Returning To Presence With Kindness And Compassion

In this teaching, Elizabeth Astor explores how meditation helps us step out of habitual patterns and return to the awareness that is always present.
Through grounding, self-compassion and connection to a larger source of support, we can learn to stay with our human experience without becoming consumed by it. Elizabeth offers simple touchstones for meeting difficult thoughts and emotions with curiosity, kindness and greater inner capacity.

Transcript

So let's all just take a few moments and fully arrive into this moment together. That is, The continual practice is just to arrive again and again. And the practice is often what we put our attention on in order to fully arrive. And there's many different pointers and teachings about how to do that. But for right now. I'll continue to invite you to find your breath. And to find your connection with Mother Earth, With gravity. As these pointers that are always there, That if you can feel them, You know you're in present time. And from there, As you become more skilled at that, And it becomes more habituated, Then you can pretty instantly open your mind up and relax back into this field of awareness that is also always here. This morning. Baxter said in Mahamudra, Which is the tradition that's connected to this place, That they rest their attention in the mind. That's true. For most of us, We don't quite know what that means because a lot of people think of their mind as their thoughts. And they're pointing to something much deeper. They're pointing to this presence, This awareness. That's always here. And it's hard to stay connected to presence. Or to the nature of your mind when there's such momentum around thoughts, Emotions, Feelings, Beliefs. It's often just this tumbling cacophony of waves of experience. And so in our practice, We're pulling our awareness out of that, Because that's where most of us live in modern world all the time. The choppy waves of the busy mind. And we rest our awareness in this awake present. What do you call the mind that's here? And a gateway. To get there is to bring all of yourself in present time. And so whenever you need throughout the day, Throughout your practice, Just keep bringing your attention back. To the body. To the breath. And once you feel more stable, More present. See if you can just soften and relax back. Into the awareness that's behind your eyes. That's flowing through your veins. And is actually in and all around you all the time. In Tibetan, The word for retreat is sam, T-S-A-M. And it actually means to draw a boundary, Means to draw a line. And what we're drawing a line on. Is our habituated momentum. And all the patterns that run our life. And we're letting that boundary line that we're willingly Allowing to hold us, The container I kept mentioning last night, It's like a boundary line between your habituated compulsive momentum of your mind in your life and you're letting it keep, It's like you're hitting that boundary of your agreement with your practice and your commitment to this time and you keep coming back to your center and you keep coming back. And it's such an incredible gift. So really it's like we're drawing a boundary around. Our tendency towards the conceptual, Dualistic patterns of our life. And we're letting it. Gently guide us back again and again to this very Boundaryless. Spacious. Capacity to just be present. And the gift of retreat where we just keep getting to slow down and we don't have to make a lot of choices. Is it just? Can keep noticing that tendency. To get busy. To do instead of be. To think instead of feel. Because the reality is our thoughts. Create patterns. And patterns create our life. And we don't get to choose most of the time what we think. Because most of what we think is driven by these, I call them archetypal patterns, They're these particular It's like a particular momentum. It's created by energetics and karma and beliefs and habits, And they create this momentum in our life that then creates our patterns and our beliefs and our thoughts and then our feelings and then our reactions. And before we know it, We're just living this life of, We don't even know. How we created it, Or what's happening. And that usually creates a lot of suffering, A lot of confusion. And so much of our practice is we're actually just bringing our awareness to that. Again and again and again. And it's not easy. But it's so worth it. Because the fruit that comes from that works. Is truly the most precious thing. Because you're present for your life. And you get to show up as who you really are. Which is your incredibly kind heart and your luminous awareness. That's what's really wanting to live your life. So we just keep letting everything fall away. You draw a boundary on. Everything that we keep compulsively extending towards. Believing and thinking and we just keep coming back. I'll read a poem from David White. It's called Enough. Enough. These few words are enough. If not these words, This breath. If not this breath. This sitting here. This opening to life we have refused again and again. Until now. Until now. When I was thinking about creating the schedule for this retreat. I decided to just do the sitting. Schedule that we have for the afternoons. Instead of other options that we could do. And the reason for that is that's actually how I was trained, Is you just sit. And you said a lot. And you just keep coming back again and again. And there's something really potent and magical that happens when you do that over time. Especially in a space like this or in the space of our time together. Keeps gathering you and gathering you and gathering you. And you keep coming back from all the places