I decided to write 'True Refuge' during a major dive in my own

Host: The studio was quiet except for the rhythmic sound of rain tapping gently against the tall windows. Outside, the world was muted — streets slick and dark, streetlights blurred into pools of amber through the mist. Inside, the space glowed dimly — half art loft, half sanctuary. There were canvases leaning against brick walls, plants drooping from macramé hangers, and a faint scent of sage and paint thinner lingering in the air.

Jack sat cross-legged on the floor, his notebook open, a cup of cooling tea beside him. Jeeny sat near the window, one leg folded beneath her, a small lamp casting gold across her face. She was reading aloud from a passage, her voice steady, warm — carrying the quiet authority of someone speaking both from the page and the soul.

Jeeny: (reading softly) “Tara Brach once said, ‘I decided to write “True Refuge” during a major dive in my own health. Diagnosed with a genetic disease that affected my mobility, I faced tremendous fear and grief about losing the fitness and physical freedom I loved.’”

(She looks up, meeting his gaze.) “You can hear the ache in that, can’t you? The honesty. The courage it takes to face the body when it betrays you.”

Jack: (closing his notebook slowly) “Courage? Maybe. Or resignation. People like to turn suffering into poetry — makes it easier to swallow.”

Host: The lamplight caught the reflection of his eyes — cold gray, sharp but weary, like steel that had once been molten. Jeeny tilted her head slightly, studying him, her expression caught between challenge and compassion.

Jeeny: “It’s not resignation. It’s surrender — and those aren’t the same. Resignation says, ‘I give up.’ Surrender says, ‘I give in, so I can heal.’”

Jack: (leaning back) “Healing’s a convenient myth, Jeeny. Some things don’t heal. They just become quieter versions of pain.”

Jeeny: “That’s what Brach was writing about — that quiet version. That’s what refuge is. Not escaping the pain, but learning to live beside it.”

Host: The rain outside softened, its rhythm slowing as if listening. A faint rumble of thunder rolled in the distance — not violent, just old and tired. Jack exhaled, watching the steam curl from his tea before fading into air.

Jack: “When I tore my shoulder two years ago, the doctor said I’d recover in six months. I still can’t lift past ninety degrees. You know what that does to a man who used to climb mountains?”

Jeeny: (softly) “It breaks his illusion of invincibility.”

Jack: “It kills him.”

Jeeny: “No. It just introduces him to himself.”

Host: The room grew still. A small draft stirred the corner of a hanging tapestry, and the flame of the candle on the table wavered. Jack’s jaw tightened — that familiar instinct to push emotion back where it couldn’t be seen.

Jeeny watched him with a gaze that wasn’t pity — it was recognition.

Jeeny: “You ever notice how much of our identity hangs on what our bodies can do? We treat health like morality — as if losing it means we failed.”

Jack: (bitterly) “Because in this world, weakness doesn’t get mercy.”

Jeeny: “No. But it’s the only thing that teaches grace.”

Host: A slow silence stretched between them — the kind that didn’t demand filling. The rain had stopped completely now; the world outside was all wet reflections and streetlight halos. Jeeny rose from her chair and walked toward the center of the room, barefoot, her shadow stretching long across the floor.

Jeeny: “You know, when Brach lost her physical freedom, she didn’t chase control — she chose presence. She realized that the body doesn’t belong to us. It’s borrowed. Temporary. The real refuge isn’t in movement — it’s in awareness.”

Jack: (watching her) “Awareness doesn’t fix a broken joint, Jeeny. It doesn’t take away pain.”

Jeeny: “No. But it teaches you how to stop being afraid of it.”

Host: The lamplight flickered, catching the wet shimmer of the window. Jack rubbed his shoulder absentmindedly, as though his body were remembering the argument even before his mind did.

He looked up, his voice quieter, stripped of its edge.

Jack: “You ever feel trapped in your own skin?”

Jeeny: (after a long pause) “Every day. But I stopped fighting the cage when I realized the bars were made of fear.”

Jack: (dry laugh) “That’s a nice metaphor.”

Jeeny: (sitting back down, eyes steady) “It’s not a metaphor when it hurts.”

Host: The air thickened with something unsaid — that invisible heaviness that always arrives when pain is finally named aloud. Jeeny leaned forward, her voice softer now, like rain after thunder.

Jeeny: “When I was eighteen, I spent six months in a hospital bed. Some nerve condition — no one could explain it. Couldn’t walk, couldn’t dance, couldn’t even sit without pain. I thought I’d lost everything that made me... me.”

(Her voice trembles slightly.) “But then, one night, I realized — I still had breath. And that was enough to start over.”

Jack: (quietly) “And you did?”

Jeeny: “Eventually. Not because I healed, but because I stopped waiting to be fixed.”

Host: Jack stared at her, his expression unreadable — a mix of skepticism, admiration, and something like envy. The clock on the wall ticked, soft but deliberate, keeping time with their breaths.

Jack: “So you think refuge isn’t found in recovery — it’s in acceptance?”

Jeeny: “Yes. True refuge isn’t escape. It’s resting inside the brokenness and still finding beauty there.”

Jack: “That sounds like a sermon.”

Jeeny: (smiling faintly) “Maybe it is. But not a religious one — a human one.”

Host: The room felt smaller now, intimate. The rain began again, gentler this time — not as sorrow, but as rhythm. The city’s hum crept back into the silence: a passing car, a distant siren, life continuing despite everything.

Jack reached for his notebook, flipping back through old sketches — fragments of words, half-formed thoughts about freedom, loss, fear. He found a line and read it aloud.

Jack: “I wrote this years ago: ‘When the body weakens, the soul should take the weight.’ I didn’t believe it then. Maybe I still don’t.”

Jeeny: “But you will. Because one day, your body won’t let you outrun yourself anymore.”

Host: The lamp hummed faintly, its filament glowing like a patient heart. Jeeny leaned back, her expression softened — no more debate, just truth worn gentle by time.

Jeeny: “You know what I think Tara Brach found in her illness? Not despair. Not defeat. But the doorway to gratitude. The kind that only opens when everything else falls away.”

Jack: (almost whispering) “Gratitude for what?”

Jeeny: “For being. For breath. For the privilege of feeling even pain — because it means you’re still here.”

Host: Jack looked at her for a long time. His eyes shimmered with that fragile mixture of defiance and surrender. Then, slowly, he nodded — not as agreement, but as recognition. The kind of nod a man gives when words finally start to sink beneath the armor.

The rain outside softened into a whisper. The lamp cast its last steady glow before dimming slightly, shadows curling in the corners of the room.

Jeeny closed the book in her lap, the sound of the pages like the slow closing of a wound.

Jeeny: (quietly) “Maybe the body is the first home we ever lose, Jack. But awareness — that’s the true refuge. The one no illness can take.”

Jack: (after a long silence) “Then maybe losing control isn’t the end. Maybe it’s just the beginning of listening.”

Host: She smiled, the kind of smile that didn’t need light to be seen. The studio fell into stillness — no more debate, no more fear — just the rhythm of two quiet souls breathing in the same fragile peace.

Outside, the city exhaled under the soft wash of rain, and inside that quiet room, refuge wasn’t something to be found — it was already there, pulsing gently beneath the skin.

Because sometimes, the truest freedom comes not from running, but from learning how to rest inside the wound.