Neuroscience Meets Buddhist Psychology | Joann Rosen & Yousef Gaber

Añadido: 2026-05-13

[00:00:00]So, um, I would like to request that you leave your expertise at the door and you come in as a baby practitioner who's trying to understand what this practice is all about and see what happens. Um, of course you're free to uh take care of yourselves uh to uh follow the invitations or not or adapt them in any way you'd like to uh suit how you are in this moment. But as far as a professional, um I really want to encourage you if you can to leave that mindset um out of the room.

[00:01:00]Um and bring your awareness down out of the head if you happen to be um residing there.

[00:01:12]So, u we'll start with three sounds of the bell and then uh we'll offer a song and the words are on the board. If you I don't know if everybody can see them. Uh just so that you can know what the song is saying in case you can't understand the words.

[00:01:36]And if you would like to sing along, you're very welcome. Uh, and if you'd like to just uh be with the song, uh, that's fine, too.

[00:01:47]And, uh, to notice what happens inside, uh, from where you are in this moment.

[00:01:54]And perhaps as the bell sounds, you check inside and see where you're at, whatever that means to you in this moment.

[00:02:06]And uh then to just keep noticing and not only noticing what goes on inside of you, but you can peek around and see what's going on inside of others.

[00:02:20]Um maybe we should introduce ourselves first.

[00:02:27]Okay. So you introduce me and I'll introduce you.

[00:02:35]Uh dear community, this is my dharma teacher Joanne Rosen and great friend.

[00:02:41]Uh she's a longtime psychotherapist and um has been working very hard to kind of um bring together her practice as a Plum Village practitioner um as a therapist and her keen interest in neurobiology and trauma informed studies. Um and all of those things together have manifested in the book Unshakable and also um the study groups and other offerings of the embrace sa and this is Yousef Gabber um who has been a wonderful budding part of Embrace which we'll talk about later and uh Yousef just finished uh his masters in social work and so he really knows some neurobiology. I just know the really simplified simplified version and that was that's good enough for me. Um that's I think good enough for most of us as practitioners and uh great gratitude to those scientist those minds that have uh led us to this moment. So, we'll start with three sounds of the bell.

[00:04:52]And we will care for each other as the world around us unravels.

[00:05:03]And we will tend to the spark of hope that lives within our grieving hearts. And we are here now in this present moment lifting our voices and hearts.

[00:05:24]And we are here now. We have come together. We are tending the spark of hope.

[00:05:45]Oh, made it grow.

[00:05:56]And we will care for each other as the world around us unravels.

[00:06:07]And we will tend to the spark of hope that lives within our grieving hearts. And we are here now in this present moment lifting our voices and hearts.

[00:06:29]And we are here now. We have come together. We are tending the spark of hope.

[00:06:42][Music] Oh, all made it grow.

[00:07:01]And we will care for each other as the world around us unravels.

[00:07:12]And we will tend to the spark of hope that lives within our grieving hearts. And we are here now in this present moment lifting our voices and hearts.

[00:07:34]And we are here now. We have come together. We are tending the spark of hope.

[00:07:55]All may grow.

[00:08:06]and we will care for each other.

[00:08:11][Music] Just go inside and just notice The human being has been singing together as a way to regulate themselves and co-regulate with each other to feel each other.

[00:08:57]since uh we were hunter gatherers, which isn't a very long time ago in the world of evolutionary biology.

[00:09:13]We're walking around with the nervous system of a hunter gatherer because uh nervous systems evolve very slowly.

[00:09:28]human civilization, whatever that means, um has evolved much faster and our nervous systems have not been able to keep up.

[00:09:41]And so we find ourselves in a pickle because we're made to uh try and eat everything we can all day long.

[00:09:57]whether we're hungry or not because we don't know when the next food may be coming.

[00:10:04]Except that's not the way it is anymore.

[00:10:07]But our biology doesn't tell us necessarily when to stop until it's way too late.

[00:10:18]And we're uh also programmed to procreate and take good care of our babies so that they survive and uh can contribute to the group.

[00:10:33]And we are meant to make decisions very quickly.

[00:10:39]And our nervous systems gear up really fast to uh meet unexpected threats.

[00:10:49]And then our nervous systems are meant to relax and eat berries and sit around a fire if fire was developed by then.

[00:11:03]We're not meant, our nervous systems aren't ready for unrelenting stresses.

[00:11:11]Um, our quick decisions um are meant for much simpler situations.

[00:11:19]The ways that we are threatened in these days take a lot of thinking in terms of how to respond and be safe.