you usually go. And you keep turning your attention toward this most precious thing, Which is your awareness, Your attention. This loving witness that's inside of you all the time. And practice meditation well. Is really an incredible journey to learn and there's a thousand books written about it and a lot of different ideas about how to do well. And in my journey, I'm always trying to find what's the most helpful thing. And the simplest, Purest thing that I've found that's helpful. In my own experience. And I'm blessed to be really well trained in a lot of different traditions. And I'm so grateful for everything I've learned and all the different skills, Mantras, Postures, Breath work. Pointers that I've received and that I've practiced. And I still use many of them at different times. And I've noticed that in the fullness of my life and in my journey, Because I know so much, Sometimes when I'm having a hard time, I can feel myself scanning the encyclopedia of spiritual knowledge to figure out what the best thing is to do with this particular thing. And I can kind of get lost in that. And fundamentally, Part of the reason I'm getting lost is because I'm inherently rejecting my own experience. Like, Oh, Well, This shouldn't be happening. So what should I do? Oh, I should do that mantra. I should say that prayer. Do this thing. And I'm so grateful for this path that I've been taught, Which is really just this journey of learning to be with whatever is arising fully. And to actually love what's arising fully. And that is no small thing. One, The remembrance to do that. To the capacity to be able to do that. And the devotion and discipline to do it again and again and again until it just becomes who you are and how you are in the world. And so. His Holiness the Dalai Lama would call it the Middle Way. This dance between. The discipline of showing up with a lot of devotion and strength. And the softness and relaxation that every tradition talks about that allows you to open up into who you really are. In Ajah Shanti's lineage, They talk about the both and a lot, And the ability bring the opposites together. And to be right in the middle of all of this dualistic arising and to just stay present with the space in between. It's this balance between presence and relaxation. Precision, An opening. And in my experience, Meditation is really just a constant weaving of those two things. The Buddha would say it's like when you practice, You're like a lute string or like a guitar string, Not too tight, Not too loose. And as you keep practicing over time, What continues to happen is that there is more and more space between your knee-jerk automatic responses and the momentum I'm talking about, And this awareness that's so full of wisdom and clarity that could make a different choice. That could show you a different path. It can pull you out of the washing machine of your mind and just keep bringing you back to what's true and what's real. And in that moment, You're free. And in Buddhism, They'll talk about another symbol, Which is the two wings of the bird, Which are the two wings of enlightenment, Which is wisdom. And compassion. And there's a lot that's said about that that's very beautiful. And what I want to bring today is. I want to really encourage for all of us that when you really bring in this aspect of compassion to your practice, Something really powerful opens up. If you can approach what you're noticing, What's arising in your practice with a lot of curiosity. And kindness. It's inherently this really relaxed, Open space. What we tend to do, And a lot of it's our cultural conditioning, Because we generally have a culture with a lot of shame and perfectionism and guilt in it. Because of that tendency. As I mentioned last night, When you notice you're thinking or you notice you're lost, We tend to judge ourselves. Ugh, Again. Thousand times in this 30 minute sit. What's wrong with me? I'm a terrible meditator. Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah. You're off. Can't believe I'm so stirred up. I already worked on this in therapy and I already had an insight in this meditation. Why is this still here? You know, And we just, We attack. It's like if you feel bad, You are bad. That's what we tend to believe in our culture. And so I invite you instead this idea. To celebrate this moment of wisdom, This moment that you noticed, This moment of presence, Miraculously. It's really grace. It's such a gift. And then immediately also the wing of compassion that just loves this messy human experience. And can hold and love you right in the middle of whatever's challenging. And bringing so much curiosity and kindness to whatever is arising. Sogni Rinpoche. It says the training in concentration is to be independent. Rather than steered by circumstances. If you really look at life, Most of the time you're just being steered by this compulsive Pattern. You may or may not know where pieces of it come from. It's usually kind of a cacophony of different pieces. And what we're doing here is we're drawing a boundary line around it. That compulsive action and really keep coming back to. This space where you can have so much freedom because you're slowing everything down enough to start to be able to notice. The impulses to notice the habituations. To notice the contractions, To notice the beliefs. To celebrate that you're noticing. To relax. Bring curiosity and kindness to whatever's arising. And see what happens. So a huge part also of my journey of finding my way on the path, But also working with thousands of people in my practice, Is really looking at what Helps us come back. And what helps us stay. And what helps us grow our capacity. Like our true. Capacity to