Greetings, we offer these podcasts freely and your support really makes a difference.

To make a donation, please visit Tarabrock.com. come. Namst day. Welcome friends and welcome back. This is part two of our two-part series on cultivating

a courageous heart. Maybe I'll begin with one of my favorite little cartoons where you see these two women behind a locked door and they're peeping through the window at a monster, this huge gross monster on the doorstep. One saying together,

calm down Edna. Yes, it is a giant hideous insect, but maybe it's a giant hideous insect in need of help.

I said perhaps a little more eloquently

we've got Ralco who writes,

perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses

who are only waiting to see us act just once with beauty and courage. Perhaps everything that frightens us is in its deepest essence

something helpless that wants our love. I love that quote. It really always reminds me that whatever I'm running away from within myself. The fears in particular are really a calling to deepen attention.

So in these two talks, courage is not a lack of fear. It's how we respond in the face of fear.

And so many have shared with me in these last many months how much fear they're experiencing

right here in the United States for what's unfolding right this fall with our elections but more broadly in our world.

And fear, when it's unprocessed turns to aggression. Fear when it's not faced actually has us create

more separation. We can go the different direction.

As Relka and his writing suggests,

we can invite forward instead a really courageous kind of love.

In this talk really we're focusing on how we can develop that courageous love what we might call fierce compassion. And one of the images we return to in this talk that I have found

so valuable my life is that of having a strong back and a soft front.

And this is from Roshi Joan Halifax,

which means this fierce compassion,

it's really a mainstream in our awakening courage.

This fierce compassion is got a strong back in the sense that we're absolutely dedicated to defending what's vulnerable,

...