[00:11:31]So while Buddhism talks about greed, hatred and delusion, the roots of greed, hatred and delusion in our biology are just what kept us surviving.

[00:11:49]And uh as we developed different ways of living together, those instincts didn't really work for us and certainly don't work for us now.

[00:12:08]Um, we're we're made with the the possibility of being aware and uh checking our voracious appetites.

[00:12:22]Those who didn't have voracious appetites perished.

[00:12:27]So if we're a jolly overeater or we want to be an overeater, um we have to appreciate that that's what kept our species alive and take this spin off of greed and thank that appetite inside of us or the appetite to jump to conclusions so that we keep our safe. to take off that negative, shameful spin and rather greet it with an ability to begin cultivating away from the habits that don't serve us.

[00:13:13]So if you think about some habit that you have and you want to change it, we can become very self aacing and self-absorbed by judging ourselves that we're too this or that. and to just appreciate that those are coping mechanisms that are outdated and that our practice helps us update.

[00:13:44]Uh not that we want to um become friendly with everything in our environment that may be toxic um but at least to be able to stop and see it for what it is that that's our practice. So everything we do is to be able to see the present moment in as full of view as we can.

[00:14:13]That's enough of that.

[00:14:15]Let's see.

[00:14:19]So um to continue thinking about the present moment and our nervous systems going to put uh some of these up on the board.

[00:14:30]Yeah, that would be nice.

[00:14:37]So we know that uh as we go through life and engage in different situations, we get a lot of input from the world around us. And our nervous system uh is built to respond to inputs whether they come externally or internally. And it kind of has different settings or modes you might consider them for different quantities and qualities of energy that we are receiving.

[00:15:13]So in this chart you can see that green zone. And so what I'd like to invite everybody to do is just to take a moment and remember a time when you felt really well. not super high energy, joyous and happy, but just well and easy. Um, and just take a moment to think of think of that time.

[00:15:46]And if as you're thinking about that time some kind of a gesture perhaps a hand on the heart, a pat on the back or anything like that comes about just uh allowing that gesture to happen.

[00:16:06]So when our nervous system is uh has kind of um a sense of ease, calm, uh we're in that I'm eating berries and resting mode.

[00:16:21]This is what we call uh being inside of our uh window of mindful opportunity.

[00:16:28]Sometimes it's called the window of tolerance.

[00:16:31]And when we're here, we can experience a range of different emotions. They might be pleasant like peace or contentment or joy, but they might also be uh difficult feelings like anger or sadness. But our nervous system can still hold um those feelings without really getting too activated or hyped up. We don't get swept away in our thinking.

[00:17:00]or uh in our actions or in our speech.

[00:17:09]So now let's think a little bit about what happens when we get a little bit more energy and maybe that energy is a little bit more challenging for our nervous system. Mhm.

[00:17:21]Um, so if you'd like again an experiment to try, I invite you to just stretch a little bit in whatever way you'd like and stretch until you're uncomfortable, but not uh not too hard. Just kind of at that edge of comfort and discomfort and just taking a notice.

[00:17:47]What's it like to be there?

[00:17:55]So this place in our nervous system is described in this little egg model in the yellow here.

[00:18:06]And this is the zone when maybe our nervous systems, maybe we're receiving input in life. Things are happening around us that are challenging us in some way. It could be physical, it could be mental, it could be emotional or spiritual.

[00:18:21]But uh we have the space or capacity to handle the challenge. It doesn't necessarily mean um that we will be comfortable in that moment in in our life. But uh that moment doesn't carry us away or if it does, we're able to find a way to bring ourselves back into the present moment into our body. we can uh be with the discomfort and the difficult feelings. So that's kind of this yellow zone here.

[00:18:55]And um we're going to do one more stretching experiment.

[00:19:01]And please uh do not uh hurt yourself this time. Uh just take it easily, but experiment. See where you can find just your edge of stretching a little bit too far. just at the edge of ooh it's too much.

[00:19:19]And when you find that place just come back perhaps taking a moment to remember whatever that thing that gave you a sense of well-being earlier was.

[00:19:42]So when we receive energy in too great a quantity or too difficult a quality for us to handle, our nervous system goes into its instinctual kind of protective mode. Often times you'll hear this referred to as the fight, flight or freeze response. And that's out here in this red zone.

[00:20:06]really critically in this red zone. It is not possible to engage with the parts of our brain that mindfulness um is is alive in. And when we're pushed here, we can be swept away by our thoughts, by our feelings, by our actions. We might act unskillfully or in ways we regret. And um it is uh as Joanne was saying earlier, kind of our natural biological response to high stress. We're just trying to find the solution right then and there.

