true refuge by tara brach

tRueReFuge

Finding Peace and Freedom in Your Own Awakened Heart

TA R A BR AC HAuthor of Radical Acceptance

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TRUE

REFUGE

RFinding Peace and Freedom

in Your Own Awakened Heart

RTara Brach, Ph.D.

b a n t a m b o o k s

n e w y o r k

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The names, identifying characteristics, and other details of the clients, students, and other

case studies presented in this book have been changed to protect the privacy and preserve the

confi dences of those individuals and their families.

Copyright © 2012 by Tara Brach

All rights reserved

Published in the United States by Bantam Books, an imprint of

The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

Bantam Books and the rooster colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Brach, Tara.

True refuge : fi nding peace and freedom in your own awakened heart / Tara Brach.

p. cm.

ISBN 978-0-553-80762-2

eBook ISBN 978-0-345-53862-8

1. Buddhism—Psychology. 2. Emotions—Religious aspects—Buddhism. I. Title.

BQ4570.P76B68 2012

294.3'444—dc23 2012016158

Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper

www .bantamdell .com

2 4 6 8 9 7 5 3 1

First Edition

Book design by Karin Batten

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To Jonathan, whose heart is a loving,

safe refuge, and good humor,

one of this life’s great delights.

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c o n t e n t s

R

Prologue: Loving Life No Matter What xv

Part I: Our Search for Refuge

one Winds of Homecoming 5

two Leaving Home: The Trance of Small Self 16

three Meditation: The Path to Presence 28

four Three Gateways to Refuge 45

Part II: The Gateway of Truth

fi ve RAIN: Cultivating Mindfulness in

Diffi cult Times 61

six Awakening to the Life of the Body 77

seven Possessed by the Mind: The Prison of

Compulsive Thinking 96

eight Investigating Core Beliefs 114

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x Con t en t s

Part III: The Gateway of Love

nine Heart Medicine for Traumatic Fear 137

ten Self-Compassion: Releasing the Second Arrow 162

eleven The Courage to Forgive 181

twelve Holding Hands: Living Compassion 202

thirteen Losing What We Love: The Pain of Separation 227

Part IV: The Gateway of Awareness

fourteen Refuge in Awareness 251

fi fteen A Heart That Is Ready for Anything 272

Acknowledgments 287

Permissions 289

Resources 291

About the Author 293

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g u i d e d r e f l e c t i o n s a n d m e d i t a t i o n s

R

one A Pause for Presence 15

two Lovingkindness: Being Kind to Yourself 26

three Coming Back 41

Being Here 43

four Remembering the Most Important Thing 56

fi ve Bringing RAIN to Diffi culty 74

A Light RAIN: Practicing on the Spot 76

six Bringing RAIN to Pain 93

The Buddha’s Smile 95

seven My Top-Ten Hits 110

Bringing RAIN to Obsession 112

eight Beliefs Inventory 132

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xii Guid e d Re f l e c t i o n s and Med i t a t i on s

Catching Beliefs on the Fly 133

nine Lovingkindness: Receiving Love 157

Tonglen: A Healing Presence with Fear 159

ten Self-Forgiveness Scan 178

Ending the War with Yourself 179

eleven A Forgiving Heart toward Others 200

twelve Tonglen: Awakening the Heart of Compassion 220

Lovingkindness: Seeing Past the Mask 223

thirteen Prayer in the Face of Diffi culty 245

fourteen Exploring Inner Space 266

Who Am I? 267

Taking the Backward Step 270

fi fteen Prayer of Aspiration 282

Finding True Refuge 283

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p ro l o g u e

RLoving Life

No Matter What

My earliest memories of being happy are of playing in the ocean. When

our family began going to Cape Cod in the summer, the low piney

woods, high dunes, and wide sweep of white sand felt like a true home.

We spent hours at the beach, diving into the waves, bodysurfi ng, practic-

ing somersaults underwater. Summer after summer, our house fi lled

with friends and family— and later, with spouses and new children. It

was a shared heaven. The smell of the air, the open sky, the ever- inviting

sea made room for everything in my life— including whatever diffi cul-

ties I was carrying in my heart.

Then came the morning not so long ago when two carloads of friends

and family members took off for the beach without me. From the girl

who had to be pulled from the water at suppertime, I’d become a woman

who was no longer able to walk on sand or swim in the ocean. After two

decades of mysteriously declining health, I’d fi nally gotten a diagnosis:

I had a genetic disease with no cure, and the primary treatment was

painkillers. As I sat on the deck of our summer house and watched the

cars pull out of the driveway, I felt ripped apart by grief and loneliness.

