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

Namaste and welcome.

I begin with a story of two women whose boys had gone to high school together.

About eight years or so after they graduated, they ran into each other.

And we're kind of exchanging stories and one volunteer that our son now was actually with a very preeminent law firm and another congratulator.

And then he said, well my son, he's still unemployed, but he's begun meditating.

And so friend said, well, what is meditating? He was, I don't know, but at least he's not sitting around doing nothing.

You know?

So tonight and the next two classes, really the remainder of this year, we're going to explore how the path of meditation and in particular the rain practice, which is mindfulness,

the weave of mindfulness and compassion, how that really can awaken our heart and spirit.

No guarantee about our income level that will leave.

But whether you're new or familiar with the practice of rain, this is a way to really deepen this way of working with difficulties and challenges that really can free us out.

And these three talks are really with the primary themes will be are the grounds of my upcoming book, Radical Compassion, which is coming out December 29th, available wherever books are sold.

So I'll be referring back to the book and to some of the stories in the book.

And for those of you that often listen live stream, just to let you know, these talks are all available on tarbrock.com on my website and the book you can find out more about the book there also.

So I wanted to begin by saying that more than any feedback that I've received over the decades about this path and practices and so on,

the message I get the most often is that rain has saved my life, which is a pretty intense state man.

But because of my own experience and when I get on when I say rain, it's a practice that weave mindfulness and heartfulness because we need them both.

That weave really can free us and so we'll explore in these talks how we bring the practice to the emotional tangles inside us, how we bring them to tangles in relationships and really how they can serve the healing of our world.

But that message from people so it motivated me to write Radical Compassion, which is basically a guidebook and using rain. It's really how do you do it?

So I'd like to start with the core teaching that a lot of the a lot of the book is based on, which is that in the mid 1700s in Siam, which is now Thailand, they were being invaded by the Burmese.

And in the monks in one monastery were very fearful that this, they had a beautiful, huge, pure gold statue of the Buddha and they were fearful, it would be looted by the invading Burmese.

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