it’s an amazing time in the culture that
there would be a gathering like this and
really it indicates this evolution of
consciousness I mean I think of it as
most people are aware that physical
exercise is beneficial is actually
essential for our physical and
well-being and more and more in the
collective psyche it’s being understood
that if we train our attention we train
our awareness we actually cultivate
these qualities of mental clarity of
emotional well-being really a wisdom and
compassion
I think of mindfulness training as an
evolutionary strategy that maximizes our
human potential that maximizes our human
potential I had heard a story recently
where mindfulness would have been really
handy there is a group of students of
high school students in Montana and they
had three goats and they painted on them
go they painted one two and four and
they released them into the school and
the admin shut down the school for the
day looking for goat number three so so
mindfulness of the moment what’s
happening right here and the useful
definition rich really was describing it
beautifully mindfulness means paying
attention on purpose to the present
moment and the qualities that really
make a difference and we’ll be
practicing together our friendliness
interest and non judgment now when we
talk about mindfulness meditation here
through the morning we’re talking about
the formal practices that actually
cultivate a mindful awareness and one of
the first trainings that really is at
the ground level is learning to pause I
call it the sacred art of pausing
because it’s quite radical we’re
typically rolling into the next moment
with our thoughts and our behaviors and
so being able to just stop being able to
settle into what’s right here really
interrupts some of our most deepest
conditioning and habits so in the spirit
of the day I thought we’d start with a
collective pause and I’d like to invite
you if you will this is to help
declutter the in bin to invite you to
just close your eyes for a few moments
this will be our first experiential
practice so closing your eyes and as you
close your eyes take some moments to
feel your body breathing just feel the
breath and begin to let the breath
become a more long full deep breath so
inhale deeply really filling the lungs
filling the chest and then with the
out-breath a very slow out-breath slowly
enough that you can feel the sensations
of the breath as it leaves and then
again a nice deep full in-breath so you
and a slow out-breath and see what
inside your body might want to let go a
little you might even just mentally
whisper letting go one more time nice
deep full in-breath slow out-breath
releasing letting go relaxing and then
just let your breath resume and its
natural rhythm see if you can relax with
the inflow and outflow and let your
census view awake so you’re aware of the
sounds around you aware of your
and again aware of the movement of the
breath and then the most deep way
perhaps aware of your own presence right
now to notice the quality of your
presence poet Martha postulate says do
not try to save the whole world or do
anything grandiose instead create a
clearing in the dense forests of your
life and wait there patiently until the
song that is your life falls into your
own cupped hands and you recognize and
greet it only then will you know how to
give yourself to this world so worthy of
rescue do not try to save the whole
world or do anything grandiose instead
create a clearing in the dense forest of
your life create a clearing in the dense
would you’d like to open your eyes
please do it’s so easy to get stressed
and feel like we’re on our way somewhere
else to have the kind of inner mantra
that there’s not enough time to feel as
William James but at the ceaseless
frenzy of always thinking we should be
doing something else and when we’re in
the grip of that we lose touch with what
matters to us we lose touch with what’s
important I heard about a palliative
care giver who worked with thousands of
people who was by their bedside as they
were dying and she reported that the
greatest single regret of the dying was
I didn’t live true to myself I lived
according to the expectations of others
and turtle I should that I didn’t live
true to myself I didn’t live really from
the full aliveness that’s here a
creativity our heart now from an
evolutionary perspective the reason this
happens is that when we get stressed we
quite regularly lose contact with the
more full mature of all parts of our
being and get hijacked and what I mean
by hijacked is that our attention gets
commandeered by the more primitive parts
of our brain and when that happens it’s
really fear-based we’re operating out of
fear so what I’d like to do is take a
moment to describe more how this
hijacking happens because if we
understand it then when we get stressed
we can interrupt the patterning with
mindfulness and my favorite illustration
comes from psychiatrist author and
friend Dan Siegel who uses a model of
the hand as the brain and and you might
put your hand out in front of you right
now just as I’m doing and you bring your
thumb into the pad of your hand and then
wrap your four fingers over
that and this is your brain it’s a
pretty good realistic model of the brain
and now just to unpack it a little bit
