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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
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Tara reveals how we can learn to trust the pure awareness, love, and basic goodness that live deep in our hearts.
So we're talking right now about the
pathways to cultivating the gold.
The second pathways where we
intentionally turn toward the gold.
And just to say, most of you are familiar
and understand our negativity bias
does keep us from paying attention to
goodness in ourselves and in each other.
I often think of that young girl I've
shared in that art class where she's
immersed in her drawing and the teacher
asked her, you know, what are you drawing?
And she says, well, I'm drawing God.
And Teacher says, you know, no
one knows what God looks like.
And without looking up, the little
girl says they will in a moment.
And I think of that so often that we,
that we get caught in the coverings.
And we think that the divine
is some distant, distant being
or experience or whatever, when
it's always, always right here.
So to begin to remember, in addition
to starting right where we are,
to shift the attention to counter
the negativity bias, we need to
on-purpose look towards goodness.
Which means we give love, we
look towards receiving love,
we pay attention to gratitude.
My friend, Rick Hanson calls
this positive neuroplasticity.
It starts training our, you know, neural
pathways towards remembering the gold.
And again, there's a powerful myth from
the Buddhist tradition where Siddhartha
goes through his night of awakening and
he encounters all of Mara in all the
difficult energies through that night.
Greed, hatred, anger, delusion,
craving, jealousy, and he meets
them all, starts right where he is.
He meets them with
mindfulness and compassion.
Well.
as the morning star rises, Mara
throughout his final biggest shadow
challenge, which was doubt, this
mistrust that we have of ourselves,
that was Siddhartha's biggest challenge.
So if you feel like you
get caught in mistrust, you
know, you're in good company.
And when that happened, his response,
he didn't start right where he was.
He turned towards love.
He turned towards belonging.
He called on the earth goddess, which is
the kind of whole net of living beings.
You know, that, it's what he
really belonged to, to affirm his
goodness, to affirm his worthiness.
And it's so interesting that
this is the second pathway
and the Buddha had to use it.
He had to touch the ground
and call on the earth goddess.
He had to purposely turn towards
the good in order to wake up.
And he assumed that that goodness
was there, that it was possible.
This is me acting like loving
awareness is accessible.
If we reach out, we'll find it's there,
but we have to practice reaching out.
We have to practice touching the ground.
So the heart practices, loving kindness
practices, whether we're offering
ourselves blessings or seeing the
goodness in ourselves on purpose or
seeing the goodness in each other,
those are the trainings in positive
neuroplasticity where we literally
reflect, what am I grateful for.
Or what do I appreciate about myself?
Or what do I appreciate about you?
It's so important.
So necessary.
Daniel Bayler says, "You are but
a collection of atoms working
together in temporary harmony,
before being dispersed back into
the universe, your true belonging.
Your earthly task is to
help those atoms radiate.
Imagine the simplicity.
You need not achieve
anything but a gentle glow."
Let's just for a moment, this is one
of those very short metta practices.
Just for a moment.
Again, let the attention go inward.
Then if it helps to kind of move
your body around a little and
adjust, but then come into stillness.
And take a moment to bring
to mind someone who you love.
Ideally, a relationship
that's not complicated.
And it could be a dog.
It could be, it doesn't have to be
a human, but someone that you love.
And sense the qualities that you love.
Intelligence, humor, kindness, vitality.
But mostly picture that being loving you.
Just be aware of their essence
as good and wakeful and caring.
And just picture them loving you, the
way their eyes look, look on their face.
And as you do, you might mentally whisper
their name and the words, thank you.
And say, thank you again.
And maybe again.
And as you do, you might start
feeling the tenderness of your own
heart and sense is this is some of
the taste of goodness in yourself.
So bring attention to your own being.
To this heart that wants
to love and be loved.
This mind that wants to
wake up and know truth.
And sense what it is you most deeply
care about, your deep aspiration.,
you know, what, what you really
want this life to be about.
And sense the goodness of that.
And it's hard to really
sense your own goodness.
Look through the eyes of your
future self, that what you're waking
up to be at your current self.
Look through the eyes
of someone you trust.
And see your sincerity, that
you want to heal and be free.
You want to be able to
love without holding back.
Sense that you can honor that.
Namaste.
Your earthly task is to
help those atoms radiate.
Imagine the simplicity.
You need not achieve
anything but gently glow.
Taking a few full breaths.
So we've talked about purposely
this positive neuro-plasticity,
seeing the goodness in ourselves.
And of course, the other part
of our training is learning
to see the goodness in others.
And it's easiest when we can
sense that spirit in children.
We can sense the goodness in people
often when they've already died.
We can see it when people are
happy or when they're loving,
uncomplicated relationships.
And of course, we know it's most
difficult to see the goodness when
the person's caused harm to us and to
others, when the person's threatening.
Or when we're blinded by racial or
other caste systems, very hard to see
past cause others seem like objects.
But the challenge in remembering
goodness and really the training is
not just when others are behaving in
hurtful ways or our cultural biases and
blindness to the degree we're stressed.
