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

I'm going to be exploring three key capacities.

They're building capacities that when we nourish them, they really become a pathway to free our hearts.

I'll be organizing these three classes around an ancient story from the Upanishads that I've told on and off over the years.

Every time I revisit it, I find nuances that inspire me, so I get motivated to re-enter it with you.

I'm going to read a bit from this story, the main character is a young man named Nachikata.

He's the son of a rich merchant who happens to be a very miserly guy.

His father was making these donations in order to receive a gift from the gods and his son noticed that he was donating only cows that were old, lame or blind.

He challenged him publicly. He pointed it out. In his shame and his anger, his father said, I give you the yama, which is death, God of death, which is the same thing as saying go to hell.

Nachikata took a very concrete thing, so he went off into the dense forest searching for death.

He sat waiting for death to appear and he sat through hunger and pain and exhaustion until he arrived in the land of yama.

He was greeted by death's three assistants, pestilence, famine and war. They told him that death was out. He was out collecting rent or something like that.

He waited patiently for three days. When yama arrived, realizing the boy's dedication and sincerity, he offered him any three boons or blessings or gifts that he might want for his spiritual journey.

Nachikata's first wish was that he might find peace with his father that I'll be forgiven because he knew he couldn't continue the journey of his heart was armored if he had pushed his father out of his heart.

So that gift was granted and his heart was quite open and free. His second wish that he asked for was inner fire.

It's the sacred fire that brings the path alive. It's really the energy and juice and aspiration that carries us forward in a kind of wholehearted or devoted way.

And so Lord Yama granted that gift and this meant that Nachikata really had the energy to move forward.

The third wish was he said, I want to realize the truth of what is beyond death, the mystery of that which is timeless and immortal.

So Lord Yama was a surprise with this last boon. He said, you know, you can have anything. You can have beautiful maidens and the fastest steeds around, palaces, you know, whatever.

But Nachikata was easily derailed. And he said, won't all of these things return eventually to your kingdom, Lord Yama?

And Lord of Death agreed and he gave him his final gift and it was a mirror.

And he said he couldn't give him the wisdom itself, but it would arise as he looked directly into his own heart and mind and asked that most core question on the spiritual path, which is, who am I?

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