Freedom Through Connection

"Freedom Through Connection: Dharma Perspectives on Attachment Theory" is a dharma talk exploring the relationship between Western psychological perspectives on Attachment Theory and Buddhist teachings on liberation. This talk ends with about 10 minutes of a guided mediation.

Transcript

Hi, It's so awesome to be here. It's really, I'm really happy that everyone that's in the room, This feels really good to be together. Yeah. And then really wonderful everyone who's on online. Good to see you too. Yeah. Great, So this is a topic that's very near and dear to my heart. What I want, What I want to talk about tonight is how this idea of secure or healthy attachment actually can lead to our awakening. It might even be like central or critical to our awakening in the Buddhist sense of that full liberation. So that's my attempt. I'm going to try to make that case over the course of this talk. The title of my talk is Freedom Through Connection Dharma Perspectives on Attachment Theory. The thesis of this is that what I said that healthy attachment or secure attachment is central to awakening to the deepest Dharma truths. So it's central from my perspective to being able to explore not-self, Impermanence, Dukkha, All of these questions of emptiness that the kind of security that we can find in deep trust in our own mind and awareness through this, We're going to use this framework of secure attachment, But ultimately it's like an unconditional loving presence. Finding that in our own awareness is what allows us to open, To let be, To let go, And see things as they really are. So without that kind of trust, Who's going to let go of self if you don't trust that there's something that's going to hold us beyond self? So that's what I'm pointing to in this conversation. So I want to, I'll just start by just talking a little bit about attachment theory. And I'll talk a little bit more about key points of it as we go along. So attachment theory is a psychological framework that was developed in the 30s and 40s and continues, Has continued research on it, That is connected to animal behavioral research as well, That mammals, So humans included, Need to, Infant humans need to create a strong attachment to the caregiver to be safe. And humans in particular, Because it takes so long for us to be able to take care of ourselves and be safe in the world, That we need a system for adult caregivers to be highly connected to the infant for them to just biologically be safe in the world. So that's like the foundation of the theory is that protective sense. And then the way that the relationship develops between the infant and the caregiver has many implications for the development of the child. So there's a lot of research on this also about the nature of that primary relationship and how it influences emotional development, The sense of safety, So the best key piece I'm really going to emphasize, Even the sense of self that the infant has, Like who am I and do I matter in the world, Do my needs matter, And how we relate to other people, What we expect in relationships. So some of these key kind of what we might call emotional learnings are established very young. The research is like zero to three that some of these key patterns are. And I think of them as like core beliefs, Schemas, And in the Buddhist framework we might call it a view. So there's wise view and unwise view. So this view about am I safe in the world? Is the world safe? Will my needs matter? Will my needs be met? Or will my needs not be met? Will other people attend to my needs? Those are kind of views that we start to establish quite young. And then they can color our entire lives. So it really is like putting up a filter. A view is just like a filter through which we perceive reality. And based on that filter it truly does impact like how, What we can see, The possibilities we see in the world and for ourselves. Yeah. So that's the kind of foundation of attachment theory and we'll kind of unpack a little bit more. And then I want to just juxtapose that. So in attachment theory, Attachment is great. Right? It's a very good thing. We all want really healthy, Good attachment with our caregivers and then as we get older we want to have really good, Healthy attachment with our friends and our partners and our community. And ideally we'd have it with the earth. But that kind of attachment, Which really is about love as the foundation. Love and safety and being able to rely on each other. To be these consistent, Reliable, Loving resources for each other. That's that form of attachment. And it's just interesting because in the Buddhist framework attachment is bad. Right? You probably picked that up to some degree. Right? It's like sometimes perceived or kind of talked about as the root of suffering is attachment. So I'm going to try to disentangle the term, The way those two terms are used through this conversation. So the Pali term that's translated as attachment is upadana. And it also sometimes is translated as clinging. So it's attachment or clinging. And I think in many ways it might be more helpful if we use the word clinging. Because I agree with that, Right? That feeling, I'm gripping my hands, Causes a lot of suffering. So in the Buddhist framework, Upadana is the ways that we grasp or cling to other people, Objects, Ideas, Or