presence. And this retreat I called The Pillar of Light, And it's this dance of being divine and being a human. And What I've noticed, I'll say it in a couple of different ways. A lot of people that I love working with so much in the sangha. Part of what I'm working with them on is some of them have had profound awakenings and are incredibly vast, Open beings, Which is so beautiful and so healing and so powerful. Alive. And sometimes they find it very hard to be a human being. And they find it very hard to be in a human body. And I have been through that journey most of my life. I do not find being human being very easy at all. And My strong sense of all of you here is you're all highly empathic beings. And multi-sensory as in intuitive, Open. You feel sense know a lot more than you may even realize or that you understand. And that is a give. To have an open heart like that, To have an open nervous system like that. And it's a natural, Inherent part of awakening. That usually grows and expands the more you awaken. And it can be a very vulnerable, Sometimes very tricky thing. To be a human being and be like that. And usually. When we're wired that way, Or we're growing and expanding and awakening, And that's happening. We don't know what to do with it. It's definitely not taught in our culture what to do with that or how to take care of it. How to take care of yourself. In this way. And so we either shut down. And that's done in lots of ways. Or we check out. And that's done a lot of ways. Or we get really tight around trying to manage our reality so everything can be so we can survive. And from that, You get the patterns of codependency, Which is, If you're okay, I'm okay. A lot of us good spiritual people and empathic souls know that one really, Really well. Are you sure you shut down? Or you distract yourself. Which has its own pain to it, And sometimes it has a lot of pain to it, Because that can lead to addiction and all sorts of other things. Or we abandon ourself, Which is incredibly painful. And so, How do we not do that? You can't should yourself out of it. You can't perfect yourself out of it. I've tried really hard. And so what I found is we learn how to build our capacity. And the way that I'm finding that it's working really well for that and it seems to be helping. My sangha friends and clients is to really learn how to work with this beautiful, Very precise, Very vast instrument of your awareness inside your human body. It's very technical and it's very simple. All at the same time, But to really. Train, To really train yourself how to do that, I think is just one of the most profound gifts that I've been given. And there's a lot of traditions that talk about how to train your body and your mind. There's Tibetan yoga, There's Indian yoga, There's Qigong, There's breath work. Is meditation. There's contemplation and inquiry. Those are all forms of how to train yourself, Your system. And I'm going to offer my own unique amalgam of what I found helpful over this retreat, Which is really just a compilation of all those things that I've studied and found helpful and that I've received and the intuitive guidance I've gotten working with people. And my goal is to hopefully give you these touchstones that are really simple. And useful when you need them. Because as I mentioned, Sometimes all the fancy, Beautiful, Complicated things I've learned are exquisite. And when push comes to shove, When life is hard, When I'm triggered, And my kids are crying, And I'm dealing with all the things. What do I do? What do I actually do in that moment to come home, To come back? So I want to offer those to you. Because sometimes as we train on the path and we have insights and awakening, Which are so powerful and healing and bring so many gifts. Even those sometimes, If we don't train in how to really stay with our experience, Even those become something that feels like it comes and goes, Something that the mind just tries to like remember as if it's like the memory of it will give it back to us. So it's really like, How do you remember in the moment how to be present? And how do you stay in this body? And stay present. Because sometimes it's hard, You feel a lot. It can be overwhelming to feel a lot. We actually avoid feeling most of the time. That's one thing I've noticed with a lot of meditation. Is there's a subtle way or not subtle way we're always trying to get away from this raw experience of being a human being. It is so powerful. And even as we. . . Make the journey and we awaken more and more, There is more and more voltage that can come through this system. And it's. An incredible gift and very illuminating, Very powerful, Very healing. Very cathartic. And sometimes it can blow out this nervous system. And I know some people that have are going through that and. I work with them regularly and it's a journey to, You know. A lot of people also think that awakening has got to be this up and out. Expansive kind of exit that we get to do from relative reality. And that can sometimes happen, But it's really hard. To have that and then come back and relate to your family. Or go grocery shopping, Or deal with your taxes, Or deal with a difficult conversation. Or watch a presidential debate or. Check the news. So we have a lot of ideals when we start on the path. And we think. I had a yoga teacher once say, You know, I keep thinking if I just get spiritual enough, All my problems will go away. And I really thought that for so long. I still catch myself sometimes surprised at how hard things can be. And so that's not actually how this works, What we're really training in. Is not to become some perfected being that's never disturbed. Or is no longer human. We're actually