So everything you need you have already within you.
I came to really realize this through my tantric Buddhist meditation practice.
Tantric Buddhism is very closely aligned with modern Western psychology.
I do a fair amount of deity practice which is where we do certain meditation practices with specific Buddhas.
There are different deities or Buddhas and they each represent an embodiment of different elements within your psyche,
Different aspects of yourself or energies within you.
So I have a little tradition for myself that whenever I receive an empowerment to do a specific deity practice,
Which is basically the teaching of the practice,
I like to buy a bronze statue of the deity and I also hand make each Buddha a unique mala or prayer beads for mantra recitation and meditations.
So at home in my meditation room I have a wall with the different Buddha statues on it,
Each with its own unique mala.
Often before I start meditating in the morning I like to look at the wall and spend a little time really tuning into the energy and the feeling of each Buddha within myself.
For example,
Vajrasattva is the Buddha of cleansing,
Clearing,
Healing.
How it feels energetically and psychologically within me is that feeling of opening,
Softening,
Of letting go,
Of allowing.
So as I spend a few minutes looking at Vajrasattva and all his specific features,
I really allow and tune into that feeling within my body of letting go,
Allowing and space within.
And then,
For example,
I could move on to maybe Vajrapani.
He's a Buddha of power,
He's a wrathful deity and he's really muscular and wrathful looking.
For me it's about the feeling of belief in and confidence in my own inner power,
Which is something that I've often had trouble connecting to.
In the same way I'll spend a few minutes looking at Vajrapani and really connect to that feeling within me,
Within my body,
Of allowing my inner power to really shine with confidence.
It's a similar thing with the other deities such as Chinrezi,
The Buddha of compassion,
Or whichever Buddha it is,
With his own unique feeling and energy.
I've done this many times in the past because it really allows me to open to a sense within myself that I'd like to encourage or grow.
The one day it led me to realize that we have absolutely everything we need already within us.
All manners of psychological elements,
Energies or feelings,
Strengths are already alive within us.
Some may be less obvious and accessible to us but they are all there.
All we need to do is connect to that feeling,
Allow space within and allow the strength of that feeling to shine into our being and into our lives.
So I hope this little snippet of a realization helps you as it has me and gives you the strength to allow any aspect of yourself that you may need to shine through.
