Part 1: Impermanence – Awakening Through Insecurity

From the view of the separate self, this existence is inherently uncertain, and we are profoundly vulnerable. Our habitual reaction to insecurity fuels separation, and limits our capacity to live and love fully. This talk explores the blessings of wisdom, love and freedom that naturally arise as, instead of resisting, we learn to open directly to the insecurity of impermanence.

Transcript

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We'll begin this talk with a story from a faraway time and place.

An old king and queen had a son,

Young prince,

Who was very headstrong and self-centered,

Impatient,

And although a bright guy,

Not particularly interested in caring about other people,

They were concerned because they were elderly and they wanted to make sure the kingdom would be in good hands.

So they called on a sorcerer who they trusted a lot and he asked a single question.

He said,

What is your son most passionate about?

Is there anything?

And the response was horses.

He's passionate about horses.

So he said,

Meet me in the palace gardens tomorrow morning and we'll see what happens.

So they brought they and the prince met with the sorcerer in the palace gardens next morning and the sorcerer had this incredibly beautiful white horse there and the prince immediately said,

I want it,

How much for it,

You know,

Can I ride it and so on.

And so he agreed,

But he said,

First we have to see if you can ride it.

So the prince jumped on and he galloped off and he started galloping through different farmlands and hills and he was really into it,

Going faster and faster up some mountains over a mountain pass into some woodlands,

Having a wonderful time.

But then gradually he started getting tired enough.

So he slowed down and he was in the middle of a deep forest at that point.

He stopped at a small cottage to find out a bit where he was and so on turned out that in the cottage lived a woodcutter and his beautiful daughter,

As you might imagine,

There's always a beautiful young woman and they had no idea where the neither of them had heard of the kingdom,

But they offered him to stay over the night and then he could go searching the next day.

So he stayed over and he went out searching the next day,

But nobody in the region that he ran into had any idea where the kingdom and palace was and he did it the day after that and the day after that.

And gradually he began to help the woodcutter with his profession,

You know,

Cutting wood and modeling and shaping things,

Helped around the cottage and of course he got attracted to the daughters.

They fell in love and they got married and the days and months and years went by and gradually he forgot about his old life and really immersed himself in this life and he and the young woman had children,

A son and a daughter,

And he found some real peace and happiness in his lifestyle.

So he would go for walks in the in the forest and one day he went to a glen with a beautiful deep pond in it and he heard a cry and his two children were running and they were being chased by a tiger and they ran into the pool,

The pond,

They disappeared,

The tiger ran after them,

Jumped in,

Disappeared and his wife dismayed and upset ran and ran out and showed herself and then she ran into the pool,

The pond and disappeared and then of course the horse followed,

Disappeared and the prince just kind of fell onto the ground as body shaking,

Sobbing.

At some time later he felt a soft gentle touch on his shoulder and it was looking up he saw his mother,

The Queen,

Her eyes and the concerned faces of other people in the court around him.

He was in the palace gardens,

The horse was standing there quietly.

Queen was relieved,

She told him that you know he had jumped on but gotten thrown off and been unconscious for two to three minutes and he said two to three minutes,

I lived years,

I had a whole life,

I had a family,

I had a trade I loved,

Wife,

Two children,

I had things that mattered to me.

It wasn't two or three minutes,

It was years and years and he was dazed and bewildered and he stood and walked away,

Which point the old sorcerer bowed to the King and Queen and he left and as you might imagine the young prince was profoundly altered by this experience,

By the loss,

By the mystery and his attitude changed and he,

His heart opened to every moment of his life and he became just the King his father had hoped for,

One who was very,

Very attuned,

Very,

Very caring and very,

Very wise.

So what do we get from this story?

And it's really one of the greatest truths in all spiritual living,

Which is that if we really want to open to the fullness of life and love and wisdom,

We need to open fully to the reality of impermanence and loss.

That's the essence and if you imagine if all your important decisions,

If all your responses to dear ones were informed by remembering the brevity and preciousness of life,

Like you went through today and you might have still decided you were going to go to Whole Foods or decided that you were going to,

You know,

Get gas in the car or go and get,

Do your email,

But imagine if in the background of awareness there was that sense that this life really is brief and precious and how might you have been with people and with your own self.