experiences with the mistaken belief that they will bring lasting happiness and fulfillment. So and I like when you say, You know, Using the word cling because also within attachment theory, Actually, So one of the ways that a lot of the research has happened is with infants, Like 18 months old, 12, 18 months to 3 years old, They do this whole thing called the strange situation with a primary caregiver and the parent comes and they go and a stranger comes and goes and they watch how the baby relates to the parent leaving and coming and then the stranger coming and going and how the healthy infant are like, Well, You know, This is just within this framework. And I also want to say all of these patterns are in their own way adaptive and very intelligent. They're intelligent adaptations to conditions. So it's not like a problem. It can become problematic later in life, Those patterns, But they come for a good reason, Is just what I want to say. So they're biological responses to conditions. But in the best case scenario, Maybe we'll say, That infant would be with the parent or the caregiver, They go into this new room, There's some toys, They might kind of stay close to the caregiver at first because this is a new, Unknown environment. If the caregiver kind of reassures them, It's okay, It's all safe, They'd go explore and play with the toys, But they'd keep kind of checking on the parent, Are you here? Okay, You're there, Great, I'm going to play. And we notice, Actually the more secure that an infant feels with the caregiver, The farther they tend to go. They tend to explore more because they have a sense like, You got me, You got this, I'm cool, So I don't have to worry about that, I can go off and explore. But they'll often turn back and look. And when a stranger comes in, The first thing they'll do is look to the caregiver, Is it safe? Is this person safe? Do I need to come back to you? Are you going to get me? How are things right now? And again, If the caregiver kind of reassures them, You're okay, Then they'll keep playing. And then what they do is they have the caregiver leave. And a secure child will protest, Will start crying, Get upset, Like don't, Where'd you go, Don't leave me. And when the parent comes back, They'll kind of often express some anger at the parent. They call it healthy protest. What just happened? Where'd you go? You weren't here. You're supposed to be protecting me all the time. And then the parent is like, Reassures them, Sorry, I'm back. And they can settle pretty quickly. So there's a resilience. But all this to say that it's not like they don't have anger, Frustration, Sadness, They have all those emotions, Like that is a healthy thing. Babies that don't show those emotions, They're often categorized in what becomes dismissing or avoidant. They're actually like shutting that down. So all this to say, They'll show all that emotion, But they're able to be settled, And then they co-explore some more. So that's the kind of dance of security. They're like looking to the parent for security, They get upset at them, And they go play, But they're able to be soothed. It's this fluidity of emotion and connection and responsiveness. And that's so different from this word clinging or clingy. So I'll just take a moment to talk about the more avoidant or dismissing. Those babies kind of just act like they don't care. And this is like total generalizations. Just like, Well, The parent comes, The parent goes, They don't even really pay that much attention. They just play with the toys. And they look like they're maybe what we might call the most equanimous babies, Which is really helpful to think about what true equanimity means. They look like they don't care, It's fine, No big deal. But actually what's really interesting when they've done hormonal stress tests on those babies, They have the highest stress. So even though they look like they're doing fine and they're just exploring, They're actually really inside, Super agitated. Yeah. So that's on the dismissing or avoidant side. And often what the pattern that that can develop into in an adult is avoiding and kind of shutting down emotion. Avoiding intimacy or connection. And again, People like this can seem like independent, They've got it all together, They don't need anyone, I'm an island. But that actually underneath all that can be a lot of longing for connection and insecurity and even shame that their needs were kind of rejected in some ways. So that's not real equanimity. And I think that one sometimes is the trickiest because I tend to think our culture is kind of dismissing. And so if you are dismissing, You're often successful. And also to really be okay in the ways that we function, You've got to shut something down a little bit. That's part of my belief system too. So often there's a way we're not fully connected to all those most vulnerable needs. So that's on the dismissing. And on the anxious side, These babies might have had a caregiver who was a little inconsistent. So sometimes was available and attentive, But sometimes was unavailable. Or they might have had a caregiver who was really anxious, Overly anxious themselves. So those are the babies that tend to be clingy. They tend to be the ones that don't go and explore. Cling to the parent because they don't feel safe. And they don't trust that