Welcome. I would like to begin with a quote thatâs
pretty much anonymous, although I have seen versions of it from Christian philosophers
and Buddhists and Ghandi. This is it: âThe thought becomes the word. The word manifests as the deed. The deed develops into the habit. Habit hardens into character. Character gives birth to destiny. So watch your thoughts with care. And let them spring from love, born out of
respect for all beings.â So this is an expression of karma which really
is saying that causes lead to effects, that when we have certain beliefs and thoughts
they create certain feelings that then turn into actions and the actions become habits
and those habits end up really creating our sense of identity and, if they are really
hardened, become our destiny. And we tend to keep repeating and repeating
and repeating, we are creatures of habit. So when they create our destiny and when they
are based in fear â these habits â they really become the block in our lives to accessing
all that we can be, to accessing happiness and creativity and, in a deep way, a sense
of our spirit. So I would say that one of the deepest expressions
of despair that comes my way is when someone will report that, âWell, I have been repeating
the same pattern of pushing people away or of grasping on or undermining myself or whatever
it is all my life, for as long as I can remember.â Thatâs a feeling of... there is a real feeling
of despair because, âHow can I ever change? Itâs so deeply grooved!â So tonightâs reflection will really be on
how we can awaken from these habitual chains of thinking, feeling and then acting, this
stimulus reaction-cycle that we get caught into, that really can bind our lifes, and
the title of the talk is really âThe Freedom Of Responding, Not Reacting.â Okay? And I think of this as a very universal kind
of theme in terms of transformation because every one of us, if we are in any way suffering,
we are suffering because there is some patterning that has locked in thatâs rooted in fear
and that we keep playing out over and over again and itâs confining our sense of being. Thatâs why we are suffering. So what I would like to... The way I would like to structure this is
around three key teachings that have really shaped my... my life, my spiritual life in
a very deep way. And I think of them as invitations. And the first invi... And these... Each of these three teachings are ways of
in a way freeing ourselves, we are waking up out of the chain-reaction, okay? And the first one the way our language is
really, âPlease donât believe your thoughts!â Okay, thatâs the first one. And the second one is, âPlease just pause
and come back into presence!â And the third one is, âPlease remember love! In some way, whatever way, but remember love!â So that is going to be kind of the architecture
if you will of our... of our reflection together, these three invitations. But we will begin by taking a look at what
happens in our brain when we are caught in the stimulus reaction-chain, in the ones... And they are very often relational. We get triggered and then we go into this...
this chain of reactivity. And my favorite illustration comes from Doctor
Dan Segal who is a psychiatrist and he is a friend also and he is one of the leaders
in what is called interpersonal neurobiology. And what Dan does is he says, âThink of
the brain,â â and he says, and he brings... he picks up his hand like this, he says, âThink
of the brain like this: that your wrist leading into the palm of your hand is like a spinal
cord going into the skull.â So this is the brain stem, okay? And then he says, âThis thumb is your limbic
system.â And this is to do with arousal and emotions
and relationships. So you have got the brain stem that is really
regulating your body and it is fight-flight-freeze, okay? And then you have got the thumb thatâs emotions,
itâs the limbic system, and he says, âThese four fingersâ â okay, so like this â âis
the cortex, the frontal cortex.â And this is what allows us to perceive the
outside world and think and reason. And the prefrontal cortex is just the kind
of bottom-part of my knuckles right down here is really the source of mindfulness, attunement,
empathy, compassion. And so this is the brain. And what happens when the brain is integrated,
kind of holding together, is there is a flow upward of, âOh oh, danger, got to do this,
got to do that, fight-flight-freezeâ and then downward there is a, âItâs okay,
we have been here before, we know how to deal with thisâ And so this... There are fibers really that come down from
the prefrontal cortex that soothe and de-activate the limbic system. So this is... There is a kind of upward flow and then a
downward feedback. But what happens when we get stressed, when
there is a real shooting of... of fear or anxiety or what happens very regularly is:
We flip our lid, okay? And we... we go around a lot of times kind
of like this, or half open, and what this means is if those times when we are stressed
and in reactivity we are no longer getting the benefit of that... that insight and that
perspective and that empathy that comes from the prefrontal cortex which is the most recently
evolved parts of our brain. Instead there is a sub-cortical loping going
on that has got a lot of, you know, there is thoughts but there is also a lot of feelings
