not a kind of magic like that. But over the next few years there was the grounds of a growing respect. He had found an inner refuge. In other words, he was in touch with who he was beyond that spacesuit self, the small self. And he had seen her in a way and let her know that put her more in touch with her better self, who she was a little bit beyond her spacesuit. So there was a movement towards healing, connection. These are the seeds of Namaste, of what's possible. And it's important to know that when we're suffering, no matter what it is, when we're suffering, it's not bad, it's a wake up, that something needs attention, there's something we're not remembering. And if it's a societal suffering, it's the racial caste system that's forgotten the intrinsic value of all beings. And on an individual level, when we've internalized messages that we're not okay, we're failing, we should be more. In other words, when we're living inside beliefs that are not true, it's going to feel like suffering. If you're suffering, you're believing something that's not true. And the suffering is an awake up to challenge that, to open to something more. It's a portal to freedom. And you might just take a moment to pause here and you might let your attention go inward, Take a few full breaths. You might bring to mind a situation where as you witness right now, you're aware you are living in a spacesuit self where you're living and reacting and caught and in beliefs and feelings that make you insecure and reactive, where you do feel stuck, small, separate, it might be a situation at work or something to do with a relationship, an addictive behavior. So bringing to mind situation and just sensing the signs of the spacesuit self where you're believing you're failing, unworthy, not loved, that something's going to go wrong as you're living in that defensive mode or maybe judgment. And since that you are the witness right now, you're noticing this, this is what happens when there's an identification with a small self, the pain of that, and just feel your prayer. You can perhaps try the the words of the Bodhisattva prayer. May this suffering serve to awaken my heart and Mind, may I realize who I am beyond the small self. It helps to remember that the spacesuit self, when we identify with it, it feels very real. But it's not the truth of who you are. You can find your way to Namaste, that sense of honoring a spirit, a formless awareness, a love that's beyond the spacesuit self, that's living through you. Okay, friends, if your eyes are closed and you want to open them, please do so. I mentioned two pathways for cultivating the spirit of Namaste. And one is, as I just mentioned, seeing where we're cut off from it and bringing presence to that. The second is to intentionally turn towards the light, towards goodness. We're not only alerted by suffering, we're also called by that goodness, called by a wisdom that knows we're more. I mean, you wouldn't be here right now, you wouldn't be listening if there wasn't something in you that sensed a more mysterious and sacred dimension to what you are, to what we are. That intuition's in us. So take a moment. We'll go back to the caterpillar and the chrysalis, okay? And science is so fascinating on this one. I mentioned how, you know, when the butterfly is ready to fly, it feels the pressure of the chrysalis, and that lets it know to break loose. Well, before that, when the butterfly is a caterpillar within the chrysalis, the structure of the caterpillar dissolves into this soupy, organic mush. You know, all the organs, everything dissolves. And these dormant imaginal cells start to cluster and develop into the new structure of the butterfly. In other words, a totally new being emerges. And it's pretty amazing that scientists name these imaginal cells because they're cells that have the potential to manifest what we really are. In this case, the butterfly. And that, that's intrinsic. It's already there. And just to think, I mean, here we are as humans, to wake up, to evolve our consciousness. We don't have to dissolve all our organs. We just have to release the grip of those pesky, negative beliefs to get that as much as the spacesuit and those beliefs feel real, they're not the truth of who we are. You are not who you think you are. And then to turn towards the goodness that's already here. And it takes intention. It takes intention to do that. But I do think of learning to turn towards the goodness, towards beauty, to feel our gratitude, to feel our love, to cultivate that. It's a superpower. And the reason it's a Superpower is because the goodness is already here. But when we turn towards it, when we bring the light of awareness to it, it calls it forward, it brings it forth. Okay, Another story, and this was shared by a man from my area from D.C. who runs a rehab program for juvenile offenders. And most of the young people he works with were gang members and most had committed homicide. Okay, so one of these is a 14 year old boy in the program had shot and killed an innocent teenager to prove himself to his gang. And at his trial, the victim's mother sat there impassively silent until the end. And then when the youth was convicted of the killing, after the verdict was announced, she stood up slowly and