I'm delighted to be with you as part of this Mindfulness Summit and to pull us together in the cyber field, just to sense that this belonging, regardless of geography. And I want to just begin by inviting us all to pause for a moment, just to come into stillness and to feel our breath and feel ourselves here. Feel yourself in your body, this moment in this living, breathing body. Today, what I'll be reflecting on is the importance on this path of awakening to be able to embrace ourselves, to be able to bring a real sense of compassion to all the parts of our life. And what I found is that when we're suffering, with myself, all of us, it usually arises from the sense of being flawed in some way, that we're imperfect, it's not just the imperfection, that we're really deficient.

And I remember teaching about this at one point, a friend shared how her mother had been in a coma for quite a while and all of a sudden she woke up and looked this person right in the eyes and said, you know, all my life, I thought something was wrong with me. And then she closed her eyes and went back into a coma. And that was really the last thing she said. And for my friend, this was really a kind of dying gift because it let her know how tragic and unnecessary it is that we can live through our days, and in some way, be at war with ourselves, really not be at home in who we are. One palliative caregiver describes the greatest regret of the dying as being, I didn't live true to myself.

I lived according to others' expectations. I lived according to my internalized hurts, but I didn't live true to my heart. And I don't think this is just those who are dying. I think for many of us, there's a sense of disappointment in our lives that we're not really inhabiting our lives and living fully and loving fully. And that it comes because in some way we're not at home with ourselves.

We're at war with ourselves. And I call this the trance of unworthiness in my book, Radical Acceptance. The key theme is how we go around many moments without even being aware of it, just filled with judgment, thinking in some way we're not enough. And, and it really affects how we are with others. It's very hard to be intimate with another person, when in the background, you're feeling like if they really knew who you were, they'd reject you.

So the sense of unworthiness gets in the way of intimacy. It stops us from being creative or taking risks or being spontaneous. There's a sense that we have to kind of watch ourselves all the time and in a deep way, it stops us from really being able to enjoy our moments. There's a, cartoon. I saw at one point with a dog lying on a couch, you know, talking to a psychiatrist .And he, so he says, you know, it's always good dog this and good dog that, but is it ever great dog? So I think you get the idea that we can spend a lot of time in that trance of not enough.

And I remember after I wrote Radical Acceptance, I went to teach at a university in the United States and they had a big poster announcing my workshop and the caption on the bottom was, Something is wrong with me. So you can imagine how it was to start in teaching in a new place with that kind of an entree. But I'd say in the deepest way, believing in a limited self is a veil that covers over our true nature. It covers over the light and the love that flows through us. And all spiritual traditions, and this is really perennial wisdom, have this teaching that our truth, that who we really are is this loving awareness and it's the essence of all beings.

And we're no further from it than the waves are from the ocean. And yet that's often obscured. And so when we're suffering, it's because we're living in a limited sense of who we are. The Buddha said that this is our deepest suffering forgetting who we are. I often think when I'm teaching on this, a story that went around my son's school, he was at a Waldorf school.

The children would gather around tables, maybe four, four or five at a table, drawing pictures in art class. And the teacher would circulate and stand behind a child and look what they were doing. And one little girl was particularly industrious. And when the teacher asked her what she was drawing, the little girl said, Well, I'm drawing God. And the teacher said, Honey, nobody knows what God looks like.

And without skipping a beat, without even looking up, she said, They will in a moment. So something happens as we get older. Poet, John O'Donohue said, "What is it that covers over over wildness? How do we forget our wildness, the wildness of God, of creation? And we somehow, either get civilized to feel that we're limited, that we're defective, that we're apart from other beings. And really the spiritual path is one of coming back home to realize our belonging." Rumi puts it this way. He says, "Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it." So our path is to sense how have we kept ourselves from love.

