Three Insights That Free The Heart

The Buddha's teachings weren't meant for monasteries alone, they were meant for real life : when the body is in pain, when a relationship ends, or when the mind won't stop overthinking. We'll explore three essential insights at the heart of the Buddha's wisdom : impermanence, interdependence, and suffering. We'll dive into how they support us in meeting change, uncertainty, and difficulty with greater steadiness, understanding, and self-compassion. Through gentle reflection and mindful awareness, we'll apply these wisdom teachings to our everyday challenges, exploring them as living truths that help the heart soften and respond more wisely to what's happening now. This is an invitation to meet your life with a little more clarity and a lot more kindness.

Please note: This track was recorded live and may contain background noises.

Transcript

Our time together is meant to be an opening,

Awakening,

Transforming.

We gather here as a community,

As a Sangha,

To meet our truth,

To meet the peace that is already here,

To meet the freedom,

The love that is already and always who we are.

So if you have any questions,

I invite you to put them in the chat and I will jump into them a little bit later.

So welcome everybody who's new,

First-timers,

Welcome to those of you who are back.

Heat up your tea,

Coffee or morning shot of whiskey and let's get going.

This is our love stream number 12 and our title is Three Insights that Free the Heart,

Impermanence,

Interdependence and the End of Suffering.

And this Dharma talk,

Dharma means teaching,

Is based in the Buddha's teachings.

The Buddha was a man who lived 2,

600 years ago and he was interested in why humans suffer and how to end suffering.

So in a way,

Some people call him the ultimate doctor,

Which is perfect because I'm a doctor too,

So I really resonate with what he was looking for.

He was looking to diagnose why we suffer.

Why do we suffer when there is so much beauty,

So much wealth of richness,

Of beautiness in this world?

Why do we suffer?

And he did diagnose why we suffer.

And then he gave us the medicine,

The medicine to end all suffering.

So he wasn't interested in just having us feel a little bit better,

He truly wanted us to end our suffering.

And the good news for us is that he became enlightened at a young age and he went on to teach approximately 45 years.

So there is a plethora of Dharma,

Of teaching.

And as we'll see today with today's talk,

He gave us a blueprint,

A blueprint,

An instruction manual like you get when you get a new car or you get a new desk that you have to put together.

He gave us an instruction manual on how to live this life,

How to diagnose our suffering and how to free ourselves of our suffering so that we can actually enjoy our life.

So these three insights that we'll speak of today,

Impermanence,

Interdependence and the end of suffering,

Are meant to be more than just a philosophical,

Contextual conversation.

It's meant to be more than that.

The Buddha Dharma is meant to be an embodied,

Lived experience.

So as I speak,

As I offer some of the Dharma to you,

I'm offering you my lived experience.

I'm not offering you just something I read in a book or thought was a good idea to talk about.

I'm offering you truly my lived experience through my own suffering.

Because if you have a body and you're living a human life,

You will have experienced suffering.

Some more,

Some less,

But there is suffering in this world.

So I'm offering you my lived experience and I ask you,

As we open up the space of these three insights that free the heart,

I ask you to please internalize it.

Bring it back to yourself.

As you hear me then,

Throw the boomerang back to yourself and ask yourself,

How does this apply to my life?

Does it?

How can I use any of this Dharma talk in my life?

And what's one nugget that I can take with me to make a difference in the suffering I experience,

So that I can suffer less?

And then based on knowing how to suffer less,

May I offer it to others.

May I open my heart and offer others freedom from their suffering.

Let's begin with the first one.

We'll dive into impermanence.

And let's remember that the beauty of these teachings is that the Buddha didn't just teach for monks in the monasteries.

He brought these teachings to lay people,

To us.

So 2,

600 years later,

We can actually,

In real life,

Awaken.

We don't have to go and renunciate our lives as lay people living in the material world.

We can live in this world and we can have the tools that we can practice in our little toolbox to support ourselves.

So everything I speak of today requires practice,

Practice,

Practice,

Practice.

If we don't practice,

We forget.

Let's begin with impermanence,

Or anika as it's called in Sanskrit.

Impermanence,

Simply stated,

Is the unavoidable truth that everything,

Everything that arises will pass away.

Everything that arises will change.

Nothing stays fixed.

It's a law,

Just like gravity.

It's unarguable.

You can try to argue with gravity,

But inevitably gravity is going to win.

You can try to argue with impermanence,

And we do.

We do argue.

We try to hold on tightly,

But impermanence is the nature of this life.

And this is good news,

My friends,

Because everything is in constant flow all the time.

So we don't want to grasp strongly to the now.

We don't want to grasp strongly to our thoughts about the past or future.

We don't want to grasp strongly to anything,

Because our grasping creates suffering.

So my friends,

I invite you to chime in and think about what is your relationship to change?

What is your relationship to impermanence?