[00:20:46]And our brains, our bodies, our spirits are testing every possibility as fast as they can to get us back into a place where we feel comfortable and safe. Um but we don't necessarily have access to the full picture of what's going on uh to create that condition for us because again the body is just really trying to get back to its its comfort place.

[00:21:15]And if we spend all of our time or much of our time in this red zone, our window tends to shrink a little bit.

[00:21:31]You know, what we find comfortable becomes smaller and smaller because our nervous system is alerted to danger everywhere. On the flip side, when um we spend too much time in this comfortable green zone and we don't give ourselves opportunity to stretch, to grow, to challenge ourselves, our way of thinking, our way of being, um that window also shrinks. We get too uh comfortable. And then Joanne has used this analogy before and I really like it. the princess and the pee, you know, the one pee under her mattress, as tiny as it is, is enough to make her unable to sleep. So we have uh each of us at different times in our lives at different places in our lives um different needs to grow to be comfortable and also to notice when we've uh come into this red zone here and maybe are in need of some kind of a support to uh help us find our way back into a place where we can practice mindfulness where we and observe a bigger picture of what's going on and and how our bodies instinctually are responding to situations.

[00:22:53]And I think uh I'll give the microphone back to Joan now just to say um the red isn't bad. Um, it's what mobilizes us uh to run away and to fight. And those were really necessary. Um, they're less necessary uh in modern life and more necessary to stay in here, but uh it's not bad. And throughout the day, we fluctuate all over the place. And uh part of our practice is to be noticing where am I?

[00:23:36]Where am I? So I know whether I need to bring up the energy or bring it down.

[00:23:45]Let's take this away.

[00:23:57]One of the things that made me fall in love with Tai was the way he could make a circle.

[00:24:06]I won't be doing so well.

[00:24:14]So, we've uh had a lesson in this already this week. So, uh, just to what is this?

[00:24:26]The seeds, right? And there's a beautiful flower.

[00:24:32]And there's a kind of messy one. And um, uh, the right effort is to first know what is coming up. you're having an experience and do we like it? Does it feel good? Does it feel wholesome and nourishing or does it feel kind of creepy or And so we're always asking is this a wholesome seed or an unh wholesome seed?

[00:25:06]And one way we can uh test it is if it is creating a sense of well-being or a sense of illbeing.

[00:25:18]And so if it's over here uh well-being, we want we have two tasks. One is to name it. Um, joy, uh, gratitude, uh, compassion and to feel it, to just savor it, to create a neural pathway that goes and makes this stronger and quicker and more likely to come up in the future.

[00:25:53]And the other thing we can do with this neural pathway is call it up on purpose.

[00:25:59]We sit down on the cushion. We think of something that brought us a sense of well-being. And we hold it and we notice all its qualities, where it is in our body, what thoughts and images come up.

[00:26:15]We go through the scandas to to see what it's made of so that we can appreciate it in that moment and we can perhaps coax it up in the future maybe even in a different situation.

[00:26:33]Now with this one we know that if we give it its full attention like anger and we giving some shouts or some h um that also waters that seed and makes that neural pathway go quicker and more intensively and we don't want that to happen. So we surround it.

[00:27:02]we surround it.

[00:27:04]Well, so much for that. Obviously, I'm in the red and I can't surround it. That happens.

[00:27:14]Okay, we surround it with our mindfulness and then we're able to look at it the same way we looked at this. We notice where it is in our body, whether it's increasing or decreasing. Um what images and um thoughts that come up, what perceptions we have, what history we have with it.

[00:27:39]We see how it's made so we don't make it again. And then that seed is smaller and less likely to manifest.

[00:27:50]But the thing is, we don't always have mindfulness. When we're in this red zone, mindfulness isn't happening.

[00:28:01]What's happening is habit energy. We're on automatic pilot to save our lives.

[00:28:08]Whether that's realistic or not, uh we can get on a uh a red light and feel like we're going to die if it doesn't turn green really fast. And so that's kind of a mismatch between our nervous system that we're stuck with and and our civilization which we're also temporarily stuck with.

[00:28:34]So the question is always do I have the mindfulness to pay attention to this? And we all have kind of a tendency to go to one extreme or another. There are some people who say, "I'm going to dig in there and I'm going to feel this thing no matter how freaked out I am so I can make that thing go down." And that is not mindfulness.