How do we keep ourselves from feeling connected to our own being and to others? And so we'll start this exploration of how it happens by sensing in an existential way that all beings incarnate. And there's actually, part of the design of nature is to feel in some way that we're separate, that there's an encapsulation of a being and inside is me and out there is the world. And with any sense of a separate shell, the primal mood is fear. There's a sense of having to protect and defend. And then our culture deepens that sense of separation in many ways.

Consider the culture and how it impacts us. In the West, and in contrast to where you might have a sense of belonging to the earth or belonging to tribe or community, we're pretty separate. There's little innate sense of belonging to family. It's very individualistic, very competitive. And it's critical to meet a certain standard to achieve in order to belong.

We're told to be special, to look a certain way, to act a certain way, to achieve according to certain standards. And then we get these messages from our family very early on, on how we should be to be loved and respected. You know, certain kinds of intelligence. And often the message of, you're too sensitive or too demanding, and then we internalize that. Sometimes the messages are very overt.

You're bad. You're rejectable. And there's a sense that there can be a real abusiveness or neglect. The point is this. That as we grow up, there's already a tendency to feel separate and afraid that's existential.

And this is compounded when we're in families and a culture that keep having a message to be better or to be more. And we internalized that and come out of that with a sense of something is wrong and to the degree we feel that something's wrong with us. That's life-threatening, because everything in our wiring is about really wanting to belong and be part of the greater tribe. So then we have a chain reaction that comes when we feel deficient that has us try to, we go after substitutes, what I call, false refuges, in order to feel a sense of belonging. And it may be that we try to impress others and get approval or do a lot to accomplish and prove our cleverness.

Some of us just go into obsessive thinking. Many of us over consume, end up eating a lot of sugar or, you know, just overeat. And many of us also move to alcohol or drugs in order to kind of soothe that sense of fear. One of the big places we turn when we're feeling not okay, is to judging. Not only are we judging ourselves, but we judge others.

So at the core, what I'm really trying to convey is that for many of us, a lot of our life is organized around a sense of insufficiency. And as Gandhi put it, our beliefs create our thoughts, our thoughts create our actions, our actions create our character, and our character creates our destiny. We need to be able to see and release the belief and the attitude of self aversion, or else we're living in a trance. And there's a sense of a limited itself and a sense of separation from the world. There's a story I've always loved that took place in Thailand.

A big statue, clay plaster statue of the Buddha. It's in the ancient capital Sukothai. And it wasn't a particularly beautiful statue, but people loved it for its... It just survived through centuries of war and weather and so on. And, and finally at one point about 12 years ago, some big cracks appeared.

And some enterprising monks put a pen flashlight and looked inside the cracks to see what the infrastructure of the statue was and what shown back at them was the gleam of gold. And so they'd look into another crack and again, gold and took off the plaster clay covering. It turns out this is one of the largest solid gold statues of the Buddha anywhere in Southeast Asia. And what the monks believed is that it was covered over to survive difficult times, much in the way that each of us covers over our innate purity in order to make it through difficult culture, difficult family situation. And the suffering comes when we become identified with our coverings, identify with our defenses, with our cravings, with the ways we try to navigate.

And we forget the gold. We forget the goodness. We forget the innate awareness and love that really is who we are. And so the, the essence of the spiritual path is to find our way back to that. And in order to do so, we need to find a capacity to offer kindness and care to our own being.

That's the only way to dissolve some of that identification with our defenses. There's an Indian teacher who, Sri Nisargadatta, who has a beautiful call in this direction. He says, "All I ask of you is this, make love of yourself perfect." Make love of yourself perfect. And I love the thoroughness of that, that we're really learning to love the life that's right here, unconditionally, unconditionally. And it has to be unconditionally.

That whatever arises in us, whatever fear, or hurt, or shame, addictive craving that we hold that with a profound quality of kindness. And you might right in this moment, pause and take a moment just to reflect and sense, what would it mean right now to make love of yourself perfect. What are the conditions that have to come into place right in this moment. To feel a sense of that you're making love of yourself perfect. And this is what you take away from listening today, that some deepened intention towards holding yourself with that kind of deep kindness, it can change your life.