Now that you've heard this law,

What is your relationship to the unavoidable truth that everything changes all the time?

Everything that arises passes away.

These words arise and flow away.

This breath arises and floats away.

This thought arises and flows away.

This emotion arises and floats away.

Some of you in the past have mentioned that you're undergoing acute or chronic pain.

The pain in the body arises and floats away.

Everything we encounter,

Every single thing we encounter,

We get to encounter only one time.

Why?

Because of this law of impermanence.

Because it will float away.

Even this sense of me,

The sense that I am myself,

I am this woman in this body,

Surgeon,

Mother,

All those concepts I have of me are not solid.

Because the me I believe myself to be is in itself impermanent.

Just like this breath.

Just like the weather.

Just like traffic.

So how do you feel when you realize this profound realization that everything that we encounter in our lives we get to encounter only one time?

Because inevitably the next time we encounter it,

It's going to be different.

Every moment is unique.

And so when we develop a practice of mindfulness,

Of present moment awareness,

Of meeting this moment just as it is,

We accept that things are constantly changing and we get to see them in a fresh way in every moment.

So in order to see this vibrant arising of what's going on right now,

We need to pay attention.

So the beauty of this law of impermanence,

That everything changes,

Is that there is possibility.

Because in every moment we get to meet reality.

When we bring mindfulness,

Which is present moment awareness without judgments,

Just observation,

When we bring mindfulness into every moment,

We get to see things arise and pass away.

Arise and pass away.

So even memories of pain,

Of difficult things from the past,

We can release them when we are present in the here and now.

Because the past only exists if we pull it out of our memory bank and bring it into presence.

And sometimes we enjoy doing that because we have lovely memories.

But how often do we do that with painful memories?

How often do we live in the thoughts of the past?

So when we know the truth of impermanence,

That nothing,

No thing,

Stays fixed ever,

We begin to live in flow.

We practice meeting ourselves in this moment.

And that's where the breath is so helpful.

And there are many tools.

For me,

The breath is a foundational anchoring tool.

It brings our minds back into presence.

Because the breath is only ever in the present moment.

So my friends,

Let's go into the chat for a moment and see your personal reflections of what we're opening up here,

This space,

Regarding impermanence.

So Meg writes,

I have awareness of that,

Meaning impermanence,

But sometimes forget throughout the day.

It's like a cycle of remembering.

Yes Meg,

Thank you for that.

Exactly.

This is why we meet here.

This is why we meet here.

Because sometimes I forget and you remind me.

And sometimes you forget and I remind you.

This is the beauty of the Sangha.

The Sangha is the like-minded community that comes together in the name of truth.

And some of you who might know the beautiful late Vietnamese Zen Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh,

Who goes by Thai,

He said that the next Buddha will come as the Sangha.

So we had one Buddha,

The man,

Siddhartha,

Who was born over 2,

600 years ago,

Who brought this wheel of Dharma turning,

So to speak.

These teachings,

These wisdom teachings that we all benefit so tremendously from.

But Thai said that the next Buddha is going to come in the form of the Sangha.

That's you and me,

All of us.

We are the Sangha.

So yes Meg,

We come together in the remembering.

It's so important.

And the more we practice,

The more we set our commitment,

Our intention,

Our vow,

To wake up,

To transform our suffering,

The more we're walking this path every day.

And the forgetting becomes smaller.

And the remembering rises to the top like foam on a cappuccino.

Good stuff.

Tracy says,

I need to be more open and allow things to flow.

Less trying to fix everything and understanding it all.

Yes Tracy,

Thank you for that.

Remember my beautiful friends that when you're writing in the chat here,

And I bring your words to life here by speaking them out loud,

You're not just speaking for yourself,

You're speaking for so many.

So many of us resonate.

So thank you for that Tracy.

Yes,

The more open we are,

Open-hearted,

Less controlling,

Less manipulating,

Less it's gotta be my way,

Take this square peg and fit it in this round hole no matter what.

I know you guys know what I'm talking about.

I certainly did that for many years in my life.

I worked very hard as a surgeon building my solo private practice,

Having my five kids,

Raising my five kids,

Doing my marriage,

Running my household,

Running my business,

Taking care of my patients,

All of that good stuff.

And I was suffering.

I was living like a hamster on a wheel.

A lot of people-pleasing,

Which we'll do another love stream about people-pleasing,

A lot of perfectionism,

The illusion of perfectionism.

We're gonna talk about that in future love streams.

A lot of non-presence.

And it was very painful until around 18 years ago,

The suffering just rose to a crescendo.

Have you ever been to a symphony or an orchestra and just the music just builds to this crescendo moment?

You can feel,

You can feel the instruments,

The music in your cells.

Well,

Suffering has a way of doing that too,

My friend.

When the suffering builds to such a crescendo,

There's no way out but through.

