Did you know that all of our true nature,
Yours included,
Has a feeling of bliss,
Of joy?
Everything that we experience in life has a feeling to it.
As you go through stages of deepening within your meditation practice,
You'll find that each step has a unique feeling to it within yourself.
Your deepest layer of consciousness,
Your true nature,
Has an innate feeling of bliss or joy connected to it.
It's always there with you as part of your true nature.
We just tend to cloud and fog it with all the contraction,
Busyness and stuff we have going on in our lives.
In meditation,
We can start to really connect to that sense of space within us.
Even our sense of space has a feeling to it,
A feeling of open-heartedness,
A feeling of allowing.
When we start to connect to and allow space within our lives,
Within our bodies and minds,
That innate joy within us that we tend to compress down and cloud over,
Really wants to start to move,
To bubble up and expand into our being.
I realized this only a few years ago after two decades of meditation practice.
While I was on meditation retreat,
My Buddhist guide and teacher mentioned,
While we're meditating,
That we may somehow feel a connection to a pleasant feeling within us.
That it may not be obvious,
But there may be some sort of pleasant feeling within,
A feeling of joy,
Kind of sitting there somewhere within our being.
When he mentioned this for the first time,
Or maybe it was just the first time that I'd really heard it,
I suddenly realized that in some way,
Through all these years,
My meditation had a slight serious tone to it.
And somehow,
This slightly serious tone had a feeling of very subtle contraction to it,
Almost like a very subtle holding within my body.
And I then came to realize that this very subtle holding wasn't allowing me to feel true space within.
I then noticed,
As soon as I began to really allow complete,
Open,
Compassionate,
And allowing space within,
That pleasant feeling,
That feeling of joy,
Then really wanted to shine up and expand.
For me,
This really opened the door to a whole new level of experience.
And I now have a much more direct connection to this feeling of joy that is always there within our being.
It feels like a really healthy way to connect to myself and allow contentment and joy into my life.
So give it a try within your meditation practice,
Within yourself,
And within your life.
Try to begin to allow a sense of space,
Gently holding that space with a sense of compassion and love without judgment.
I hope that once you start to allow space within,
You will feel a connection to your innate joy that's really always wanting to bubble up and expand into your being,
As it has with me.