stared at him and said, I'm going to kill you. Then the youth was taken away to serve several years in a, in a juvenile facility. Now, after the first half a year, the mother of the slain child began to visit him. And you know, he had been living on the streets, didn't have other visitors. So for a time they talk. And she gave him money, came back several more times, and each time she'd bring some food, some small gifts. Near the end of his three year old sentence, she asked him what he'd be doing when he got out. And he was uncertain, confused. So she offered to set him up with a job with a friend's company. And then she asked where he was going to live. And since he didn't have a family to return to, she offered him temporary use of a spare room in her home. So for eight months he lived there and he ate her food and worked at the job. Then one evening she called him into the living room to talk and sat down opposite him, Just kind of waited a bit. And then she said, do you remember in the courtroom when I said I was going to kill you? I sure do, he replied. Well, I did. She went on, I did not want the boy who could kill my son for no reason to remain alive on this earth. I wanted him to die. So that's why I started to visit you and bring you things. And that's why I got you the job and let you live in my house. And that's how I set about changing you. And that old boy, he's gone. So what I want to ask you, since my son is gone and that killer is gone, if you'll stay here, I've got a room and I'd like to adopt you if you'll let me. And she became the mother of her son's killer, the mother he had never had. Each time I Share this I'm humbled because it's rare to see deeply to the soul of one who's caused us such horrific suffering. I mean, that takes a real deep, deep capacity. You know, she. She changed him by, by having confidence in who he really was. She's. What she really did. What she killed was his identification with the spacesuit self that was so violent. So it's inspiring to know this is possible. And we each can train our capacity to see goodness in ourselves and others, to feel our love, to feel our gratitude where it comes most easily and naturally and build from there. You know, we can trust what we practice gets stronger. The capacity for seeing the sacred really does wake up in us. So I emphasize that it needs to be an intentional practice. I mean, if you consider our evolutionary negativity bias and the survival brain's habit of fixating on what's wrong even with those closest to us, and when we're not even in a strong reaction, still there's this habit of wanting others and ourselves to be different. We keep having that inclination that, you know, and at any moment that there's an undercurrent that you're not enough or you need to change, it blocks the capacity for Namaste. Where we are really remembering their spirit, their goodness. You know, I often think of parenting in this. I've always been entertained by Florida Maxwell who writes, no matter how old a mother is, she watches her middle aged children for signs of improvement. I think of that because my son's now 35 and I watch myself watching him most stages while he was growing up, there was really some problem I was focused on that I thought needed attention and should be different. You know, he needs to be more disciplined at school and less computer games and, you know, more responsible around the house. The common list that probably most every parent knows. And I realized looking back that in the moments when I locked into judging where my spacesuit self was judging his spacesuit self, I wasn't feeling connected, my heart wasn't open. And I realized looking back that the greatest gift I offered him were the moments that I was just beholding and trusting his innate goodness. When on some level, you know, my heart was Namaste. Last week, a parent was worried about her son and I asked her, you know, what do you really love about him? What do you most trust or honor? And she started naming things, you know, his humor, his kindness. And I said, reflect on that. Really do this Namaste practice where you honor that it helps them to trust who they are. We become a Mirror of goodness. Okay, this is a poem from Sant Tukharam. He says, I could not lie anymore. So I started to call my dog God. First he looked confused, Then he started smiling. Then he even danced. I kept at it. Now he doesn't even bite. I'm wondering if this might work on people. Well, it does. It is a superpower, and it's really an intentional practice. And there are some steps that the first thing we do if we want to look towards goodness, cultivate that capacity, is intentionally pause and reflect and see what we love, see what we're grateful for. The second step is to actually take the time to feel and savor the appreciation. So that we're not just bowing, so to speak, and saying namaste, but our body and heart is feeling that sense of love, gratitude, devotion, reverence, whatever word we want to call it. And then the third is to express it in some way. So this is intuitive that we would need to do these things. But it's also neuroscience that painful experiences, the sense of what's wrong and the pain around that very sticky. In fact, that's what's saved in the implicit memory when