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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. Namaste. It's really a treat to be in this heart space together. I'd like to start with a story that occurred a number of years ago. I was presenting at a large psychology conference, and the first keynote speech that I was there for was a white male speaker, very well known, high status in the field. He was talking, I think, about emotional regulation. And in his talk, he said something like this. He said, young black men are more prone to violence and criminal behavior. Then he went on to other things. Well, it was open. Then he opened to questions. And the first person to come to the mic was a young black man. And he stood there and he was quiet for a bit. It was a pause. And in that pause, I could just feel the sense of his presence and dignity. And he spoke some and he said, when you said that, it was like you erased my humanity. And then he said, I just want to ask you right now to imagine what it's like to live in a black body in this country, what it's like to have been shaped by generations of violence, by slavery, Jim Crow, police brutality, everyday racism. This is the air we breathe. And if you don't sense that violence, the violence of white America, you can't see who we really are or what healing requires. Okay, so there was a total stunned silence and then a sprinkling of applause and then more applause, and many of us with tears. What he did is what I would now call spiritual audacity. It's a courage, a daring, a confidence that arises in the face of injustice or fear. And that comes when we're caring deeply and embodying an awake heart. It's very clean. So today I'm going to reflect on this word or these words, spiritual audacity. And I want to start by thanking my dear friend, my colleague, meditation teacher Sharon Shelton, who some months ago drew my attention to the term, and it's been growing on me. It's an unusual term, right? Spiritual audacity. But I'm finding it has so much relevance for our personal life and so deeply needed, this capacity in responding to our current times, to the perils that we're facing. It's what we need to wake up from this trance that has us in business as usual, like we're waiting out a storm into the courage to engage and speak our truth, to act on behalf of what we love. So Rabbi Abraham Heschel, he himself, a lot of spiritual audacity, was a spiritual mystic, a scholar, this courageous voice of conscience. And he coined the term in a letter to John F. Kennedy. It was during the civil rights movement. He was reflecting in this letter on the centuries of oppression of black people. And he said, this historic moment calls us to respond with moral grandeur and spiritual audacity, the courage rooted in conviction of the intrinsic worth of all beings. So after marching with Martin Luther King in Selma, Heschel he said this, this is a famous quote. He said, I felt like my legs were praying. In our world, in the face of threats, injustice, spiritual audacity does express as love in action some of the words that kind of help to get a feeling for it. Daring, creative, fierce compassion. A dedication to freedom to a dedication to the well being of all. Martin Luther King, when he said, when we feel it collectively, it's soul force. And in our personal lives, spiritual audacity is the energy that out of our love for life and for waking up, lets us dare to live fully. And I want to go slow here and take a moment because I suspect you've sensed this energy at different times. It arises when something feels important enough that we take a risk. So it might be that we so deeply want to heal old wounds that we willingly lean into fear that we've been avoiding for a long time. Or it might be that we have a real longing for connection and we take the chance of being more vulnerable and real. Or that we take risks and bring creativity to our work. It's that feeling of going for it and it's not grasping. It's after we've played small or tried to keep safe or comfortable, what we're going for, we're going for helping, for spiritual awakening, for the adventure of living with our whole heart, our whole being. So it's valuable to sense, okay, so what gives rise to this? What allows us to go for it, to really have that courage and that daring and that confidence. So what are the roots? And so I was reflecting on this and some of you are probably too young to remember the old answering machines, you know, the ones with the tape recordings that you'd call somebody and you'd hear a recording of their voice and so on. Well, I remember One friend in our kind of extended spiritual community. And you'd call her and you'd hear her voice, and what she'd say is, hello, I'm so and so. And what I want to know is, who are you and what do you really want? And it was kind of like that, and it always cracked me up. And these are the questions, right? The deep questions, and they're the roots of spiritual audacity. It's trusting and knowing who we really are beyond the coverings, as I sometimes call it, of our ego, self. And you all, you wouldn't be here if you didn't have intuitions and glimmers into this mystery of who we really are. We touch into it when we're with someone who's dying, or sometimes in nature, or