All of our tools of trying to avoid and ignore and hide from ourselves,

They stop working.

And that's when we break open.

That's when we break open.

We might break down for a little while.

That's okay.

Life has a way of breaking us down,

Breaking us open.

And we don't have to do it alone.

So we get to ask ourselves,

Through these ancient wisdom teachings that the Buddha offers us,

What is this life about?

How am I perpetuating my own suffering?

As the saying goes,

Pain is inevitable but suffering is optional.

So in essence,

We learn to be more present,

To live in reality rather than in our thoughts.

Okay,

Let's keep going through the chat and then we'll go back into the talk.

Well,

All of this is the talk of course.

Rhiannon writes,

It can be very hard to remind myself of this when I'm struggling with a thought or painful situation.

Yes,

Rhiannon,

Thank you for that.

Exactly what I'm saying.

It is very hard.

It is absolutely not easy to remember when we're struggling.

And this is why we need to practice on the days we're not struggling.

We need to practice,

My friends.

What is your practice?

If you don't have a practice,

You will not remember my voice and these words and these wisdom teachings when you're overwhelmed.

You're not going to remember them.

There's no way.

Because you're in overwhelm,

Your nervous system is out of whack,

You're in sympathetic overdrive,

Cortisol is flowing through your veins,

Brain fog sets in,

Fight-or-flight panic.

Of course you're not going to remember when you're struggling.

So I ask you,

What is your practice?

What are you committed to?

And if you don't have a practice,

No worries.

You get to develop a practice today and walk away from our love stream today with a committed practice.

Again,

The practice is done during the quote-unquote good days.

During the days when it's easy and life is flowing and not too many heavy thoughts or emotions are hanging around,

In those moments we practice so that we have our toolbox filled of the practice,

For example,

Of self-compassion so that when we have a moment of deep struggle with a thought,

A belief that's causing pain,

An emotion that's creating pain,

Somebody who's upsetting us,

Our partners,

Our parents,

Our children,

Colleagues,

When this happens,

We have a small well which continues to deepen,

A well of self-compassion that we can pull from,

Remembering our practice.

And most of us need more than one tool to practice,

To practice mindful presence,

Showing up with what is in this moment without judgment.

It takes practice,

My friends,

A gentleness,

A tenderness towards ourselves and a curiosity.

Huh,

What would it feel like to stop beating myself up?

Hmm,

I wonder.

What would it feel like if I gave my inner critic the day off?

Just the day off.

How about an hour off?

How about five minutes off?

What would it feel like?

What would it feel like to practice tenderness and self-kindness,

To harness all of that energy that I usually use to suffer and beat myself up and struggle with an emotion or a thought?

What would it feel like to use all of that energy to harness it in,

Into self-compassion or into self-kindness rather than beating myself up?

So these are beautiful questions,

My friends.

Remember,

We're opening doors,

Opening doors,

Opening doors,

And you get to choose which door you want to go through,

Which question is sitting with you.

Write it down and go back to it,

Journal about it,

Do a walking meditation,

Do a sitting meditation.

Okay,

Let me go back to the chat to catch up with you and then we'll continue with these three insights that free the heart.

Janet writes,

I've been trying to savor the present moment.

Yes,

Yes,

Beautiful Janet,

Savoring the present moment.

How do we savor the present moment?

We need to be present in every moment.

We can't put the present moment into a nice little box,

Put it in our lunch box and save it for later and say,

Okay,

You know what,

Later when I have time I'm gonna savor the present moment.

Right?

It sounds,

It sounds crazy.

It doesn't work that way.

The present moment is only and always and already here,

Now.

And so we practice being in presence,

Being in presence.

And we don't try.

Janet writes,

I've been trying to savor.

There's no trying,

There's either doing or non-doing.

That's it.

There's no trying because trying gives us a way out.

Trying is kind of,

Hmm,

You know,

I kind of did it but kind of didn't.

It worked but it didn't really work.

Let's remove the word try.

We either are or we're not.

That's it.

It's that simple.

So before we continue in the chat,

Let's dive into this moment without trying,

Just right now,

Being in presence.

So,

And let's take three intentional breaths,

Closing our eyes to remove all of the beautiful stimulation that our visual senses bring to us.

Deep inhale and an elongated exhale that calms the nervous system.

At your own pace.

Beautiful.

And now open your eyes,

Come back into the space and notice how you feel.

There was no trying.

There was just being.

Breathing.

There was just life breathing you,

Through you.

Okay,

Let me finish up catching up with the chat.

So Donna says that she judges change and resists it.

So who's the one judging the change?

Who's the one saying this really shouldn't be like this?

But guess what?

It is like this.

It already is what it is.

So the one judging the change is that ego.

The one resisting the change is that ego sense of self that is trying to keep us safe,

Shift us in the direction that the ego wants.