and there is a lot of reactivity. There is a growing body of research that shows
that the more we practice mindfulness meditation the more we are strengthening and activating
the prefrontal cortex the more integration we are able to sustain. It is very interesting that it becomes a trait,
that it becomes really a quality of our awareness that we are in that remembrance, we are still
getting the feedback from our mindfulness and empathy, a sense of morality, a sense
of the bigger picture. So the question really is, when we have done
this flipping, how do we re-integrate. And again, as I mentioned, we will start with
it is, âPlease just remember this is just a thought, donât believe it!â Because when we are believing our thoughts,
we are really feeling that sub-cortical looping that keeps us in a reactivity, okay? So one Buddhist teacher was asked to describe
the world. And his description was, âLost in thought.â That we spend most of our time in a virtual
reality. If you pause and even just think of today
â I know this works for me â if I just glance back at the day I realize how much
of the day, the swathes of moments that I was living inside that incessant dialogue
going on in my brain. And if we look even more closely and say,
âWell, what was the atmosphere, what was the kind of flavor of the thinking?â then
we kind of get a sense of the experience we are living inside of of... of ourself and
the world and whether we are the endangered oppressed victim or whether we we were in
some way the hero or rescuer or whatever roles we were playing, but we start getting a sense
of the identity we are living in. Very, very interesting. When we start catching on to, âOh, donât
believe your thoughts!â that means there is a little space around that virtual reality
and a little more capacity to choose, âWell, are these thoughts serving healing and serving
connecting with others and freedom or are they serving that sense of a separate self,
a deficient self and a beleagured self?â We start getting some choice because there
is a little more space. You know when I am on my way to teacher retreat
and I am very aware that when people come to retreats and spend a few days practicing
this, really noticing thoughts and kind of waking up out of them and saying, âOkay,
itâs a thought, just a thought!â the take away at the end of the retreat is really,
âI am not my thoughts! I donât have to believe them!â And that... there is profound freedom that
comes with that. So if we look at thoughts a little more closely,
we start getting that they are images in our mind and sound bites, okay, they are representational,
which means that if you are hungry and you think of an apple, and you might have a really
good thought of an apple, it is going to be different than the actual feeling â itâs
your favorite apple, for mine the Honeycrisp, I love Honeycrisp apples, you know itâs
a new discovery in the last four years or whatever â the feeling of the... the hardness
and the actual crunch and the spurt of sweet-sour and the smell, there is no way your idea is
the same thing as that living reality. Thoughts are never reality. They are at best a kind of... a representation
of that is useful, they are at best that, and they are often misguided and they often
lead to unwise action. A couple of years ago, I heard a... and this
took place in a Midwest High School... where some teens were doing a prank and they took
three goats and they painted on the goats âNumber Oneâ and then the second âNumber
Twoâ and then âNumber Four,â and they released the goats into the school and it...
and the staff... the administration canceled school for the day because they couldnât
find goat number three. So thinking obviously is totally necessary
for... for survival: We need to be able to anticipate trouble and avoid it, and it is
also necessary for flourishing â I mean, medicine, architecture and writing a poem
or building a piano, negotiating peace â itâs an essential part of spiritual practice. I... I wouldnât have been able to compose this
talk without thinking. So thinking can us towards whatâs beyond
words. But often, because of our tendency to have
fear-thoughts, they are... they are not in that direction. And most of you know we have a what is called
the negativity-bias thatâs part of survival thatâs very much alive and well in us, which
means that we tend to remember the things that are painful and pull them together and
create our beliefs out of them. In a very simple way: If you have had a hundred
encounters with a dog and one time you got bit by a dog, thatâs what you remember. And our tendency to lock into whatâs wrong
with us is so strong that some, you know, child psychologists will say that you have
to have five positive mirroring kind of comments really re-enforcing a younger person if you
want to have one constructive bit of, you know, feedback because we tend to latch on
so much to what is wrong, which is not only for during our life this is also for after
this life. This is George Carlin, he says, âYou know
what a âFrisbee-aterianâ is? Itâs a belief that when you die your soul
goes up on the roof and gets stuck.â So just to say: Fear-thoughts can be adaptive
in terms of real danger, but they become mal-adaptive because they become a habit of our mind, and
the more we run them the more they become the inclination of our mind because as...