One of my friend's mother's,

A few years ago this happened,

She had a very serious heart attack at age 72 and she described it that knowing she could go at any time she said,

I'm arriving in my life.

She described what it was like to kind of be moving through as if she was kind of skimming the surface because it just seemed like it was just endlessly going to roll on and when it really got clear that moments were numbered,

How much she came creatively alive and cherishing.

I'm just curious how many of you have seen that in your life,

Whether the loss of a loved one or your own body or mind,

How getting mortality,

Getting impermanence has had a really dramatic effect.

Can I just see?

A lot of us.

So we know.

We know.

Just a couple of mornings ago I was walking on the river and been looking out for families of geese and ducks because the river was so high,

There was so much kind of flooding that we were worried they'd all be washed out and I saw my first family of goslings and the goslings were,

You know,

Like tiny little,

They were alive and just felt the celebration and got home and got an email that a woman that's very dear had just passed away and just feel my body holding all of that.

It was a lot.

And we know it,

That this is the nature of things.

So in Buddhism it's called the Nietzsche,

This ever-changing life,

This principle of change and every contemplative tradition I know in some way recognizes that this is reality and that our capacity to live fully,

Wakefully,

Lovingly is intrinsically intertwined with how we relate to changes that happen,

To losses in our life.

You know,

Whether we face that reality,

Whether we open to it,

Whether we're present with that or whether something in us keeps it as a story and then when things do happen that are jarring,

Go into reactivity.

So this is what we'll explore together for this talk and I found it interesting,

A couple of years ago reading some research that said that most people as they get older actually experience increasing well-being compared to how they were when they were younger,

Increasing well-being and that one understanding is that we have an adaptability and a way of maturing that allows with the passage of time a growing acceptance of reality that it changes,

A growing acceptance of loss and with that acceptance a deepening appreciation of life,

More well-being.

And as we know for many of us it's really difficult that we find that we're tensing against things we're resisting,

We're holding on a lot,

We're struggling.

I remember hearing a story about Ajahn Chah who's a great Thai forest monastic and teacher and as they described it he'd be in his monastery and if he saw somebody that looked really depressed or upset or was really suffering in some way he'd kind of whisper must be very attached,

You know,

He could feel it.

So if we think of it in terms of evolution we humans have a,

Are uniquely aware of the inevitability of loss,

Change and death,

We're uniquely aware of it and it's the core source of our anxiety,

Of us tensing against what's around the corner and there is that sense that many of us have that around the corner something's going to go wrong or something's going to be too much or sometimes when things work out we feel like okay now we're just waiting for the other shoe to drop,

You know,

But there's a sense of impending danger and a knowledge that we are going to lose what we love,

That we can hold on as much as we want but it's inevitable,

We lose things,

We lose beings,

We lose our own body and mind.

So this self-awareness brings a heightened survival activity,

It actually makes us into the most emotional,

Fearful and violent creatures on planet earth.

Does that make sense?

Just knowing our mortality activates us,

We get more defensive,

More aggressive and this self-awareness is an intrinsic part of us waking up,

That that awareness that's aware of impermanence and mortality is aware of our own minds working and that awareness as we more and more nourish it with more mindfulness and more presence actually can open to the changing flow so much as we did in our practice or meditation before this talk we have this capacity rather than resisting what's here to open to it and what happens with practice is that we can embrace the changing flow because we become more and more able to tolerate vulnerability,

Not knowing,

Not being certain about things and we can just arrive right here and now with what's going on.

So somebody emailed me this last month and the question was,

Where do Buddhists hide when they're holding a surprise party?

Anybody?

In the present.

I know it wasn't really good but I wanted to.

.

.

So for most of us when we get insecure,

You're still groaning inwardly,

When we get insecure our reflex is not to come into the present moment.

We know that.