Because really my friends we're only acting from one of two places.

Love or fear.

You might have heard that before.

It's very powerful.

For example,

For Donna who mentions that I have a habit of judging change and resisting it,

Ask yourself am I judging or resisting from a space of love?

Or am I judging and resisting from a space of fear?

I think we know the answer.

I judge and resist things to change because I'm afraid.

So for example,

Some of you know that I have five kids and my youngest is turning 18 this month and will be going to college.

So this is going to be the end of an era.

This is going to be the end of raising my five kids in my home.

Of course for those of us that are parents we're always raising our kids.

It's endless.

But not in this way the first 18 years of being home.

So I'm entering the empty nest era.

So speaking of impermanence and speaking to resisting change and speaking to how do we self perpetuate suffering,

This is an inevitable change.

Kids grow up.

People change.

Life changes.

So if I resist this change that my son will go to college,

I'll be adding a lot more extra unnecessary suffering to myself.

When I judge myself,

Oh I shouldn't be so sad about my son leaving.

I'm judging it rather than just sitting in the sadness.

Yes there is sadness here of course.

He's my baby.

When I judge myself for feeling sad,

Oh I'm so spiritual I should be over this sadness.

That's a judging thought.

I'm being unkind to myself and I'm creating more suffering.

So this is why this first of the three insights that we're talking about,

And thank you all of you for joining,

This first insight of the truth of impermanence is so powerful.

Because when I realize that the sadness that's here,

Using the example of my son growing up and going off,

Leaving me an empty nest as they say,

Knowing that this is what's here,

This is what's happening,

I create less suffering for myself because I'm able to just meet my sadness.

I can meet maybe feelings of feeling lonely,

Maybe feelings of grief.

So accepting the truth of impermanence,

Everything changes all the time.

Drop the mic.

It's that simple and yet not easy.

So for Donna who wrote,

I have a habit of judging change and then resisting change,

What do we do?

What we do is we continually,

Continuously notice.

So those are the ABCs of soul surgery.

I know some of you have heard them before and I bring them pretty much every love stream because they're that relevant.

So for those of you that are new,

I'll share with you that when I worked as a trauma surgeon early in my career,

We had the ABCs of trauma,

Airway,

Breathing,

Circulation.

Every healthcare worker knows these ABCs because when you get a patient coming in that's in dire straits,

You don't want your nervous system to flip out and not know what to do.

So immediately you know you've practiced the ABCs.

You check the airway for obstruction,

You check if they're breathing and you check the circulation.

This is what keeps a human being alive at minimum.

So as a soul surgeon,

I thought to myself,

Wait a minute,

We need to have life-saving maneuvers,

Soul-saving maneuvers.

And I wrote the ABCs of soul surgery.

So maybe if some of you know it,

If you want to put it in the chat for those of us that might be new here for the first time.

And the ABCs of soul surgery start with A,

Awareness,

Which is having a mindful presence.

Noticing,

Huh,

There's judging here.

There's a judging thought here or there's resistance to change here.

So awareness is the very first.

The second one is breath.

Coming back to the breath.

Because our breath helps to regulate our nervous system.

Helps to take us out of the stressed-out sympathetic overdrive,

Of fight,

Flight,

And freeze,

And into the parasympathetic,

Peaceful,

Rest,

Relax,

Restore.

And it's that long exhale,

That elongated exhale,

That calms the nervous system.

So A is awareness.

We notice what is here.

B,

We come back to the breath.

And C,

We go into compassionate contemplation.

So I wanted two C's,

So I squeeze them in there because there are so many beautiful C words.

And we need both.

We need compassion,

Self-compassion,

And we need contemplation.

The self inquiry to look at,

Huh,

Investigating,

Interesting,

I'm resisting this change,

For example,

With my son.

I'm resisting him going away to college.

What is that about?

What am I afraid of?

That's the contemplation.

But before the contemplation,

We bring the compassion,

The self-compassion.

And as I mentioned earlier,

I was able to record,

Yahoo,

My first recording of our love stream on self-compassion.

So if you follow my page,

You'll find it in the next day or two.

It should be posted onto my page.

And if you haven't listened to that talk on self-compassion,

Please,

Please do,

Because it is truly the medicine that the Buddha has offered us.

So those,

My friends,

Are the ABCs of soul surgery.

Meg says,

Self-compassion is the medicine for suffering.

Indeed,

It's one of the medicines.

The other medicine,

Meg,

Is having the right view.

What's the right view?

The right view is this,

Listening to these Dharma talks,

Incorporating the wisdom of impermanence,

Incorporating the wisdom of interdependence,

Which is the second insight that sets our heart free that we're going to go into.

So yes,

Self-compassion is absolutely part of the medicine.

And having a right view,

Understanding the truth of this life,

That impermanence is the law of this land.

Everything changes.

Everything that arises.

