Part 2 - "Play a Greater Part" - Bodhisattva for our Times

Tara Brach

Buddhism, Religion & Spirituality, Health & Fitness, Mental Health

4.8 • 11.3K Ratings

🗓️ 25 November 2016

⏱️ 58 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

"Play a Greater Part" - Bodhisattva for our Times - Part 2 (2016-11-23) - During scary and uncertain times, the habitual reflex is to try to find ground by creating stories about what's happening and hardening into us-them blame. This only perpetuates the aggression and violence that is so prevalent in our societies. These two talks are a reflection on how we as awakening bodhisattvas can evolve our consciousness in a way that serves authentic societal healing and transformation.

"Though I do not expect a plant to spring up where no seed has been, I have great faith in a seed. Convince me you have a seed there, and I am prepared to expect wonders." ~ Thoreau

NOTE: Part 2 includes a Tonglen meditation near the end of the talk.

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With gratitude and love, Tara

Transcript

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0:00.0	Greetings.
0:06.0	We offer these podcasts freely and your support really makes a difference.
0:11.1	To make a donation, please visit tarbrock.com.
0:26.3	Tonight is the second of a two-part series called We Rise to Play a Greater Part.
0:33.3	So it's really the bodhisattva of our times.
0:37.3	And a few days ago, did an interview with the Washington Post that was ostensibly about how to work with the extra stress of this holiday season.
0:50.3	And then I got curious, and I thought I'd ask you, how many of you feel like it's extra stressful this particular holiday season?
0:57.3	Can I see my hands?
1:00.3	Okay, so let me see how many, I feel like it's very normal for you right now. This is the normal level.
1:06.3	Yeah. Okay, good.
1:08.3	I would say that was about two-thirds extra stressful, one-thirds stressful for those that are listening on podcast.
1:16.3	I ask that because for many people that I've talked to, the combination of the holidays with recent upheaval around the elections, that combo, the sense of potentially the kind of conversations and interactions with family members who might not agree, it just seems to all combine in a way that's intense.
1:39.3	And even without the elections, many people know the 48-hour limit that if too long with family, it stuff happens, you know.
1:52.3	Somebody recently sent me a little cartoon where there's a psychiatrist and lying on the couch as this long-talk cactus with a cowboy hat.
2:00.3	And he says, you know, we weren't what I would call a touchy-feelly family, you know.
2:06.3	Which I thought was cute. And then somebody else sent me one and it was this annual convention and it's this huge auditorium and that if convention was adult children of normal parents, only two seats were filled.
2:24.3	So it speaks to a lot of us.
2:28.3	And so we explore then at these times holiday or not just at times that are stressful for us, which could be for personal reasons or more societal reasons, because it's often an interaction.
2:44.3	How do we live our moments from the best that we are?
2:50.3	The Bodhisattva path in the Buddhist tradition really means it's an archetype for all of us of our evolutionary potential. It's living from an away cart.
3:02.3	And every one of us is on this unfolding of realizing the wisdom that comes from being present and the tenderness that comes when our heart wakes up.
3:16.3	And the more we realize that the more very naturally we serve and we savor life.
	...

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