Hi,
I'm glad you're here tonight.
Take a moment to let the day fall away.
Lie down if you haven't already,
Or sit if that's more natural.
Close your eyes.
Let the body feel heavy against the ground or the bed.
Notice how the earth always holds you without asking anything back.
Take a slow inhale.
And release.
This is your time to rest.
You've carried enough today.
Long ago,
There was a young monk in a quiet monastery.
He was known not for words,
But for the silence that clung to him.
Teacher's death,
That silence grew heavy like a cloak he could not take off.
He wandered through the monastery gardens,
Through courtyards where the night air smelled of pine and smoke.
But no voice,
No comfort could touch the hollow inside him.
One evening,
He walked into a grove of bamboo.
The stalks swayed with the wind,
Their voices soft like whispers of a language older than speech.
He wondered,
Could this emptiness carry sound?
At night,
He shaped a flute.
His hands smoothed the edges,
Carved the holes,
Breath fogging in the cool night.
At first,
The notes came weak,
Trembling,
But he kept breathing into it.
The sound began to change,
Thin threads weaving into fuller tones.
What he could not speak in words,
The flute carried for him.
His silence became resonance.
Even his sorrow found a shape that did not break him.
Breathe with me now.
Inhale softly,
As though you're drawing air through bamboo.
Exhale gently,
Like a note fading into the night.
Your own body is an instrument.
Your breath,
The music,
The monk discovers something in those echoes.
That hollowness is not just emptiness.
Your wounds,
Your silences,
Your tired places,
They too can become a flute.
Breath can move through them,
And what comes out is not just pain.
Music,
Teaching,
Tenderness.
Rest now.
Inhale gently.
It lives and dissolves back into quiet.
As you drift towards sleep,
Carry this.
Your hollow spaces do not make you broken.
They are what allow you to sing.
Even silence can cradle you.
Even grief can soften into song.
Rooted,
Flexible,
And ready to begin again.
Thank you for watching.