as neuropsychologists say, âNeurons that fire together wire together.â So the habit of fear-thinking fuels difficult
emotions and difficult emotions fuel more fear-thinking, itâs a circular, but I always
have been struck by Jill Bolty-Taylor who many of you have heard of, again neuropsychologist,
she describes that it takes 1.5 minutes for an emotion to come and to go, 1.5 minutes,
unless of course you are having thoughts that keep on fueling the emotion, which is of course
what we do, that we keep on generating stress-thoughts or fear-thoughts or we keep talking about
things that keep us anxious and they keep the mood going. Okay, after a tiring day a commuter settled
into his seat and closes his eyes. As the train rolled out of the station a young
woman sitting next to him pulled out her cell phone and started talking in a loud voice,
âHi sweetheart, itâs Sue, I am on the train... Yes, I know, itâs the 6:30 and not the 4:30
but I had a long meeting... No, Honey, not with that Kevin from the accounting
office, it was with the boss...â She gets... Her voice is getting more and more anxious
and defensive, âNo sweetheart, you are the only one in my life. Yes, I am sure, cross my heart!â And, 15 minutes later, okay, she is still
talking loudly, she is anxious, she is defensive. The man sitting next to her finally had enough. He leaned over and said into the phone, âSue,
hang up the phone and come back to bed!â So it wasnât a good illustration but I liked
it. So the more we have the habit of the thoughts
and the talking that has to do what we are afraid is around the corner, whatâs going
to go wrong, whatâs wrong with me, the more that generates the emotions that... that embody
those feelings in our body and leads to the very behaviors that, bring about the responses
from the world, that re-enforce our beliefs. Do you all know what I mean by that? That when we are insecure and we have insecure
thoughts and we act out of them, we create responses that then deepen our sense of insecurity. So we are caught in this stimulus-reaction,
kind of a cycle. And this is what I am calling this sub-cortical
looping. And it leads to... The actions that come out of our fears â well
either we speed up get tense and really get our body sick â We also try to control others,
we try to prove ourselves a lot, we try to defend and present a lot and there is a lot
of aggression â whether itâs just our minds having judgmental thoughts or, in large
ways, bullying, attacking, hurting. So this is what I mean by flipping the lid. It means that we are no longer living from
that what... the integrated brain which really, in an energetic way, means we are no longer
inhabiting our awareness and our heart, we are not living from a more evolved awakened
sense of our being, we are reacting more out of the primitive parts of our brain, they
have taken over, they have hijacked, and we need to find our way home. And we can see that in our individual life
how... how we act out in ways where we press the send-button on an insensitive email or
say hurtful things or let lose our anger, and we see how in a larger society the sub
cortical looping that leads to the repeating cycles of war and oppression, we see what
happens when the primitive brain hijacks: We are coming from a very small fear-place. I read in just recently in The Post that the
first five months of this year police killed more than two people a day, disproportionately
African-Americans, and we can see the fear in the fear meeting each other, we can see
living with this flipped lid, we are disconnected from the evolving brain and the danger that
it creates. Bottom-line: When we are living out stimulus
react looping, this unintegrated brain, we are believing something thatâs not true,
we are living in a very confined reality of a separate and limited self, a reality that
has us locked into a very small sense of who we are. Okay, so there is a smoker, an older man,
a lifetime smoker who was hospitalized with emphysema and after a series of small strokes
his daughter urged him, as she often had, to give up smoking. And he refused and asked her to buy him some
more cigarettes, he told her, âI am a smoker this life and thatâs how it is!â But several days later he had another small
stroke, apparently in one of the memory-areas of the brain. And then without a concern he stopped smoking
for good. But it wasnât because he decided to, he
woke up one morning and forgot that he was a smoker. Itâs very powerful this looping. We donât have to keep living in it but in
order to wake up from it, in order to re-member or re-connect, we need to begin to activate
the prefrontal cortex, we need to begin to call on mindfulness. So the first piece â and it doesnât have
to be the first piece, by the way, this isnât linear, you donât have to start with, âPlease
may I not believe my thoughts!â you could start with, âPlease may I remember love!â