Our reflex is actually to begin trying to control life and so the real inquiry right now is,

And I think it's for each of us in a deep way,

How do we shift from that reflex to control things to this capacity to open to what's here?

So that's what we're going to be looking at and the first step is to become really mindful of and forgiving of our egoic strategies to avoid our vulnerability because every one of us is wired to not want to go there.

So if you feel like,

You know,

Bad because of your habits of escape,

That's the way we're wired.

So the first step is just to see that and if we can begin to recognize it but without judgment,

With curiosity.

One way it was described as existential vulnerability management strategies,

You know,

I like that.

But we're all wired to protect against threat and we tighten our body and we immediately go into thoughts because that removes us from the wildness of feeling in our body which is uncontrollable and we lock into emotional reactivity and behave in ways to protect ourselves and that usually kicks in way before the frontal cortex that has a larger view and a better sense of things can give us some input.

One of my favorite illustrative stories I'll read you part of it was a man was writing filling in an insurance form and the question they asked was,

You know,

What was the cause of your accident?

He wrote poor planning but they asked him to be clearer.

So here's what he writes,

I'm a bricklayer by trade on the day of the accident I was working alone on the roof of a six-story building.

When I completed my work I discovered I had 500 pounds of brick left.

Rather than carry them down by hand I decided to lower them in a barrel attached to the side of the building.

I secured the rope at ground level,

I went up to the roof,

Swung the barrel out and loaded the brick into it.

Then I went back to the ground untied the rope holding it tightly to ensure a slow descent of the 500 pounds of brick.

You'll note in block number 11 of the accident report form that I weigh 135 pounds.

Due to my surprise of being jerked off the ground so suddenly I lost my presence of mind and forgot to let go of the rope.

Needless to say I proceeded at a rapid rate up the side of the building.

In the vicinity of the third floor I met the barrel coming down.

This explains the fractured skull.

Slowing slightly I continued my ascent stopping when the fingers of my right hand were two knuckles deep in the pulley.

Fortunately by this time I had regained my presence of mind and was able to hold tightly to the rope in spite of my pain.

At approximately the same time however the barrel of bricks hit the ground and the bottom fell out of the barrel.

Devoid of the weight of bricks the barrel now weighed approximately 50 pounds.

I refer you again to my weight in block 11.

As you might imagine I begin a rapid descent down the side of the building.

In the vicinity of the third floor I again met the barrel coming up.

This accounts for the fractured ankle.

The encounter with the barrel slowed me enough to lessen my injuries when I fell on the bricks.

Fortunately only my toes were cracked.

I'm sorry to report however that as I lay there on the bricks in pain and unable to stand and watching the empty barrel six stories above me I again lost my presence of mind and let go of the rope.

This is entitled the knowing when to let go.

So we have the kind of reflexive reactions that we all know about where we tighten and we just in some way go into reaction before we're even aware of it.

We also have chronic ways that we manage our anxiety and insecurity.

I'll just name a few of those and they fall into the category of grasp where we feel anxious or we're trying to control our vulnerability and we just grab on to what will maybe soothe us by it.

Maybe we're eating chocolate or other food in some way or maybe it's a substance that we're going after or maybe we speed up because we're trying to get away from that vulnerability.

And often we get impatient.

One of our strategies is really to really pursue things and try to get what we want,

Try to make sure that the next moment contains what this moment does not.

So there's a kind of grasping.

And I'll read you a very short piece from Nikos Katsonisakis from Zorba the Greek that's quite powerful on this.

I remember one morning when I discovered a cocoon in the bark of a tree just as a butterfly was making a hole in its case and preparing to come out.

I waited a while but it was too long appearing and I was impatient.

I then over and breathed on it to warm it.

I warmed it as quickly as I could and the miracle began to happen before my eyes faster than life.

The case opened,

The butterfly started slowly crawling out and I shall never forget my horror when I saw how its wings were folded back and crumpled.

The wretched butterfly tried with its whole trembling body to unfold them.

Bending over it I tried to help it with my breath in vain.

It needed to be hatched out patiently and the unfolding of the wings should be a gradual process in the sun.

Now it was too late.

