Browse
Top articles
How to Meditate: Meditation 101 for Beginners
10 Science-Backed Benefits of Meditation
What is Meditation?
How to Meditate: Meditation 101 for Beginners
10 Science-Backed Benefits of Meditation
What is Meditation?
Benefits of Mindfulness: Mindful Living Can Change Your Life
Mindfulness 101: A Beginner's Guide
00:00
00:00
Duration
Tara discusses how mindfulness can help us wake up to our true nature, alleviate our suffering and move through fear.
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.
Get Unlimited Access
A Mindfulness Plus+ subscription gives you unlimited access to a world of premium mindfulness content.
Email Missing
We couldn’t detect your email with the SSO provider you have selected.We are here to make a positive impact on the world. We never want to sell you something that hasn’t helped you live a better life. That’s why if you’re unhappy with any purchase from us, you have 30 days to get a full refund and your money back.
If you subscribed to Mindfulness Plus+ and are unhappy with your purchase, please get in contact with us within the 30-day period and we’ll refund your purchase.
Learn more about our Mindfulness Guarantee.
Mindfulness
We believe in a world where everybody has access to the life-changing skills of mindfulness.
Private Browsing
Congratulations on taking the first step towards a more mindful life! As a token of our appreciation, we want to offer you an exclusive opportunity to upgrade to Mindfulness Plus+ for a price you won't find anywhere else.
Mindfulness Plus+ is our premium membership that includes everything you need to learn mindfulness and keep practicing throughout all stages of life.
Take this exclusive offer to further your mindfulness skills and experience deeper levels of well-being.
Annual membership
$0
Just a small sample of the life-changing 5-star reviews we get on a daily basis.
Vidyamala’s tips on catching anger as it’s happening or about to happen are great - clear, practical, and doable.
- Vicoir
The little talks before the meditations are priceless. It's like I've found my peeps. The topics, the quotes, the goals—it all makes so much sense to me, things I want to be thinking and learning about. Most importantly, the meditations are kindness-centered, which I love. It feels like a new way to approach meditation.
- Lauren
Incredible, easy to navigate app. I would highly recommend this app to anyone who wishes to reduce stress and anxiety or simply as an aid to improve overall mental health.
- Kirtus
I love how the app gives me pointers to new things to explore.
- Lydia
So calm and soothing. I love the new bundle with Kelly Boys, she’s brilliant!
- EJ
Better than Headspace. I've had the paid version of both apps, and I must say I enjoy this one better.
- Gina, Plus+ Member
I am very new to meditation, and am so happy that my first introduction to it has been through this app
The first session was fantastic. I feel safe. And supported. Almost like having someone helping me through my difficult time. I’m very grateful for this app.
- Babi
You get a lot of useful tips for handling stress and anxiety in 'real life'.
- Joy
Highly recommend.
- Humanfrst
Kelly Boys is hands down the best. Everytime I click on one of her guided meditations I get excited for the calmness that lies ahead.
-
Claim your free access
Create a mindfulness account and we’ll unlock this premium session in your account forever.
7-Days free trial, cancel anytime.
Complete a few quick questions to make your own personalized mindfulness plan.