and, for many people, to catch the thought-patterns is often usually really a powerful way to
start de-conditioning the looping, okay? Does that make sense? This isnât a rigid linear thing but we begin
by that... that practice of waking up out of our thoughts. And this is the... pretty much the central
practice that we start with when we begin mindfulness training to use the breath as
an anchor and notice when we are in thoughts so that rather than living inside them, you
are aware that they are happening. And the point isnât to get rid of thoughts. Just know that they are there so that you
donât mistake them for reality. Does that make sense? You have a choice. If you can say, âOh, wait! This is a thought! It feels really real, itâs really strong,
itâs creating a lot of power, I even can tell I am believing it!â but there is even
a little bit of you that says, âPlease let me remember I donât have to believe it!â
you are on the right track, you are opening the door of awareness letting the light come
through. Rhumi says, âBe empty of worrying, think
of who created thought! Why do you stay in prison when the door is
so wide open?â You donât have to believe your thoughts. Even remembering that possibility, even remembering
that possibility is a radical shift in consciousness, okay? So we begin that, thatâs the first step,
âPlease donât believe your thoughts! And... And by the way I like the phrase: They are
real but they are not true, okay? The thoughts are real but they are not truth. So we do that. And that begins to quiet a little bit of the
sub-cortical looping because there is... we are not as identified we are not charging
the looping quite as much. Then we take the next step which is this invitation
to deepen presence, âPlease may I pause, may I contact whatâs right here!â And you can sense that for yourself just as
you are listening right now that if you even invite yourself, âPlease!â â really
sincere â âPlease may I pause, may I pause and really arrive in presence, connect with
my senses!â There is a tremendous amount of mindfulness
research that shows that as we begin to step out of thoughts and become more awake and
aware in our senses it de-activates the limbic system and activates the prefrontal cortex. I love the... John Gotman did a piece of research I find
fascinating. He is a very well-known coupleâs therapist
and researcher. And he did a... In his experiment he had a couple that was
all hooked up to different physiological gauges and he would take a video of them discussing
difficult issues, and he would wait till their pulses were over 100 beats per minute, and
then he would interrupt their argument and he would say something like, you know, âOur
Equipment is having trouble. Could you just... Just need you to wait for a little bit!â And he would send them into different... different
spaces, they could just sit down, read a magazine, whatever, 15 minutes later he would have them
begin again, and what he found is 15 minutes they were no longer in high arousal â in
other words they were no longer doing the sub-cortical looping â and once out of the
high arousal â more access, remember, to the prefrontal cortex â they were like entirely
different people. They could begin to find their common ground
and come to some more resolution. Now what is interesting for meditators is
that when we pause we are not just reading a magazine, we are actually on purpose noticing
what is going on in the present moment naming it some â just naming and noticing and opening
to it â which means we donât have to wait 15 minutes to have that coming back together
of the brain, re-connecting with empathy, and with perspective, because we are on purpose
coming into presence. Now the most challenging part, though, of
when we say, âPlease may I pause and come into presence!â is what we contact is all
the arousal, the unpleasant, uncomfortable stuff thatâs going on in our body because
of that looping, that activation, the very stuff we we have mastered over a lifetime
to not hang out with, right? We have been... We spend decades learning how to move away
from unpleasantness. So this simple invitation, âPlease may I
pause and be with what is right here!â is actually like saying, âPlease may I pause
and get myself ripped up and squeezed and squished and achy and soreâ and feeling
all this like conundrum going on inside us. . It is not easy. It is not easy to learn to stay. Which leads us to the third invitation, âPlease
may I remember love!â Because if we regard the situation, the context
of the stimulus and the reaction, whatâs going on inside us, with a quality of tenderness,
all of a sudden we find we can stay. There is just enough space, softness, kindness,
so we can hang out with whatâs there because we are not so inside it and caught in it as