What I have found in teaching is at the beginning of making love of ourselves perfect, I say teaching also teaching myself, is that we need to start by recognizing what's going on in the moment. We start by sensing what is going on right here in this moment in my body, in my heart. And then we offer that a very allowing non-judging presence. In the Buddhist tradition, there's a story of the Buddha being attacked by the shadow side, which is called the God Mara, which is really all of those energies of greed and hatred and delusion. And his response when Mara would show up in his life was very, very simple.

He'd say, I see you, Mara. Come let's have tea. And I think this is one of the most profound, evolutionary teachings in a spiritual tradition, to be able to meet the shadow side and say, I see you. Let's have tea. These are called the two wings of presence.

The wing of seeing which means recognizing what is going on inside you in this moment. And just the question what's happening inside me right now, can begin to cultivate that wing of seeing. And then the second wing is the question can be with this? It's offering that allowing presence, a willingness to have tea with what's here, to really be with it fully. So let's look a little more closely on how we can bring these two wings of presence. What's happening? Can I be with this in a way that really evolves us from self aversion to self-acceptance and love? And I'll tell you a brief story of a woman I worked with who was in a major conflict with her daughter.

Her daughter was, I think, 15 at the time, and her grades were plummeting and she had begun to use drugs and was basically not doing homework, not doing anything, any of her responsibilities. And for this woman, she was constantly angry at her daughter and her daughter was very, very defended against her. So they were at a real standoff. So when this woman and I began to work together, we started exploring these two wings that I'm describing that can help us develop self compassion. And the first step was what is happening inside me right now.

And for her, it was anger. And so then can I be this? Let it be. Allow it. It's the second wing. And then the anger, she could feel under the anger, there was shame.

I'm not being a good parent and fear my daughter's life's going to be ruined. So then again, recognizing it and allowing that. And then I said, well, how long have you been living with the sense of fear and failure that you're falling short as a parent? And then when she really started reflecting on that, that kind of unworthiness as a parent, she said you know, as long as I can remember, before being a parent, I felt like I was falling short as a friend or as a daughter. And so she was getting in touch with how the trance of unworthiness had really been running through her whole life. And so I asked her what it was like when she felt unworthy.

And she said, well, it's a kind of a squeeze and a sinking feeling and really feel completely caught in and the pain of it. And when she realized how many moments of her life actually were moments that were imprisoned by a sense of unworthiness, that's when she had an experience of what Isometimes call ouch, where she really got her suffering. I sometimes think of it as, cause what arose in her was a real grieving for her own life. It brings up a soul sadness when we realize how much our lives have been shaped by feeling bad about ourselves, feeling like we're doing something wrong. And it was at that moment that she could begin to offer compassion to herself.

It was at that moment, because she had been present with herself and felt the different layers that were there, that she could put her hand on her heart. And I said, well, what is that place that feels so unworthy need from you, right? And she said it just needs to really feel accepted and loved. So I asked her to send a message to herself, and this is a really important part of self-compassion, to send a message of care. And she, she said to herself, something I often say to myself which is, it's okay, sweetheart. It's okay, sweetheart.

Now I mentioned that she put her hand on our heart. When I'm working with people and myself, I often encourage that because our habitual way of relating to ourselves is the opposite. Instead of a hand on our heart, we are as far from being tender and intimate as we could be. So this begins to counter, to de-condition that tendency of being at war. You try it right now.

Just gently put your hand on your heart. Let it be a kind of tender touch, a light touch with the intention of just offering kindness inside. And just notice how your experience shifts when you change your way of relating to yourself in a very conscious way. There are many different things we can say to ourselves. Some people use what Thich Nhat Hanh, Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh says, "Darling, I care about the suffering." Sometimes we could just say, "It's okay." Or, "I'm here with you." I sometimes say forgiven, forgiven.

