Tara Brach

Whether we're talking about ICE and immigrants or health insurance or

the continued atrocities in the Middle East.

And so when people share, when I'm teaching, let's say, a webinar online, I'll ask how many people are dealing with this, are struggling with this,

And there's something so powerful about being in a collective where people can sense they're not alone and what they're dealing with, and we talk about how they're working with it.

It creates a space that's larger than that sense of an individual self and this really scary world.

And I saw this most powerfully recently.

I attended and was part of actually a memorial service

It's Israeli and Palestinian families who have lost loved ones together.

And I helped guide a virtual event that followed it.

And during the memorial, they spoke the names and told the stories.

And there was this grieving side by side.

And it was so clear to me.

And that their pain hadn't hardened into hatred.

Instead, it became this source of courage that it's like their togetherness gave a felt sense of hope.

And I feel like that's so important.

And I could sense, you know, and I know of the participants in these groups, they're actually from that place of hopefulness.

They're really engaged in action for justice and for peace, for a different future.

So that's all to say we need to nurture our hearts and we need collective spaces that nurture our hearts so we don't lose the light.

Yeah, I think the intelligence is really kind of reflects an evolution in consciousness from feeling so separate to feeling more a part of the collective, that shift from I to we that we experience when we are real with each other, when we grieve together, when we act to serve together.

And it feels like this is a really crucial part of the spiritual path that, because in the past, especially for traditions like Buddhism when it got planted in the West, it's very individual.