[00:29:05]That is watering the seeds of tension and stretching way out here. It's just making it worse. And you feel it in your body. Your body is getting more tense or perhaps more like wiped out. And so when you go to surround it with mindfulness and that's not working very well, you have to stop and acknowledge I do not have the capacity to put mindfulness around this. So your job is to come back here and work on those seeds. Now it may take a little transition to go from here to here. And there there are things we can do in a pinch which uh Tai calls changing the peg. So we'll we'll talk about that later. But the the important part is that we're practicing all day long like a bell of mindfulness.

[00:30:08]If we hear a bell, where am I in here?

[00:30:11]Am I in here? Am I in here? Or am I here? That those of us who tend to overboard and hang on with our fingernails, we tend to like to be out here.

[00:30:28]And those of us who really know how to get in this green area and just like hang out there or hide there.

[00:30:40]We also have a tendency not to shy away from this to just keep going over here.

[00:30:48]So we need to know ourselves. What is our habit? Do we overdo or do we underdo when we're not in the middle?

[00:31:01]So, this is the foundation of our practice.

[00:31:10]And let's see what happens when we hang out here too much. So, let's get Yeah.

[00:31:30]Now it's your turn.

[00:31:36]So um we have this word in our common cultural dialogue now trauma right which is a very big word um and has many definitions.

[00:31:50]When we enter that uh red zone, there are kind of two different ways our nervous system goes. There's up here in the hyper zone. This is our fight and our flight response. Up here we get those um anxious, angry, um very scared kinds of feelings. And those are the high energy states that again survival instincts trying to bring us to a place of safety.

[00:32:24]The other end of the equation is the hypo states. So those are when we get really low and slow, lethargic or sad, depression, dissociation.

[00:32:38]And um when we get into those states uh those are kind of like conservation of energy states where like our nervous systems our body are feeling like I don't have uh any options. I'm going to b my time and wait until options become available.

[00:32:58]When we have like we do on the daily sometimes experiences that bring us into the red, if we have enough support, whether that's internal resources, community resources, spiritual resources, we can bring ourselves back into our window. But sometimes we experience stressors that we don't have adequate support for or are too difficult.

[00:33:29]I forgot something and so let's take it as an opportunity just like where are you at when I did that?

[00:33:41]Curious about what you forgot and uh maybe very mildly uh a little anxious for a moment but after you asked the question feeling calm.

[00:33:54]Well, I was right cozying up to the red myself. I was like, "Oh, this is too much too fast. This is actually what we're talking about, right?" It's like, "It's late at night. We've had a long day. Now we're going to talk about trauma." It's like, "Oh my gosh." So, um, I forgot to do the experiential part. Yes.

[00:34:22]Okay. So take just like and just notice where you're at in this moment in one of these diagrams.

[00:34:37][Music] And for me just acknowledging that uh I got got a little too close to the red um is already bringing my cognitive online.

[00:34:52]it it's bringing myself into the moment and that helps me regulate a little bit.

[00:34:58]But we're going to walk through uh a number of the exercises in the Anapanosati sutra. This is the sutra that Tai discovered um which is actually part of the vapasa tradition um that he said this was the luckiest day of his life something like that.

[00:35:22]um because it's a road mapap for looking deeply for stopping and looking deeply.

[00:35:31]And the first thing we do is we find our balance. We sit up in a way that is both relaxed and alert. And what that is is bringing online the mindfulness is the optimal balance between onepointed concentration and kind of being aware of the whole picture. It's this kind of relaxed state in between. And so our body is the first place where we find that balance.

[00:36:18]And for each of us it may be different.

[00:36:22]And you can even experiment with like just slouch a little and just notice whether how your mind is and then sit up in a balance.

[00:36:36]So this this is neurobiology and tailor making it to you in this moment.

[00:36:49]And we're always looking for ways to feel solid. Some of you will have your arms crossed across your chest to feel solid. Others will hold their hands or um the the way we fold our legs to make ourselves feel solid. This is a basic well-being feeling in our neurobiology.

[00:37:21]So feeling where our body is contacting the earth, where it's contacting the chair, where we're feeling supported, how our spine holds up our head.

[00:37:36]So even to notice when you're in that red, where do I feel the weight?

[00:37:46]That can calm your nervous system. that can help regulate you up or down the way your body needs to have a sense of well-being.

[00:37:59]And then there's the eyes. The eyes must be open or closed, not to get distracted, but also not to feel like, uh-oh, if I close my eyes, something bad might happen. So that's adapting again, adapting to what brings you a sense of well-being because when we're sitting, we're trying to stay within the yellow, not necessarily in the green, but it's nice to start as close to the green.