if they go and explore, That caregiver is going to be paying attention. They're going to keep them safe. So this whole word of clinging, That would be the clingy baby. And then when the caregiver leaves, They're quite upset. When the caregiver comes back, They're not easy to be soothed. They actually stay upset for a long time. So they show a lot of emotion, But they don't know how to regulate it or be regulated. There's not a lot of regulation. Yeah, So even within attachment, That kind of clinginess in that way is not actually a sign of real health. Part of what healthy attachment would be like connecting, Opening, Connecting, Connecting, Exploring, Coming and going. It has that kind of rhythm to it. So that's quite a bit of detail on attachment. So how caregivers of babies that establish this pattern of being more avoidant or dismissing or deactivating is another word that I like. Those parents tend to be consistently not that attuned. They could be attuned or selectively attuned to certain kinds of emotions or behaviors. So maybe they're okay when the baby's happy, But if there's sadness, Anger, It's just like rejection. I'm not going to pay attention to that. So that baby learns to be, If I show that kind of emotion or that kind of need, I'm going to be rejected, So I just pretend like I don't have it. So that's a part of it. And just with all of this, I'm giving the broad strokes and pattern, But there's so much complexity in humans. Yeah, Maybe then what I'll say is there's four main patterns. So secure, Avoidant, Anxious, And then disorganized. And so disorganized babies, Which is more rare, But they might do both patterns. And often the most common way that that pattern is established is when the caregiver themselves is frightening or is frightened themselves. And so the child, Infant, Experiences their source of safety, The caregiver, Is also a source of fear. Yeah. So that can create that not the healthy give and take and come and go, But the more kind of freeze-reach state of disorganized. So again, This is like some is my own perspective on things and some is like the research. Other caregivers are definitely protective, But we're talking about like grandparents, Aunts, Uncles, Other adult caregivers. So there's not a lot of good research that shows really secure, Healthy attachment coming from near-age siblings because that's kind of a parentification of those near-age siblings rather than an actual adult who has the full capacities to care for an infant or child. So certainly with grandparents, Aunts, Uncles, And there is this in-depth interview process assessment we can do called the attachment interview, The adult attachment interview, And if you discover that they're a parent like others, But not children, They have to be adults, That can actually, You can find out like someone, Maybe their primary caregivers or parents were not quite so available in the best way for them, But they had grandparents or aunts and uncles, And that actually can establish security in them from those other caregivers. And this is what I think about in more tribal cultures, That there's a really protective force of having more resilient, Like it's a more resilient system, Like a resilient ecosystem of care for children. Yeah. Those of us who kind of come to like close your eyes, Go inside, Go on multi-month silent retreat kind of meditation, Right? We're certainly like, Well, I'm not, I'm going to find, I'll find the peace inside here, Maybe. And there's like a truth to both of those, So I want to talk about how I practice with that. So that was definitely part of my desire with practice, Was like, I'm going to, You know, I'll do it all myself, I'll get in here and I'll get happy, I'll get free, I'll get whatever it is that they're talking about, I want it, So I'll just do it. And apparently what we do is we just be silent for months at a time, Cool, I'll try that, Even though it was so painful actually, Quite, Quite painful and difficult. Sometimes when I think back to early like long retreats, I'm like, I can't believe I kept going. But there was like that something that was like, But there were moments, These moments of profound peace and I knew there was something there that was going to feed me and nourish me. And also I had the really good fortune of starting with teen meditation retreats and getting really involved in those, Which are deeply relational. So much relationality in the ways that we do the small groups and the connections that we form. So that's like half the practice is the community and the relationship forming and the safety that I felt with the adults there. So, But anyway, But mostly what I did on my own was just like silent practice. And then I was in a teacher training about 15 years ago and one of my colleagues in the training introduced me to attachment theory. And there was something about it that immediately I was like this. And so he introduced me to that and then he had this meditative technique for addressing attachment wounding. It was really powerful and I did it with him for a couple of years. It was primarily about becoming aware of the pattern, Emotional and thought pattern. So it was basically like getting really good concentration and then bringing that into your painful emotional thought patterns and being able to track really closely like, Basically