something bad happens, when something goes wrong, that we do something wrong or somebody else misbehaves. And that's what shapes our ongoing experience of ourself and others. Positive experiences. You. You know, the ones that deepen our trust in who we are beyond the spacesuit self. Positive experiences require staying with, and they say 15 to 30 seconds, where we're actually experiencing our sense of ourselves or each other in a deep way. That's what leaves the imprint. And each round that we do that, each round that we sense the sacredness, sense the beauty and. And stay with it, it nourishes those imaginal cells. And there's really a transmission to the other person when we're seeing their goodness. As I mentioned, it works because the sacredness is there, but we're calling it forward. You know, it's like that man in the story where he was saying, I did good. Even when it's covered over by the spacesuit self, even when it's covered over by your confusion or self aversion, you still have a longing to live from a pure heart. You still want to live from that goodness. You intuit that goodness. It comes alive when we attend to it. So I started with that image of more and more of us practicing. And we can customize and sense our way of practicing, but in some way we're taking the time to pause to see the goodness, see the beauty and honor it, to cultivate that spirit of Namaste. And if we're in reactivity, then clearly we're not going to bypass that. We start there, let the suffering be our portal back into presence and tenderness. And if we aren't suffering and we look towards the goodness, that Namaste becomes more and more of a pathway to living from an awake heart. So I'd like to close with a brief reflection. You might take some moments to let the attention go inward. Take a few moments to let the breath help to collect your attention. Perhaps a long, deep breath. And then letting the breath be in its natural rhythm, feeling the breath at the heart. And you might sense a slight smile at the mouth and smile into the heart so you can start to feel heart space. And bring to mind someone you love, where the loving's fairly uncomplicated, where it's easy to feel your love for that person. And let that person be close in, in your mind, in your imagination, feel them right here, perhaps seeing what their eyes look like when they're smiling, when they're experiencing love for you, when they're happy, and sensing what you love about them, what their goodness is, how it expresses, whether it's through their humor, their bright mind, their generosity. Sense the awareness in that being spirit. And you might mentally whisper, or whisper out loud, thank you and I love you. And you might whisper it again, feeling the sincerity in your heart deepen. And you might even explore putting your palms together and imagining you and that person offering each other the blessing of Namaste. I see the sacred, I see the divine in you. And letting your attention go to the experience of your own being right now, perhaps a sense of tenderness or warmth, the heart space that's here. And sense a Namaste, a bow, just honoring the goodness of what's living through you, Who you are beyond any story of self. And you might bring to mind someone who you care about, but where there's more challenge, more difficulty, more edges, perhaps someone who brings up irritation or guilt, our anxiety, our judgment. And let yourself feel what gets brought up, whatever gets triggered, and just breathe with it. And offer a gesture of kindness, inwardly acknowledging the spacesuit conditioning that's here. And looking more deeply, sensing. You could look right into their eyes, sensing this person when they're happy, when they're feeling safe, when they're feeling love, just to see past the spacesuit to the goodness that's there. And in the same way as before, you might imagine you and this person with your palms together, slight bow of the head Namaste Seeing, honoring the goodness, the basic goodness, the spirit that's here. And finally, you might bring to mind a non human animal, Or it could be a tree, plant. And sensing the form of this being, And also the intrinsic aliveness, consciousness, spirit that lives through. And with tenderness, as you did before that Namaste, that honoring of the sacred. From Thomas Meriden. It was as if I suddenly saw the secret beauty of their hearts, the depth of their hearts, where neither sin nor knowledge could reach the core of reality. The person that each one is in the eyes of the divine. If only they could see themselves as they really are. If only we could see each other that way all the time. There would be no more need for war, for hatred, for greed, for cruelty. I suppose the big problem would be that we would fall down and worship each other. As a way of closing. You might sense in the near future someone you might offer Namaste to. When you're together, Just sense how pausing and seeing the goodness can wake up the hearts that are here, that can begin to bring freedom to us in our relationships with each other and healing to our world. Okay, my friends, if your eyes are closed, please feel free to open them. I want to thank you for your kind attention and wish you all the blessings of this path. A deep bow of Namaste to each.