We're not the same person we were when we started.

That person is gone.

So you can see that even this sense of me,

This person that you believe me to be,

Yourself to be,

Is really just a bunch of processes that flow.

Impermanent processes.

There is no solid self here.

There is seeing,

Listening,

Hearing,

Smelling,

Tasting,

Touching,

But there's no solid Dr.

Tammy Soul Surgeon.

It takes intention,

My friends.

It takes commitment.

What are you committed to?

If you're committed to repeating,

Chewing the cud,

Same emotions over and over again,

Same thoughts over and over again,

Same upset over and over again,

That's what you're going to create.

If you're committed to transformation,

If you're committed to freedom from suffering,

You're going to walk a different path,

That we need to practice to come back to remembering this truth,

To looking at our fixed beliefs.

What is it that we're holding on to so tightly that we don't want to change,

Which is inevitably going to change.

It's like trying to hold water.

Have you ever gone to the ocean and the water is just so lovely and you have it in your hands and you're just splashing around and then you try to grasp it.

We cannot hold water,

My friends.

It's the same in this life.

We can't hold life.

We can just flow with it.

Nothing stays the same.

Everything that arises will disappear,

Including our sensations,

Our bodily sensations,

Physical pain,

Our emotions,

Good,

Bad and the ugly,

Joy,

Happiness,

Fun,

Ecstasy,

It's going to disappear.

Anger,

Frustration,

Sadness,

Loneliness,

Grief,

It's also going to disappear.

Our thoughts arise and disappear,

Arise and disappear and this is what we do in meditation.

We observe our thoughts.

Everything comes and everything goes.

That is the nature of this life,

My friends.

Our suffering comes because we resist change.

We cling to what we like and we push away what we don't like.

That is why we suffer,

My friends.

We're trying to stabilize and hold on to and solidify that which cannot be solidified.

We cannot grasp the present moment.

We cannot grasp life.

We can only learn to flow in life.

And so when we resist,

We suffer.

The more we practice mindful presence,

Being aware of what is here,

Noticing this breath changing.

Some of them are more shallow,

Some of them are more deep.

When we notice change,

We can move through our emotions,

Move through thoughts,

Move through belief systems,

Through physical sensations with more ease.

The Buddha said that impermanence is not a problem.

The fact that things change is not a problem.

Actually,

It's a gift.

Imagine if physical pain lasted forever.

Well,

Thanks to impermanence,

It doesn't.

Imagine if angry discussions and conversations lasted forever.

Well,

The good news is they don't.

Imagine if traffic lasted forever.

The good news?

It doesn't.

The Buddha said impermanence is not a problem,

But not seeing impermanence clearly is the problem.

Once we see impermanence clearly,

It's what creates the freedom.

Because impermanence allows us to transform our lives in every moment.

We get to transform dullness into brightness.

Why?

Because of impermanence.

Because we can shift out of boredom into interest and excitement.

We can shift out of confusion into clarity.

We can shift from anger into wisdom.

Why?

Because impermanence allows us to transform our lives in each moment,

In each breath.

It reminds us to be here now.

Impermanence helps us turn just ordinary moments,

Ordinary moments,

Into sacred ones.

Because we realize this will pass.

This will not last.

So it brings a sacredness to the ordinary.

This moment of us being together in a little while,

Whenever we're done,

It's going to be done.

So it adds a sacredness to the ordinariness of every present moment,

Making it potential to be transformative.

It can change and shift like water.

Water can go down this path and then that path.

So before we go into our second insight of interdependence,

Let's do just that.

Let's allow our first insight of impermanence to land in our bodies through a brief little guided meditation.

So I invite you to close your eyes,

Become comfortable in your body,

And connect with your breath.

Connecting with the breath.

Releasing some of the words.

Listening to the silence between the words.

Feeling into the truth of impermanence.

Feeling it in your body.

How does it feel to know that everything changes all the time?

Notice what emotions come up for you,

If any.

Perhaps curiosity.

Perhaps sadness.

Perhaps relief.

Everything changes all the time.

The good,

The bad,

And the ugly.

Take another breath.

Inviting yourself to accept this truth.

And when you're ready,

You can open your eyes and just notice how it felt to embody this truth that everything changes all the time.

Let's move into our second insight that frees the heart in our topic today.

And the second insight is interdependence,

Otherwise known as dependent origination.

And what interdependence means is that nothing exists of its own accord.

Nothing in this life appears independently.

This is the law of causes and conditions.

Everything is dependent on everything else.

This arises because that arises.

Then this arises because that arises.

Nothing is an independent,

Fixed,

Solid,

Self-created thing.

So the Buddha spoke of how this works.

He said,

When this is,

That is.

When this arises,

That arises.

When this is not,

That is not.

When this eases,

That seizes.

So it sounds like a Dr.

Seuss poem almost.