In the midst of my tears, I was aware of a single longing. “Please, please,

may I fi nd a way to peace, may I love life no matter what.”This book came out of my own search for a place of peace, connect-

edness, and inner freedom, even in the face of life’s greatest challenges. I

call this place “true refuge” because it does not depend on anything

outside ourselves— a certain situation, a person, a cure, even a particular

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xvi t r u e r e f u g e

mood or emotion. The yearning for such refuge is universal. It is what

lies beneath all our wants and fears. We long to know we can handle

what’s coming. We want to trust ourselves, to trust this life. We want to

live from the fullness of who we are.

My search for refuge led me deeper into the spiritual teachings and

Buddhist meditation practices that were so central to my life. I am a

clinical psychologist and had been teaching meditation for over thirty

years. I am also the founder and senior teacher at the Insight Meditation

Center in Washington, D.C. My inner work and work with others gave

rise to my fi rst book, Radical Acceptance, and I also started training psy-

chologists and laypeople on how to bring meditation into emotional

healing. At the time of my diagnosis, as the insecurity of this existence

shook my inner world, the teachings that had always guided me became

more embodied and alive.

In the Buddhist tradition in which I teach, the Pali word “dukkha”

is used to describe the emotional pain that runs through our lives. While

it is often translated as “suffering,” dukkha encompasses all our experi-

ences of stress, dissatisfaction, anxiety, sorrow, frustration, and basic un-

ease in living. The word “dukkha” originally referred to a cart with a

damaged wheel. When we are suffering, we are out of balance, jolting

uncomfortably along the road of our life. We feel broken or “off,” dis-

connected from a sense of belonging. Sometimes this shows up as mild

restlessness or discontent; at other times, as the acute pain of grief or

grip of fear. But if we listen deeply, we will detect beneath the surface of

all that troubles us an underlying sense that we are alone and unsafe,

that something is wrong with our life.

In Radical Acceptance, I wrote about the deep and pervasive suffering of

shame, the pain of believing that “something is wrong with me.” I am now

addressing dukkha in a broader sense. Since that book was published,

I’ve encountered major loss— the death of my father, the physical and

mental decline of dear ones, and the challenges of my own chronic ill-

ness. Many of my students have also had their lives overturned. Some

have been uprooted from their jobs; they worry about having enough to

live on, and are hungry for meaningful work. Others are estranged from

family and friends and long for connection. Many more are grappling

with aging, sickness, and the inevitability of death. For them, “some-

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L ov in g L i fe No Mat t e r What xvii

thing is wrong with me” has become entangled with the pain of strug-

gling against life itself.

The Buddha taught that this experience of insecurity, isolation, and

basic “wrongness” is unavoidable. We humans, he said, are conditioned

to feel separate and at odds with our changing and out- of- control life.

And from this core feeling unfolds the whole array of our disruptive

emotions— fear, anger, shame, grief, jealousy— all of our limiting sto-

ries, and the reactive behaviors that add to our pain.

But the Buddha also offered a radical promise, one that Buddhism

shares with many wisdom traditions: We can fi nd true refuge within

our own hearts and minds— right here, right now, in the midst of our

moment- to- moment lives. We fi nd true refuge whenever we recognize

the silent space of awareness behind all our busy doing and striving. We

fi nd refuge whenever our hearts open with tenderness and love. We fi nd

refuge whenever we connect with the innate clarity and intelligence of

our true nature.

In True Refuge, I use the word “presence” to try to capture the imme-

diacy and aliveness of this intrinsic awareness. Presence is hard to de-

scribe, because it’s an embodied experience, not a concept. For me, when

I sense the silent, inner wakefulness that is here, I come home to a sense

of wholeness. I’m at home in my body and heart, at home in the earth

and with all beings. Presence creates a boundless sanctuary where there’s

room for everything in my life— even the illness that keeps me from

surfi ng the waves.

This book is fi lled with stories of people discovering presence in the

midst of crisis and confusion. It also explores some of the greatest chal-

lenges I myself have faced over these past decades. I hope some of these

stories connect to the heart of your own situation. Through them, we’ll

explore the forces that draw us away from presence, and why we so often

pursue false refuges. I also suggest many different practices— some an-

cient, some new, some specifi cally supported by modern neuroscience—

that have reliably opened me and many others to presence. These include

one of the most practical, in- the- trenches mindfulness meditations I’ve

worked with in years. Called RAIN (an acronym for the four steps of

the process), it helps you address many diffi cult emotions on the spot

and can be personalized to almost any situation.

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timkenney

TARA BRACH READMORE

True

refuge

R

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part i i

RThe Gateway

of Truth


f i ve

RRAIN: Cultivating Mindfulness

in Difficult Times

Between the stimulus and the response there is a space and in that space lies our power and our freedom.

viktor e. frankl

The quickest way to be happy is to choose what you already have.

werner erhard

Imagine you just found out that your child was suspended from school.

Imagine your boss just told you to start over on a report you’d

worked on for a month.

Imagine you just realized you’d been on Facebook for three hours

and have fi nished off a pound of trail mix in the process.