Not as if I've done something wrong, but just forgiving what's happening, letting it be okay. The more that we practice pausing and feeling what's here and offering compassion to ourselves, the more we experience the essence of transformation, which is our sense of who we are shifts from being the bad person or the victim to being that space of loving presence, of compassion that's holding our life. And that shift is a shift of freedom. Over and over again, though, we need to practice. You might think of it in terms of neuroplasticity, that we have certain kind of grooves or patterns in our brain and our nervous system that are correlated with beliefs and feelings of being not okay.

And you are beginning to create new patterning and it just needs to be repeated many times. And gradually over time, you'll find that you actually sense the who you are more as awareness and love than any small story that you might have been telling yourself. That is when we start feeling free. There's a metaphor I like of when you're dying a cloth and into the color indigo, there's a vat of indigo dye and you take the cloth and you dip it in and then you pull it out and it's that bright, rich indigo. But within moments, it fades and it just becomes a little bit off-white.

So then you have to dip it again and you pull it out and the same thing happens. It gets that rich, deep blue, and then it fades back to a little off-white, but a little bit richer than it was the first time. And after many repetitions, the color holds and you get to feel the brilliance of that, of that blue as something that's an ongoing experience. In the same way, when you practice mindfulness, mindfulness is recognizing what's going on in the moment, really being with it, not judging it. And when you offer compassion, the sense of kindness to yourself, that richness of recognizing, oh, I'm not the bad self.

And sensing again, that, that vast and tender presence as really being who you are, is the taste of freedom. What's so beautiful is that the more you trust your own goodness, the more you trust that gold, you know, from the statue of the Buddha, that basic goodness in yourself, the more you move through the world and everyone, you see, you can see that same light and goodness shining through. And that doesn't mean that you don't see the habits and patterning that have that person harm themselves or harm others. But you're seeing through new eyes. When a person is acting in a harmful way, you start to sense what's going on for that person.

I sometimes think of it this way. Again, a metaphor for you, that if you imagine that there's a little dog under a tree. You're going to pet that little dog, then it kind of rears at you and it lurches forward, its fangs are bared and it's, you know, it's very, very aggressive. And you're immediately feeling angry at it, but then you notice that the dog's leg is caught in a trap. And then you shift immediately to going, oh, you poor thing.

Much in the same way, when you've done that training of presence and compassion with your own inner life, it's much easier to see when another person has their leg in a trap. And it doesn't mean you don't take care of yourself. It's important to create the boundaries you need to do to protect yourself and others, but your heart won't shut down. There's understanding in your heart, that that person is in some ways suffering. And that makes all the difference.

A story that comes to mind is of an army, some man that was in the army that had gone through a mindfulness program for anger management. And he, after, you know, he'd gone through it and he found it very valuable and the program was really grounded in mindfulness. It was using mindfulness so that when you get the surge of anger, instead of acting it out, you learn the art of, what I call the sacred pause, where, and this is true for any strong emotion when it comes up. Pause, just pause, because if you pause, Viktor Frankl, put it best, the space between the stimulus and the response. In that space is your power and your freedom.

So pausing lets you make a better choice. So that was the kind of training he had. And one day, he went to a supermarket to pick up some, to stock up. And he filled up his cart and he went and got into line. And the woman in front of him only had a few items, but she was in his line.

She wasn't in the express line. And not only that, she had a little girl and she handed the little girl to the clerk and they wereoohing and aahing and he, his anger got stirred up. And he, you know, he felt like, you know, what is going on here? She should be in the other line. And I'm a busy person. I'm an important person.

I've got things to do. And he just went into reactivity. And then he remembered his training. And he paused. And he said, these two wings that I've been telling you about, what is happening inside me.