My breath had forced the butterfly to appear all crumpled before its time.

It struggled desperately and a few seconds later died in the palm of my hand.

That little body is,

I do believe,

The greatest weight I have on my conscience.

For I realize today that it's a mortal sin to violate the great laws of nature.

We should not hurry.

We should not be impatient.

But we should confidently obey the eternal rhythm.

When we are feeling anxious or vulnerable or off balance,

Rather than pausing,

Rather than listening,

Rather than engaging in a natural rhythm,

We tend to speed up or run away.

We tend to grasp.

And we can see it in a planetary way that all our anxious consuming,

The greed to consume,

The impatience to have everything happen quickly,

Is wreaking havoc on the planet.

So our personal vulnerability strategies to manage things are also global.

We can see them and the effect of them.

And in a similar way,

So I've mentioned grasping,

How we try to manage things with grasping and chasing after,

We push away.

When we're feeling anxious or threatened,

We go into judgment,

We go into aversion,

Into dislike,

And we try to control things that way.

So we can begin to say,

Well,

How do I control things?

How do I try to control other people?

One story,

A young girl noticed that several strands of her mother's hair were turning white.

They're standing in kind of a contrast to her brunette hair.

And she asked her,

Well,

Why are your hair turning white,

Mom?

And her mother said this.

She said,

Well,

Every time you do something wrong or make me cry or unhappy,

One of my hairs turns white.

Little girl thought about this revelation for a moment and then said,

Mommy,

How come all grandma's hairs are white?

So we know we control in different ways.

We control with guilt.

We control by pulling back and shutting down.

We control by blame.

And part of seeing our management strategies,

Just to notice that and also to know,

Again,

That the ways we try to take care of our own vulnerability with aggression are the same thing that causes never-ending cycles of war on the planet.

Again,

I just want to bring our personal strategies into the collective.

There's a certain amount of our survival strategies that we continue to need as we evolve.

We need to have that quick reflex when we're in trouble to be able to act before we've rationally processed things.

But the truth is that we way overdo it,

That we way over control.

Think of John O'Donoghue who said that we're so busy trying to manage our life that we cover over this great mystery that we're involved in.

We're very busy controlling.

So to continue to evolve and flourish,

We need the capacity to stop controlling so much and open to this changing flow of what's here,

This vulnerability and realness that's right here.

And I love the story one astronaut describes actually discovering this theme.

In the 1950s,

They were flying these rockets way beyond where the laws of normal thermodynamics actually apply.

And so the rockets were crashing.

And because the pilots were trying to control the panel and do this and do that,

But nothing was working.

And he found the remedy was you take your hands off the controls.

When it's outside of the realm of which we can manage,

You take your hands off the controls.

And so it's important to know that we habitually overestimate the domains we can control.

We think we can in some way control others.

We think we can control our own bodies.

We think we can control the life that's within around us that aging and sickness and dying,

On some level we try to control things.

So one of the metaphors I like is just to imagine that this life that we're experiencing is this flowing river and that we're very busy trying to create these little tidal pools and put walls around them.

So because we're afraid of the wildness of the river and yet these tidal pools get stagnant,

They lack freshness,

They lack the information and beauty and aliveness of the full flow.

And what we're trying to learn how to do is take care of ourselves as we need to,

But really open,

Open to the wildness,

To the vulnerability,

To the realness of change.

So the grounds of our training to do this,

To shift from this ego controlling to this capacity to take our hands off the controls,

Is really the foundation of our practice,

Our meditation practice in mindfulness.

In any moment of mindfulness that you notice you've been off on thoughts,

You've been in that kind of mental control tower and you say,

Oh thinking,

Come back down into the body,

You are leaving the tidal pool and reentering the river.

And it's hard to stay in the river because we have so many moments,

Conditioned moments of when it gets edgy or when it feels unfamiliar or when we feel anxiety or vulnerability to leave again.

And then we go off into our thoughts again.

So this practice of coming back again and again into presence,

Into the body because the body lives in the present moment so it's a good anchor for presence,

Is our training to begin to open to vulnerability and change.