[00:38:39]We don't always have control over the situation. So you feel your body and then uh some people may follow their breath as a way to anchor as a way to do something. They talk about an elephant in the marketplace needing a little piece of bamboo to hold on to so that trunk doesn't fly all over the place and cause havoc. And our mind is like that.

[00:39:11]We need something to anchor us.

[00:39:15]But some people when they follow their breath and they can't quite get a full breath and they keep focused on that, it gives the body and the mind a message that you're not quite safe because you can't take a full breath.

[00:39:36]So you notice how is breathing helping us to settle and we don't need to run away from it instantly if we don't like it but just to be curious. That yellow zone is a zone of curiosity.

[00:39:55]So we pick something that we can focus on easily that doesn't cause us constrination.

[00:40:06]that helps us just relax the mind. Just have one little thing to do.

[00:40:13]So you can pick whether it's the breath in this moment or perhaps uh the weight of your body on the cushion or perhaps um just allowing your gaze to find a a color that is pleasant and just relax with that color.

[00:40:42]Or sometimes if I'm not talking, you might be able to hear the birds.

[00:40:48]Just one thing.

[00:40:56]And we keep noticing as we do this, how does that affect us inside?

[00:41:06]So we have knowing about our breath or about our anchor and then noticing the body. That's the next step in the anapana sati sutra is to just be aware of our entire body.

[00:41:28]But we may need to do that one little bit at a time because trying to focus on the entire body may be too much.

[00:41:38]So you can maybe just focus on your feet and we won't go through the entire body just the feet in this moment but to give a notion of how we can tear it down to be very simple.

[00:41:54]Just noticing, do my two feet feel the same or do they feel different or can I feel them at all?

[00:42:05]Our daily life is so geared to looking outward that we don't take the time to be in tune with our body. And yet our body has all these subtle messages that we miss if we're not in tune.

[00:42:24]So we notice our feet. We notice the temperature.

[00:42:30]We notice what our feet are touching and what the quality of that texture might be.

[00:42:42]And we have the programming, the neurobiology to really slant our attention towards problems. So if we have an ache or a pain, chances are it's going to hijack your attention.

[00:43:01]So your job is not to let that happen.

[00:43:07]And when it does happen, because it's inevitable, to lovingly bring it back because as soon as you judge yourself, you scoot yourself towards the red because that's threatening yourself.

[00:43:24]So when Tai says, "If you're not enjoying your practice, you're doing it wrong."

[00:43:32]This is what he's pointing to.

[00:43:36]And it doesn't mean that it's all happiness and delight, but it can be all curiosity.

[00:43:45]So we we notice what's happening in our feet and when we get hijacked by uh our back, we go back to the feet and then we can move on to the legs and the organs and all the facial muscles and the like.

[00:44:04]But right now, just take a brief look through your body and see if you can find one part of the body that feels either pleasant or good enough, like doesn't hurt as much as yesterday, some good news about your body. There's always somewhere.

[00:44:29]So, and it doesn't need to be the very best part.

[00:44:34]Just somewhere that feels good enough.

[00:44:37]And allow your attention to rest there.

[00:44:47]And to notice whether the resting in a place of well-being or good enough makes a difference in the body or in the mind.

[00:45:15]And then I want to invite you to um listen to the frogs and just notice what happens as you listen to the frogs.

[00:45:41]Notice if the body is involved in what happens when you listen to the frogs and if there's some pleasant sensation in your body by listening to the frogs.

[00:45:58]Uh, you can even put a hand on that part.

[00:46:03]Hey frogs, keep it up.

[00:46:13]Okay, change to the birds.

[00:46:24]This is really magical, isn't it?

[00:46:28]So much power to ah the the frogs are laughing.

[00:46:35]So just notice this silliness and how does this silliness sit in the body? Or perhaps there was something that touched you today that brought you a sense of connection or delight.

[00:46:58]And as you bring it to mind to ask yourself, what are the best parts of this?

[00:47:14]Perhaps to isolate just one moment and feel how that might be alive in the body.

[00:47:26]This is gladdening the body.

[00:47:39]And in a similar way, we can gladden the mind.

[00:47:43]Uh also picking out some moment in time during the day that perhaps you didn't spend enough time savoring and that it's not too late to savor it. now to develop a lifestyle of watching for these moments of well-being and allowing yourself to savor and create the neural pathways that water those wholesome seeds.

[00:48:21]And that this little by little gives you more and more ability to sit with those moments of ill-being and surround them with mindfulness that develops uh by watering the wholesome seeds.