a victim rather when in some way there is a remembrance of love the what we are opens
and we become a bigger space of presence. I am going to give some examples in a little
bit. But just to say that when I am talking about
remembering love there are countless pathways and each of us... This is an experiment for each of us. I hear so many spiritual paths prescribing
a particular way to open the heart or whatever. Truly you have to kind of customize and and
try out things. But they are kind of genres, different kind
of broad pathways. And one pathway of remembering love is to
simply have the intention to offer love or care inwardly. And it could be through words or an image
or... I often put my hand on my heart. And even having the intention and going through
the motions works. Why does it work? Because deep, deep down the who we are is
loving-presence. And by going through the motions we begin
to call that forth, we begin to reconnect with more of the truth of who we are. Said again in terms of this brain analogy:
We begin to activate this whole neural net in the prefrontal cortex that has to do with
compassion and empathy. So one pathway to remembering love is to offering
love inward. And another pathway is when we say, âPlease
remember love!â is to call on the love that we know is in the universe and ask to be held
by it. Just the way a young child, we know when a
young child is really upset and their... their limbic system is hijacked and going wild,
and the motherâs hug brings them online again, it actually helps them self-regulate. Well, when we imagine feeling hugged, that
imagining â and this has been shown in MRIs â this imagining does the same thing, it
begins to bring us back into that integrated state. So just to call on love. I want to mention that one of my inspirations,
the Hawaiian healer Dr. Hugh Lynn, is one of... what has been described as his... He describes his practice whether he is responding
to somebody elseâs stuck place or his own he just sends messages, his most basic phrases
are like , âI am sorry, and I love you.â And so I found for many people a lot of time
when I am teaching workshops just to practice what phrase works for you. Can you put your hand on your heart? Well, there is a reason that works: And when
we put our hand on our heart it actual warmth that neuronal centre right here in the heart-area
actually calms down the sympathetic nervous system; plus, in a whole other way, you know,
our relationship with ourself is at best it is harsh or distant or neglecting, when we
relate to ourselves kind of like others related to us in our early life and, for many, real
tenderness, a really understanding presence, an intimate presence, wasnât part of it. So what we are doing when we put our hand
on our heart is we are actually cultivating a new relationship with our inner life. So story for you: one... one example of somebody
that has used these three invitations: And this is a woman who was at that sandwich-time
of life where, her, she was... she had a son in 8th grade who was, you know, having a hard
time in his own ways and her father was in a nursing home and the nursing home was about
an hour away so she would go for a visit once a week. And he had dementia and would repeat himself
a lot. But clearly the big message that he gave her
was, âPlease stay. Please hang out. Please come more often.â And it wasnât resentful, it was just he
really liked having her around. But her inner â you know, this is a stimulus
â her inner reaction was to feel tight and resentful, feeling a need to justify herself
because she felt she was failing. It triggered her sense of ânot enoughâ;
that she was failing her son, she wasnât showing up enough for her son, she was failing
her father, failing on all fronts. And then she was also living with the sense
that she would be regret... how incredibly regretful she would be if he died and she
was... this was their last years together, whatever. So this is what she brought her practice to,
okay? The stimulus again was, you know, her father
saying, âOh I wish you would be around more!â her son acting out in ways and her then going
into that looping of, âWhatâs wrong with me?â and also blaming them in different
ways and then the feelings of fear and shame and so on. So her practice was first to notice the thoughts,
âI am a bad daughter, I am a bad motherâ and just whisper, âPlease donât believe
this!â Just that, âPlease donât believe this!â And then she would come into her body, she
would say: âPlease just come in touch whatâs right here in this body!â and she would
feel what was there, and she would feel the fear and kind of shame and then, âPlease
may I be kind!â put her hand on her heart and she used those... those phrases I just
mentioned, âI am sorryâ â I am sorry meaning: I am sorry those painful feelings
are here â âand I love you!â So after one visit with her father she sat