when we're open wide by love, sometimes we're meditating. And in the quietness, all the thoughts that keep a sense of self alive, kind of quiet. And there's a vastness and a quietness and a tenderness and a mystery. So who are you? I mean, there are all sorts of names. Spirit, loving, awareness, the divine, the mystery. I've been lately, the words, love, light. But what the sense is, is that there's this purity or basic goodness that lives through us. I'll share a little essay that I got recently and it's called the Difference Between Cats and Dogs. This is the dog first, who's speaking? Human life form. You keep me warm and give me food. You cater to my every mood. You give me hugs, you give me love. All of this you do for free. There's nothing you wouldn't do for me, whatever the odds. Therefore, I conclude you must be God. This is the cat. Human life form. You keep me warm and give me food. You cater to my every mood. You give me hugs. You give me love. All of this you do for free. There's nothing you wouldn't do for me, whatever the odds. Therefore, I conclude I must be God. I love it. The roots of spiritual audacity. We have to merge our canines and felines together because it's the knowing that our shared essence is awareness, is spirit, is God, is basic goodness. And out of that, that question, what do you want? What we want, when we know what we really are, what matters is living from truth, living from love. Who are you and what do you want? So in Tibetan Buddhism, when we're awake to the experience that these inquiries bring, when we're awake to the truth of our own vastness and depth and goodness, when we know that what matters is Love is compassion. It gives us enormous power and confidence. It's called the lion's roar, which is part of the title of this reflection, because it's just like in a jungle, the lion's roar. And it silences everything. And the lion's roar silences delusion. This is the understanding that it carries truth into the world with confidence, with power, with authority. So back to our basic theme of why is this crucial right now? These are expressions of the awakened heart, mind. Why now? And the reason is because we are sinking into a trance of collective fear. We are all affected by it. It's kind of hubris to think that we're not belonging to our world and immune. There's such huge insecurity in the atmosphere. I mean, the economy, loss of democracy in the United States, a military invasion into our cities, violence, oppression. These are shadow times. And we have forgotten who we are, and we have forgotten what matters. And this is collectively. So when fear takes over, that's the meaning of trance. We are, you know, hijacked and living from our survival brain. And individually, the signs are we feel more anxious and isolated. We might feel angry or depressed. And if we look at the global polls of mental health, that's what it is. That's what people are feeling, the signs of the trance of fear. And collectively, as a society, these are the times that lead to the kind of dividedness everybody's talking about and the cruelty and authoritarian takeovers. It's happening. So the choice is, do we succumb to trance or do we deepen our attention and reconnect to the who we are and the what matters and respond with courage to our world, with caring, with that empowerment that comes when we remember our belonging. Probably the first step in choosing to deepen attention and wake up is just looking at the signs of trance in ourselves. I can certainly see it in myself. You know, I can see the different ways and sense freeze, flight and fight if I look at myself. But just to say them more slowly, just so you can kind of take a moment to scan your own life. And as you're relating to the larger, society freezes when we are kind of on hold. We're waiting. It's like, okay, I'm gonna wait till the storm passes. You know, just kind of staying put. The flight is when we're anxiously trying to ward off the dangers. You know, staying busy, low profile, playing small, trying to protect ourselves, our families, our own little area, but obeying in advance. That's such an amazing, powerful phrase. In other words, like how it is is a done deal, you know, or perhaps we're in fight, which is bad othering, feeling morally superior, blaming our own form of aggression. And as I said, I can see different streams of all of those in my own body, mind, and what's happening. But when we're in trance, and this is the meaning of trance, we're cut off from our own wholeness and from others. And when there's a collective trance, it is the grounds historically and now for fascism, authoritarianism, for huge scales of violence. Some years back, a friend went to Rwanda, to the Genocide Memorial Center. There she saw a quote and emailed it to me. It was a quote on a plaque in the memorial. And the quote was, if you knew me and you really knew yourself, you would not have killed me. If you knew me and you really knew yourself, you would not have killed me. And isn't it true that genocide, cruelty, oppression, it wouldn't happen if we really knew who we were and what mattered? It's only possible when we forget, when we forget our belonging. There's an anonymous quote I like, which is fear is great, and greater yet is the truth of our connectedness, of our oneness, of love, light. So the deal is through our individual lives and collectively, we forget and remember, forget and remember. You know, we forget, we go into trance, we go into darkness, we act out, we suffer. And it's our nature to remember and to awaken, to turn back towards the light as millions are right as we are together here honoring Diwali, you know, the festival of lights. Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, some Buddhists. So let's look now how we do that, you know, how we shift from trance where we're imprisoned some in that, in that sense of disconnection to awareness where we can actually respond with an empowered sense of being to our world. And I'm going to look both in our personal life and in our collective life. I want to start with our personal life. Like, what does it mean to have the lion's roar in our personal life? And the main expression of trance that I encounter in personal life is the sense of I'm separate, unworthy and falling short, self doubt. It was the biggest challenge that the Buddha faced, you know, in the Buddha's awakening. And I think for us too, that this deep sense of something's wrong, I'm unlovable. And it cuts us off from the truth of who we are, from our power, from our courage. The flag is chronic judging I'm not doing it right. Some of you might remember this essay if you can start the day without caffeine or pills. If you're cheerful and you ignore aches and pains, if you can resist complaining and boring people with your troubles, if you can understand when loved ones are too busy busy to give you time, if you can overlook when people take things out on you, when through no fault of yours, something goes wrong, if you can take criticism and blame without resentment, if you can face the world without lies or deceit, if you can conquer tension without medical help, if you can relax without liquor, if you can sleep without the aid of drugs, then you are probably a dog. The title of this is Spiritual Fitness. Because we do it even on the spiritual path. We have all these ideas of how we should be. Isn't it true? And if we feel we don't measure up, if we're caught in the trance of unworthiness and fear, there's no access to the lion's roar, to that power, to that inner freedom, to that energy, to that caring. So in our personal lives, if we want to transform, we have to go against the currents of our inner patterning. It's a kind of healthy resistance towards the ways we put ourselves down, towards self doubt, towards the beliefs that we're failing, that we're unlovable, that we're not enough, the beliefs that kind of limit our possibilities of being close with each other, of belonging. I've shared my own story a lot. I mean, I'm imagining most everyone that's here, that's listening has heard me talk about my early 20s when I faced the suffering of this. How it just kept me insecure in every relationship. And it kept me feeling like something was wrong with me, with my body, with my personality, with every part of me. And it also kept me always needing to prove myself, like I was never at home. So I was really fortunate that I had access to different spiritual practices, the therapists. I had the privilege that I could begin to really get and pay attention to the pain and suffering that this created. So something in me realized that if I didn't dedicate to undoing this trance, I would never be happy. I would actually never feel the love that I longed to feel. So I actually very consciously committed. I committed to going against the currents or patterning in my mind and in my emotions. I committed to not believing the thoughts, to meeting the pain that was under the beliefs with compassion, because I called it resistance. But the real way through trance is through compassion, through the presence, with what's there. I committed to remembering my goodness. You know, I had journal after journal after journal. Where I would be working out this stuff and meditations and, you know, I talk about love light as kind of the who we really are. I remember just the language of I will not betray the love and light that lives through me. You know. Now I want to say if you asked me, because this was in my early 20s, this is 50 years ago. What's the difference? What's changed? The old patterns absolutely still arise. You know, I still see myself trying to prove myself. You know, I still see comparing mind. I still see ways that I judge myself. But the difference is there's very little lag time between that arising and that more awake part of me going, oh, that again. And then this compassion and this deep dedication to not losing life moments, not sacrificing the preciousness of living and loving and staying stuck in that who are you remembering that? What do I want? So of course, I've worked with countless people, you know, in this process and amazing and profound transformations when people commit. And it takes a certain kind of spiritual audacity to undo the trance. We have to have a bit of it where we commit. I'm not going to believe those thoughts. I'm going to meet this with compassion. The truth is, the more we trust who we really are and know that love matters, the more courage we have, the more courage we have. There's so many stories of how I've seen the lion's