But in everyday,

What it means is that nothing arises from nothing.

Remember that in the first law of physics,

That energy is neither created nor destroyed.

So when a feeling comes,

It doesn't just arise from nothing.

It's interdependent.

So when an emotion comes up,

It comes because there was a thought beforehand.

And when a thought comes up,

Often something else has provoked that.

So our history,

Our nervous system,

Our belief systems,

Our environment,

Our unmet needs,

All of these contribute to the conditions that create our life.

So they all contribute to this interdependence of our life experience.

So what does it mean?

It means that if we're struggling,

If we're suffering,

If we're not doing great emotionally,

That didn't appear randomly.

It came from somewhere.

An argument I had with someone.

It comes from maybe a belief I have about myself.

Maybe a belief from childhood that I'm not good enough.

So the beauty of interdependence,

That everything is connected,

Causes and conditions and endless,

Endless causes and conditions,

Is that we have agency in changing the conditions.

Because changing the conditions changes our experience.

So knowing that everything is interconnected gives me the opportunity to choose my next step.

Knowing that it's going to make a difference in what else arises.

Because it's like the song,

The hip bones connected to the knee bone,

The knee bones connected to the ankle bone,

The ankle bones connected to the.

.

.

Everything is connected,

Interdependent.

Thich Nhat Hanh uses the word interbeing.

We inter-are.

So even all of us here on this platform,

On this love stream,

All of us here engaged in the Sangha,

In our community,

We are adding to the causes and conditions of our lives just by being here.

Those of you who are reflecting in the chat,

Are contributing to everybody's causes and conditions.

You might have written something that resonates for somebody,

And then a thought sparks,

Or an emotion sparks.

So the thoughts and emotions are arising dependent on conditions,

Dependent on our memories,

Depending on our family of origin,

Depending on how our parents were brought up,

Right?

So the beauty of interdependence is that we get to see that we are not this fixed,

Solid self.

We are a product of causes and conditions.

Infinitesimal causes and conditions.

Because I have some of the thoughts and emotions that I have,

My way of being,

Because of my parents.

Well,

They have their way of being because of their parents.

And so on,

And so on,

And so on.

So I'm not this isolated,

Separate entity called Dr.

Tammy Soul Surgeon.

I am a product of causes and conditions.

And I am existing as a conglomeration of processes.

Seeing,

Hearing,

Smelling,

Tasting,

Touching.

Feeling bodily sensations.

Feeling emotions come and move through me.

Noticing thoughts coming and moving through me.

So you see that this self,

This person I believe myself to be,

Is not a fixed thing.

It's a process.

It's a bunch of patterns.

Not identities.

We play roles.

We play roles in identity,

Right?

I play the role of mother to my five children.

I play the role of Soul Surgeon.

I play the role of daughter.

But this self that I believe myself to be is not a fixed thing.

It's a result of all the causes and conditions that have come before me.

Ad infinitum.

And it's a bunch of processes.

Processes due to my habits,

My stories.

All of that creates this sense of self.

The stories that I have about my childhood,

Which you can read in my memoir,

Which I'm in the midst of writing.

And my sense of self comes from a deep conditioning of how I was raised.

So there's no independent me,

Solid me,

Running this show.

There's just a bunch of conditioned responses,

A bunch of processes that shows up to every moment.

And can you feel the freedom in that?

The freedom in knowing that I don't have to hold on to this person I believe myself to be.

The good mother.

The best surgeon.

The smart one.

Whatever it is that I believe myself to be.

The kind one.

I get to just meet myself and life in every moment.

And that's the gift of impermanence.

Everything changes all the time.

So yes,

Of course we can change the thoughts.

And interdependence.

We get to choose the spaces in which we walk our life that will more so benefit us to live with less suffering.

To live in the space of peace,

Freedom,

Love,

Compassion,

Generosity,

Equanimity.

So yes,

Absolutely we can change.

But we can't change what we don't see.

So this is why that ABCs of Soul Surgery,

The A,

The awareness,

We first have to begin by noticing over and over again.

By noticing our thoughts,

Our habits of mind,

Our deep conditioning.

And it's not always easy to notice.

Because we have blinders on.

And we have a very strong ego sense of self that says,

No,

Stop trying to be this spiritual person.

You know you're not that.

You're like this.

So the ego keeps pulling us in different directions with the intention to keep us safe.

But is it really keeping us safe?

Or is it just keeping us imprisoned?

So you get to ask yourself,

My friend,

What do I want?

Do I want to be free?

And if I want to be free of the prison of the mind and the prison of emotions,

Then what am I practicing?

What are my practices?

How do I walk this life on a day-to-day basis to cultivate freedom?

To water the seeds of freedom?

Thich Nhat Hanh talks about a mind garden.

And what seeds are we cultivating in that garden?