in a parking lot and she was practicing this and saying, you know, kind of trying... trying
not to believe the thoughts and saying âyesâ and being kind towards all the tightness and
fear and really feeling the waves of tears and grief and realized that underneath it
all she just loved her son and she loved her father and she didnât want to let them down;
but more than that she just wanted to trust the loving. Just trust the loving. In a way that was her realization. You know, itâs like: Donât believe the
thoughts, come into a wise relationship with yourself and then trust the loving, trust
who we are. And that was the gift of the three invitations
was that... and she had, by the way, many rounds with any of these practices of presence... Itâs like you have neuronal pathways that
are deeply grooved of... of how we are, these habits, takes a lot of rounds to de-condition,
and every time some part of us says, âPlease donât believe this thought! Please come into presence! Please be kind!â every round there is a
loosening of the old identity, every round there is a little more space, a little more
homecoming to the awareness and heart that is really our essence, to that spirit, every
round. So for her, after some rounds, she started
noticing more and more. She would be with her father and when he would
say something like, âOh I wish you would be coming more!â or whatever, rather than
trying to justify herself she would just feel a wave of, âOh he loves me! I love him!â It was okay. The imperfectness was okay. And he would be repeating what he repeated,
he would look at this tree out the window and say, âIsnât that beautiful tree?â And she could just relax and really go, âYeah,
thatâs really a beautiful tree!â because she wasnât wound up in that looping that
we have been talking about, a stimulus reaction, she was responding, not reacting, to the situation. So we have many versions of how we have a
stimulus reaction-pattern, partial flip, that keeps getting repeated. And many of the triggers are external like
for this woman it was something her father would say or someone would do, could be the
criticism of a boss or team thatâs left the kitchen messy or the partner thatâs
driving too fast or a person thatâs hurt you in the way they have behaved. But we are also triggered by inner states
of physical discomfort that we sometimes donât realize. I just wanted to name that too because often
we are in a reactivity and we donât realize that it is coming from a very physical state
of our body. And I discovered this big time about a decade
or so ago. I have talked a lot about sickness. One element of it was chronic fatigue, and
that was a very particular element that when I didnât recognize, âOh this is the stimulus!â I could be off on a cycle of reactivity for
quite a while. And what would happen, a sort of catching
on to the looping, as I would be really, really tired and then my thoughts would become very,
very grim and there would... then this complaining voice would kick in, and I would have pretty
much oppressed beleaguered persona that was complaining about everything and... and the
way it would jump into my attention is I started seeing the complaints be really petty stuff
with Jonathan, my husband. And that was my signal. And that became my signal. Like, whenever I would start complaining about
him in my mind - and I am talking about really petty, you know, so he really wasnât anything
wrong I promise - I would just say, âPlease donât believe this! Donât believe these thoughts! Please be here! And please be kind!â And I did it so much during that period because
I had so much chronic fatigue and because the complainer got so whiny and so persistent,
I got a huge amount of practice, and it really got... it really got installed , I mean, so
that... that... And I still get... I get phases of like many people of fatigue
that... that lasts in a way that all of a sudden I catch, âOh okay. So itâs this kind of thought. This kind of judgy or oppressed or whatever.â and there is... Mostly I can say that it is installed, there
is a lot less lag-time between having the complainer come up and this, âOh yeah, that! Just donât believe itâ And I donât even
go through the steps so much, there is like a... a much more quick sense of relaxing open
into a friendly presence, a kind of witnessing thatâs kind, more space, more ease. So now thus far I have been talking about
this in terms of a solo-practice. Okay, we are in our stimulus-reaction, looping,
and here is how we invite ourselves into not believing and being present and being kind. But I think it is important to say that we
are waking up together and we invite each other into it. When we are really really... being in loving
relationship with each other we help each other to remember to not believe and to come
back and to be kind. And itâs really important because we are