more if you’ve opened your hand again
the wrist is actually your spinal column
going up into the brainstem at the base
of the palm and the thumb is your limbic
system and the brainstem of the limbic
system act together to really regulate
arousal fight flight freeze emotionality
and so on and then these four fingers
that wrap over this is the cortex and
the cortex allows us to think and reason
and the frontal part of the cortex the
prefrontal cortex and that’s right
behind the forehead is really the site
correlated with mindfulness and empathy
it’s also importantly the part of our
brain that regulates the subcortical the
limbic and the brainstem now the reason
this is important is because when we’re
stressed when we’re tired when somebody
criticizes us or we’re in conflict in
some way it’s very easy for us to flip
our lid okay and what that means is in
those moments we’re no longer connected
to our strongest resources our Intel our
full intelligence we’re no longer
connected to a wise decision making
we’re no longer connected even to moral
reasoning and empathy so what we do then
and what we are coming to realize is
that it’s really critical to have an
integrated brain where the prefrontal
cortex is activated and strong which is
where mindfulness comes in now I want to
say one of the inner stressors that most
makes us inclined to flip our lid
because this feels really relevant to
most of us and that is we have a
pervasive I think of it almost as an
epidemic of a fear of failure of a sense
of deficiency or inadequacy and when
we’re going
with that kind of core fear of not
okayness it’s much more likely to flip
our lid it shows up as self-judgment as
kind of a perfectionism I saw a cartoon
with a dog on a psychiatrist’s couch and
the dog is saying it’s always good dog
this and good dog that but is it ever a
great dog you know and we know what it’s
like what’s the sense this chronic sense
of not enough and I remember when I was
on book tour my first book radical
acceptance really focuses on what I call
the trance of unworthiness and I went to
a college campus or as doing a workshop
they had a big poster announcing it and
a big picture of me and the caption
underneath was something is wrong with
me so just to say that if we walk around
and move through our lives with a sense
of not enough with a sense of personal
failure are about to fail it’s huge
suffering it means we really can’t be
intimate with others because they’ll
find out really who we are we can’t get
close it makes it hard to take risks at
work and in a deep way we can’t relax we
can’t feel at home in ourselves and this
sense of not okay is particularly
virulent and exacerbated by the kind of
culture we live in competitive
individualistic we all have standards we
have to meet it’s not like we can just
naturally feel a sense of belonging to
family school work we have standards to
meet and one of the standards is
intelligence and I think so often of all
the children that go through school and
are trying to meet the kind of
intelligence our culture worships a very
one band of left-brain intelligence and
come out feeling stupid because they
didn’t meet that standard and then of
course there are many other standards
how we’re supposed to look the dominant
culture sets the standards and often
sets it on the skin color that’s
superior
what our sexual preferences should be
how our achievements of look even in
spiritual communities there are the
sense of these standards of how you’re
supposed to be I love this little essay
it says if you could start the day
without caffeine or Pet Pals if you
could be cheerful ignoring aches and
pains if you can resist complaining and
boring people with your troubles if you
can take criticism and blame without
resentment if you can face the world
without lies and deceit if you can
conquer tension without medical help if
you can relax without liquor if you
could sleep without the aid of drugs
then you are probably a dog so I want to
say that the tendency to get caught in
stress to get hijacked to live out of
that fear conditioning it’s a primal
part of our brain and it’s natural it’s
part of the story of our unfolding and
it’s not the end of the evolutionary
story and so just say we all have the
capacity for mindful awareness
mindfulness started emerging about
75,000 to 100,000 years ago with the
rapid development of mirror neurons and
the emergence of this network in the
prefrontal cortex and that correlated
with human evolution going on hyper
drive with the development of tools
language collaboration okay
so what that means is during this period
we humans develop the capacity for a
mindful awareness that includes these
two wings and one wing is the wing of
being able to witness and see what’s
happening in the moment and the other
wing is the wing of being able to hold
that with kindness mindfulness and
heartfulness and neuroscience confirms
that when we practice meditation we
actually strengthen these two wings
an example to give you of how impactful
they can be as a man who had Alzheimer’s
and he’d been meditating for ten years
he was presenting to a crowd of a
hundred people and he went totally blank
he had no idea what he was supposed to
say or why he was there so what he did
was he paused and he put his palms