Here's Ajahn Chah.

He says,

If you let go a little,

You'll find a little peace.

If you let go a lot,

You'll find a lot of peace.

If you let go absolutely,

You'll find absolute peace and tranquility.

Letting go doesn't mean we're doing something.

Letting go is letting go of our resistance,

Letting go of our grasping.

Maybe more aptly we might say,

If you let go into the reality that's right here,

If you let be what's right here.

So one note I always like to make when I am speaking about this practice of opening to vulnerability is to say,

To the degree that we've been traumatized,

There's nothing heroic about saying,

Okay,

I'm going to let go into the panic.

I mean,

That's not even wise necessarily.

This is a gradual process and for many of us we need to build up our inner resourcefulness or we need support from healers or therapists so the trajectory is learning to let go,

Take our hands off the controls.

But there's a compassion that knows that it has its own timing.

Even with that we don't be impatient.

For all of us though,

Whether it's gradual or more of that kind of bold radical opening to the winds,

Opening to the currents,

Either way,

What we run into is a kind of vulnerability that's really asking for our attention.

So I want to describe kind of a process of taking hands off the controls,

Of opening to this impermanent flow and to vulnerability.

A story that touched me.

This is a woman I was doing some mentoring with a good number of years ago.

She was an actor,

New York area theater,

And she described how much her life was controlled by the fear of failure and the desire to perform and get accolades.

Like how many moments of her day-to-day life were absolutely in the grip of,

You know,

All the obsessing about how it was going to go at an audition or how she compared to others that were kind of in her field in terms of other actors.

Any role that felt like a stretch,

What would the critics say?

So it was basically,

I want to look good and I don't want to look bad.

Very,

Very much of a kind of prison for her.

And so that's what she was ricocheting between,

You know,

The fears and the grasping.

And when we spoke,

Not only did she describe a deep sense of shame,

It was very hard to admit that that was,

These forces were so much dominating her,

But she described the effect on her relationship with her husband.

How it was very hard for her to really listen and pay attention in an authentic way because she was so preoccupied with how she was doing or not doing.

So the reason we started speaking is she had begun to practice and I had done a day long in New York,

So she had come to that and then we spoke some.

And one of the questions I asked her is,

You know,

Okay,

So you're afraid of failure.

What is it you're most afraid would happen if you failed,

If you didn't do well?

And in some way,

You know,

If she didn't get selected in audition or her reputation got sullied by a performance,

What that would mean is fundamentally unworthy and unlovable.

It went right to it really,

Really quickly.

That was the fear.

And what is it you're wanting when you're going for fame and more recognition?

And it was,

Of course,

The flip side.

Much more secure than I'm worthy,

Much more secure than I'm lovable.

Okay.

So then I asked her the question,

You know,

What can you imagine would be enough fame,

Enough reassurance so that you'd be okay,

That you'd really trust you were lovable and worthy?

What would be enough?

And that was the point,

This is kind of the crux of the whole thing,

Where she realized it would never ever be enough.

She could never be successful enough to really be sure.

Because,

And this is Anitra,

Things are permanent.

There'll always be another play that she doesn't make it into or another chance to fail.

And she came,

You know,

The next time we talked,

She said,

This performer self can never be secure.

The seagoic self can never be secure.

And this is the truth for all of us.

To the degree we are hitched to a sense of a separate self with its wants and fears,

We will never be secure.

Security doesn't come with this precarious human existence.

If we face impermanence,

We get it.

We can't be secure if the we is a sense of a self.

She also started getting it that all of her obsessing and chasing after fame actually fed the sense of her performer self that was insecure.

So these are two really big insights for her.

This self can never be secure.

And the ways I try to be secure actually make me more insecure.

So that's when we deepen the practice.

And I said,

Okay,

That insecure place,

How does it want you to be with it?

What does it want?

What does it need?

And what we find when we really deepen our inquiry and sense into the depth of insecurity that what's most needed always is some flavor of presence.

If you think of a young child that's scared,

What do they want?

Presence,

Loving presence.