it's like the dependent origination of your own dukkha. But not, You know, Which is like, Oh, Like this kind of thing happens and then I think that about that person and then I feel this way and then I do this and so this happens and I feel that and so then it's all true. Does that make sense? Like that's one of the patterns. So that's what was really helpful working with him. I started to watch, I mean it's quite painful to actually watch that pattern, But I got to see and then you find when you can see dependent origination, Right, The whole thing is then you can see where are some of the possible breaks in the chain? Where could I do something different? And I 100% credit that practice with being married now. I met my now husband around that time and I tried to break up with him like at least 20 times. Every time. Almost like every time we would get together or leave. We had a little long distance for a little while and I would try to break up with him. There's two things I credit. I credit with the attachment meditation stuff I was doing and with his deep self-confidence. From his own secure attachment. Because he was like, No, You don't want to break up with me. Which is true, I didn't. But like one of those patterns one particular, So I was working with this teacher, His name is George Haas, Who's my friend and mentor and if you're Google him and look at his work. So one of the practices he gave me, He said, Okay, When you get to the airport and you're meeting with this guy that you're dating, I want you to have him pick you up a little bit late so you can stand at the curb and feel what's happening. And so I did that and then I just stood at the curb waiting for him and what was happening was my mind was saying, I don't like this guy. I'm like, Why are we even here? I want to break up with him. It's like, I'm done. I really don't like him. It was kind of non-specific not liking but that was what the mind was saying. A lot of resistance. And then what my practice was with this, What George was pointing, He's like, Okay, Then you have to cut off the thinking and come into the body and feel the underlying emotion. And so then I was like, Oh, The underlying emotion was like some kind of terror. An incredibly painful terror. And what George called that was abandonment terror. It was the abandonment terror that if I actually got vulnerable and admitted that I liked him, Then he could abandon me. And there was a terror of that happening so actually I hated him first. So the thought was to regulate, The thinking process was to try to regulate that terror by pushing it away and avoiding. If I break up with him, If we stop this relationship, He can never abandon me. So instead what I had to do is just be whenever the thinking kept going and pulling me away, Just like we do in our meditation practice, You come back into the body and just be in a loving and equanimous meta way with that fear. Feel it in the body. Offer it some meta. And then he'd show up. And then he would give you things to do. So then what you do, Like a secure person would say, Hi, I love you. And then give them a hug. So that part was just like, Cognitively, I was like, Okay, Okay, Okay. Hi, I love you. But it really felt like I was like, Fake it till you make it. But in that, In his theory, The way that what would happen is then you'd get hugged back and then you'd have this nice connection. You'd be like, Oh, I wasn't abandoned. I can go into connection and it's going to feel good. Repattern that in yourself. So that was really helpful. Very helpful. So the metacognition of tracking what the pattern was and then being able to hold my underlying pain and act differently. Have that kind of freedom. And all of that is based in the practice. Then you can see why sitting and watching your breath, Coming back, Being with difficult sensations and emotions matters. It was like doing all of that moment by moment on the airport curb. I mean, A few things, There was some cognitive thinking through, Like, Well, He's pretty great. Some people here know my husband and he's just like undeniably kind, Sweet, Generous, Thoughtful. So, Yeah. So there was that. This was like a safe, Good person. And also, That's a great question. I'll just ride that to the next part. Great. So I did that practice and the thing was, It was helpful, But it was still like having to track the pain and act different and be in the reactivity but not follow the reactivity. All of that is really helpful and I'm sure you've had that experience through your meditation practice. A few years after that, Or just a couple years, I met a meditation teacher named Dan Brown, Dr. Dan Brown, Who was based in Boston. He died in 2022. And he was a Tibetan meditation teacher. And so I went on retreat with him. And on his retreat, His level one retreat, He taught, Like, Kind of in the middle of it, He taught this meditation that he called cherishing or ideal parent meditation. And I experienced it like a kind of meta visualization. So you imagine totally created ideal parents who love you in all of these ways. So I'll go through those ways, But all the ways that, Like, A good enough parent would love an infant. So you imagine that they're totally attentive and present, Consistent and reliable with you. You imagine that they're fiercely protective. So the way that the visualization