Imagine your partner just confessed to an affair.

It’s hard to hang out with the truth of what we’re feeling. We may

sincerely intend to pause and be mindful whenever a crisis arises, or

whenever we feel stuck and confused, but our conditioning to react, es-

cape, or become possessed by emotion is very strong.

Yes, there are times when being present feels out of reach or too

much to bear. There are times when false refuges can relieve stress, give

us a breather, help lift our mood. But when we’re not connected to the

clarity and kindness of presence, we’re all too likely to fall into more

misunderstanding, more confl ict, and more distance from others and

our own heart.


62 t r u e r e f u g e

About twelve years ago, a number of Buddhist teachers began to

share a new mindfulness tool that offers in- the- trenches support for

working with intense and diffi cult emotions. Called RAIN (an acronym

for the four steps of the process), it can be accessed in almost any place

or situation. It directs our attention in a clear, systematic way that cuts

through confusion and stress. The steps give us somewhere to turn in a

painful moment, and as we call on them more regularly, they strengthen

our capacity to come home to our deepest truth. Like the clear sky and

clean air after a cooling rain, this mindfulness practice brings a new

openness and calm to our daily lives.

I have now taught RAIN to thousands of students, clients, and men-

tal health professionals, adapting and expanding it into the version

you’ll fi nd in this chapter. I’ve also made it a core practice in my own life.

Here are the four steps of RAIN presented in the way I’ve found most

helpful:

R Recognize what is happening

A Allow life to be just as it is

I Investigate inner experience with kindness

N Non- identifi cation

RAIN directly deconditions the habitual ways in which you resist

your moment- to- moment experience. It doesn’t matter whether you re-

sist what is by lashing out in anger, by having a cigarette, or by getting

immersed in obsessive thinking. Your attempt to control the life within

and around you actually cuts you off from your own heart and from this

living world. RAIN begins to undo these unconscious patterns as soon

as we take the fi rst step.

RECOGNIZE WHAT IS HAPPENING

Recognition is seeing what is true in your inner life. It starts the minute

you focus your attention on whatever thoughts, emotions, feelings, or

sensations are arising right here and now. As your attention settles and

opens, you will discover that some parts of your experience are easier to


T h e Gat eway o f Tru t h 63

connect with than others. For example, you might recognize anxiety

right away, but if you focus on your worried thoughts, you might not

notice the actual sensations of squeezing, pressure, or tightness arising

in the body. On the other hand, if your body is gripped by jittery ner-

vousness, you might not recognize that this physical response is being

triggered by your underlying belief that you are about to fail. You can

awaken recognition simply by asking yourself: “What is happening in-

side me right now?” Call on your natural curiosity as you focus inward.

Try to let go of any preconceived ideas and instead listen in a kind, re-

ceptive way to your body and heart.

ALLOW LIFE TO BE JUST AS IT IS

Allowing means “letting be” the thoughts, emotions, feelings, or sensa-

tions you discover. You may feel a natural sense of aversion, of wishing

that unpleasant feelings would go away, but as you become more will-

ing to be present with “what is,” a different quality of attention will

emerge. Allowing is intrinsic to healing, and realizing this can give rise

to a conscious intention to “let be.”

Many students I work with support their resolve to “let be” by men-

tally whispering an encouraging word or phrase. For instance, you might

feel the grip of fear and whisper “yes,” or experience the swelling of deep

grief and whisper “yes.” You might use the words “this too” or “I con-

sent.” At fi rst you might feel you’re just putting up with unpleasant emo-

tions or sensations. Or you might say yes to shame and hope that it will

magically disappear. In reality, we have to consent again and again. Yet

even the fi rst gesture of allowing, simply whispering a phrase like “yes”

or “I consent,” begins to soften the harsh edges of your pain. Your entire

being is not so rallied in resistance. Offer the phrase gently and pa-

tiently, and in time your defenses will relax, and you may feel a physical

sense of yielding or opening to waves of experience.


timkenney

TARA BRACH READMORE

a b o u t t h e au t h o r

RTara Brach, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist, lecturer, and popu-

lar teacher of Buddhist mindfulness (vipassana) meditation.

She is the founder and senior teacher of the Insight Meditation

Community of Washington, D.C., and teaches meditation at cen-

ters throughout the United States including Spirit Rock, Omega

Institute, Kripalu Center, and the Smithsonian Institute. Dr. Brach

has offered speeches and workshops for mental health practition-

ers at numerous professional conferences. These, along with more

than fi ve hundred audio talks and ninety videos, address the value

of meditation in relieving emotional suffering and serving spiri-

tual awakening. Dr. Brach is the author of Radical Acceptance: Em-bracing Your Life with the Heart of a Buddha (Bantam, 2003). She lives

in Great Falls, Virginia, with her husband, Jonathan, her mother,

Nancy, and their three dogs.


true refuge by tara brach

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