And her process for that,

And this is a process that you'll sense when we practice formally,

Was to name whenever she'd find herself in her performer self that was going after fame and obsessing about the possibilities of failure,

She'd name it.

She'd pause and she'd name it.

She'd either say fearing failure or she'd say wanting recognition or something like that.

She had names for it.

Then the next step would be come into your body.

Remember,

Instead leave that little safe pool,

Mental thoughts,

And come into the body and feel the aliveness of that.

How does that wanting,

Fearing play in this body right now?

So she'd open to that and as she was opening in some way she would send a message,

I'm here and I care.

That was her practice over and over to just name this insecurity,

To come into the river,

The changing river where vulnerability is felt and offer presence very consciously.

This is from the poet Relka,

From the book of hours.

You sent out beyond your recall,

Go to the limits of your longing,

Embody me.

Flare up like a flame and make big shadows I can move in.

Let everything happen to you,

Beauty and terror.

Let everything happen to you,

Beauty and terror.

Just keep going.

No feeling is final.

Don't let yourself lose me.

Nearby is the country they call life.

You will know it by its seriousness.

Give me your hand.

Let everything happen to you.

So this is really this willingness to open to this river of change,

To this vulnerability and know it's impermanent.

No feeling is final.

And then I love that line,

Nearby is the country they call life.

You'll know it by its seriousness.

That we're so caught in our strategies,

Trying to get somewhere else,

Trying to hold on to things,

Trying to control things.

It's a serious business when we're trying to control things.

Give me your hand.

It's reopened into this sacredness,

Into this presence that really is the portal to freedom.

So the inquiry tonight is how to shift from that controlling self really into taking our hands off the controls and opening to this river,

Into this flow,

And what I think is important to remember is that sometimes we don't open all the way.

We open just a little bit and we're there just for a little.

And we say,

Okay,

You know,

Here I am,

And then we go off into another thought or do something else.

But every time,

Every single time that we recognize,

Okay,

In controlling mode,

Come back,

Come back to my senses,

Come back to reality,

The aliveness right here.

Every time that is actually beginning to wake us up.

Each time counts.

One of the metaphors I like for this is,

Many of you know the indigo plant is what's used for the dye for indigo.

And indigo,

The color of indigo,

Has to do with spiritual realization,

Freedom.

And the way cloth is dyed is there's a vat of this indigo and you take the cloth and you dip it in and you pull it out and there's the indigo,

But then it very quickly fades to almost just a tiny bit of off-white,

Just a little bit of indigo.

So you rinse it out and dry it and then you dip it again and you pull it out.

And the same thing happens except for it's a shade more indigo and you do it over and over,

But each time you dip into presence,

Each time you come into the moment,

Into the wildness of this body,

This aliveness,

A little more of that saturation of freedom.

Each time.

So I say that because it's very easy to feel like we're not doing it enough or doing it right.

And you can trust when you just pause.

If you tomorrow at some point find yourself over controlling and you just pause and take a breath,

Just this moment come into the body,

Just for a moment.

There's a little more of that dipping it into the vat,

A little more of the blush and fullness of indigo.

So we began with the young prince who had that experience of change and loss and that radical awakening where he could live out of that in this real wisdom and compassion.

And that is the gift that when we open into the what's here,

It wakes us up into a fullness of being.

We sense who we are beyond that limited egoic self.

I have another story for you that some of you might remember from some years ago,

But I've always loved this one.

Man describes it this way,

He says,

When I was quite young my father had one of the first telephones in our neighborhood.

I remember well the polished old case fastened to the wall.

The shiny receiver hung on the side of the box.

I was too little to reach the telephone but used to listen with fascination when my mother talked into it.

Then I discovered that somewhere inside the wonderful device lived in an amazing person.

Her name was Information Please and there was nothing she did not know.

Information Please could supply anybody's number and the correct time.

My first personal experience with this genie in the bottle came one day while my mother was visiting a neighbor.

Amusing myself at the tool bench in the basement,

I whacked my finger with a hammer.

The pain was terrible but there didn't seem to be any reason in crying because there was no one home to give sympathy.