together and he just started naming what
he was experiencing confused and then he
bowed embarrassed and bow afraid bow
heart-pounding bow this went on for a
bit and then he finally said relaxing
and he bowed and then he apologized and
and as you might imagine some people had
had tears in their eyes and one person
said you know no one has ever given us
the teachings in this way and what had
he done
well first he didn’t do anything he
paused Viktor Frankl says that between
the stimulus and the response there is a
space and in that space is our power and
our freedom ok so he paused found that
power and the freedom to respond
differently and then he began naming
what he was aware of which is a tool of
mindfulness to recognize and witness
what’s here
the shaman say that if you can name a
fear it loses some of its power over you
so he named what he was aware of and
then he bowed which is a way of saying
yes are saying it’s ok this is reality
it’s a wise hearts response to reality
so I’d like to do is take a few moments
and give you an opportunity just to
experiment with bringing these two wings
of mindfulness and heartfulness to a
place of stress in your life and as a
way to begin again I’d like to have you
do I pick a situation that you know
triggers you might be something at work
or at home an important relationship or
my trigger anxiety or anger self
just as if you’re watching a movie go to
the worst part go to the what’s most
difficult and just let the frame freeze
there and you might sense into in those
moments what you’re really believing are
you believing that I’m failing or others
don’t care feeling rejected that you’re
about to lose something valuable or
health job money relationship when
you’re in that stressful place what are
you believing and feel into your body
and since what does that experience like
in your body in your heart you might
even ask the question what am i
unwilling to feel because often it’s
hard for us to feel into our bodies and
our hearts and this is where we bring
the two wings of attention you can
breathe and feel what’s here and just
begin to name what you’re aware of you
might be naming anxiety you might be
naming hurt fear maybe squeeze in the
chest or heart pounding and see if as
you name what’s going on you can just
let it be there you can say yes to it
just as this man did with bowing naming
you might deepen the letting be by even
offering some kindness on purpose to
what’s here when I’ve been very caught
in situations that are emotional and
difficult sometimes I’ll name it and
then I’ll put my hand on my heart and
and just offer a message like it’s okay
and if you want to be really
experimental now you might exciting the
heart area lightly and sending some
message of kindness to yourself and just
notice what that’s like notice what
happens when you’re simply naming what’s
naming what’s here and offering kindness
the gift of these two wings of mindful
attention are that there can be a shift
in our sense of our identity we can
shift from being the fearful self the
victimized self to really opening into
that awareness that’s intrinsically kind
and open just take a few more breaths
feeling your own presence and knowing
that you can bring these two wings to
your experience in any moment now last
kind of PSO on a cover with you is that
the way that we bring these qualities of
attention inward I sometimes think of
them as a tend and befriend and in about
evolutionary sense we’re going from
fight flight freeze to attend and
befriend as we do it in wordly we are
activating the parts of the brain the
regions of the brain that actually help
us attune to other people more deeply
we’re activating our capacity for
compassion for empathy and in contrast
when we are in reactivity when we
flipped a bit when we’re hijacked were
actually cut off from our capacity to
really attune to others heard this story
from a Unitarian minister who describes
a family trip and they’re traveling on
Christmas Day with their two children
and they stopped at a restaurant and she
flunks her son Eric into the high school
the high chair and he starts saying hi
there hi there two words he thought were
one and she looks at what the source of
his Merry Men innocence she can’t take
it in all at once I’m gonna read you
what she writes she says a tattered rag
of a coat baggy pants both a and the
zipper at half-mast over a spindly body
gums as bare as Eric’s and his hands
flapping in the air
flapping about unloose wrists hi there
baby hi there big boy I see you buster
my husband and I exchanged a look that
was a cross between what do we do and
poor devil Eric continues to laugh an
answer hi there
every call was echoed this old geezer
was creating a nuisance with my baby I
shove a cracker at Eric and he
pulverized it on the tray I whispered
why me under my breath our meal came in
the nuisance continued now the old bum
was shouting from across the room do you
know pattycake
do you know peekaboo Hey look he knows
peekaboo we ate in silence except Eric
who’s running through his repertoire for
the admiring applause of a Skid Row bum
finally we had enough and Dennis went to
pay the check imploring me to get Eric
and meet me in the parking lot i trundle
Derek out of the highchair and look
toward the exit the old man sat Poisson