We're going to be caught
in our own coverings.
I call it our kind of our
spacesuit and we're just going to
see other people's space suits.
You know, it's like that story of the man
who comes late to a meeting at the office
and they asked him what, what took him?
He said, well, outside, I saw a clown.
And one person asked him, was
it a person dressed up as a
clown or was it a real clown?
You know?
And when we're, when we're caught
in ourselves, we see the space
suit and that's the, that's
who we think the person is.
We're not seeing the real person.
You know, if you think of somebody,
when you're afraid of them judging you,
what are you going to see about them?
They're threatening.
You're not going to see, you're
in a place of stress, you're not
going to see who they really are.
Or if there's someone you're afraid
of disappointing, the stress will stop
you from seeing who they really are.
Or if it's somebody you want
something from, you have an agenda
for, or you want to see them change.
It was like a family member or a child.
You want them to change.
I know this with my son, so many years of
thinking he needed to change something.
You know, he needed to put more
time into class work or, you
know, less time in video games,
less partying, whatever it was.
In the moments I wanted him to be
different, I wasn't seeing the gold.
So it takes intention, friends.
If we want to cultivate seeing the gold in
others and not even talking about others
that have hurt us, but just the familiar
others, we have to be aware that our wants
and fears, our agendas get in the way.
We have to pause and we have
to deepen our attention.
And that means that we really sense,
well, what does this person care about?
You know, to imagine what
their hearts really care about.
And you might take a moment just to bring
one person to mind who's familiar to you.
That's somebody in your household
or in your closer circles that you
may have some judgements around.
You know, somebody you want them to change
how they're acting in a certain way.
Bringing them to mind.
And then see past the coverings.
What does this person really
most deeply care about?
What's their hearts longing?
What do they look like when they're
happy, when they really feel
loved, when they feel fully alive?
Just sense their goodness.
And sense who you are when you're
aware of their goodness, how
that opens you up to your gold.
And since the energy it creates in the
field when you're seeing your gold.
Anthony de Mello says, "It's a sobering
thought that the finest act of love you
can perform is not an act of service,
but an act of contemplation of seeing.
When you serve people, you help
support, comfort and alleviate pain.
When you see them in their inner beauty
and goodness, you transform and create."
So, if you want to journal at all, who
am I when I'm seeing the gold in another?
What would life be like when I'm
trusting and seeing the gold in others?
The basic theme is, if we start
dedicating ourselves more on purpose
to trusting who we are and trusting
each other, if we start dedicating
ourselves to sensing namaste, if
enough of us do, it really ripples out.
When you become a mirror of another
person's goodness, you bring it forward.
And then we start creating
the world that we believe in.
And, and that's our world so
needs that energy right now
to, to bridge the separations.
So brief reflection and, and I'm, I just
want to thank you for being part of it.
It touches my heart.
You are my extended family community.
And just to be with you really matters.
We'll close with a, with a reflection.
And this is quite simple that very
much as we started, I'd like to invite
you to let your attention go inward.
To take a few moments to relax through
your body, to feel your breath.
To take a moment to put your hand on
your own heart and of what you see
and appreciate in your own being.
Some message from your own awake
heart on what you can trust.
And you to bring to mind someone
that you see regularly that you care
about in your circles of people.
Take a moment to bring them close in.
It can be someone in
your family, a friend.
And take a moment to sense that
being's goodness, Just sensing their
aspiration, what their heart cares about.
Just maybe imagine the, the
light in that person's eyes, the
intelligence looking through.
When their hearts happy
in a, in a wholesome way.
Just they're aliveness and sense
what you love, sense what you
care about, what you appreciate.
And imagine telling them.
Imagine letting them know something about
your care, your love, your appreciation.
And now notice how, what it's effect is.
So that you can sense that very
real connectedness that happens
when we recognize another being's
goodness and let them know.
And take some moments to reflect on the
goodness and bring to mind someone else.
It's such a powerful practice.
Somebody else in your circles.
So for all of us, we're bringing
to mind someone, and we're really
sensing that being, that their
heart longs to love and be loved.
That they want to know truth.
They want to live fully.
And sense their goodness, their innate
with Maritain calls their secret beauty,
the divine that's shining through them,
letting them know you're being a mirror.
I see your goodness.
I see your beauty.
I see your soul shining through.
And just imagine the impact.
Feel your heart opening in the
way that you can feel heart space.
Let that heart space include all beings.
You might sense the possibility
of moving through this world.
Whether you're seeing an animal
or a tree, non-human, animal,
a tree, or human, really
trusting that this world's a
friendly place intrinsically.
Seeing the gold.
Life is this simple.
We're living in a world that is
absolutely transparent and the divine
is shining through it all the time.
This is not just a nice story or fable.
It is true.
So we close in a simple way, just
sensing our prayer that all beings
everywhere may recognize and
trust the gold, that sacredness.
May we live from this loving presence.
A deep bow, namaste to each of you.
Thank you so much for being part of it.
And many blessings.
May you live from the gold and
enjoy these lives, these blessings.
Thank you.
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