learning, We're training in our capacity to be with what is. Open to presence and to resource so much that it's just right there when you need it. And it's actually becomes. Always there. You actually become aware that it's always there because it is. And when you grow in that capacity, Then you truly do become a pillar of light. You truly do become a lighthouse for other beings. You become a being that can shine the light in the dark no matter what. And that's what really inspires me. When I watch beings that I really respect. I'm always curious about what is it in them that allows them to show up so fully in the midst of so much challenge? What is that thing? What is it in the Dalai Lama that allows him to meet a Tibetan nun who was just raped and beaten by the Chinese and sob with her? And then quite quickly, Once that moment has passed, Transition and come right back to this really joyful, Luminous presence and ease. What is that? What is it that allowed Nelson Mandela to be in solitary confinement for 25 years and walk out and lead a revolution for his people and change a whole country and really the whole world. What is it that allowed Martin Luther King to walk across Selma Bridge? And not hit back. And know he was gonna die and do it anyway. What is it in me that allows me to deal with the chaos of being a parent and working and being in the modern world and not lose it all the time? And be able to be kind. And I'm learning. I don't do it perfectly, But that thing That thing is the most precious thing. And when you die. It's that thing that hopefully will remind you what's the most important thing. And it will help you remember to look at the brightest light you can find and go right there. So we're dreaming in that. At least that's what I'm training in, And that's what I want to offer you. To the best of my ability is the skills and the. . . The nitty gritty ways that we can do that as a human being, Because all of you are householders. You're all in the world. I often notice, I almost lament, Even before I came on this retreat, I was sharing with Sharon and Sarah, You know, My ideal of myself is that four or five days before this retreat I would have sat all day and practiced and studied. I was dealing with emails from my kid's teacher about her misbehavior and I was dealing with taxes and dealing with chaos. And I am. I constantly run into that part of me that thinks if I was a really good teacher or a really deeply spiritual being, That's the stuff I would be doing with my life. But that is not my life. And it's not your lives either, Most of you. It's this constant surrender to how do we find that most sacred thing, Which is your relationship with awareness and with the sacred in the midst of everything. And what is it that brings us back to that again and again and again? So that we can be present. Not so we can be perfect or stop feeling or stop being a human, But so that we can show up. And so the other beings can feel our heart. No matter what, Ideally. Even if we're saying the wrong thing. The wrong thing, You know, The less skillful thing. Or feeling angry or feeling triggered. There's something underneath that that's always there that we can just keep relaxing back into. And things are wild in our world, And I think they're just getting wilder, And I think things are spiraling. And I have faith that something deeper and wise is birthing itself, But I think it will feel really messy for quite a long time. Just climate change, Just that. Much less everything else. And so I also really want to figure out how to train so I can be really present during this time. And show up for what I love. No matter what. Something that's come to me in my practice is this idea of Again, What do I, What do I connect with to bring me immense capacity and presence right away when I need it? And because I'm very sensitive and highly intuitive and have a very rich trauma history, My system is very used to the feeling of invasion and being overwhelmed and a lot of input coming at me all the time. Some. Directly, Overtly, Quite negatively when I was young. And then also we just feel it in our world, Right? There's just a lot of chaos and a lot of narcissism and a lot of. . . Shadow that's coming up. And sometimes when all that's coming at us, Even if we're just checking the news or dealing with. Whatever's going on. It can feel like it's just a bombardment. And I work with a lot of people that have no idea what to do in that moment when you're feeling overwhelmed, When it feels like a lot's coming at you. And what we tend to do is we tend to harden and we push everything away and we just try to do this to life and to the world. But you can't do that to energy. And you can't do that to your mind. It doesn't work. People, Sometimes, But not really. What do we do to create a space where things can move out of our system enough so that we can come back to what's true? And one thing that's come to me that I find really helpful. When I really need resources, I'll just say, By the power of the light that I am. By the power of the light that I am and I just bring it in fully and I let it fill me up past my body. And I just stay in that. And I think that's what Nelson Mandela and Dalai Lama and Martin Luther King are doing too. Or Joan of Arc who said, I'm not afraid. I was born to do this. What is that? She's really saying, By the power of the light that I am. I am here. It's that roomy quote that I put in the advert for this, Which is, Wherever I stand, May I be the soul of that place. By the power of the light that I am. And some of you in this room know exactly what that I am-ness is and you live there. And some of you haven't had that direct experience yet. And so what I'm going