waiting his chair directly between me
and the door Lord just let me out of
here before he speaks to me or Eric I
head to the door it soon becomes
apparent that both the Lord and Eric
have other plans as I draw closer to the
man I turned my back walking to sidestep
him and any air he might be breathing
and as I did so Eric leans is over and
his pick-me-up position and a
split-second of balancing Eric was
lunching for him arms spread wide
the bums eyes both asked and implored
would you let me hold your baby there’s
no need to answer
Eric propelled himself into the man’s
arms and suddenly a very old man and a
very young baby were involved in a love
relationship
Eric laid his tiny head on the man’s
ragged shoulder the man’s eyes closed
and I saw tears hover beneath his lashes
his aged hands full of grime he stroked
my baby and I stood awestruck he said to
me you take care of this baby and
somehow I managed I will from a throat
that contained a stone he pried Eric
from his chest unwillingly longingly as
though he was in pain I held my arms
open to receive my baby and again the
gentleman addressed me god bless you
ma’am you’ve given me my Christmas gift
I said nothing more
than a muttered thanks with Eric back in
my arms I ran for the car and Dennis
wondered why I was crying and holding
Eric so tightly and why I was saying my
I wanted to end with this story for an
important reason the Dalai Lama said my
religion is kindness he described
compassion as really the hope for our
world and as we practice these two wings
of awareness we wake up instead of being
stressed and seeing others as what I
call unreal others where we really are
just seeing their mask we start seeing
the beauty the vulnerability and the
mystery of who’s here and really in a
way if we could all slow down and pause
create that clearing and just begin to
notice what’s happening in the moment
and open our hearts to it we’d end up
being in a world that was much more
filled with peace much more filled with
an open awake human heart so closing
prayer if you will just as a
contemplation you might close your eyes
in the name of daybreak the eyelids of
mourning and the wayfarer moon and the
night when it departs I swear I will not
dishonor my soul with hatred but offer
myself humbly as a guardian of nature as
a healer of misery as a messenger of
wonder as an architect of peace in the
name of the Sun and it’s mirrors and the
uttermost night and the crowning seasons
of the Firefly and the Apple I will
honor all life wherever and in whatever
form it may dwell on earth my home and
in the mansions of the Stars thank you
and bless you all [Applause]
there would be a gathering like this and
really it indicates this evolution of
consciousness I mean I think of it as
most people are aware that physical
exercise is beneficial is actually
essential for our physical and
well-being and more and more in the
collective psyche it’s being understood
that if we train our attention we train
our awareness we actually cultivate
these qualities of mental clarity of
emotional well-being really a wisdom and
compassion
I think of mindfulness training as an
evolutionary strategy that maximizes our
human potential that maximizes our human
potential I had heard a story recently
where mindfulness would have been really
handy there is a group of students of
high school students in Montana and they
had three goats and they painted on them
go they painted one two and four and
they released them into the school and
the admin shut down the school for the
day looking for goat number three so so
mindfulness of the moment what’s
happening right here and the useful
definition rich really was describing it
beautifully mindfulness means paying
attention on purpose to the present
moment and the qualities that really
make a difference and we’ll be
practicing together our friendliness
interest and non judgment now when we
talk about mindfulness meditation here
through the morning we’re talking about
the formal practices that actually
cultivate a mindful awareness and one of
the first trainings that really is at
the ground level is learning to pause I
call it the sacred art of pausing
because it’s quite radical we’re
typically rolling into the next moment
with our thoughts and our behaviors and
so being able to just stop being able to
settle into what’s right here really
interrupts some of our most deepest
conditioning and habits so in the spirit
of the day I thought we’d start with a
collective pause and I’d like to invite
you if you will this is to help
declutter the in bin to invite you to
just close your eyes for a few moments
this will be our first experiential
practice so closing your eyes and as you
close your eyes take some moments to
feel your body breathing just feel the
breath and begin to let the breath
become a more long full deep breath so
inhale deeply really filling the lungs
filling the chest and then with the
out-breath a very slow out-breath slowly
enough that you can feel the sensations
of the breath as it leaves and then
again a nice deep full in-breath so you
and a slow out-breath and see what
inside your body might want to let go a
little you might even just mentally
whisper letting go one more time nice
deep full in-breath slow out-breath
releasing letting go relaxing and then