Are we watering seeds of anger,

Sadness,

Resentment,

Loneliness,

Jealousy?

Or are we watering seeds of compassion,

Generosity,

Freedom,

Peace,

Equanimity?

So it all comes down to what do you want,

My friends?

It's up to you.

This is your life.

Your one wild and precious life.

What are you going to do?

What are you going to do?

So we get to see,

My friends,

That the softer we hold on to thoughts,

Emotions,

Sensations,

Beliefs,

Stories,

Narratives,

The gentler we can move through life.

And we just learned through the first insights,

The first two insights,

Impermanence and interdependence,

That truly we cannot hold on to anything.

And when we try to cling,

We try to grasp,

We suffer.

So the practice is a continual letting go,

Opening the fist,

Letting go,

Letting go,

Letting go.

Like picking up water.

You pick it up and it just drips away.

You pick it up and it drips away.

And may we learn to live life in this way,

Through this space of just continual letting go.

And this is liberating,

My friends.

This is liberating.

When we realize that nothing is permanent.

And we bring in the compassion.

The compassion naturally arises.

We naturally want to support ourselves.

Oh,

Sweetheart,

Wow,

It must be scary thinking that your youngest child is going to go off to college.

The compassion naturally comes in.

So just to summarize this experience,

In one little phrase,

Nothing is personal and nothing is random.

Everything is interconnected and everything is ever-flowing.

So there's no need to blame ourselves or to blame others.

Because nothing is happening only because of you.

You are not an island.

You are not a separate entity.

There's this illusion of isolation.

And so we blame.

We blame ourselves for not being enough,

Not being good enough,

Smart enough,

Good enough mother,

Good enough partner,

Good enough daughter,

Good enough son.

Or we blame the other person.

So do you see,

My friends,

How we can support ourselves with curiosity,

Compassion,

And present moment awareness without judgment.

And even if judgment shows up,

We bring present moment awareness to that and we say,

Oh,

Wow,

Look at this.

Judgment is showing up.

And then we get to work with not judging the judgment.

So how deep do you want to go,

My friends?

We're in the deep end of the pool here.

Let's move into our third insight that frees the heart.

The third insight is the end of suffering.

Suffering occurs when we resist change.

When we cling to what we like and we resist,

Push away the change or what we don't like,

We suffer.

But when we deeply see the truth of impermanence and interdependence,

Our first two insights,

The suffering lessens and can actually cease.

Why?

Because suffering depends on clinging.

But when we realize we can't cling to anything because there's nothing solid that we can hold on to,

The suffering softens.

We realize that when we hold on to the belief that things should be different than they are,

Than reality,

We suffer.

So when we shift,

When we practice being with what is,

Being in reality,

We suffer less.

We realize this too shall pass.

We realize,

Oh,

This thing I'm going through,

It didn't come out of nowhere.

It came out of causes and conditions.

Yeah.

The breakup of a relationship doesn't come from nowhere.

It comes from causes and conditions.

And the good news is this,

This me,

Is not a fixed self.

So it can shift and transform.

Whether we're craving,

I really want this to change right now,

We're still not being present.

We really want this to change.

Or we're resisting change.

I really don't want this to change.

When we release the craving and the resistance,

We increase our flexibility.

We increase our ability to be with what is.

To be in reality.

So you can choose.

My friends,

Do you want to live in reality?

It's up to you.

It's okay.

No judgment.

It's up to you.

Freedom is possible,

My friend.

Happiness is available to you right now.

Not somewhere else.

Not someplace else.

Not if this or when that.

Right here.

Right here.

Happiness.

Freedom.

Peace.

Love.

Equanimity.

Compassion.

Generosity.

Available.

By the bucketful.

Right here.

Right now.

For you.

For me.

For all of us.

When we accept these truths of life.

The truth that everything changes all the time.

The truth that causes and conditions create us to be exactly where we are right now.

It is not a coincidence that you are sitting here in our Sangha.

Sharing time and space together here.

It's not a coincidence.

Causes and conditions have brought you here.

Now.

Infinite number of causes and conditions have brought you here.

Including your pain.

Including your suffering.

Including your unhappy childhood.

All of those causes and conditions have created this moment.

For me to be here speaking to you.

And for you to be here receiving and sharing with me.

So freedom,

My friends,

Is not about controlling life.

It's about meeting life.

In every breath.

In every moment.

And our suffering ends when we stop trying so hard to change life.

When we stop arguing the reality.

And it doesn't mean it's easy.

Reality can be very challenging.

Reality can mean a diagnosis of an illness that you certainly didn't want.

Reality might mean an estranged child who doesn't communicate with you.

Reality might mean my son going off to college.

Bringing me into an empty nest era.

Reality might mean being fired from a job.

So we have choice,

My friends.

Do you want to live in reality?

Or do you want to live in your stories about reality?