to attempt to weave for all of us is the training, The ways we can keep connecting to that until it becomes your experience of yourself, No matter what. And then you can live there. And even those of you that have lived in that I am-ness for a long time, Then we still get the journey of training how to abide in this body. Because it's a journey to stay present in this body. It's not always easy. Because we feel a lot, And we see a lot, And we. . . Run a lot of voltage, And being able to do that is its own capacity. And when the world's doing its thing and things are hard, That's a lot of voltage. It's a lot of energy to manage. Entity present with. Resourcing ourselves so that we can do that is such a gift. Through this idea of being a lighthouse. Something that I've been so curious about and wanting to train myself in. Because I can feel when I am, And it's so sacred and precious. It feels like the fulfillment of all that I've ever wanted. And I can feel when that wobbles or goes away, And it's really painful. Once you know how precious it is to really live as. That I am light. Place. And then you go into the world and you feel it wobble. Everything's stirring up. It's incredibly painful. And yet you haven't lost anything in that moment. It's all right here. We just have to keep training ourself how to come back and keep letting go and keep opening up. And really, Too, So important is to receive support. Receive support. In Buddhism you take refuge in the three jewels which are the Buddha, The Dharma, And the Sangha. I'm going to mention Buddhist terminology sometimes, Name it in ways hopefully that it resonates for each of you that's completely connected to whatever your tradition is. It's all pointing to the same thing. It's just words. But the Buddha, What they're meaning is that alive, Awake presence that's inside each of us. The Dharma, Which is the path and the practices and the truth that keeps reminding us to come back to that. And the sangha, Which are all the beings, Seen and unseen, That help us do that. And so when I say support, I'm pointing to all those things. And to that light that I'm invoking that's really the most powerful protection. That you can ever have, Ever. Cause it's empty. And it's open. And it pervades everything and it's inside everything. And we're just hooking our nervous system to that. We're hooking our sense of self to that. Plugging into that grid of light. So that it can take over. And resources us, No matter what's going on. And so we can show up no matter what's going on. And then we can benefit others. Immensely. And that lighthouse that you can become might go out and march and petition. It might sit in a cave and pray. It might make lunch for your kids. It might work for an organization. It might do so many things. It doesn't really matter. We each have our own way of benefiting this world. But if you can plug into that one thing, Doesn't matter what you're doing, You'll be of benefit. And you'll fulfill your purpose. And find a wellness that nothing else can give you. So I'll be going over lots of different ways that we can access this capacity and some of them will resonate and some won't. And I invite you to just take what serves or what resonates and just try to practice those small things a thousand times a day. That's how we do it. But we do have to practice, As my first beloved meditation teacher said. In Asia, Venerable Antonio Sata. He said, You have to read the manual for your tank when you're not in the battlefield. You have to practice when the sun is shining. Because when the rains are big, Or when you're on the battlefield, Or it feels like it, You can't remember what to do. Completely flooded and what you end up going off of is your reptilian brain and what does that do? Oh, That's like all the conditioning and the trauma and the knee-jerk reactions and the. . . Human biological wiring that just wants to protect and fight. That's where we go. And so our training, Our practice is really what gives us this life raft in those choppy waters so that we remember. Miracle of being present. And we remember the miracle of remembering to receive support. And part of this journey of being in a human body also is that because this is a. . . And biomagnetic field. That is connected to a whole energetic field of being alive. There's only so much you can handle on your own. And so many medical intuition trainings but also spiritual teachings will talk about you have to be able to give what you're holding to a bigger body. So that might be the earth. So helpful. Your grounding cord, Being able to drop it, Give it to the earth. She loves to compost that. To give it to space, Which is a bigger body. To give it to your higher self. To these beings that are holding us. But really just to give it to the bigger body of your awareness. And so that's also that dance in meditation where you're incredibly present. And the discipline of coming back to presence again and again and again. But there's also that complete softening into the opening of just keep handing it over. It's where all those metaphors come from that I find so helpful. You know, You're not the wave, You're the ocean. When you notice you're caught in a wave, Really what you're doing is you hand it over to the bigger body of the ocean. It's that same teaching Pema Chodron says. You are the sky. Everything else is just weather. But it sure doesn't feel like just weather when you're in it, Right? It's like a washing machine, It's like a tumult, It's intense. He's so intense. And so this giving way, Giving it to a bigger body, It's just like that cloud just dissolves back into the sky. And this is where I'll mention briefly this journey of, You know, We talk about spiritual