He started tracking his body and he could feel the anger and underneath the anger, he could feel the fear and he let it be there. He allowed the feelings to be there. That sense that some of you might be familiar with that when something gets in our way, we have that fear there's not enough time and our world's going to collapse. So he just stayed with his fear and things started settling and that shift in identity where he became more of the witness, more able to be present with what was there versus the person who was lost in anger. So he was calmer.

He was able to open his eyes and he saw athelittle girl was cute. And when it was his turn, he said to the clerk, you know, that little girl is awfully cute. And she smiled at him and she said, oh, thank you. Actually that's my little girl. My mom brings her here because my husband was killed in Afghanistan.

And this is my only way to see her. So twice a day, my mom brings her so we can visit. I share this story with you because when we begin to learn these practices of mindfulness and self-compassion, we begin to shift in our way of relating to the world. We begin to pause more. And you might just imagine if we move through the day and like this man, we took the time to pause and then begin to really find out what is going on for another person.

We'd be actually helping to serve the healing of our world. In that pausing and looking more deeply, we'd see past the kind of mask that we usually react to. It's that pausing and deepening attention that helps wake us up from racism. And so where in the United States right now have so much going on. We just had killings of nine people in a black church in Charleston.

African-American men that are murdered on the streets that are unarmed. So racism, if we could pause, if we could deepen our attention, if we could really be present, we might be able to wake up out of the ways we create others into unreal others, because once somebody unreal to us, we can violate them, and instead hold them in our hearts. So we practice these practices and I am grateful to you for having the interest and feel the calling to deepen presence because we practice for the freedom of our own hearts and also for the healing of our world, so that we can listen to this earth that has so much disease and respond rather than being in our trance of too busy or on our way. And listen to the suffering of others. And also, so we have the capacity to look at each other and see the goodness and to appreciate it and honor it, because one of the greatest gifts that you can give anyone is to see their goodness and remind them of it.

People forget. So we'll close this class, if you will, with a very brief reflection just to invite you to take a moment wherever you are, a moment for a bit of an extended pause. And in this extended pause, you might just close your eyes. Listen to the words of Thomas Merton. He says, "Then it was as if I suddenly saw the secret beauty of their hearts, the depth of their hearts when neither sin or knowledge could reach, the core of reality, the person that each one is in the eyes of the divine.

If only they could see themselves as they really are. If only we could see each other that way all the time, there would be no more need for war, for hatred, for greed, for cruelty. I suppose the big problem would be that we would fall down and worship each other." So in these moments, just to feel yourself, sitting here mindful of the sensations of your body. Mindful of your breath. And you might sense if there's somewhere in your life right now that you're being particularly unforgiving or unaccepting of yourself and let that come to mind.

As you reflect a bit on what it is that you've done that makes you not able to forgive or accept, what behavior, what ways of judging or acting, perhaps causing harm to yourself or another. You might take a moment and sense how your leg in some way is in a trap when you're behaving that way. How there are some unmet needs, some fears that have been driving you. And just to have some compassion for that. And it's a way to support yourself in this practice of self-compassion, to gently, perhaps put your hand on your heart again.

And just to recognize your own vulnerability. So recognize the fears, the hurts, the unmet needs, and to also recognize the pain being turned on yourself, at war with yourself. You might sense in your life, how many moments of your life have in some way been imprisoned or stolen away from you, because you were at war with yourself. Moments that you could have been enjoying a sunset or entertained and amused by something or feeling a sense of loving connection. Instead were squeezed by the sense of something is wrong with me.

Just to notice that and sense that and feel your deep aspiration to deepen your capacity for self love. Just send any message you'd like to your heart right now. Any message of comfort or kindness. Closing with the words of Rumi who writes, "I've gotten free of that ignorant fist that was pinching and twisting my secret self. The universe and the light of the stars come through me.

I am the crescent moon put up over the gate to the festival." Thank you for your attention and your presence. Wishing you all blessings, that you may trust and live from that deep goodness, from the love and the awareness that's your true nature. Thank you.