just let your breath resume and its
natural rhythm see if you can relax with
the inflow and outflow and let your
census view awake so you’re aware of the
sounds around you aware of your
and again aware of the movement of the
breath and then the most deep way
perhaps aware of your own presence right
now to notice the quality of your
presence poet Martha postulate says do
not try to save the whole world or do
anything grandiose instead create a
clearing in the dense forests of your
life and wait there patiently until the
song that is your life falls into your
own cupped hands and you recognize and
greet it only then will you know how to
give yourself to this world so worthy of
rescue do not try to save the whole
world or do anything grandiose instead
create a clearing in the dense forest of
your life create a clearing in the dense
would you’d like to open your eyes
please do it’s so easy to get stressed
and feel like we’re on our way somewhere
else to have the kind of inner mantra
that there’s not enough time to feel as
William James but at the ceaseless
frenzy of always thinking we should be
doing something else and when we’re in
the grip of that we lose touch with what
matters to us we lose touch with what’s
important I heard about a palliative
care giver who worked with thousands of
people who was by their bedside as they
were dying and she reported that the
greatest single regret of the dying was
I didn’t live true to myself I lived
according to the expectations of others
and turtle I should that I didn’t live
true to myself I didn’t live really from
the full aliveness that’s here a
creativity our heart now from an
evolutionary perspective the reason this
happens is that when we get stressed we
quite regularly lose contact with the
more full mature of all parts of our
being and get hijacked and what I mean
by hijacked is that our attention gets
commandeered by the more primitive parts
of our brain and when that happens it’s
really fear-based we’re operating out of
fear so what I’d like to do is take a
moment to describe more how this
hijacking happens because if we
understand it then when we get stressed
we can interrupt the patterning with
mindfulness and my favorite illustration
comes from psychiatrist author and
friend Dan Siegel who uses a model of
the hand as the brain and and you might
put your hand out in front of you right
now just as I’m doing and you bring your
thumb into the pad of your hand and then
wrap your four fingers over
that and this is your brain it’s a
pretty good realistic model of the brain
and now just to unpack it a little bit
more if you’ve opened your hand again
the wrist is actually your spinal column
going up into the brainstem at the base
of the palm and the thumb is your limbic
system and the brainstem of the limbic
system act together to really regulate
arousal fight flight freeze emotionality
and so on and then these four fingers
that wrap over this is the cortex and
the cortex allows us to think and reason
and the frontal part of the cortex the
prefrontal cortex and that’s right
behind the forehead is really the site
correlated with mindfulness and empathy
it’s also importantly the part of our
brain that regulates the subcortical the
limbic and the brainstem now the reason
this is important is because when we’re
stressed when we’re tired when somebody
criticizes us or we’re in conflict in
some way it’s very easy for us to flip
our lid okay and what that means is in
those moments we’re no longer connected
to our strongest resources our Intel our
full intelligence we’re no longer
connected to a wise decision making
we’re no longer connected even to moral
reasoning and empathy so what we do then
and what we are coming to realize is
that it’s really critical to have an
integrated brain where the prefrontal
cortex is activated and strong which is
where mindfulness comes in now I want to
say one of the inner stressors that most
makes us inclined to flip our lid
because this feels really relevant to
most of us and that is we have a
pervasive I think of it almost as an
epidemic of a fear of failure of a sense
of deficiency or inadequacy and when
we’re going
with that kind of core fear of not
okayness it’s much more likely to flip
our lid it shows up as self-judgment as
kind of a perfectionism I saw a cartoon
with a dog on a psychiatrist’s couch and
the dog is saying it’s always good dog
this and good dog that but is it ever a
great dog you know and we know what it’s
like what’s the sense this chronic sense
of not enough and I remember when I was
on book tour my first book radical
acceptance really focuses on what I call
the trance of unworthiness and I went to
a college campus or as doing a workshop
they had a big poster announcing it and
a big picture of me and the caption
underneath was something is wrong with
me so just to say that if we walk around
and move through our lives with a sense
of not enough with a sense of personal
failure are about to fail it’s huge
suffering it means we really can’t be
intimate with others because they’ll
find out really who we are we can’t get
close it makes it hard to take risks at
work and in a deep way we can’t relax we
can’t feel at home in ourselves and this
sense of not okay is particularly
virulent and exacerbated by the kind of