[00:48:45]So now we're going to return to trauma.

[00:48:52]And to just make uh clear that um we all uh experience trauma I guess. Um depends on your definition.

[00:49:06]Yeah. Uh it's really hot. If we let's shut all the doors and windows so we can all have the same experience of it being really hot.

[00:49:19]No. Okay, there we go.

[00:49:27]Just taking a moment inside of me to continue savoring because that was a very pleasant meditation. Thank you, Joanne.

[00:49:37]Um, okay.

[00:49:40]So, uh, we talked kind of a little bit about the up and the down. Yeah.

[00:49:49]when uh we get those stressors that uh like I was saying before, sometimes we get those stressors that we have the right support to bring ourselves back to. Maybe we have enough moments of savoring to kind of do that hopping back and forth and surrounding. or we have a good friend who uh holds our hand or pats us on the back, reminds us that it's going to be okay. Those moments help us come out of the red and back into the green.

[00:50:26]Sometimes we find circumstances that for any number of reasons um keep us in the red.

[00:50:36]And this is our nervous system again trying to protect us. But uh if we stay in that red zone on either end for too long and we don't have the adequate support or resources to bring ourselves back into the green, we um build that neural pathway into us really strongly. And uh that ends up sitting in our body, in our mind, in our feelings very strongly. And it's this kind of extended stay in the red that uh we call trauma in the in the brain and in the body.

[00:51:25]And there are a number of different kinds of trauma. And I don't think I need to break them all down.

[00:51:32]Yeah. Yeah, you don't have to do that one.

[00:51:44]Everybody raise a hand.

[00:51:46]Ah, yeah.

[00:51:53]So, uh, raise if you like to raise two hands, you can raise two hands. If you get tired, you can always put one down.

[00:52:00]Um so uh just to name a few of the kinds of um trauma, trauma is when we're stuck and when the threat is gone and when uh the body is continuing to uh feel the the danger. So um often times uh people who live through war uh or um feel that kind of uh stress, the unrelenting stress of living through war. So if you live through a war, just put down one of your hands. And if you were raised by somebody who was uh a person who lived through war, you can put down a hand. Um if you were raised in a place where uh your particular demographic, whether it was race, religion, um uh sexual orientation, preference, um was problematic.

[00:53:11]uh you can put your hand down. And if you were raised by someone who lived through that, you can put your hand down. And if you uh lived through poverty or you were raised by somebody who lived through poverty, you could put a hand down. And uh if you were raised in a family where somebody had a grave illness or you had a grave illness or a death in the family that was important, you can put your hand down.

[00:53:43]And uh if uh if you lived in a place where there was some kind of natural disaster um or uh what else what else is there that eats away at us?

[00:54:08]either all of a sudden uh somebody who was raised by someone who suffered sexual abuse or domestic violence or drug addiction or any one of those things yourself can put your hand down.

[00:54:30]If uh if you come from uh a uh profession where you are looking at uh doing things that are counter to your own ethics.

[00:54:45]Um it's called moral injury. You may put your hand down.

[00:54:52]If you come from a situation of great wealth or great beauty, you could put your hand down. Wow.

[00:55:06]Well, for those who still have their hands up, we'll just leave them up and you'll be suffering some other kind of trauma.

[00:55:15]Um, sometimes I leave things out that feel very important. Um, if you have been uh adopted or raised by somebody who was adopted, you can put your hand down.

[00:55:38]So, um, not too many hands are still up.

[00:55:42]Uh, we are all suffering something. We all live in a world that is on fire and that affects all of us. So in some ways or other we all experience this at some point.

[00:56:13]H moral wounding moral wounding. I I mentioned that uh yeah people in the who work for uh universities where you have to publish a certain kind of stuff.

[00:56:30]Do you want to uh an accident? Yes. Something that is big on your body. Absolutely. Um yes. Thank you.

[00:56:43]Neglect.

[00:56:45]Yes. Yes. Neglect is uh very similar to uh um it's something that grates on you that one little bit of neglect builds on the next on the next on the next. If you were uh neurodeiverse and your parents didn't recognize it and couldn't see who you were, um that can be very damaging and can put you on edge.

[00:57:18]So, what do you do when that happens?

[00:57:22]What do you do when you're stuck in the red?

[00:57:26]Um, so the idea is that you chip away with it a little tiny bit at a time. I I liken it to roasting a marshmallow.