But we only have choice once we are aware.

And that's why we have the ABCs of Soul Surgery.

The A is Awareness.

Without Awareness,

There's nowhere to go.

And I often say Awareness is the first intervention.

Awareness is the first intervention.

And it's an active intervention.

So even if you haven't done anything to shift whatever it is that is creating suffering in your life.

Just having the Awareness is already in itself an intervention.

Awareness leads to choice.

And choice leads to freedom.

So you can see that Awareness,

Choice and freedom are all deeply interconnected.

So remember,

My friends.

Impermanence shows us that things are constantly changing.

Interdependence shows us that things are arising from prior things.

Not out of nothing.

And then the end of suffering comes when we stop clinging to what we want and resisting what we don't want.

That's it.

That's how we free our heart.

And when we do that,

Compassion arises.

For the little human,

The messy little human,

That may be having a tough time sometimes.

And the compassion comes.

Hey,

Sweetheart.

It's okay.

You're going through a tough time right now.

This is hard.

It's okay.

So may we be compassionate with ourselves.

May we learn to be soft and gentle.

Feeling the body breathing.

Knowing that just like this breath dies at the end of the exhale.

All things that arise will end.

Like this love stream in a few minutes.

This will end.

Like our life.

Our life will end.

And we need to meet this truth.

Not in a morbid way.

In a loving way.

To bring us more into the present moment.

To live more fully.

To not waste time.

To not waste our lives.

So these insights that we share today.

These insights are to be befriended.

Befriended and lived into over time.

And this is why we meet over and over again.

To remember.

Because we can have an insight in a moment.

And then forget it and keep going on our life.

For another 20 years.

Right?

How many of you have experienced that?

You had an unbelievable insight at some point in your life.

You said,

Wow,

This is just life changing.

And then fizzle,

Fizzle,

Fizzle.

It fizzles away and it's gone.

And the conditioned mind is back.

And the horse has the blinders on.

And walking,

Walking the same circle in Central Park.

Walking that same path.

It's happened to all of us,

My friend.

So let's not beat ourselves up about it.

No.

Let's embrace this new moment.

This present moment.

Right here,

Right now.

Today.

This breath.

To live.

To live.

More open hearted.

To live in truth.

Who's with me?

Yeah.

Because there's nothing to do out there.

There is no out there.

Life is this.

It's right here.

For you.

This is where we have agency.

In our one precious life.

This is where we can make a change.

And it's just one by one by one.

This is how we change the world.

Living our truth.

So yes,

I love to see the hearts flying on the screen and the thumbs up.

I do think this is soul surgery.

That's why when I dropped the scalpel and my patient called me,

She said,

You're not a plastic surgeon.

You're a soul surgeon.

And the name just stuck.

I do resonate with this as soul surgery.

And we do it together.

And we bring in compassion for anesthesia so that it just doesn't hurt that much.

Just a little wee bit.

Because change is not easy.

Because most of us have lived decades not knowing these teachings.

Not familiar with living in the freedom that's here for us.

So we do a little bit of soul surgery.

A little bit of tweaking to wake up.

So as we're closing up,

We'll do a small little guided meditation.

Just a little quickie.

So let's just take a few words before we read our closing poem from Rumi.

Some of you who've been with me before know that I love Rumi.

But first let's take a few breaths.

Just allowing the words to land.

Embodying these wisdom teachings without thinking about them at all in this moment.

Just this.

Just now.

Just here.

Just here.

Feeling a deep presence within yourself.

Knowing that this moment has arisen in your life and will pass.

As we speak,

It's already in the past.

The only time we are ever alive is in this moment.

Don't miss your life.

Don't miss your life.

When you're ready,

You can open your eyes.

And Rumi's poem,

The Breeze at Dawn,

Invites us to stay awake.

To stay mindful.

To stay here.

And now.

The Breeze at Dawn has secrets to tell you.

Don't go back to sleep.

You must ask for what you really want.

Don't go back to sleep.

People are going back and forth across the door sill where the two worlds touch.

The door is round and open.

Don't go back to sleep.

Om Shanti Shanti Shanti.

Peace in your heart.

Peace in your life.

Peace in this world.

May all our words and time spent together today be of benefit to all beings.

To be free of suffering.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you for your presence.

Thank you for your donations.

Rocio and H.

Thank you.

I appreciate the energy,

Reciprocity and the energy flow.

Thank you,

Sarah,

For being here.

I look forward to seeing you again.

And feel free to join our circle.

Friends of Dr.

Tammy Sol Surgeon is the name of the group.

It used to be called a circle.

And you can exchange there anything that has landed with you.

Thank you for all the little hearts on the screen.

Thank you for your willingness to gather in the name of transformation.

In the name of freedom.

In the name of love.

I'll see you next time.

Bye for now.

And don't go back to sleep.

Thank you.