culture we live in competitive
individualistic we all have standards we
have to meet it’s not like we can just
naturally feel a sense of belonging to
family school work we have standards to
meet and one of the standards is
intelligence and I think so often of all
the children that go through school and
are trying to meet the kind of
intelligence our culture worships a very
one band of left-brain intelligence and
come out feeling stupid because they
didn’t meet that standard and then of
course there are many other standards
how we’re supposed to look the dominant
culture sets the standards and often
sets it on the skin color that’s
superior
what our sexual preferences should be
how our achievements of look even in
spiritual communities there are the
sense of these standards of how you’re
supposed to be I love this little essay
it says if you could start the day
without caffeine or Pet Pals if you
could be cheerful ignoring aches and
pains if you can resist complaining and
boring people with your troubles if you
can take criticism and blame without
resentment if you can face the world
without lies and deceit if you can
conquer tension without medical help if
you can relax without liquor if you
could sleep without the aid of drugs
then you are probably a dog so I want to
say that the tendency to get caught in
stress to get hijacked to live out of
that fear conditioning it’s a primal
part of our brain and it’s natural it’s
part of the story of our unfolding and
it’s not the end of the evolutionary
story and so just say we all have the
capacity for mindful awareness
mindfulness started emerging about
75,000 to 100,000 years ago with the
rapid development of mirror neurons and
the emergence of this network in the
prefrontal cortex and that correlated
with human evolution going on hyper
drive with the development of tools
language collaboration okay
so what that means is during this period
we humans develop the capacity for a
mindful awareness that includes these
two wings and one wing is the wing of
being able to witness and see what’s
happening in the moment and the other
wing is the wing of being able to hold
that with kindness mindfulness and
heartfulness and neuroscience confirms
that when we practice meditation we
actually strengthen these two wings
an example to give you of how impactful
they can be as a man who had Alzheimer’s
and he’d been meditating for ten years
he was presenting to a crowd of a
hundred people and he went totally blank
he had no idea what he was supposed to
say or why he was there so what he did
was he paused and he put his palms
together and he just started naming what
he was experiencing confused and then he
bowed embarrassed and bow afraid bow
heart-pounding bow this went on for a
bit and then he finally said relaxing
and he bowed and then he apologized and
and as you might imagine some people had
had tears in their eyes and one person
said you know no one has ever given us
the teachings in this way and what had
he done
well first he didn’t do anything he
paused Viktor Frankl says that between
the stimulus and the response there is a
space and in that space is our power and
our freedom ok so he paused found that
power and the freedom to respond
differently and then he began naming
what he was aware of which is a tool of
mindfulness to recognize and witness
what’s here
the shaman say that if you can name a
fear it loses some of its power over you
so he named what he was aware of and
then he bowed which is a way of saying
yes are saying it’s ok this is reality
it’s a wise hearts response to reality
so I’d like to do is take a few moments
and give you an opportunity just to
experiment with bringing these two wings
of mindfulness and heartfulness to a
place of stress in your life and as a
way to begin again I’d like to have you
do I pick a situation that you know
triggers you might be something at work
or at home an important relationship or
my trigger anxiety or anger self
just as if you’re watching a movie go to
the worst part go to the what’s most
difficult and just let the frame freeze
there and you might sense into in those
moments what you’re really believing are
you believing that I’m failing or others
don’t care feeling rejected that you’re
about to lose something valuable or
health job money relationship when
you’re in that stressful place what are
you believing and feel into your body
and since what does that experience like
in your body in your heart you might
even ask the question what am i
unwilling to feel because often it’s
hard for us to feel into our bodies and
our hearts and this is where we bring
the two wings of attention you can
breathe and feel what’s here and just
begin to name what you’re aware of you
might be naming anxiety you might be
naming hurt fear maybe squeeze in the
chest or heart pounding and see if as
you name what’s going on you can just
let it be there you can say yes to it
just as this man did with bowing naming
you might deepen the letting be by even
offering some kindness on purpose to
what’s here when I’ve been very caught
in situations that are emotional and
difficult sometimes I’ll name it and
then I’ll put my hand on my heart and
and just offer a message like it’s okay
and if you want to be really
experimental now you might exciting the