forgetting... the spiritual path is all forgetting and remembering. And even the idea that we are supposed to
do it on our own is another role in identity that we are hooked to. It is some glorious-hero-spiritual identity-thing. We are meant to wake up together. So it is in that spirit that I want to share
a story that I have always loved. And it is written in first person. âWhen I was a freshman in high school I
saw a kid from my class was walking home from school, his name was Kyle, he looked like
he was carrying all his books. I thought to myself, âWhy would anyone bring
all his books home on a Friday! He must be a real nerd. I had quite a weekend planned: football, football
game, parties etc. ... So I shrugged my shoulders and went on. As I was walking I saw a bunch of kids running
towards him. They ran at him knocking all his books out
of his arms and tripping him so he landed in the dirt. His glasses... glasses went flying and I saw
them land in the grass about ten feet from him. He looked up and I saw this terrible sadness
in his eyes and my heart went out to him. So I jogged over to him and as he crawled
around looking for his glasses I saw a tear. As I handed him the glasses, I said, âThose
guys are jerks. They really should get lives.â He looked at me and said, âHey, thanks!â
and there was this big smile on his face which was one of those smiles that showed real gratitude. I helped him pick up his books and asked him
where he lived. As it turned out he lived near me. So I asked him why I had never seen him before. He had gone to private school and was now
transferred over. I would have never hung out with a private
school kid before so we talked all the way home and I carried some of his books. Turned out to be a really cool kid. I asked him if he wanted to play a little
football with my friends and he said yes. We hung out all weekend; and the more I got
to know Kyle the more I liked him and my friends thought the same. Monday morning came and there was Kyle with
that huge stack of books again. I stopped and said, âBoy you are going to
build some muscles with this pile of books every day!â He just laughed and handed me half the books. Over the next four years, Kyle and I became
best friends. When we were seniors, we began to think about
college. Kyle decided on George Town, I was going to
Duke. I knew that we would always be friends, that
the miles would never be a problem. He was going to be a doctor, I was going for
business on a football scholarship. Kyle was valedictorian of our class. I teased him all the time about being a nerd. He had to prepare a speech for graduation. I was so glad it wasnât me having to get
up there and speak. Graduation day, I saw Kyle, and he looked
great, he was one of those guys who had really found himself during high school. He felt that I would not actually look good
in glasses .He had more dates than I had and all the girls loved him. Boy sometimes I was jealous and today was
one of those days. I could see he was nervous about his speech,
so I smacked him on the back and said, âHey big guy, youâll be great!â He looked at me with one of those looks, the
really grateful one, and smiled. As he started his speech he cleared his throat
and began: âGraduation is a time to thank those who helped you make it through those
tough years â your parents, your sisters, your siblings, maybe a coach â but mostly
your friends. I am here to tell you that being a friend
of someone is the best gift you can give them. And I am going to tell you a story.â I just looked at my friend with disbelief
as he told the story of the first day we met. He had planned to kill himself over the weekend. He talked about how he had cleaned out his
lockers so that his mom wouldnât have to do it later and was carrying his stuff home. He looked hard at me and gave me a little
smile. âThankfully I was saved. My friend saved me from doing the unspeakable.â I heard the gasp go through the crowd as this
well-loved boy told us all about his weakest moment. I saw his mom and dad looking at me and smiling
this same grateful smile. Not until that moment did I realize its depth. Never under-estimate the power of your caring. With one small gesture you can change a personâs
life.â We are really not in it alone. And sometimes when we are not actively involved
with others it is really important just to bring them to mind to remind us of caring
and connection. The opening quote, I want to read it again
as we begin to close this reflection, weâll do some reflecting together: âThe thought
becomes the word. The word manifests as the deed. The deed develops into the habit. The habit hardens into character. Character gives birth to destiny. So watch your thoughts with care and let them
spring from love born out of respect for all beings.â To the degree that we suffer we are believing