roar wake up in people. With one I remember after years of silence and, you know, a real estrangement with her sister, one woman decided to send a message and she paused before doing it and totally acknowledged and honored the fear that was there. And then she just reflected on the light and the goodness in her heart and her sisters and wrote from love. She pressed then. She didn't know what would happen, but something in her had already opened just in the action, just in that courageous action. And it did lead to reconciliation and a relationship she cherished in her later years. Another story I'll share with you, real different kind of story is a man who was telling me about how his heart was racing before pitching this very bold idea to the team that he was part of that ran a very large nonprofit. And he said, he took one breath and inwardly he started saying to himself, I belong. I don't need to prove anything. And then he just spoke simply, clearly and with care, with some passion. The room got quiet. And it wasn't because he was loud. It was because he was real. He was connected to who he was and what mattered. There was power there that Invited their engagement. Maybe one more story for you. This person who had hidden the truth of being gay for decades and just described to me the day that they were with a friend from childhood and they felt the familiar fear of staying safe, you know, stay safe, stay safe. But then said it out loud. And how their friend smiled and touched their hand and said, took you long enough, you know, which I. And something I've heard in other similar stories. And they laughed. And this person described the kind of freedom that opened up that they hadn't felt for so long. Knowing who we are, what matters. That's what they said. They said that, you know, I had to in some way remember nothing's wrong with me. And. And that what most matters is connection, the lion's roar. It's when we're connected to that, that there is some power and healing to what we say and do. So I want to pause here and have a brief reflection that you're a part of in terms of tending inwardly. And so wherever you are, if you can let this be another brief pause. Take a moment. This is just very short, but take a moment to let your attention turn inward. Feel your breath, let your breath invite you into the moment. Just to get a taste of this. You might bring your attention to something that makes you doubt yourself. Something, some behavior, some way of thinking or feeling that you brings you into that trance of unworthiness. It might have to do with the way you relate with a certain person or your way you relate at work, some addictive behavior. The first step of waking up out of trance, moving towards the light is simply to notice. Okay, this is the trance. Just to notice it. We're a little bigger. So name it. Just self doubt or judgment, self aversion, shame, embarrassment. Just name and take a moment to honestly look at how this has made your life smaller, how riding this pattern has created pain, how it's affected relationships with others and your spontaneity and your creativity at work. How it's disempowered you, cut you off. And as you do, you might feel what sometimes comes up as a kind of a soul sadness of really wishing something better for your life than being in that trance. If it helps, put your hand in your heart, please do and just sense that wise heart space right now. That is witnessing, that wants to wake up. We all want to wake up from this prison of trance. Just feel your intention, your prayer, your commitment. If you feel it, please may I trust who I really am, that goodness, may I remember what I love, what matters, and feel your Caring that you're. It's kind of like your spiritual heart is holding this human vulnerability, the self doubt with such compassion. And even if you've done a thousand practices where you've tried to bring care to the hurting part senses as totally fresh the possibility of letting it in, letting care in. So in a sense you're the holder and the held and that you can sense as the holder that who you are is that compassionate awareness that's more true than any story. And you might even ask yourself, who would I be if I trusted this goodness? Who would I be? Who would I be if I really knew nothing is wrong with me? Check that out. Who would you be? Who would you be if you really trusted that awareness that Love Light is your home? And you might imagine for a moment what a growing sense of confidence and trust, what spiritual audacity the lines of her might look like in your personal life. Just kind of sense into that, that daring behind love in action. And we're going to come back to that in a few moments. But for right now, just feel yourself here now with that deep prayer. Or it might feel like a commitment which has such power to it. May I remember and trust this basic goodness. May I remember what I love it. So we're exploring a bit, undoing the trance, waking up into that fullness that has a quality of being courageous and caring and in relating to our own personal life. And I'd like to extend it to the world also, but with both. The root principles here are that in the midst of fear, insecurity, dangerous times and trance in the midst of it, the invitation is looking towards the