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

So welcome.

I'd like to start tonight with a short story about a family with a young son and a night

there was a horrendous thunderstorm and the child was very scared of the lightning and

thunder so he'd cry out and each time the father would come into the room and calm him

down and then say don't be scared, God is with you.

So this happened several times and finally the last time the little boy said I know

God is with me but right now I need someone with skin on.

So the last class that we had together we explored what are called the three

refuges which are really the three gateways to realizing the fullness and truth of who

we are and the first gateways awareness are described as Buddha nature.

The second the Dharma is truth which is really the truth of right here now.

So there's awareness, there's truth and the third song which is spiritual community

is really taking refuge in loving connection in our relatedness.

So this is where we'll be spending some time tonight exploring that third refuge.

And as I said to one friend here we could decide to do it for the next few decades

and we'd keep on finding new ways of discovering how to come home in that refuge.

What happens as we mature on the path is that the very meaning of taking refuge becomes

radically deepened and so there's the classical notion of taking refuge from the harshness

of the world that we're trying to get away from something unsafe and dangerous and

go somewhere else and that's what shifts.

And I got an email from one friend in the community who described for herself the shift

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