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One of the stories that most struck me about the power of the recognizing and allowing, the ground level of RAIN, was a man that I met with at a retreat years ago, who was in the early stages of Alzheimer's. He was a psychologist, and he was an experienced meditator. So it's quite interesting to hear him speak about what he was going through. And he described an experience in the early onset, where he was giving a talk that included about meditation to about 100 people.
And he was just about to begin, when he went completely blank. He had no idea, not only what he was supposed to say, but where he was, why all these expectant eyes were on him. So here's what he did. Actually, he didn't do anything. He paused, and then he just put his palms together, and he started naming what was coming up in him.
So he would say, ""Confused,"" and then he'd just bow. ""Embarrassed,"" bow. ""Afraid,"" bow. ""Heart pounding,"" bow. He took a breath and he'd go, ""Breathing, breathing,"" bow. ""Relaxing."" He started settling. He looked around and he said, ""I'm sorry."" And as you might imagine, there a lot of people with tears in their eyes. One of the men in the group said, ""No one has ever given us the teachings in this way.""
And what had he done? Instead of kind of tumbling into what might have been a habitual reactivity to a difficult situation, he paused, which is the beginning of all healing practices-- to stop. And then he began to recognize, just name what was happening. And his way of allowing was that simple bow that Jack has described in a number of examples and can-- it's the energy of a bow. It's respecting the actuality of what's right here, that life is like this right now. This is how it is.
So sometimes when we recognize and allow what's going on, when we name it and let it be there, it loses its power. The identification or energy sort of dissolves, and we're and we've arrived back again. We've remembered presence. But often, if Mara has got a lot of juice-- if Mara is revved-- recognizing and allowing begins to wake up a healing attention, but there's still some energy there. And sometimes, when you name what's there and you allow it-- and I often use the word yes. So when you kind of say, ""Yes, this is the life,"" let it be here, it actually gives it permission to get stronger.— Tara Brach
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