The following talk is given by Tara Brock, meditation teacher, psychologist and author.

Music

Good evening.

One of my favorite phrases from the time of the Buddha, this is from the Polish script, is Ahe Pastico.

The meaning is, come and see for yourself.

What it communicates is that this is not a path of listening and believing what other people say.

It can be useful, it can be pointers.

It's really a path of direct investigation.

The only freedom, the only liberation comes from actually checking out and finding out what is happening in this mind.

Right here, right now.

In the Buddhist teachings inquiry, our investigation is considered one of the key factors of enlightenment.

One of the key features that actually allows us to wake into a full awareness.

It's basically considered that the very nature of investigating will reveal truth.

We practice out of love for truth.

One of the traditional metaphors, life, and really helpful, is just to imagine a dark room filled with furniture and what happens when you turn on the light.

If you keep it off, you kind of bumble around, you keep knocking against the furniture.

If we start shining a light on the room, then we begin to change our patterns.

We don't have to bump against furniture and bruise ourselves.

So the key to understanding transformation is that we're all patterned.

We all have conditioning that has us repeat certain behaviors out of fear, out of grasping, out of ignorance,

and that it's not until we investigate and see those patterns that we can change them.

So we begin to notice, okay, what is it that's going on when I get this addiction to food or to a certain person or to a certain activity or what is going on when I'm constantly doubting myself and I'm constantly grip with feeling not enough?

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