heart area lightly and sending some
message of kindness to yourself and just
notice what that’s like notice what
happens when you’re simply naming what’s
naming what’s here and offering kindness
the gift of these two wings of mindful
attention are that there can be a shift
in our sense of our identity we can
shift from being the fearful self the
victimized self to really opening into
that awareness that’s intrinsically kind
and open just take a few more breaths
feeling your own presence and knowing
that you can bring these two wings to
your experience in any moment now last
kind of PSO on a cover with you is that
the way that we bring these qualities of
attention inward I sometimes think of
them as a tend and befriend and in about
evolutionary sense we’re going from
fight flight freeze to attend and
befriend as we do it in wordly we are
activating the parts of the brain the
regions of the brain that actually help
us attune to other people more deeply
we’re activating our capacity for
compassion for empathy and in contrast
when we are in reactivity when we
flipped a bit when we’re hijacked were
actually cut off from our capacity to
really attune to others heard this story
from a Unitarian minister who describes
a family trip and they’re traveling on
Christmas Day with their two children
and they stopped at a restaurant and she
flunks her son Eric into the high school
the high chair and he starts saying hi
there hi there two words he thought were
one and she looks at what the source of
his Merry Men innocence she can’t take
it in all at once I’m gonna read you
what she writes she says a tattered rag
of a coat baggy pants both a and the
zipper at half-mast over a spindly body
gums as bare as Eric’s and his hands
flapping in the air
flapping about unloose wrists hi there
baby hi there big boy I see you buster
my husband and I exchanged a look that
was a cross between what do we do and
poor devil Eric continues to laugh an
answer hi there
every call was echoed this old geezer
was creating a nuisance with my baby I
shove a cracker at Eric and he
pulverized it on the tray I whispered
why me under my breath our meal came in
the nuisance continued now the old bum
was shouting from across the room do you
know pattycake
do you know peekaboo Hey look he knows
peekaboo we ate in silence except Eric
who’s running through his repertoire for
the admiring applause of a Skid Row bum
finally we had enough and Dennis went to
pay the check imploring me to get Eric
and meet me in the parking lot i trundle
Derek out of the highchair and look
toward the exit the old man sat Poisson
waiting his chair directly between me
and the door Lord just let me out of
here before he speaks to me or Eric I
head to the door it soon becomes
apparent that both the Lord and Eric
have other plans as I draw closer to the
man I turned my back walking to sidestep
him and any air he might be breathing
and as I did so Eric leans is over and
his pick-me-up position and a
split-second of balancing Eric was
lunching for him arms spread wide
the bums eyes both asked and implored
would you let me hold your baby there’s
no need to answer
Eric propelled himself into the man’s
arms and suddenly a very old man and a
very young baby were involved in a love
relationship
Eric laid his tiny head on the man’s
ragged shoulder the man’s eyes closed
and I saw tears hover beneath his lashes
his aged hands full of grime he stroked
my baby and I stood awestruck he said to
me you take care of this baby and
somehow I managed I will from a throat
that contained a stone he pried Eric
from his chest unwillingly longingly as
though he was in pain I held my arms
open to receive my baby and again the
gentleman addressed me god bless you
ma’am you’ve given me my Christmas gift
I said nothing more
than a muttered thanks with Eric back in
my arms I ran for the car and Dennis
wondered why I was crying and holding
Eric so tightly and why I was saying my
I wanted to end with this story for an
important reason the Dalai Lama said my
religion is kindness he described
compassion as really the hope for our
world and as we practice these two wings
of awareness we wake up instead of being
stressed and seeing others as what I
call unreal others where we really are
just seeing their mask we start seeing
the beauty the vulnerability and the
mystery of who’s here and really in a
way if we could all slow down and pause
create that clearing and just begin to
notice what’s happening in the moment
and open our hearts to it we’d end up
being in a world that was much more
filled with peace much more filled with
an open awake human heart so closing
prayer if you will just as a
contemplation you might close your eyes
in the name of daybreak the eyelids of
mourning and the wayfarer moon and the
night when it departs I swear I will not
dishonor my soul with hatred but offer
myself humbly as a guardian of nature as
a healer of misery as a messenger of
wonder as an architect of peace in the
name of the Sun and it’s mirrors and the
uttermost night and the crowning seasons
of the Firefly and the Apple I will
honor all life wherever and in whatever
form it may dwell on earth my home and
in the mansions of the Stars thank you
and bless you all [Applause]
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