goes is you go through different scenes. So the first scene, You just get really clear sense they're totally present with you, They're not distracted, They're paying attention, Reliable, Consistent. Then the next scene, You imagine a scene where they're being fiercely protective of you. So whatever scene your imagination conjures up, They're protecting you fiercely. Then another scene where they're really attuning to you. So they're able to track, Like, What are you feeling? What's going on inside and outside? So they're carefully attuned. The next scene, You imagine yourself being upset, And these parents are soothing and reassuring you. And they're able to fully soothe and reassure whatever that difficult emotion is. And then you imagine the next scene. In this scene, They're absolutely delighting in you. You can see in their eyes how much they love you. Everything about you delights them. And then the final scene, These parents are championing your development. They're noticing what you're interested in and encouraging you to explore it, Like taking you to music lessons or horseback riding or botany class. Whatever it is that you, Like, Whatever you express or tracking what the child is interested in, You, And then supporting you to do that thing in the world. And so that's the practice. You just have these very vivid images of these parents and you in the first person receiving that, Those qualities. So we did that, And there was something about it, I was just like, This. This is it. This is what I need, This practice. And so Dan, That was like this is, He was an attachment, He researched attachment and he had developed this practice as a way for healing attachment one day, As this repeated deep meditation technique. And you can do it in a therapeutic context where the therapist or coach is helping you kind of refine, Because if it was easy for you, Then you wouldn't need to do it so much, Right? So sometimes we need a little support to get those images and notice where there's gaps. And so he did that work as a therapist, He was a psychologist too, And he taught at Harvard, And he did that work with people one-on-one, As well as teaching meditation. And my understanding is that that practice was kind of an adaptation of some of the deity practices and the refuge practices in Tibetan Buddhism. So if you're not familiar with it, You do these practices of these deities that, Even like Quan Yin, Who's not in the Tibetan tradition, But is she around here anywhere? I bet she's somewhere. That Quan Yin, When you do the chanting and the bowing, That she's just loving you. She's just loving every part of you, Every part of you loved. There's a practice called Vajrasattva mantra, Where you're just receiving this forgiving love and kindness, And you imagine it as a white light going through your body. So my understanding is that he kind of adapted that to this kind of modern psychological perspective. But he taught it on his level one retreats, And I think it's an understanding, Because in the Tibetan tradition, We call the preliminary practices the nindro. It's like 100, 000 different practices. And I kind of think of this now as a preliminary practice. It's like a way that we establish the deep refuge in our own hearts and minds. And then once we have that deep refuge, Then we can move into exploring emptiness and not-self and dukkha in more direct ways. So I never really got to talk to him about that in a really direct way and say, Like, Is this what you're doing? But that's how I've come to understand that practice and why he did it right there in that first retreat. And so then after that, I worked with him directly as my therapist and with his colleagues and did that kind of practice for many years. And so when I did that, What I just talked about stopped happening. That confusing emotional pattern actually ended mostly. And the way that Dan would talk about it, And he's got a giant book, If you want to get deep into it, It's called Attachment, Disturbances, And Adults by Dan Brown. Attachment, Disturbances, And Adults by Dan Brown. We have these internal working models, Which I would call views, Right? What I talked about, These views, These limiting beliefs, Schemas, Or other words, Buddha's term, View, That we have to change the view at a fundamental level. We need to establish right view from wrong view. And once we have the right view, That leads to the end of suffering. And so we're not fighting the view the whole time. We just need to change the view. And then the path is a lot easier. If you think about the Eightfold Noble Path, We start with wise view. So this is a kind of form of that. And then more recently, I've been getting really into a therapeutic approach that's called memory reconsolidation therapy that's based on some brain science and learning. And so memory reconsolidation shows that we have these underlying emotional learnings that can happen anytime, Not just in childhood or infancy. And there are specific ways to re-pattern those. And they can actually be re-patterned so that the learning doesn't arise anymore. And so that's what happened for me when I started doing the ideal parent practices more consistently. So for example, The first time I really noticed this, One of my really painful patterns, And this was non-stop on long retreats, Was like, I'm doing it wrong. I'm