unshakable basic goodness. The God, the spirit, the mystery within our own being and others that we belong, no exceptions. And that remembering love matters. There's a story that keeps me inspired. It was told by Congressman John Lewis in 1961. He and a colleague were at a bus station when a group of young white men attacked them. And they were beaten with baseball bats and badly injured and bloodied. But he and his friend didn't fight back. You know, they didn't press charges. They treated their wounds, they got some rest and they kept going on with their civil rights work. So five decades later, in 2009, a white man about Lewis's age walks into Capitol Hill, into his office. He's accompanied by his middle aged son and he says, Congressman Lewis, my name is Elwyn Wilson. I'm one of the men who beat you at that bus station in 1961. And I want to atone for What I did, I've come to ask, will you forgive me? And John Lewis said simply, I forgave him. And we embraced. And he and his son and I, we all wept. And then we talked. And as he finished telling the story, he spoke again, this time kind of softly, to himself. And he said, people can change. People can change. So I share this because we can see the very roots of spiritual audacity in John Lewis's life. His trust in basic goodness, his deep faith in our shared humanity, the dignity and worth of all beings. And it gave him the courage to keep walking forward, even during times that were so evidencing our human cruelty and injustice and hatred. Going against the current. He was an embodiment of the lion's roar. And I have to say, I love stories of people going against the currents, the currents of trance and remembering the light turning towards the light. I often think of Harriet Tubman. Her story's so amazing. I mean, you know, I think of all those who risked their lives to go for freedom. And her story, you know, here she is, this small woman with epilepsy. And she had no formal education. She had a bounty on her head. And she walked straight into danger again and again, guided by this unshakable trust in her belonging to God. You know, her courage wasn't recklessness. It was wholly daring. You know, it was rooted in this constant prayer and intimate relationship with the divine. We need to trust it. Another inspiration I'll share with you. They're called the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo. And this is during Argentina's Dirty war. It was 1976-83, and there is a military dictatorship that was abducting and disappearing. It turns out an estimated 30,000 people, many young activists and students. So in 1977, a small group of mothers, most of them were middle aged and previously hadn't been at all political. They began gathering every Thursday in Buenos Aires, in the central plaza. And they would just silently walk with the photos of their missing children. And they wore these white scarves embroidered with their children's names. So this is at a time when public protest meant imprisonment or death. And their quiet, maternal presence, it was radical. I mean, their grief became their power and the regime. First they mocked them, they threatened them. They even disappeared some of them. But they kept coming. And eventually even the members of the military junta admitted, they said, when the mothers show up, we know we are finished. Gives me chills, you know, that these women stood as kind of an embodiment of love and conscience. It's that kind of moral authority we're talking about moral, heart, centered, unwavering. It could delegitimize a regime more deeply than violence ever could. They knew who they were, their belonging, and that love mattered. Okay, friends, so here we are today, facing authoritarian regimes around the planet. Unfathomable destruction. I don't know about you, but I'm just feeling the destruction of what maybe some of us took for granted. It's very hard. And then the bare cruelty and violence. So our times are calling for spiritual audacity to go against the currents, to break out of trance, this deep courage and. And love for the world. Read you a poem from Rebecca Baggott. She says, I want to tell you that the world is still beautiful. I tell you that despite children shot down in schoolrooms, despite the slow poison seeping from the old and hidden sins into our air and soil and water, despite the thinning film that encloses our aching world, despite my own terror and despair, I want you to look again and again to recognize the tender grasses curled like a baby's fine hairs around your fingers as a recurring miracle, to see that the river rocks shine like God, that the crisp voices of orange and gold October leaves are laughing at death. I want you to look beneath the grass to note the fragile hieroglyphs of ant, snail, beetle. I want you to understand you are no more and no less necessary than the throated hummingbird, the humpback whale, the profligate mimosa. I want to say, like Neruda, that I am waiting for a great and common tenderness. I am waiting for a great and common tenderness, that I still believe we are capable of attention, that anyone who notices the world must want to save it. Spiritual audacity comes out of facing the truth, opening to our grief, to our love and to the belonging that we have with each other and all beings. And