Good morning,
Good afternoon,
Good evening,
Wherever you are in the world today.
So I was thinking about this conversation that I had with someone recently about how everything in life changes.
If I look around my own life,
I can't find a single thing that stays the same for very long.
Plans change,
Health changes,
People change,
The seasons shift and change,
The weather turns,
Our devices update,
Our routines get rearranged,
Traffic patterns change,
Family dynamics evolve and change,
Even our pets change and age.
Everything that can move,
Moves.
And for most of my life,
I depended on the world to give me peace from that change,
As if the right combination of health or relationships or circumstances would finally just line up perfectly.
Just so.
But of course,
I'm sure I'm not the only one that can see that the goalpost is always moving.
Because even the people that fill my heart with love and joy are the same people in another moment who can make me frustrated or hurt because they change too.
So if I'm suffering,
It's because I've been looking to the changing for what only the changing,
The unchanging can give.
Underneath it all,
There's this,
There's something that never changes.
The divine presence,
The awareness of what we are,
Has never wavered.
It's the same presence that was here when we were kids,
Running through the fields.
Same one that's here through every season,
Every joy,
Every heartbreak.
Always just quietly watching.
Allowing the world and life to unfold exactly as it is.
Without resistance,
Without clinging,
It just simply is.
So it's taken me a really long time to understand that our healing isn't about fixing the world or managing its changes,
But about remembering.
Remembering what we are is never affected.
And I've come to learn that healing comes as we rest as the changeless one.
The divine presence that witnesses all movement,
All mind activity,
All body sensation,
And yet never moves.
So let's start there.
Just finding a comfortable position,
However that looks for you.
Keeping the eyes opened or closed,
And just notice the breath as it moves.
Even noticing the sounds around you,
And the space between sounds.
Remembering that before any of it,
The breathing,
The sounds,
The noticing,
There's something here.
A quiet presence.
The awareness in which all of this appears.
Everything in the foreground,
Might be moving still.
The thoughts and the sensations.
The rhythms of your breathing.
But what about the background?
What about the space in which all of this is known?
Just letting your attention rest there in that still,
Silent background.
The changeless presence.
You're just simply noticing what's always been there.
It's always right here.
So you can just let the movement come and go.
Just some weather passing through.
Healing happens naturally as attention rests in what's real.
Not the moving parts.
But the stillness that contains them.
So whatever may be appearing,
You don't need to push it away,
Or try to interpret it.
Just resting in what's real.
The I am that you are,
Is always here.
And you can verify that.
You might simply ask,
What is aware of this?
Just feel the effortlessness of simply being aware of being aware.
There's no goal or destination.
It's just resting as what you already are.
Everything can change.
The thoughts.
The sensations.
Your mood.
The breath.
Yet the awareness watching remains untouched.
This is divine presence.
It's the unshakable peace that never comes and never goes.
The moment you notice attention is drifting to thought or sensation,
Nothing has gone wrong.
You can just relax back into this silent knowing that is you.
As we begin to close this session,
Just sense the body gently.
Perhaps taking a soft breath.
Feeling the chair,
The bed,
Supporting you.
And if your eyes were closed,
You can gently open them.
Noticing how the visual world appears again.
The colors and the shapes and the light.
But what you touched is still here.
It hasn't gone anywhere.
It's here where their eyes opened or closed with noise or silence.
Because in the middle of change,
Presence remains unchanged.
Life will continue to move.
But you,
The awareness of life,
Are still steady,
Infinite.
And so let that recognition move with you into the day or the night.
Let everything remind you of what's watching it all.
Thank you for joining me.
Namaste.