I walked around the house sucking my throbbing finger,

Finally arriving at the stairway,

The telephone.

Quickly I ran for the footstool in the parlor and dragged it to the landing.

Climbing up,

I unhooked the receiver in the parlor and held it to my ear.

Information Please,

I said into the mouthpiece just above my head.

A click or two and a small clear voice spoke into my ear.

Information,

I hurt my finger,

I wailed into the phone.

The tears came readily enough now that I had an audience.

Isn't your mother home,

Came the question.

Nobody's home but me,

I blubbered.

Are you bleeding?

No,

I replied.

I hit my finger with the hammer and it hurts.

Can you open your ice box,

She asked.

I said I could.

Then chip off a little piece of ice and hold it to your finger,

Said the voice.

After that I called Information Please for everything.

I asked her for help with my geography and she told me where Philadelphia was.

She helped me with my math.

She told me my pet chipmunk that I caught in the park just the other day would eat fruits and nuts.

Then there was a timepedia,

Our pet canary died.

I called Information Please and told her the sad story.

She listened and said the usual grown-up things,

Grown-ups say to sue the child but I was unconsoled.

I asked her,

Why is it that birds should sing so beautifully and bring joy to all families only to end up as a heap of feathers on the bottom of a cage?

She must have sensed my deep concern for she said quietly,

Paul,

Always remember that there are other worlds to sing in.

Somehow I felt better.

Another day I was on the telephone.

Information Please,

Information said the now familiar voice.

How do you spell fix,

I asked.

All this took place in a small town in the Pacific Northwest.

When I was nine years old we moved across the country to Boston.

I missed my friend very much.

Information Please belonged in that old wooden box back home and somehow I never thought of trying the tall shiny new phone that sat on the table in the hall.

As I grew into my teens the memories of those childhood conversations never really left me.

Often in moments of doubt and perplexity I would recall the serene sense of security I had then.

I appreciated now how patient,

Understanding,

Present and kind she was to have spent time on a little boy.

A few years later on my way west to college my plane touched down in Seattle.

I had about a half an hour or so between planes.

I spent fifteen minutes or so on the phone with my sister who lived there now.

And without thinking what I was doing I dialed my hometown operator and said,

Information Please.

Miraculously I heard the small clear voice I knew so well.

Information,

I hadn't planned this but I heard myself saying,

Could you please tell me how to spell fix?

There was a long pause.

Then came the soft spoken answer.

I guess your finger must have healed by now.

I laughed.

So it's really you I said.

I wonder if you have any idea how much you meant to me during that time.

I wonder she said if you knew how much your calls meant to me.

I've never had any children and I used to look forward to your calls.

I told her how often I thought of her over the years and asked if I could call her again when I came back to visit my sister.

Please do she said.

Asked for Sally.

Three months later I was back in Seattle.

A different voice answered.

Information,

I asked for Sally.

Are you a friend she asked.

Yes a very old friend I answered.

I'm sorry to have to tell you this she said.

Sally had been working part time the last few years because she was sick.

She died a few weeks ago.

Before I could hang up she said wait a minute is your name Paul?

Yes.

Well Sally's left a message for you.

She wrote it down in case you called.

Let me read it to you.

The note says tell him I still say there are other worlds to sing in.

He'll know what I mean.

I thanked her and hung up.

I knew what Sally meant.

Never underestimate the impression you may make on others.

When we are present with ourselves,

Present with each other,

There is healing.

We discover a bigger world.

So we are exploring really how in the face of this impermanent and vulnerable world we can come home to something larger.

Come home to the wisdom and the love that's our nature.

How we can let go of all that managing.

So we'll close with a short reflection where you'll have a chance just to get a little taste of it in your own life experience.

And then in the next class we'll be continuing this exploration of really opening to insecurity,

The wisdom of insecurity as Alan Watts put it,

Opening to impermanence.

So adjusting how you're sitting if that helps.

Letting your eyes close,

Your attention go inward.

And perhaps taking a moment to feel the movement of the breath,

Let the attention relax,

Collect with the breath.