doing it wrong. I'm doing it wrong. I can't do this. There must be something wrong with me. Everyone else gets it, But I'm doing it wrong. And really those thoughts, Like, When they talked about, Like, Everyone can get enlightened, Or everyone has Buddha nature, Like, Really there was a part of me that thought, Except for me. With me, There's something like really fundamentally wrong that, Like, So I can't get enlightened. That was really in there. You know, It's probably, I don't know, Well, Maybe there are, I don't know. I don't even want to say that there are remnants right now. But that was there. And when, On long retreat, I could start to actually, It would, Because it's so subtle, Just like a background thought, Like, Every time I might get lost, Like, Off the breath, The next thought was just a whisper, Was, See, You're never going to get it. You're doing it wrong. You're never going to get it. And that, You know, That would become vivid on, When I was concentrated, But it didn't change. But that changed. And so I remember this, I was like, Sitting at my desk, And something happened. I don't even remember. In my brain, My mind, My brain said to me, Without any effort, Oh, That's okay. That's okay. People make mistakes. You can make mistakes. It's okay. No problem. It's fine. I was literally like, Wait, What? And that just started, That just started happening. Like, The inner experience is much more like, It's okay. Oh, You'll probably figure it out next time. Oh, That's all right. Well, They'll probably forgive you. Like, Just so much more pleasant to be inside that kind of a brain and internal experience. And so even, And like that stuff, So like other things that would happen with my partner, Like if he didn't answer a phone call, I would like lose it. So, You know, For real. Like part of me would just be like, What's happening? Why is he not answering? You know, I might call again and just be like, Whatever the thing was, But I get super agitated. Like, How is he ignoring me? And go through this whole painful pattern. And like, Now I can just be like, Oh, He's probably busy. So he can't answer the phone right now. Like that. And it's just like, It's like the, It's not like the emotion arises and then I have to be like, It's okay, Jess. He's probably busy. It's just as like, Oh, He's very busy. So I, Like, So that, Even that pattern about like being abandoned doesn't arise as much anymore. So, I don't know what to say about that. So one more thing. So there is that particular practice, But also you might have noticed those qualities of good enough parenting to me completely mapped the Brahma Vihara meditations into mindfulness. So also just really developing the Brahma Vihara connects to those qualities. And I had actually done a ton of metta meditation. One of the three months I did was just metta the whole time. And I think in many ways that really like had a huge impact on starting to establish that inner secure base as well. Because it was cool with Dan. When he did the attachment interview, He said, Which is great. So meditation works. There's a number of problematic things in my history. But he said, You know, Good news here is we got really high metta cognition. He's like, I think we can clear this up in a couple months. And I think he did something like with his hand. This will just take a couple months. And I was like, That's amazing. And I definitely credit that with all of the practice and definitely the metta. Being really committed to metta practice. So it's another way that we can really commit ourselves to this practice. But the last thing. So there's those meditation techniques. And I also just want to really highlight the healing of human relationships today. Metta. Okay, Great. Thank you. What is metta? Metta is loving kindness meditation. And there's like so many ways to practice metta. If you got on Dharma Seed, You could just listen to a million talks about metta or a bunch of guided meditations. And they're quite beautiful. Next week I'm teaching a metta retreat. But it's full. It's a really powerful and impactful practice. And you can do it for yourself, But also then we bring all beings into it. So it's also expanding these qualities. But I want to talk about then before I finish talking about the human relationship part of it too. So I think it 100% matters. So sometimes when people try to do the ideal parent practice they're like, Well can I just imagine the wind loving me or a tree? And that's a great way to start if you can connect with that. But I think the power of an actual human being loving us matters. Because that translates into then how we can be with other human beings and what we expect from other human beings. And the more that we do that, Plus my other very favorite practice, Which is I think of as a kind of loving kindness kind of metta from a teacher named John McCransky. It's called Field of Care. And maybe we'll do before we close just a few minutes of that practice, The Field of Care. So the Field of Care practice is you imagine a moment of kindness in your life. So either a person that's been really kind, So it's kind of like a benefactor practice, Or a moment of kindness in your life. And you just relive it as if it's fresh, Vividly happening. And it's kind of like you savor it freshly. You just like take it in. Take it in. Receive