Hello, thanks for listening to this Darma podcast. I hope you consider that in accordance

with the Buddhist tradition all of my work as a teacher is offered without charge and

supported entirely by donations only. If you'd like to support this work, you'll find a paypal button on darmopunks NYC.com.

On our website, you'll find resources and a free sample from my wisdom publications book Unsubscribed which is available at

bookstores and online retail outlets. Thanks for listening.

We're all born with a core drive and that's to attach with someone for comfort, care,

care, attention, soothing, appreciation.

It's far more powerful than our drive for food or warmth.

It's the most important drive human beings have.

And the first adaptive capability that an infant develops roughly a month is the capability of making eye contact,

finding another human's eyes and locking in.

And that's because in that moment of that diatic exchange,

when you make eye contact with someone

and you experience a sense in that eye contact in their facial expression and all the non-verbal cues that you are going to be you can expect attuned which means they'll maintain their gaze they won't look away they

won't give you a look of disgust or shame that they will essentially be available.

That turns in that results in the secretion of oxytocin,

a very, very powerful reward neurotransmitter associated with bonding and it really

amplifies all of the positive essentially effects and feelings associated with interpersonal connection.

So when a mother and infant, for example, lock eyes, engage in touch, there's in both infant and parent.

There's this secretion of oxytocin, which is evolution's way of essentially rewarding, especially the mother, for all the work she has to do. I mean if you look at what the work that is

entailed on raising an infant to adult life all of the attendant anxieties and fears and concerns and just the sheer demand of parenting,

you have to wonder why would anybody do that?

...