I'm seeing expressions of this in the expressions that come in courage and daring all around me right now. And I'll just speak to the D.C. area where I live that friends in D.C. are opening places of worship homes to undocumented immigrants. They care. There are beings like me is the feeling 78 year old that I know plans to volunteer as a poll worker this November. Friend told me that in her synagogue they had broken silence about the devastation in Gaza and rallying now to raise funds and humanitarian aid for their fellow beings. People have sent me poems. People are creating art that remembers and resists people in government and justice systems refusing to bend in resignation. And then many of us how Many through. Through the. Through the country, but also around the world, coming to protest like no kings. I was with many on the mall and just kind of kept imagining all of our legs and hearts were praying. My favorite sign was this, held by a little boy on his father's shoulders. And it said, don't be mean. Don't be mean. So moral grandeur and spiritual audacity. We can grow these qualities. Our world needs us to. Our world needs us to remember who we are together, our belonging, and that love is what matters. So in that spirit, we'll do a meditation practice. Meditation that I love. Again. The invitation is to take some moments, to find a way of sitting where you're comfortable and awake. Let yourself settle a bit. The title of this practice is Awakening Spiritual Audacity. As you come into stillness, let the breath move gently and simply observe it. Feel it, the inflow, the outflow. Feel the life of your body so you can sense your whole body breathing, even in a cellular. And let your senses be awake, including the sounds around you, the changing, moving sensations through the body, the felt sense in the heart. And then bring to your awareness someone for you who embodies spiritual audacity, who inspires you in that way. It doesn't have to be someone famous. It could be. It could be John Lewis or Harriet Tubman or Dick Nuttall or one of the many spiritual leaders that have inspired us. It can also be someone in your life who's brave and caring, who even in the face of fear, dares to live and love and serve. Bring someone to mind, person who has acted from love, even when it's dangerous. And now imagine that you're looking into each other's eyes. So bring them close in. They're welcoming you. You're welcoming them. So there's an openness, undefendedness, looking into each other's eyes, them beholding you with care. And as you look into their eyes, let yourself see the light that's there. This is the kind of the light and energy behind the lion's roar, the love, the fearless heart, and even behind that, the presence that has guided them, how they rest, in a presence that's steady and bold and full of care. Now imagine that that same spirit, that confidence, the fearlessness, begins to move into that connection with truth, with awareness, with love, light and the sense of what most matters. Let it fill you. So you just let the spirit fill you, fill your heart, your spine, your hands, your being. You don't have to make it happen, just receive it. Let it move through you. So you can feel that that courageous loving energy is filling you. It's grounding you, it's energizing you. And it's affirming that basic goodness that's always an already here, but sometimes forgotten. You're caring about life. Sense that great and common tenderness that has you care about life. Now gently bring to mind a challenge in your life. Something that asks for your courage, your truth, your presence that asks for you to go against the old patterning. Some challenge might be in a relationship to do with work, a lifestyle, habit, health. Some challenge, it's calling for your courage. And imagine meeting it with the spirit that's alive in you, carried by this energy. Sense what's possible when you're trusting your belonging. When that basic goodness is experienced as who you are. You're trusting your heart. Sense what's possible and staying connected to this energy. Sense yourself responding to some suffering in the world world that calls your attention, bringing the lion's roar, this courage and truthfulness and love and tenderness. You might use the inquiry, what is love asking? And just sense how you might respond with that fearless whole heart. I want to say, like Neruda, that I'm waiting for a great and common tenderness, that I still believe we are capable of attention, that anyone who notices the world must want to save it. Sense us all holding hands, awakening from that collective trance. Feel the soul force that's possible when we all dedicate ourselves to living from love. Okay, as you're ready, feel free to. If your eyes are closed, open your eyes, move around a bit. And thank you for your willingness to explore this together. So I'd like to now shift and this is a time we're going to be opening to questions. Let me get you on gallery view here so I can see everyone. Yeah, so this is time if you'd like to put the hand raise function up. If you have a question, and I will call on some names and I might hop around the screen a little bit, so don't be disturbed by that. Once I do, you will be asked to unmute. Okay, so, Karen, we will start with you.