This sharing is a multiplier.
These sharings don't replace your current practices.
They're here to amplify them,
Making your practices more powerful,
More sustainable,
And more joyful.
What if everything you've ever learned could now work even better?
What if meditation became easier,
Mindfulness more natural,
And life lighter?
Let's begin.
Take a slow breath in and let it fall out of your body effortlessly.
Keep breathing deeply through the nose,
Feeling your belly rise and fully through the mouth,
Feeling your belly flatten.
Feel the world around you slowing down as your breath slows down.
Let yourself listen with presence.
Nothing to achieve,
Just to hear,
To feel the bliss of pure presence and,
Perhaps,
To be surprised by the freshness of this message.
Let's begin.
Imagine you are in your kitchen,
The end of the day,
The soft fatigue of having leaved.
Drop the burden of the day now.
Breathe slowly through the nose,
Deeply through the mouth.
You start preparing the dinner.
You take a knife,
A carrot,
An onion.
You hear the sounds of the knife on the board,
The subtle crack of vegetables opening,
The rhythm of simple gestures.
But your mind is somewhere else,
In tomorrow,
In a worry or in a memory.
Your hand moves but your presence doesn't fully follow.
And then the knife slips,
A cut,
Chop,
Instant.
The pain arrives immediately,
Clearly.
And in that instant,
You are back,
Here and now,
Fully in your body.
The pain stopped you.
The pain protected you.
It prevented a deeper wound.
Physical pain is an intelligent response,
A built-in guardian of your body and your life.
And you feel grateful for this pain,
Even if it is painful,
Because this pain stopped you from hurting yourself more deeply.
You would never wish to lose the ability to feel physical pain.
So why are you trying not to feel mental suffering?
What if mental suffering were also an intelligent response,
A built-in guardian?
Breathe and let this suggestion settle.
Be the guardian of what?
Breathe and let this question open wider.
What if mental suffering were to the mind what physical pain is to the body?
Mental suffering is to the mind what physical pain is to the body.
The same unpleasant feeling.
The same intelligent response.
The same invitation to stop.
But stop doing what?
Something that is hurting you.
And what is hurting you?
What is your mental knife?
Your thoughts.
Your words.
The mind is a toolbox.
And each thought is a tool.
Sometimes your thoughts are like scissors.
The scissors children use to cut beautiful paper chains from a simple sheet of paper.
Sometimes when they are misused,
They cut your own skin.
When they are misused,
The scissors of the mind can cut you.
Like real scissors can cut your skin.
And sometimes your thoughts are like glue.
They can hold bricks together to build warm homes.
But when they are misused,
When you get glued to the future,
Or when you stick to the past,
You feel stuck.
Sometimes your thoughts are like colors.
You can paint beautiful landscapes.
But when they are misused,
You only see red.
Or you paint everything black.
Breathe.
And let this land gently.
Mental suffering is to the mind what physical pain is to the body.
Whatever painful feeling you are experiencing is an invitation to use thoughts differently.
More gently.
More truthfully.
More constructively.
With more presence.
Feel your breath.
Nothing to fix.
Nothing to cut.
Nothing to control.
Just breathing.
In and out.
Notice how presence returns.
Without effort.
Naturally.
Like your hand returns to awareness after the cut.
After the pain.
Breath after breath.
You are back in the living intelligence that never left.
When you listen to music at a concert,
Or when a play is about to begin,
There is always a moment when everything becomes quiet.
Sound needs silence to resonate.
Presence needs silence to be felt.
Silence is pure.
Without any flavor of thought.
It feels calm.
Safe.
And in the very same way,
When you stop listening to your thoughts in a painful way,
You hear the silence again.
You feel calm.
The breath flows again.
Suffering helps you remember.
And let remembering be enough.