bypassing quite a bit in our culture. I was born and raised in it in like a really, Really intense way. And it's very subtle, The difference between subtle bypassing and what I'm talking about, Spiritual bypassing. Which may or may not be subtle. Because sometimes with the same example. You're caught in something or like very familiar old trauma pattern is looping. A lot of us, Because it's intolerable, We don't have enough capacity or resource to deal with it. We can bypass it, Which for people can be leaving your body, Can be your addictions. Can be. Also, The very super spiritual way, Which is like, Well, I'm not that. That's just an arising. I'm not that. That has nothing to do with me. It's one of those moments where I know too much for my own good. I could go to like the non-dual way to talk about that or the relative way and try to stay on point here. Fundamentally though, Those actions I'm describing is they're getting away from it. Sometimes even disidentifying from something, If you're not careful, Can be a way of just getting away from it, Pushing it away. I'm talking about something completely different, Which is you're actually completely with. What's arising, But you're not identifying as it. So it's like, Letting all the waves be there. Sometimes they're just going to be there, No matter how. Advanced you get on the path. They're just there. And there's a whole. . . Matrix of information and energy that comes along with them. I see this in every awake being I've ever met. We get hooked still sometimes. But what they do that's different is they're completely with it. As the ocean. And when you can be with a wave as the ocean, One, It doesn't take you on a ride as much or for as long. And to all the energy that's in that wave, Which with spiritual bypassing, We try to get rid of, Or go away from, Or shut down, Or manage, Or perfect. You're actually taking that energy and releasing it. Just absorbing it. Letting it move through the spacious being that you are. You don't have to do anything with it. You learn that over time. And that is not spiritual bypassing. It is a profound relief and a profound capacity and a profound resource. But the difference is you're completely with me. Whatever's arising. And how do we do that? We train in the capacity, The resource, And the presence to be able to stay. To do that. And that, I find, Is the journey of then you can really be a true human being. And you can actually dance this incredible dance. Of being a human, Which does include all the feelings. And all the complexity. But there's something holding you. And illuminating you the whole time you're experiencing that. And that changes everything. There's a wide range of teachings I could offer around this. And I notice I'm always drawn also to just try to give you really pithy, Small things that might be the life raft in big moments. I'm one of the biggest ones I've seen from working with people in our culture. Is to be kind. To yourself no matter what's happening. And we forget that. All the time. And ironically we forget it sometimes more and more the more good spiritual person we become because we have more ideas of how we should be or what should be happening or how well we should be trained by now and blah blah blah. But I can say from experience that when you bring kindness, And kindness includes curiosity. And compassion. And presence to something, It automatically softens. And you are so much less likely to get hooked. We are trained in our culture to think the only way to transform is to push yourself. To drive. To judge. As if if you loved what's happening, You're going to make it bigger or worse somehow or give it more energy. Or not hold a boundary to it, Or all the ways we think we have to work with it. And in my experience, It doesn't help at all. Shame and perfectionism ride shotgun. Always together. And so I think you might find that if you can approach whatever's happening for you with you. With kindness first. Automatically. Things will open up. And perhaps that other wing, Because right, You just brought compassion, Which is the one wing of awakening, Automatically then the other wing of wisdom has far more likelihood to come in. And to show you what's really going on. Give you information how to work with whatever's arising. If we judge ourselves for what's coming up, We tend to just put it right back in shadow. Where it will still play out. And where it will still greatly affect your life. But it can't heal. So as you sit this afternoon, My encouragement is to just, If you can remember one thing, Let's say two things, Two things. Bring kindness to whatever is arising. Whatever it is, Body, Mind, Spirit. Kindness to yourself as you experience whatever is arising. And the other one is to remember to plug in to support. This incredibly. Loving space. The other good-hearted, Beautiful beings sitting around you. The bigger body that's holding you, Whether that's Mother Earth or the big space of awareness. Or your higher self, Which is connected to your Buddha nature. Your Christ consciousness, Your divine awareness. And above all, Just the support of. By the power of the light that I am. Let that be what looks at what comes up in your practice. Let that be what sits here and feels your achy legs. Let that be what witnesses inevitable memories and patterns that will reveal themselves to you if you sit long enough. Those two things. Which are really wisdom and compassion. Can take you so far on the journey. And they'll also carry you home. And if you train in them, They'll also show up in your kitchen. You're dealing with a hard moment with whoever you live with. Or show up when you watch our suffering world and wonder what you can do to help.