Hi everybody.
Glad to be here with you all.
I'm really delighted and honored to be here with you all in this precious sacred space.
I,
You know,
I'm always in awe when I arrive at retreat that I made it.
That all the causes and conditions and the 10,
000 things that it takes to arrive in this kind of space and take this time out of our full lives,
That we all did it.
Prioritize this above all the other things.
And I'm just really grateful to be able to do this with you.
Retreat for me is really the most transformative.
Sacred,
Powerful thing I've ever done in my life,
And I've been so blessed to have done it many times.
But there's something so powerful that happens when you take time out of your full life.
And drop underneath the busy waves of mind and schedule and roles and really turn inward and take time to turn toward the most important thing in life,
Which is your relationship with yourself,
With truth.
With the divine.
With the being that's looking out of your eyes.
So really it means so much to me to be able to hold this space and offer all of you the container of retreat because it's so precious.
It's such a gift and I'm so grateful to all the teachers that created that space for me.
I had no idea how precious it would end up being in my life and how transformative and now after looking at it.
The years going by and all the retreats I've been blessed to do,
Just really seeing the fruit that comes from it.
The deep powerful impact that happens when you drop in at that level.
And we get to be in this space.
Which is so precious.
Really,
This is a container of profound support for all of us.
It was created for that.
It's a room of a thousand Buddhas and a million prayers and such kind,
Generous intention.
And these symbols,
These beings,
This iconography for me is a very sacred homecoming.
But for those of you that don't know what.
90% of this means that's also completely okay.
What I would encourage you to know about this space is that it's really just here to hold you and support you.
You don't need to know what any of it means.
I hope that you can really drop into just a felt sense if you feel into this space.
It's just full of kindness and openness and generosity.
And there are so many powerful symbols to understand their meaning and their potency.
And you can just really trust that it's all pointing back to what's alive inside of you.
That's what it's all designed to do.
And Crestone itself,
You know,
Was designed to be a place for spiritual practice,
To bring people together,
To take time.
To be.
And I always notice when I come here,
There's just such a pristine,
Vast space.
It's really incredible.
It's a very potent experience to be here,
And it can stir up a lot.
And it holds you so fiercely and lovingly at the same time,
In my experience.
So I want to just first just let us all arrive because it did take 10,
000 things for you to get here in this moment.
And to just really come into this space and into your body and into your breath.
And to really consciously and intentionally call all of yourself here into this sacred moment of your life.
Feeling the earth holding you.
Feeling your breath moving in your body.
Feeling this powerful,
Bright,
Very sacred space making room for you,
Inviting you.
Towards your practice.
Towards your presence.
Towards your own deep relationship with what's true.
And what is loving.
And what's real.
Bringing all of yourself here,
Breathing yourself in from the past,
From the future.
From all of your roles,
Relationships.
Bringing all of yourself here so that all of you can be on retreat.
And I invite you to really attune to what your intention is.
Being here for this brief and precious time together.
What called you here?
What you're devoted to.
And your prayer for yourself,
For your life.
For your path.
My teacher Ajah Shanti says your intention is what guides everything.
So set a powerful intention.
Give yourself fully to your intention in this space,
In this container.
That's holding you.
And welcoming you into your path,
Into your practice.
A healer I deeply respect said she listened to over 200 accounts of near-death experiences.
In a year,
And she said,
Without exception.
Every being that had that experience of leaving their body and doing a life review and then coming back.
Without exception,
She said,
They all have.
Realized that intention was everything.
And tension is like the engine of the train.
And our choices and our life are the caboose behind that.
Intention is how this plane of existence called being human on planet earth is run.
And so you can trust in the simple beauty of your intention that brought you here.
And hand over your ideas,
Your ambition,
Your agenda.
Your self-doubt.
And open up and allow this precious time together to benefit you,
Nourish you,
And transform you in the deepest layers possible.
When I lived in Asia,
I was blessed with the.
.
.
To do really long retreats,
Which was such a gift.
And then.
Many years later,
I became a mother and I was lucky if I could get away for a day and a half,
Maybe three days was really edgy and amazing.
And I thought,
Well,
Is that worth it?
I don't know,
Because I was so used to doing these really long retreats.
And I can definitely say that if you give yourself fully to the retreat,
No matter the size of it,
You will get exactly what you need.
It will take you on a full journey.
And so I invite each of us to really just pour all of ourself.
Into this container and let it hold you for as long as we're here.
Very brief time.
But it's also very powerful.
So this is a sacred home of the Mahayana which is a vehicle of Tibetan Buddhism.
And the principles that guide this space.
Are the idea that the truth completely lives inside of you.
You have everything you need.
Already.
And your awakening.
The divine,
Your true self is already completely whole inside of you.
And the journey is really just an uncovering of that.
Another beautiful thing that I appreciate so much that was actually written in gold around His Holiness the Dalai Lama's temple in Dharamsala was these statements from the Buddha that said,
Test everything I say like it's gold.
You know,
Bite it,
Burn it,
Polish it.
Make it your own.
Test it in the laboratory of your own heart,
In your own life.
Which I find to be so incredibly healing.
Having come from a tradition myself that was all about.
Believing whatever the person in charge said without question.
Even if it didn't make sense or it didn't.
Support my own autonomy or my own journey.
I found that to be such a beautiful,
Supportive thing within Tibetan Buddhism,
This idea that Everything you have is inside of you and you can trust your own knowing and you can question every teaching and bring it into your own heart and find the truth of it for yourself.
And so I offer the same to you with my teaching.
And I pray that it will serve you in the deepest way.
And I invite you to just take it in too.
The laboratory of your own heart.
And see.
What resonates as your truth.
And sometimes it'll feel like I'm talking directly to you.
And sometimes you maybe won't have any idea what I'm saying,
And I invite you to just let all of that be.
Just fine.
