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

The last class we had together was on impermanence.

And we're going to continue that reflection tonight.

This is part two.

And it feels like a real live one for me.

In a very personal way, I've just been watching, witnessing over this last decade, the growing

awareness of mortality, how everything's changing, loss, life.

And the more close in that awareness that reality is, everything comes, everything goes.

The more I'm like very, very close into that, the more pure and free my heart is.

I feel more sincere in loving.

So there's this direct link between really getting mortality and really having the freedom

to love unconditionally.

Think of it if we're knowing we're about to die.

Wouldn't a lot of the conditions we place around our loving just kind of fall away?

Can you sense that?

So a basic principle in spiritual life is that we really need to face reality, face the

truth of mortality and of loss in order to live and love fully.

It's just a basic principle that incarnating and disincarnating, I don't know if that's

a word, but that's kind of how life goes.

So it has to do with facing that reality and hand in hand with that principle is another

very real one, which is we are deeply rigged to avoid pain, including the pain of reality,

of facing reality.

...