thoughts that are not true and we are caught in some kind of reactive looping that is keeping
us identified with something that is smaller than the truth of who we are. So we all need ways to remember. I have been talking about remembering with
each other. We all need practices of... of presence. I remember when I first heard Mahatma Ghandiâs
story, he said that... âI take off a day each week to meditate
so that Iâll be then all my actions will come from the wisest part of my being, my
higher self.â We need to train ourselves. We need the time to pause and to learn not
to believe our thoughts, to pause and to come into presence, to pause and be kind, so that
we can be living, inhabiting, the highest part of our being. And what happens when we train that way, with
each other and alone, is that we more and more... itâs again the word trait... rather
than it being something like, âOkay, I am in a switch from reactivity, respondingâ
more and more is that we are expressing from our spirit. Itâs almost like we have de-conditioned
the interference and that flow of light and love comes through in a very natural way,
itâs just spontaneous. There is a triggering and then there is a
spontaneous remembrance and then a flow through. Short story of a great Argentino golfer who
once won a tournament and after receiving a cheque and smiling for the cameras he prepared
to leave. And he was relatively new at this so he walked
alone into the parking lot. And he was approached by a young woman who
congratulated him and then told him that her son was seriously ill and near death. She didnât know if she could pay for the
doctor and hospital expenses. And he who was known as a gentleman was so
touched by her story he took the pen and endorsed the dayâs winning story and pressed in her
hand and said, âMake some good days for the baby.â Couple of weeks later, he sat in another country
club one of the officials came over and said: âSome of the boys in the parking lot at
that last tournament told us what happened with that young woman you met.â He nodded. âWell,â said the official, âI have news
for you. She is a phony. She has no sick baby. She has no children at all. She has fleeced you, my friend.â âYou mean there is no baby who is dying?â
said Roberto. âThatâs right,â said the official. âWhy thatâs the best news I have heard
all week!â It just becomes who we are, becomes who we
are, we... itâs really that we have realized who we really are. So we close together in a simple way just
taking some moments, as we have been describing, to pause together. And you might bring to mind some situation
where you get triggered and I probably encourage you not to bring one where you get triggered
in a very huge or traumatic way but somewhat triggered, medium-triggered, where you get
irritated or you get judgmental, maybe hurt or defensive... in some way reactive. It could be a situation with another person
or if it is something to do with your health or traffic, it doesnât matter, whatever
it is, whatever triggers you. Put yourself into this situation enough so
you can get a taste of it right now. This is just to give you a taste, and then
you can practice as you go. But when it is going on, what are the thoughts
that are going on in your mind? What are you believing? What are you believing about other people
or yourself? What are you telling yourself about the world? And you might explore just saying to yourself
something like, âPlease donât believe your thoughts! You donât have to believe these beliefs! They are real but not true.â And then invite yourself into presence, say,
you know, âPlease just come right here!â and feel what is going on in your body, your
heart, maybe your throat or your belly, so just, âPlease may I just contact and connect
with a kind of an intimate presence of what is right here!â You might breathe with it. And the third invitation, âPlease may I
relate with kindness! May I remember loveâ And for now you may
want to just put that gesture of lightly touching the heart and sense if there is any message
that would most bring healing, wisdom, comfort, more truth to your own being. And in this responding instead of reacting
just sense your own experience right now of presence. The quality of heart and awareness thatâs
right here. Sensing the possibility of homecoming to a
more full expression of your being; the light, the spirit, the heart, the truth thatâs
really your essence. May we each discover this pathway of homecoming
in a way that really allows us to trust our natural being. And may we live our days from this presence,
from this loving. Namaste and thank you.
Hi OP , any chance you could give the exact timestamp (or thereabouts) for when she raises the CFS context ? A portion of us can't follow consecutive minutes of video content so that would be awesome if you could :)
Chronic fatigue is not me/cfs...
*this talk
Awesome! Love her. Thanks đ