[00:57:42]Um, you have a stick and a marshmallow and you put it on there. you put it in your attention and for those who like uh overdo it, you just stick it right into the fire and it turns on to flame and it's just an ashy mess and you wouldn't want to eat it. So, um then there's the person who keeps it really safe. They put it on the end of the stick and the fire is over there and they hold it like here and they're they're like waiting for it to melt and it is just not going to do it. So you have to bring it to the fire to go as close to the red as you can but still you're in the yellow. You're not completely carried away and you know what it feels like to be carried away.

[00:58:43]So you have to know that and you you put it into the fire with just one side just maybe noticing what happens in your feet and then if that's a little too much you bring it out of the fire.

[00:59:01]You notice how it's affecting your body.

[00:59:05]You can either start with your body or you can start with your your images. or your stories. It doesn't matter where you start.

[00:59:16]It helps to start with the body if you're comfortable with that. So something happens for me.

[00:59:24]I feel it. Oh, I feel it everywhere. Are you sure? Well, actually, I don't feel it in my ankles. Okay. Where do you feel it the least? A little bit. I feel it in my calves. Okay. I can feel it in my calves for a moment, but that's really enough. And I bring the marshmallow out so that it doesn't start to burn.

[00:59:49]And then I maybe I turn it a little bit and I think, okay, can what what image came up? Oh, I can't look at that whole thing. Well, can you look at one corner of it? And just maybe for a second, you put it in the fire. Then you bring it out.

[01:00:11]And you ask yourself, do I have the capacity to try it again for two seconds? Maybe yes and maybe no. You really don't want to push your capacity.

[01:00:26]So I think, oh yeah, I got it. I push it in. I was like, nope. And so I wait until tomorrow or I wait until next week. Meanwhile, I'm watering those wholesome seeds. Watering. I'm never not practicing.

[01:00:44]I'm noticing where I am all day long and I'm watering the wholesome seeds.

[01:00:51]And I don't do it alone.

[01:00:54]Um Yousef was saying much of trauma you know two people experience a similar thing and one comes out it's okay and another person comes out very traumatized is generally because there was emotional support.

[01:01:18]So when we have dharma sharing the the idea is that we sit non-judging we have a compassionate connection with a person who's sharing so that they feel some support and then we encourage them to share what's on their heart and stay in the yellow.

[01:01:46]Not just like Because you may not as a sharer have the capacity to bring yourself back into the yellow. And the people in the group, especially if they don't know you and you don't know them, they may also become disregulated and then they're feeding you back like this and or judging. And that's not a a good message to sit with. So in dharma sharing we try to stay within the yellow both as a listener and as a sharer.

[01:02:31]And that when that becomes too much for the sharer and they're carried away, we can sound the bell and give everyone a chance to re regulate themselves and that as sister Chung says, if one person in the boat can have a calm presence, then we can tune into that person. So that the dharma sharing is a deep practice in healing and that the the really skillful dharma sharing group can hold the mindfulness when a practitioner is not able.

[01:03:24]But sometimes that's really unrealistic.

[01:03:29]that it's just too much for the the sharer and that they may need one- on-one support of someone who can hold the mindfulness for them, who can remind them that like open your eyes, look around, listen to the birds, take a drink of water, wrap yourself up to have the very simplest of exercises.

[01:04:00]Um, and to know in advance that those are the things that help you reeregulate yourself and maybe even keep a list of those in your pocket.

[01:04:13]Um, and when we do like retreats or longer workshops, um, uh, we we practice those as well. But I'm realizing, oh my goodness, it's it's 9:05. Um, maybe you can give a pitch for the things that Embrace is doing while I look at my notes and see what I forgot.

[01:04:43]So, um, this, uh, material is the kind of thing that we dive pretty deeply into. um in the embrace sa um we've been having um kind of study groups using uh Joannne's book and um coming together over Zoom. We have a few different sections to accommodate for people all around the world. Um, and we take the chance to go through this material slowly to do exercises and guided meditations together to kind of embody some of the the the learning. Um, so that's been uh a lot of what the Embrace SA has been up to. We have a website online embraces.org or where you can find um more resources, videos, information about hopefully some upcoming study groups um and keep up with uh what else is going on.

[01:05:43]And just to say, we're not neuroscientists doing this. We're practitioners and we're learning together and supporting each other and just like pulling each other up. And uh I wanted to say briefly that um looking through a kind of a neuroscience lens at the five mindfulness trainings uh is very interesting that it gives us a container to be able to reflect on all of these energies that we inherited as our huntergatherer selves. and see how they interface with society as it is today.