And taking some moments to scan your current life just to notice if there is anything,

Any process of change or loss that is going on or that you are anticipating that's difficult to face.

Something going on perhaps in your own body or mind or with a loved one,

Some difficulty or conflict in a relationship that's leading to separation.

Any change or loss that might be bringing up some reactivity that's difficult.

And as you bring something to mind you might take a moment just to be mindful of how you've been trying to manage things without any judgment.

Just sense,

Well,

What have my management strategies been?

Have you been caught on the trying to fix something that really can't be fixed?

Have you obsessed?

Been defensive?

Judgmental or aggressive?

Numbing or avoiding?

You might sense if you took your hands off the control some,

There's less managing.

What is it that you'd… that's difficult or vulnerable that you'd be opening to?

What is it within you that's insecure,

That wants acceptance or presence?

Just feel into your body maybe a grieving that just needs to be felt,

A fear,

A hurt.

What is it that most wants acceptance as you face this loss or this change?

And can in these moments,

Just like dipping the cloth into the indigo,

Just dipping in with some real gesture of kindness and presence,

Being there for what's here?

If it helps you to put your hand on your heart to offer that kind of presence with touch or to whisper inwardly,

I'm here with this,

I care,

Whatever words in some way express your heart presence,

Please do that.

Closing with the words of Franko Soszewski who writes the first precept for caring for the dying which really is the same teachings as being with the vulnerability right here.

He says,

Welcome everything,

Push away nothing.

Just right now just sense that.

Welcome everything,

Push away nothing.

And welcoming everything,

We don't have to like what's arising.

It's actually not our job to approve or disapprove.

It's our task to trust,

To listen,

To pay careful attention to the changing experience.

At the deepest level we are being asked to cultivate a kind of fearless receptivity.

This is a journey of continuous discovery in which we will always be entering new territory.

We have no idea how it will turn out and it takes courage and flexibility.

The journey is a mystery we need to live into opening,

Risking and forgiving constantly.

For more talks and meditations and to learn about my schedule or join my email list please visit tarabrock.

Com.

Reviews

Beautiful. I am on a path to take my hands of the controls and this is a wonderful step along the way. Thank you. 🙏

Excellent session leaving me with much to contemplate.

Tara’s wisdom always holds me in the most loving way when I need it most. Beautiful, insightful talk on how we can learn to live more openly, with fierce receptivity.

This talk is classic Tara Brach: beautiful storytelling that weaves Buddhist truths with humour in a way that is practical AND will crack your heart open. Thanks so much for this, Tara!

Wonderful reminder to let go of control in each moment. Thank you 🙏

So very helpful. I’ll be listening to this again. 🙏🏻

Really interesting point of view, im really looking forward to listening to the second talk about insecurity and impermanence.

Beginning of a shift. This touched my heart so deeply. Thank you 🤍

I can't even begin to explain how hearing a few words brought me so much comfort. " There are other worlds to play the guitar " I changed them for my son. Even though it has been a few years....time isn't healing. But I have the little moments that you gave me
Thank you 🍄

This talk opened up my heart too live in the present 🙏

The butterfly story was so sad, and thank you for the telephone story it was very touching.

Revealing. Scary. Useful. Full of insight. Thank you.

Practical, sensitively delivery. Good to hear that this is a practice of opening up to what is here… it takes courage, time and compassion. Thank you 🙏

This was very helpful to bring me back into a state of trust, love, and wholeness. I love you Tara🙏🤍🌈

A beautiful heart felt contemplation on the ever changing nature of life. It truly touched me and left me with a sense of peace and equanimity.

Helped me zero in on what’s bothering/terrifying me.

Thank you so much. I'm so grateful I found your voice today. Thank you

Perfect for what is going on in my life right now. Thanks

Awesome touched my heart and learning thank you 🙏🏻

Thank you ❤️ I am listening to your talkes in the mornings at the way to work and it’s a wonderful start of the day. To day I started crying at the train station after the story about the little boy and the information please. It took me totally by surprise, so thank you again! 🙏🏾❤️