every part of you just held in that loving moment. Every thought, Every feeling, Every sensation. And it can expand. You can add other people into your Field of Care. And the more that we do that practice, What's really interesting is more and more benefactors start to come to mind. Like people who loved us that we didn't even remember. And then we start to be like, Oh yeah, There was that one person, Or that aunt, Or that moment with that teacher. Because the truth is, We literally wouldn't be alive if we weren't loved so much. So many moments all the time. And we start to get that view. We start to get that wise view. It's like so clear how held in a field of love we are. Just even in this moment, I think what I'm connecting to in this moment is all the people, Just all the ways that there's people doing things to try to care who we don't even know or don't know us that impact us. And so that's that concept of the Field of Care. Then we start to tune in and it's like, Actually it's just here. There is a whole field of care that's holding us. And it's out in the world and that being directed towards us helps us connect to it as the foundation of our own awareness. As the foundation of the whole thing. It's the whole thing. And John Makransky was a professor at BC, Retired now. Catholic school. So he talks about all the religions, How this is like a central teaching. You know, Like some religions might call that God. God is like holding us. The Field of Care. And then as we practice in that way, We start to see that actually the Field of Care is my own awareness. The nature of my awareness is this Field of Care and then we find the ultimate unshakable, Secure base. Because our awareness is always in everywhere right here, Right now. And when we can find access to that then, Then it's unshakable. So that's where we start to recognize and realize through these practices of Field of Care and the Metta. So then when we have that trust in our own, The loving awareness the nature of our own loving awareness, Then we can let go of self. And see what's here. Then we can look at impermanence squarely and dukkha. And there's so much talk about, You know, We have to let go or let be into realization, Awakening, Liberation. These might not even be terms that you kind of think that much about in your practice, But that's where we're headed. That's what we're doing here. And so that's where it takes that kind of trust. Like, Okay, I'll let go because the whole thing I'm swimming in is loving awareness. So that's okay. You know, I can't be bad to let go into. Okay, And so the final part of this, Like I just want to say, You know, So there's this personal liberation which is wonderful. I'll just leave it at that. Let's just see. Actually what I like to do is just a short practice of the field of care. Yeah, Before I close. So yeah, Let yourself come into a comfortable enough or stretch move if you need to do that because we've been sitting for a while. I'm going to invite you to take a few deeper breaths. And really breathing if it feels okay as much as you can down into the belly, Down deep in your body. So letting your attention drop out of the thinking mind and into your body. Just taking a few of these deeper breaths. You can extend your exhale and really soften and release your body on the exhale. Just letting go of whatever wants to let go. And then I'll invite you to bring to mind either a person who really feels easy to feel their kindness for you or a moment of kindness, Receiving kindness. Or you can also think about maybe a spiritual being, You know, Mother Teresa, Dalai Lama, Spiritual figure or being that really represents that kind of kindness. And it can also even be a place, A place in nature, Animal. So bring that to mind now freshly as if it was here, Right here, Right now. You might imagine it and feel, Feel the presence. And then receiving the kindness of this moment or being or place. As if every part of you was loved in its very being. And so the focus, You just keep freshly recalling, Bringing to mind this kind being, Kind moment. Imagine as if you could just breathe it in, Every part of you receiving that. Every part of you loved in its very being. And then just for the last moments, You can let that go and just feel your body. Just letting your breath be. Letting your body breathe. Letting your mind almost like soften back and be. Yeah. So I just want to close the talk part by emphasizing that, That the relationships that like, If you do that practice and you see, Like you remember all that kind moment, That kind person, That's you. Like you could be that for someone and not even know it, Right? So just how central and the way John talks about it is like, We know love because we were loved. So it's like, It's vitally important that we have those relationships that we're building on them, That we're deepening them. One of the best ways to heal attachment, Wounded patterning is to have secure relationships now. There's a lot of complexity to that, But it's just focusing on those kinds of putting our attention and our energy into like healthy relating. Yeah. And there's so many resources for that too. Yeah. Good share. Yeah. And it's central to our practice. Yeah. Okay. Cool. That's our time. Thank you all so much. Thanks for practice. So great. All right. Thank you all so much.