[01:06:31]And so those mindfulness trainings are really like the container that we need in order not to snowball out into the red. That every one of those trainings is a training to say, "Are you getting close to the red? Would you be in the red if you did this? Uh, and how can we protect ourselves from getting into the red? And you know, we'll be bouncing in and out of the red because that's what we are as human beings. We're really limited as human beings.

[01:07:11]And I think that that's both the good news and the bad news.

[01:07:16]The bad news is that we are not what we think we are. And it's all of the wars and feuds and the terrible impacts on the environment and climate catastrophe are the natural outcome of uncultivated minds over millennia upon millennia upon millennia.

[01:07:46]And the good news is that the Buddha figured out how to stop it little by little with our practice.

[01:07:54]And that neuroscientists give us some glimpse into the things that the Buddha didn't have a chance to see. But uh if he were alive today, perhaps he would be sticking his head in a scanner.

[01:08:15]So, uh, I I highly recommend, um, whether you take them formally or not, there's such a good protection. And now we're going to, uh, try and get you into the red zone.

[01:08:35]Um, just because we want you to experience everything that we have to offer. Um, so, uh, so here's what we're going to do is, uh, we're going to make these. Now, don't start yet. Don't touch the paper. I'll say start and then you can start and you'll have all the time you need um, in one minute to do it.

[01:09:02]And, um, you'll notice some glitches along the way and just notice where you are in the process. So, here's what you do.

[01:09:11]You um fold it in eighs.

[01:09:14]So you just fold. Now don't do it. I said I'll tell you when to do it.

[01:09:20]Can you hold this for me? All right. So you fold it in eighs by going like this and like that. And then you take the center and you lick it like that to uh make the the um fibers weak. And then you go this way and you go and you and you fold it. I mean you unfold it and then you pinch it like a little mouth and then you go like that and it's done. Now you'll have 45 seconds to do yours. Uh, start now.

[01:10:08]And you have to get it really careful or you'll make the words lap over onto the wrong page. Um, it's 15 seconds already.

[01:10:19]Yeah. Okay. Keep going. and make those creases really strong so that it and then you want to make them like both ways. Uh, no, sorry.

[01:10:35]That's the idea. Okay, it's 40 seconds.

[01:10:39]Okay. Um, so just finish up now and notice uh No, no, not all the way. Then you'll rip the whole thing in half.

[01:10:50]That's very bad.

[01:10:53]Ah, we have a star pupil here. Why don't you flaunt it with everybody else and show them how you did that? Okay.

[01:11:01]Anybody feeling a little bit uh uh activated? You do you notice that it would be really cruel to do that just before you're going to sleep? H it's just like thinking of like you got this bad thing you're going to do tomorrow and you think about it just as you turn off the light. Ah another person to flaunt success. Okay. Now if you notice on your folding was it accurate or is it lapping over?

[01:11:37]You know what is off center?

[01:11:40]No it's not off center. I I made the assumption that the whole world has the same size paper as the United States and that's just wrong.

[01:11:53]It's just not the same size. And I just discovered it as we came in here. So, we have a nice 150 copies that are wrong.

[01:12:06]Oh well.

[01:12:08]Um, okay. Stop for a moment. Please stop.

[01:12:13]Stop and just look around and I want you to just like look at somebody smiling and ask yourself, is that a a real smile or a fake smile?

[01:12:30]You know, we're so fine-tuned, we can tell the difference even with a mask on.

[01:12:38]We can tell the difference between a genuine smile. We are a wonder the more you get into neurobiology and the way we co-regulate and how we can really sense not only the feelings that a person is having but their intention.

[01:13:01]We are miraculous and we need to cultivate it and then we'll have a different default and create a different world.

[01:13:19]Is that it?

[01:13:22]So, um um it's 9:14.

[01:13:32]I think it's it's time to stop, but just just go inside.

[01:13:38]Um and maybe pick out one moment that we've been together that spoke to you.

[01:13:52]in whatever ways you needed to be spoken to and just feel how that is in the body.

[01:14:06]And maybe there's some words that go with it or an image or a gesture.

[01:14:19]We didn't even touch on gestures hardly at all. And gestures are completely magic.

[01:14:27]Um, and just savor it for three breaths.

[01:14:39]And know that that neural pathway to this flavor of well-being is getting stronger and faster.

[01:14:53]And that you can do that with every encounter, whether you do it right at the time or you do it after the fact. You can build these neural pathways and strengthen the wholesome seeds and shrink those creepy little seeds that get in our way.

[01:15:19]And we can do it much better when we do it together as a SA.